The Work Connection The Role of Social Security in British Economic Regulation

The authors use regulation to explain the antecedents to current welfare developments in Britain. From discussion of the 'Speenhamland System', the struggle for Family Allowance and a National Minimum Wage, they show how first a Conservative government in the 1970s, and more recently 'New Labour', have used in-work benefits so that today they have become the preferred instrument of intervention in the labour market for setting wages. The authors discuss the ways in which these measures - the new deals for lone parents and young people and the working family tax credit - address issues of child poverty and the adequacy of incomes, and how far they are disciplining devices to encourage a new moral order, supportive of family life.

Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Welfare to Work-Welfare: Making the Connection to Work The Conservatives, Neo-liberalism and Social Security Policy: The Development of Market Workfare 'New Labour' and the Modernization of Welfare: Extending Market Workfare Rôle Models and Traditional Moralities: The Development of In-Work Relief for Lone Mothers Taming 'Barbarians': Young Men, the Patriarchal Family and In-work Relief Speenhamland: In-work Relief at the Dawn of Modernity Family Allowances to Child Benefit: Keynesian In-work Relief Delivered by Beveridge? Conclusions: Regulation and Income Maintenance into the Twenty-first Century References Index

CHRIS GROVER is Lecturer in Applied Social Science in the Department of Applied Social Science, Lancaster University.

JOHN STEWART is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy in the Department of Applied Social Science, Lancaster University.