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Unpaid work and social policy: Engaging research with mothers on social assistance Cindy Hanson and Lori Hanson Action Research 2011 9: 179 originally published online 29 December 2010 DOI: 10.1177/1476750310388053 The online version of this article can be found at: http://arj.sagepub.com/content/9/2/179

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Unpaid work and social policy: Engaging research with mothers on social assistance

Action Research 9(2) 179–198 ! The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1476750310388053 arj.sagepub.com

Cindy Hanson University of Regina, Canada

Lori Hanson University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Abstract The interlocking issues of gender, unpaid work and multiple forms of representation or lived experiences with social policy are complex. The study ‘Who Benefits: Women, Unpaid Work and Social Policy’, supported by Status of Women Canada, and guided by an advisory group consisting of women’s and anti-poverty organizations was based in Saskatchewan, Canada. The study interrogated how mothers on social assistance (SA) defined and understood unpaid caregiving work with small children; and the impact of social welfare policy guidelines that pushed SA recipients to find paid employment. Using action research and original, creative methods to gather data, the research simultaneously created a non-threatening environment for discussion, information-sharing, support and knowledge creation among participants. Overall, findings in the study resonate with other published studies on low-income women and unpaid work. Unique to this study particularly, were the action research process and outcomes which provided ways to address the needs of the study participants and to catalyze participant-led actions. The study assisted the 28 participants in linking their unpaid work with social policy and finally, in taking socio-political action. Actions included meetings with government, press conferences, and an uptake of recommendations by advisory group organizations. Independent of the research, the participants continued to meet after the study concluded. Keywords action research, mothering, social assistance, social policy, unpaid work, women and poverty

Corresponding author: Cindy Hanson, 218-11th St. E, Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7N 0E6 Email: [email protected]


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Introduction A gender analysis of public policy is desirable in campaigns for social and economic equality. Although a gender analysis can address unintentional discrimination based on gender, the way in which social policy also intersects with interlocking1 dimensions such as class, race, marital status and place is less obvious to policymakers and therefore, these dimensions of experience are less likely considered (Armstrong & Armstrong, 2002). In this way, despite the importance and the efforts to consider unpaid caregiving work as central to a gender analysis of public policy, the unpaid work of women on social assistance (SA) clearly falls on the margins of mainstream policy development. The interlocking issues of gender, unpaid work and multiple forms of representation of lived experiences and social policy are issues that require integrated approaches of analysis and action. In addition to a concern for counting unpaid work, gaps in the research about the push by social welfare policy to have SA recipients move into paid employment concerned the stakeholders involved in ‘Who Benefits: Women, Unpaid Work and Social Policy’. This article outlines the background, context, and concern which prompted the study, details the study methods and findings, and suggests how such studies can benefit analysis of social policy for study participants and social policy-makers. ‘Who Benefits’ was undertaken under the auspices of Working for Women, a community-based organization in Saskatoon, Canada. Funded by Status of Women Canada, the study set out to examine the impacts of social policy and unpaid caregiving work on women on social assistance with pre-school children. The purpose was twofold: 1) to interrogate and document the impact of social policies regarding employment-seeking on the lives of poor women with young children; and 2) to understand how women on SA defined and understood their unpaid work of caring for small children. Using an action research approach and original methods to gather data, the research simultaneously created a non-threatening environment for discussion, information-sharing, and mutual support among the study participants. Throughout the data gathering workshops, the women discussed the effects of social policies, shared survival strategies, came to recognize and validate their unpaid work, and eventually held face-to-face meetings with policy-makers. Although modest in scope, the research provided a novel way of bringing together women’s and anti-poverty organizations; of understanding the impacts of social policy on low-income women; and of contributing to both personal empowerment and social action. Action research is characterized by research outcomes that emphasize actions at individual and collective levels (Stoecker, 2009) and ‘Who Benefits’ was particularly effective in demonstrating the latter of these. We begin by explaining the rationale for choosing an action research approach.


