UCLA School of Law

Work requirements in welfare programs often are interpreted as enforcing cross-class parity in work-family balance; premised on the idea that most mothers are now working in the labor market, such requirements force welfare recipients to do the same. However, this class-parity analysis mischaracterizes both welfare law and prevailing work patterns. A legal analysis of policies toward two-parent families shows that work requirements typically encourage a breadwinner-caretaker division of labor, not a dual-earner pattern. Unlike policies toward single parents, these policies do not simply insist that all parents work. Moreover, longitudinal analysis of survey data reveals lower rates of continuous employment for mothers generally than what welfare rules require from single parents. Thus, relative to what most mothers do, a transfer recipient must work more if she is single but may work less if she is married. These findings show the need to integrate analysis of welfare policy’s work and family dimensions.