"Yeah, but Who Else Is Going to Do It?": The Impacts of Unconditional Cash on the Neoliberal and Maternalist Burdens of Caregiving

Background & Purpose: The responsibility for care work in the US largely falls to families, and especially women. Familial care burdens negatively impact economic mobility, and the health and well-being of both carers and those receiving care. Proponents of unconditional cash argue that it could be used to rectify the costs associated with familial care, and for women in particular, engender greater equality and autonomy. In 2022, the San Diego for Every Child Guaranteed Income pilot (SDEC) provided $500 to 150 families for 24 months. Participants were eligible if they were over 18, custodial caregivers for children 12 and under, and resided in one of four ZIP codes which are disproportionately home to marginalized families. The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research conducted a mixed-methods study to evaluate the pilot's impact on caregivers and their families.

Methods: This paper draws on the qualitative portion of the study. Thirty-three participants (26 treatment, 7 control) were invited to take part in semi-structured interviews to explore caregiving experiences, financial burden, family history, and how they interacted with unconditional cash. The majority of participants were women, single caregivers, and identified as Latino. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, coded on Dedoose, and analyzed using thematic analysis and grounded theory.

Findings: Our analysis aligns with past scholarship which suggests that the combination of neoliberal and maternalist ideologies has created higher expectations for caregiving. Both men and women in the study attempted to fashion themselves into entrepreneurial and self-reliant subjects when caring for their families. This was more apparent amongst women, who additionally configured their identities and caregiving duties according to ideas which dictate that good mothering requires intensive time and energy commitments. However, participants noted that engaging in entrepreneurial and intensive caregiving was not an aspirational choice but something they felt pressured to do, despite how this affected their well-being. While the receipt of unconditional cash lessened pressures somewhat, these expectations largely remained.

Implications: These findings demonstrate the ubiquity of neoliberal and maternalist care ideologies. Thus, while unconditional cash has the potential to be emancipatory, future research is required to understand how such interventions may be used to challenge the dominant economic and social demands of caregiving.