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Framing the study Although the range of descriptions classified as action research vary, most are characterized as having high levels of participation among and between the study participants and the researchers, and as having results ‘integrally connected to action’ (Stoecker, 2009, p. 285). Lykes and Coquillon (2007) and Springer (1996) classified action research as a systematic way for people to analyze and describe issues affecting their lives, and then participate in planning actions to deal with those issues. Although action research evolved from diverse historical and theoretical trends, what appears similar is the idea that research constructs knowledge based on democratic participation and social change (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, & Maguire, 2003; Lykes & Coquillon, 2007). Additionally, action research is a form of political and engaged research with cycles of theory and practice embellished by reflection that leads to further action (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003). The organizations involved in the recruitment of study participants and the researchers of ‘Who Benefits’ were clear the goal of the research was political – to examine and make recommendations for changing government policy. Accordingly, the research process ensured specific messages and actions were derived from and with participant knowledge. The researchers worked with participants iteratively, facilitating the development of critical consciousness about issues in participant lives, building their confidence, and encouraging participants to lead in moving the research process forward into action. While involvement of the researchers and the research community as co-creators of knowledge at all stages of the research process is desirable (Reid, Allison, & Frisby, 2006), other researchers acknowledge that structural inequities such as time to participate and levels of literacy or analytical skills limit chances for equitable participation (Lykes & Coquillon, 2007). We acknowledge that unequal power structures existed between the researchers and community members – what Lykes and Coquillon refer to as the ‘participant-insider-community member’ and the ‘researcher-catalyst-outsider-facilitator’ (p. 321). We tried to mitigate this inequality by having the project advisory committee play a consultative role and by having the study participants voluntarily involved in shaping the study, in deciding on results to be shared in the report-writing, in prioritizing recommendations, and in designing the follow-up actions, including research dissemination. Like other action researchers, we sought to ‘promote collective processes of inquiry that expose[d] the ideological, political and social processes underlying and permeating systems of inequality’ (p. 298). Conversely, however, we also realized that within the process specific barriers such as writing, reading and analytical skills potentially limited some of the research impact or participant-community involvement (Lykes & Coquillon, 2007).


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Researcher position As activists, mothers, researchers, and scholars engaged with transformative education processes, we felt both personal and political connections with the research process. We had collectively experienced periods of single-parenting, living below the low-income cut off (poverty) line, and living inside inner city neighborhoods. We were both activists in community-based organizations and had worked on other projects with marginalized women. We have both since explored the links between our work as activists and as academics in publications. It would be remiss, however, to say that we did not experience paradoxes in some aspects of the research. In particular, we acknowledge that our lives are currently lived with privilege. Furthermore, we are aware that funding sources, ethics, and power relationships between the researchers, the study participants, and to some degree, the advisory committee, were present. Even as researchers attempt to democratize the research process, we are bound by institutional pressures to submit funding and ethics proposals prior to full engagement with participants, and to plan the research process according to pre-determined budgets and timelines. Like other action researchers, therefore we struggled with incongruent positions between theory and practice (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003). Through reflexivity and a belief in the research participants as subjects and agents of history, we strived to interrogate and challenge ourselves as this played out. To some degree the actions that ensued from the research affirmed both the process of action research and the potential for transformation within. Before turning to the actual study process, however, we briefly turn to the literature framing the study.

Falling through the cracks: Women, work and social policy Feminist economist and former parliamentarian, Marilyn Waring (1999) emphasizes that the concept of ‘unpaid caregiving’ is initially unfamiliar to women precisely because unpaid work is not valued by global economic and social systems. The inability to name unpaid caregiving as work contributes to its invisibility and to women’s oppression. Waring acknowledges that the UN statistical commission considers the lack of specific concrete information about the activities of women to be a major impediment in the formulation of policies and programs, at both the national and international levels. Statistics Canada estimates housework is equivalent to 34–38 percent of the GDP and the United Nations estimates the global value of unpaid work at about US $11 trillion annually (Kome, 2000). In 1998, Statistics Canada estimated the value of unpaid work at $297 billion dollars or 33 percent of the GDP (Hamdad, 2003). Part of the impetus for this study arose from Canada’s decision in 1996 to be the first country to record unpaid work in its national census. The results of that census demonstrated that 68 percent of unpaid work in Canada was done by women regardless of whether they worked in the paid economy or not (Jackson, 1996). Although the 2006 Census demonstrated some


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changes in men’s participation in unpaid work, women still remained more than twice as likely as men to spend 30 hours or more per week caring for children (Statistics Canada, 2008). Waring (1999) supports time-use data as a reliable base for analysis and policy development because it: tells us what goods and services households produce, what the unemployed do with their time, how much additional work children in the household create, and whether equality in the distribution of household tasks has been achieved. . . . it also shows up in which sex gets the menial, boring, low status, and unpaid invisible work, which in turn highlights oppression and subordination. (p. xxxix)

