Feb 15, 2022
How Social Policy Defines Identity
Identity is an important and complex attribute to human lifestyles, shaping who we are and what we do. While some fields delve into the intricacies of identity, it is up to social policy to understand the needs, rights, and responsibilities related to different identities. Social policy both defines and responds to needs on a large scale, and by interacting with societal needs, social policy informs and affirms individual identity. Throughout one’s life different needs arise and the recognition of these needs through social policy impacts one’s identity.
Social policy shapes the course of life by defining needs by age. Age as an identity is universal and therefore provides an avenue for universal policies. Through the education system children are informed of their identity as students, moving stage by stage toward adulthood. The education system can in some ways level the playing field through a universal experience. The Scottish policy of universal free lunches emphasizes education as an equalizer through which children’s needs can be met (Chambers, et al., 2016). Additionally, the push for inclusion of universal pre-k in the United States emphasizes the potential for a new, social policy informed stage of identity as early as 3 (Gormley Jr. & Phillips, 2009). The old-age pension is another indication of identity; it informs people of their age and status in society and enforces an expectation of retirement. As the ratio of workers to beneficiaries decreases in the Global North, societies face a crisis of paying for the same social policies which increase lifespan. This dilemma may change if social policy begins to redefine old age, increasing the age eligible for pension, to lengthen an individual’s working life. Evidently this solution may be unpopular, but it provides insight into the potential to shape identity, with a vision of 67-year-olds working 40-hour-weeks rather than traveling or relaxing in retirement.
Universal social policies generally have an equal impact (though not necessarily an equal outcome) on people’s identities. However, social policy can shape specific identity through targeted policies that may create stereotypes or stigmas. Firstly, policy is often not utilized to have a specific effect on an identity, yet often identities change because of the rhetoric around social policy. For example, the UK 2010 conservative coalition’s push for welfare to work and reduction of benefits created a stigma for poverty. Regarding lone parents, the age of their child decides when benefits reduce and they must return to work, yet this age has been gradually lowered from 12 to 7 to 3 (UK government, 2020). This change in timeline for returning to work shifts parent identities from stay-at-home to working parent. It’s also likely that a working parent will affect a child’s development differently than a stay-at-home parent. This all results from and contributes to a view of non-working parents as lazy and inactive, labelling childcare as an inauthentic form of work (Grabham & Smith, 2010). Work as a way out of poverty is a flawed solution, despite the changing social support for lone parents. 54% of children living in poverty are in households with one or more paid working adult (Grabham & Smith, 2010).
When social policy does not recognize the realities of needs it undermines identities and has the potential to creates false stereotypes, such as that of the ‘welfare queen’ in the United States. This racist stereotype labels Black mothers with children on welfare as ‘lazy’ ‘system abusers’ among other assumptions (Hancock, 2003, p. 45). It imposes an identity on low-income women of color and uses this identity to repel taxpayers from supporting welfare. Lone mothers are in many ways a ‘scapegoat class’, often receiving the harshest assumptions of identity and the worst impacts of welfare cuts (Cain, 2016, p. 492).
Social policy can enforce gender roles through differentiated policies. Besides the scapegoating of low-income lone mothers, policy can also create different identities for a two-parent household. The enforcement of maternal leave and neglect of paternal leave in social policy enforces a heteronormative household dynamic in which men are the breadwinner and women are expected to earn less and support their husband’s career through unpaid household and childcare labor. The United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) emphasizes maternal leave as a fundamental human right. While job protection is recommended by the ILO, only 82 of 146 countries (with available data) could guarantee job protection for maternal leave. Paternal leave is only available in 79 of 167 countries (with available data) and typically is much less than maternal leave allowances yet often paid at 100% of previous earnings (Rossin-Slater, 2017). This disparity in parental leave informs the identity of the mother as the primary caretaker and the father as the primary breadwinner. As gender inequalities are gradually bridged, paternal leave policies have begun to reflect a different identity within fatherhood. Iceland, for example, offers up to 6 months of parental leave at 80% pay for both men and women. The Icelandic government explains that equal parental leave encourages both the fulfillment of familial obligations and equalizes labor opportunities (Work In Iceland, 2021). Iceland’s approach succeeds in affirming the identity of both parents in career and parenthood. The approach likely changes expectations and stigmas regarding women in the workplace and may be conducive to a healthier familial environment, both of which shape the identity of those directly and indirectly affected by family leave policy.
In summary, social policy both creates opportunity and defines needs. The affirmation of one’s identity in many ways relies on the recognition of needs and the availability of different opportunities. From school children to retired pensioners, social policy can create universal stages of identity. Social policy can also shape the identity of parenthood for a lone parent, a mother, or a father, depending on the provision of support. Welfare can also inform stigmas about identity through the individualization of problems or the unequal and gendered allocation of parental leave. Social policy is powerful and big, but also informs complex individual identities through its unique role of understanding public needs.
Works Cited
Cain, R., 2016. Responsibilising recovery: Lone and low-paid parents, Universal Credit and the gendered contradictions of UK welfare reform. British Politics, 11(4), pp. 488–507.
Chambers, S., Dundas, R. & Torsney, B., 2016. School and local authority characteristics associated with take-up of free school meals in Scottish secondary schools, 2014. Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences, 11(1), pp. 52–63.
Gormley Jr., W. T. & Phillips, D., 2009. The Effects of Universal Pre-K in Oklahoma: Research Highlights and Policy Implications. Policy Studies Journal, 33(1), pp. 65–82.
Grabham, E. & Smith, J., 2010. From social security to individual responsibility (Part Two): Writing off poor women’s work in the Welfare Reform Act 2009.. The Journal of social welfare & family law, 32(1), pp. 81–93.
Hancock, A.-M., 2003. Contemporary Welfare Reform and the Public Identity of the “Welfare Queen”. Race, Gender & Class , 10(1), pp. 31–59.
Rossin-Slater, M., 2017. Maternity and Family Leave Policy, Cambridge, Mass.: NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH.
UK government, 2020. Universal Credit: further information for families. [Online]
[Accessed 8 December 2021].
Work In Iceland, 2021. Maternity and paternity leave in Iceland. [Online]
Available at: https://work.iceland.is/living/maternity-and-paternity-leave
[Accessed 8 December 2021].
