Welfare State Restructuring and Marketization of Care

: An Assessment of British Childcare Policy from Gender Perspective

Abstract

At the end of the twentieth century, in particular from the 1980s, it became clear that modern welfare states were seeking to utilize the contract mechanism in the major social security services. Though the concept of contract has been fundamental to the functioning of Western states since the eighteenth century, the mechanism of contract has also been considered an appropriate means of providing social security under the modern welfare state governments. This “contractualization” is inevitably premised on the assumption of individualization and is connected to the introduction of the “quasi―market” into social security programs such as social care. In 1998, New Labour published its National Childcare Strategy, marking the first time since World War II for a British government to accept responsibility for childcare policy. This strategy has had two main goals : “social investment” for children and promoting mothers’ employment in order to reduce child poverty. At the same time, the strategy has promoted marketization of childcare. In 2010, the Labour Party lost power to a Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition, and lost again to the Conservative in 2015, so the policymaking emphasis has shifted toward strong austerity. I examine British childcare policy from the point of view of gender equality.