Time use in low-income households is a critical way of understanding the policy dimensions of phenomena such as caregiving (Smeeding, 1997). World governments including Canada are increasingly measuring work – paid and unpaid – through census mechanisms that quantify time use. The General Social Survey of Canada (GSS) importantly suggests that for low-income people unpaid household work occupies considerably more time than for high-income individuals (Williams, 2002). The GSS uses time use to measure caring for children and undertaking domestic tasks and the reported ratios of time (measured in minutes per day) spent by high-income versus low-income Canadians were as follows: housework 30 : 50; meal preparation 40 : 52; shopping 48 : 52; playing with children 17 : 18; teaching children 4 : 9; and reading or talking with children 4 : 5 (Williams, 2002). Work in caring for children and doing domestic chores both frequently overlap because as Williams states, ‘all parents can attest, much of child care is done while engaging in other activities such as cleaning, cooking or watching television. Considerably less time is devoted to exclusive interaction with children’ (2002, p. 10). An important difference between high-income and low-income households is that not only are poor women suffering from material disadvantages, such as not having time-saving devices and easy access to food, but they are also preoccupied with health, family stress and physical security (Torjman, 1999). In this way, the ‘Who Benefits’ study sought to understand how social policies compounded multiple barriers already experienced by mothers living in poverty.

Effects of social policy In the late 1990s many provinces in Canada adopted welfare-to-work programs – while policies varied somewhat, proponents of these programs would generally consider that when a child reached a certain age, the parent should seek paid employment. The underlying assumption was unpaid work in the home and caring for children was invisible (that is, not included in national accounting systems) and hence, not valuable. The movement by provincial governments to


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reduce the number of social assistance recipients, in particular with the replacement of the federally funded Canada Assistance Plan and the Canada Health and Social Transfer, resulted in a push toward getting SA recipients into pre-employment programs and job searches (Baker, 1997). The demand for SA recipients to engage in job searches was noticeably hard on single parents who, given the division of labor around unpaid work, were primarily women. Ontario, for example, had 200,000 sole support mothers affected by this shift (Mayson, 1999). In Saskatchewan, the Transitional Employment Program was considered a labor force strategy rather than a social assistance program as ‘the government considers any employment to be better than welfare provisions’ (Hunter & Donovan, 2005, p. 2). In this way, the program homogenized welfare recipients; demonstrating among other things, a lack of recognition for unpaid caregiving work. Furthermore, as Torjman (2000) points out, this reinforced the idea that reducing welfare caseloads is a form of poverty reduction, when in reality: recipients who move off welfare into work often find that they are no better off in terms of disposable income – indeed, maybe worse off – than when they received social assistance. Their typically low wages are reduced by income and payroll taxes, and they face employment-related expenses, such as clothing, transportation, and child care. (p. 7)

The National Council of Welfare (1999) stated that provincial governments in Canada have done poor work in providing for the care of children when welfare programs encourage recipients to take paid work. An Ontario study concurred, stating that frequently finding employment and losing social assistance benefits places a huge burden of child welfare concern onto the mothers (Lynn & Todoroff, 1998). This was not surprising, given that gender inequalities are further perpetuated when inequalities among women and men in the workforce continue to rise (Himmelweit, 2008). The Canadian Research Institute on the Advancement of Women added that women, and particularly mothers, are further penalized in such programs because they assume there is no gender difference in access to the work force or in pay scales. The result is increased vulnerability of women to poverty given the low (or absent) wages for women’s work (Morris, 2000). In effect, women often move from social assistance poverty to labor market poverty (Campaign, 2000). Recently, ‘Living on Welfare in BC’ demonstrated that leaving income assistance did not mean escaping poverty because those who found paid employment usually formed part of the working poor. The study also suggested that current welfare rules and benefits left women vulnerable to violence – either in returning to or staying in abusive relationships or engaging in ‘survival sex/prostitution’ (Klein & Pulkingham, 2008, p. 7). Overall then, the stated policy goals of improving the well-being of children living in poverty through such welfare employment schemes simply has not been realized (Williamson & Salkie, 2005).


