Neo-Liberalism, Social Welfare and Feminization of Poverty

Paper Summary:

The paper examines neo-liberal economics and their effects towards feminization and racialization of poverty in the Greater Toronto Area. The focus is on single mothers, a changed environment in a city close to ghettoization and the extreme difficulty of leaving the welfare system. Part of the paper includes a report on fieldwork undertaken involving discussions with welfare workers critical of the system and welfare mothers. Troubling factors include a changed Toronto culture in which the poor and their situations are not known by other citizens. Future implications are discussed.

From the Paper:

"Neo-liberal economic and social welfare policies have aggravated the feminization and to a degree, a racialization of Canadian poverty, as affects greatly single mothers with dependent children. In Toronto, some factors preceded local budgetary reductions, including federal reductions in place for almost two decades. (See O'Neill: 1998, Yalnizyan: 1998) Moreover, women now face a changed culture that is less understanding of poverty, or empathetic towards the poor. Jim Stanford mentioned, a decade ago, a failure to understand that recession unemployment was not a temporary phenomenon but signaled lost, i.e. absent employment opportunities, in keeping with shifts.."

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