The Construction of Gendered Citizenship at the Welfare Office: An Ethnographic Comparison of Welfare-to-Work Workshops in the United States and the Netherlands

In 1996 both the Netherlands and the United States adopted welfare legislation that aimed to exchange single mothers' reliance on the welfare state for dependence on the labor market. This legislation seems to indicate an end to gender-differentiated social citizenship rights. However, ethnographic research on welfare reform implementation shows that citizenship does not get constructed solely at the level of legislation. In-depth research in one site in the United States and one site in the Netherlands illustrates that citizenship continues to be gendered in specific ways despite the apparent end of gender differentiation at the level of policy formation.