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Multiple barriers and coping The issues impacting unpaid caregiving of small children by women living on social assistance are multiple. A longitudinal study in London, Ontario demonstrated that poor neighborhoods are the most affected by supermarkets moving to suburbs, and when shopping involves convenience stores or transportation is required, there is a substantial increase in costs (Larsen & Gilliland, 2008). As this study demonstrated, shopping for food without access to supermarkets or adequate transportation accentuates barriers to equality. Barriers to finding paid employment are perpetuated by further inequalities in the labor market. This suggests that if women living in poverty manage to enter the labor market, their relatively low socio-economic status in society makes it more difficult for them to meet their caring responsibilities in childcare without additional assistance (Himmelweit, 2008). Not surprisingly then, an Ontario study of barriers to employment for sole support mothers on SA found that lack of babysitting was a major barrier (Lynn & Todoroff, 1998). Assistance from family and friends then becomes one of the major ways that women cope with these inequities. The study, ‘Who Benefits’ sought to understand how the women coped and the kinds of supports they required. The study methods and findings which led to multiple actions by the participants is now the topic of discussion.

Study methods The methods used in this study were informed by models of transformative education applied to action research. They were developed with the idea that as participants in the study started to name and analyze their situation, in this case unpaid work caring for small children while on social assistance, they would develop a consciousness about it and want to take actions to change that situation. In this section we discuss how the study was structured and data were collected and analyzed.

Advisory group and participant recruitment In order to engage the community in the project, researchers initially invited eight women’s or equality-seeking organizations to participate in establishing the parameters of the research and clarifying the central research questions. These organizations, later joined by several anti-poverty organizations, served as a community advisory group, and offered valuable input at various stages of the research. In the end, eleven organizations participated (list of organizations appended). Initially they helped to clarify the study’s goal: to explore the impact of social policy on the unpaid caregiving work of women on social assistance with pre-school children. At later stages, they served as a community forum for emergent results. Ethical guidelines for behavioural research were adhered to and included ethical recruitment procedures, clear and plain writing, time devoted to explanations of


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informed consent, and ongoing and repeated reviews of the right to withdrawal. In keeping with ethical guidelines for participant recruitment, organizations approached potential participants, discussed the study purpose and procedures, and explained the study included supports for childcare and transportation to facilitate easier participation. Eventually, a total of 28 women participated. Collectively, the recruited participants represented women of various marital statuses, ethnic/racial backgrounds, educational backgrounds, and geographical locations within Saskatoon (the vast majority living in the core area). All of the participants were receiving social assistance benefits and had pre-school aged children at home.

Data collection Over a period of eight months, the study participants met in workshops – referred to by participants as discussion groups – that included open and guided discussions in small and large groups. The workshops were held in a community centre and a government-sponsored family support centre. The central locations (accessible by bus) of these venues and access to childcare were research considerations. During the workshops, the researchers facilitated the process using original, creative methods to generate knowledge about the unpaid work of women on social assistance (SA). The methods were purposefully developed to encourage participants to voice their experiences of unpaid work, to tell their own stories and to collectively and creatively analyze the problems they faced as women in poverty. For example, a drawing representing a 24-hour caregiving activity clock generated much discussion about how tasks associated with unpaid work are frequently overlapping. The process was considered iterative and frequently adapted to include time for study participants to share information and stories. An accessible, safe and respectful environment for the research was advocated by collaboratively setting the ground rules, and keeping the schedule flexible. To ease the difficulties associated with attending the discussion groups, participants received assistance for transportation, childcare, and a modest lunch. Data collection included individual and group data collection methods. Individuals contributed time diaries, and collectively participated in developing the 24-hour clock. The discussion groups included the use of visual drawing techniques. See for example Figure 1 – a house with arrows indicating supports and barriers to undertaking unpaid work in the home. The researchers drew the figure and then, together with the study participants, named the ways in which women were, or could be, supported in doing unpaid work; conversely, barriers to doing unpaid work were reported on the arrows. Exercises, such as the drawing of the house were treated as opportunities to meld processes of knowledge creation and analysis. Additionally, the visual and collective exercises served to provoke and elicit additional non-text-based data. Frequently, for example, dialogues between participants evolved into overlapping stories which served to


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Figure 1. Use of visual drawing techniques

deepen the analysis. A final priority setting activity – a ranking exercise – provided clarity on the action component of the research.

Data analysis The data analysis included internal feedback and collaborative discussion (ongoing member checks) as well as standard qualitative data analysis. The categorical and thematic analysis was initially done by the researchers as the participants felt that both their time and capacity to undertake an analytical research function was


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limited. The analysis was, however, explained and changed by the participants in a way that proceeded iteratively, using manual sorting techniques employed after each session. As well, researchers involved the participants and the advisory group in writing and reviewing drafts of the research report. Despite broad invitations for involvement at the writing stage, only two participants and two members of the advisory committee participated in the review process. Ongoing feedback loops were integrated into the discussion groups however, so that the analysis and draft reports invited collaboration and support for recommendations. Researchers sorted the data into themes that corresponded to the research. Themes that ensued included time as a resource; the supports and challenges in doing unpaid work; the impact of social policies, particularly mandatory job searches; and the personal and social stresses for women on social assistance. To enable the women to participate in making their needs known to policymakers, the research concluded with an action component.

Findings: Unpaid work, social policy, and stress This section summarizes the major findings and offers several participant stories related to the themes identified from the data. It concludes by explaining how the study participants developed the action component of the research, including how they decided to stay involved after the study concluded. Lykes and Coquillon (2007) discuss the transformative potential of action research to address social inequities exposed through the research process – this potential was most notably witnessed in ‘Who Benefits’ by the aforementioned action of forming a group – an action beyond research expectations.

Juggling time as a resource The most recurrent theme to emerge was that mothers have many tasks that are ongoing and that they usually taking on more than one piece of work simultaneously. All of the women spoke of constantly balancing or juggling several tasks in order to get their daily work completed. The necessity to juggle work became apparent for example, when participants collectively completed an activity clock and read from their daily diary. Excerpts from two diaries are quoted here to illustrate: 5–6 pm – I had supper, did the dishes, made a grocery list for the week, read to the children and then they watched television. I swept the floor, mopped and dusted. (Participant A diary) 11 am–12 pm – Took [child] for a walk and mailed letters, took garbage out, swept snow off patio, put jackets and boots away, made lunch, changed diaper. (Participant B diary)


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Participants noted that it was often the unexpected weekly and monthly activities that were particularly demanding on their time. These unexpected activities included dealing with inadequate housing, frequent moves to find affordable and safe places to live, emergency budgeting, and dealing with sick children. They also included demands for job searches by SA caseworkers which involved extra time using public transportation, arranging rides, looking for babysitters, and searching for jobs on the internet or in newspapers.

Job search issues Participants suggested that Social Services guidelines regarding job searches were not applied consistently or equally amongst them – some had never been asked to undertake a job search while others, including a participant who was visibly pregnant, were asked to undertake job searches. The Saskatchewan guidelines stipulated that women with children over two years of age were to undertake job searches as a condition of receiving SA. While the guideline was not practiced universally, the penalty for not submitting evidence of a job search if requested, was always withholding the monthly check. In spite of additional time demanded for job searches, no extra supports such as transportation, childcare, or even clothing were offered. For women in ‘Who Benefits’ the implication of being asked by SA caseworkers to search for paid work, in addition to time already spend on caregiving work of small children, resulted in compounded stress, fears of being cut-off from welfare, and concerns over time management. For those who did obtain part-time work, the low wages, lack of supports and SA clawback mechanisms2 often meant they did not get ahead financially and the children suffered.

Stories of struggle and coping Study participants described trying to make ends meet in the household by pawning, selling goods or services, buying second hand clothes, and going to food banks. They reported anger, vulnerability and humiliation at the social expectation that they should use the food bank or other charities to get by, and moreover, they commented that the food quality at food banks is often poor and results in negative health consequences for their children. Many reported that beyond pawning or selling off their few assets, they were ashamed at having to use support payments from absent fathers to get by because they considered these payments as their children’s money. Many of the women also reported that getting support payments was also an issue, in spite of court enforcements. The majority of study participants had experienced domestic abuse or violence and many were still dealing with the consequences of the abusive relationships for themselves and their children. Flora (a pseudonym) was a participant who had


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lived much of her life on SA. The following summary of Flora’s story (the story used interview data and with her permission, changed it into narrative story form) illustrates how stresses are compounded by inequitable welfare policies that fail to recognize time and resource constraints. ‘I’m so sick of saying, ‘‘Maybe next time, maybe later when we have money.’’ I want to get off welfare. Poverty reminds me of alcohol, the cycle of abuse, all that crap. I went through some of that with my child – drinking, drugs, abuse. Now I’m stuck with trying to undo the cycle. I feel like you have to steal, sell you body, or sell drugs to get money for your kids. Babysitting on the side is the only illegal thing I do.’ Flora is currently babysitting an FAS toddler in addition to her own pre-school child. She knows she’s being taken advantage of (last month she was paid $60 for babysitting five days a week, nine hours per day) but she also feels sorry for the mother who isn’t making much at her job either. She thinks that maybe the mother will pay more in the future and she knows that she has no legal recourse because if she tells social services her earnings will be deducted dollar for dollar off of her benefits because babysitting is considered a form of paid work. Flora admits it’s a sacrifice because after she supplies food she really doesn’t make much. But, she says, ‘If I don’t do stuff, I get in a depression. This helps me get out of bed. I’ve thought of going on the streets when it gets really bad . . . I’ve been babysitting since I was five or six – I had to grow up too fast. Poverty makes you lose your childhood.’ Flora is a mother of four children. She moved from Manitoba to Saskatchewan but now she’s thinking of moving back – she’s sick of the low rates paid to social assistance recipients in Saskatchewan and she thinks it’s more in Manitoba. Flora takes second hand things whenever she can. She believes that people with cars and material things have self-esteem and that they can go out and look for jobs . . . someday she hopes to go to school or get a paying job. Meanwhile, she admits that times are hard but, as she puts it, ‘I got my words and my actions and my kids and at least if what I say helps one person it’s okay’. (Personal notes, interview between participant and researcher)

Supports such as ‘good’ caseworkers, parenting programs, families, good landlords, a bus pass and accessible quality childcare and medical services were all noted as aspects that made life and unpaid work easier. Discussing supports was important for the participants, but more importantly, the way in which they rewarded each other and supported each other by telling personal stories broke barriers of isolation and created lasting bonds. In their personal narratives, participants of ‘Who Benefits’ often found a way of both voicing their concerns, and finding common points of bonding. At times


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telling the stories shifted the problems in their lives from private difficulties to collective issues. An example of such a story from Violet follows: I am a single parent with a baby. I went on social assistance because I was entering a program to assist me with a drinking problem. A few months after I started, I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t want to continue in an abusive relationship while I was pregnant, so I packed up a plastic bag of clothes and moved away. [He] followed. After staying for a short time at the YWCA and Interval House, I met a worker who told me about my rights. So, I obtained a restraining order and moved in with my cousin. I worked under the table babysitting to supplement my welfare benefits and used the money to buy things for the baby and rent an apartment. When my baby was born, the caseworker told me that I’d have to go after the father for child support. I said I didn’t want to have anything to do with him and that I had a restraining order against him. She insisted. . . . Recently I started a training program but I’ve had trouble getting regular daycare and I miss days when my daughter is sick. My worker questioned my commitment to the training program and I said, ‘They call me and tell me I’m not committed. How encouraging is this? I feel like quitting. My girl is small and she’s still breastfeeding.’ I am angry about the welfare system and about low wages paid to women trying to get off of welfare. What’s the point – if you work irregular shifts it’s hard to get a babysitter and if you turn down shifts they won’t call you. I’m so tired of not having food in my fridge and no bus fare. (Violet’s story, participant interview)

Additionally, the participants used time in the workshops to collaborate and share information about where to get ‘freebies’. Most of the participants spoke about being isolated physically and socially from each other and from society at large. Feeling unvalued and unable to participate led to sentiments of low self-esteem and little self-confidence; for some this was compounded by addictions. The stigma surrounding being on SA was humiliating for many and while getting paid employment was envisioned as an alternative, participants were not optimistic that available jobs would move them out of poverty or benefit their children. Many also expressed appreciation for the opportunity to come together with other women and to voice their daily activities – the process of naming unpaid work as valuable was validating. Breaking down social barriers and understanding unpaid work linked the stories of the study participants and assisted in building momentum toward taking action. The following section looks at the action outcomes of the study.


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Collective actions The participants decided on and carried out various follow-up actions including: a press conference; meetings with policy-makers, including the Minister of Social Services for the Province of Saskatchewan; co-presentations with the researchers at local and national conferences; and the formation of a peer-led education advocacy and support group. As Lykes and Coquillon (2007) point out, sometimes barriers exist for study participants to engage in the kind of practices action research demands. Our study was not an exception in this case. Although actions such as collectively writing a media release or co-presenting at local and national conferences ensued, there were clear differences of experience and confidence levels between the researchers and study participants. For example, presenting at a national academic conference was not something any of the study participants had experienced while the researchers had. It was necessary therefore, to include acts of collaboration, such as capacity building, into the action components. Such follow-up clearly falls outside of most social science research, yet ‘Who Benefits’ demonstrated it is important for research with marginalized groups. Follow-up actions of the advisory group were less visible. Still, many groups involved endorsed the research report and several groups made commitments to carry out continuing educational activities. At least one organization in the advisory group also supported the women in their efforts to form of a peer-led education advocacy and support group. The participants’ decision to form a group was surprising for both the researchers and the advisory group alike. This action was a remarkably different outcome than similar studies, however many of the issues discussed in ‘Who Benefits’, rang true in similar studies.

A discussion of ‘Who Benefits’: Issues that resonate Many of the salient findings in this study resonate with other published studies on low-income women and unpaid work. In this section we discuss some of those findings and suggest the additional, empowering benefits that accrued in the process of utilizing action research methodologies in ‘Who Benefits’. In ‘Who Benefits’ the recognition of unpaid caregiving as work was initially a surprise for the participants. This is not unexpected according to Waring (1999) who emphasizes that the lack of social and economic value for ‘unpaid caregiving’ contributes to its invisibility and women’s oppression. The women knew their time and energy was consumed when they carried out the tasks associated with caregiving, but to recognize it as work required a conscientious shift. The shift and the concurrent adoption of a discourse on unpaid work occurred through collective and progressively more complex discussions about unpaid work, eventually leading participants to acknowledge their unpaid work was sustaining families and communities and deserved to be recognized by policy-makers. This validation of their work was important as it emphasized not only links between unpaid work and gender, but the intersecting elements of race, class, and socio-economic status


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which are frequently absent and, as Armstrong and Armstrong (2002) note, less likely to be considered. ‘Who Benefits’ demonstrated that time use varied depending upon the ages of the children, mental and physical condition of the children, and access to transportation. Like Williams (2002) the participants frequently reported ‘overlapping activities’ or multi-tasking aspects of unpaid work, such as simultaneously providing caregiving while doing housework; they also reported that it was difficult to quantify time spent on each. The study further documented some of the complex and unpredictable forces affecting the lives of poor women. For example, access to food was a constant obstacle, in large part due to the need for public transportation to access food banks or grocery stores located far from the urban core, and because cost-cutting measures such as clipping coupons and comparing prices, added time to the task of securing food. The lack of a supermarket in the core area of Saskatoon, where most participants lived, was a frequently cited obstacle. Participants reported that arranging and using public transportation required, on average, one and onehalf hours daily, barring unforeseen difficulties. This finding resonates with other studies which demonstrate links between poor neighborhoods and lack of access to supermarkets (Green, 2001; Larsen & Gilliland, 2008). DeVault (2008), and Walter, Lenton and McKeary (1995) further acknowledge the gendered aspects of access to food issues noting that in situations of material disadvantage, timesaving appliances and freezers are absent, which adds stress in food preparation activities. Economic insecurity meant study participants were undertaking budget activities that required additional use of time. Babysitting income or paying family members to provide childcare, if they are part of a benefit unit, was considered another barrier to paid work which concurs with an Ontario study of barriers to employment for sole support mothers on social assistance (Lynn & Todoroff, 1998). Childcare was considered essential but difficult to attain. Escaping violence or obtaining healing from past abusive relationships was also a factor contributing to invisible unpaid work. Similar to findings by Klein and Pulkingham (2008), Kome (2000), and Torjman (1999), this study found indisputable links between violence, vulnerability, and lack of economic resources. Adding mandatory job searches to this situation only further accentuated the inequalities.

Job searches accentuate inequality According to Waring (1999), job search inevitably shifts the use of resources, such as money and time, which could have been spent on work related to caregiving. In both ‘Who Benefits’ and a similar study in Manitoba, women indicated that children suffer when their mothers are forced to look for paid work as a condition for receiving SA benefits (Annis, 2002). Typically, women in ‘Who Benefits’ noted that if they obtained part-time work, the low wages, lack of supports, and clawbacks often meant any work they did obtain, did not change their financial status.


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So, although participants abhorred the stigma of being on welfare, they agreed that moving into low paid jobs did not increase their family’s economic security or overall well-being; instead, it placed a huge burden of child welfare concern on mothers. This finding is supported by Himmelweit (2008), Lynn and Todoroff (1998), and Torjman (1999) who point out that a lack of restructuring to change gender wage inequities in the labor market is thus replicated when women leave unpaid caregiving to find paid work. Throughout the research, women were encouraged to dialogue and discuss diverse aspects of their lives, including those that sustained them. The sharing of experiences and telling of stories enabled the development of important coping skills and solidarity. A related action research project, ‘Telling It Like It Is: The Realities of Parenting in Poverty’ (Green, 2001) similarly acknowledged that through the sharing of stories women are able to combat stereotypes and build coping skills. While the findings in ‘Who Benefits’ find resonance in other published studies on low-income women and unpaid work, the action research process provided unique ways of addressing participant needs and of catalyzing actions led by them. We now turn to those effects.

Changing policy, changing lives: Benefits in the action research process The action research process led the participants through a collective investigation and validation of the reality of doing unpaid work with small children, provided tools that linked their personal experiences to social policy, and finally, led to sociopolitical actions, including a meeting with the Minister of Social Services, holding a press conference, and an uptake of the recommendations by some of the organizations involved in the advisory group. Seven of the study participants met with the Minister of Social Services and suggested specific changes to provincial policy. Five participants were involved in conference presentations and another five in media press conference which resulted in newspaper coverage of the study. At least two additional participant speaking engagements, including one at a university, resulted from the conference presentations. Additionally and perhaps most unexpectedly, when the participants decided to continue meeting as a support and advocacy group, the Saskatchewan Department of Social Services assisted them in finding a public meeting space. In celebration of those small successes, the first event the new ‘group’ hosted was a feast for the family service centre staff. The group, independently of the researchers, continued meeting for about six months after the study ended. There were clearly times in the research process where the researchers took on a more facilitative role, but as the process evolved, they increasingly became co-constructors of knowledge with the participants and in the final stages, it was clear that the transformative potential of the action research to embrace a wider community was opening up.


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‘Who Benefits’ also provoked and catalyzed action among the agencies involved. For example, the recommendations in the reports were reviewed and endorsed by the advisory committee, and sent on to the Saskatchewan Department of Social Services. The recommendations called for the provision of new internal training programs, support for access and choice in childcare, assistance with transportation and job searches, removal of clawbacks, development of clear guidelines and policies, and a review and revision of policy areas that give undue power to case workers. The advisory committee also considered suggestions about how to promote a social and organizational climate that values unpaid work.

Conclusion Despite the worldwide recognition Canada received when it became the first country to include ‘unpaid household activities’ in its Census, measuring the way unpaid work is experienced in the lives of marginalized women remains an enigma. This research illustrated a few of the ways that existing social welfare practices reinforce gender inequalities because they fail to recognize that low-income women with small children are not without work, but rather are actively and productively engaged in the unpaid care and nurturing of children. The study findings resonant with much of the literature on this topic, and further suggest more nuanced research is needed regarding the ways SA policies impact the lives and experiences of unpaid work provided by parents living in poverty. Perhaps most importantly, ‘Who Benefits’ demonstrated that by designing research in ways that include and engage those affected by SA policies, the study participants are capacitated to advocate for policy change. Acknowledgment We thank Mary Brydon-Miller for leading the review process for the authors of this paper. Should you have comments/reactions you wish to share, please bring them to the interactive portion of our website: http://arj.sagepub.com.

Notes 1. The terms interlocking and intersecting grew out of feminist movements of the 1990s wherein the diversity of feminisms as racialized and located in the global South were brought forth and challenged universal notions of women. They demonstrate how multiple and intersecting forms of oppression are experienced. According to Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (2006), these forms include race, class, socio-economic status, gender, sexualities, ability, geographic location, refugee and immigrant status in combination with historical discriminations. 2. Clawbacks is a term used by SA recipients to describe how social services deducts any earnings they make from benefits they receive. Babysitting was frequently cited as a way participants tried to earn money.


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Cindy Hanson is an educator whose work includes both formal and nonformal education in a variety of learning contexts – locally and globally. Her transnational activism in women’s rights and gender equality was both the subject of her doctoral work at UBC and informs her current work as an Assistant Professor in adult education at the University of Regina. Her work in the past two decades included international development consultancies in over 12 countries. She is particularly interested in participatory, intersectional, and transformative forms of learning and facilitating and her research includes communities of practice and internationalization. She is the mother of two young adults. Lori Hanson draws from over two decades of community-based work and experience to inform her current position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan. She teaches inter-disciplinary courses on global health both locally and internationally, and utilizes primarily participatory and community-based methodologies to investigate issues related to the social determinants of health equity, and on actions and strategies for addressing them. Her interests and experience include: community activism, globalization and health, Fair Trade, gender and health, health equity, community health promotion and transformative education. She is the mother of two sets of twins.


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Appendix: Advisory Committee Members DisAbled Women’s Network (DAWN) Equal Justice for All Family Support Center Immigrant Women of Saskatchewan Legal Education and Action Foundation National Farmer’s Union Saskatoon Sexual Assault and Information Center Status of Women Canada, Saskatoon Iswewak Waniskawak, Women of the Dawn Working for Women Young Women’s Christian Association
