Social Welfare and Single Mothers Essay examples

According to (Dulmus & Sowers, 2012, p.106), the history of social work is one of an old religiously grounded ethos of offering, aid and comfort. This shows that social work has been around for quite a long time, helping the unfortunate and it has developed more throughout these past centuries. The profession was largely shaped by Westerns idea and events. (Chenoweth &McAuliffe, 2015, p.32). The ideas and events included could have been war, poverty and other social reforms. That is when social welfare was needed to give aid and help solve these issues. Social work largely expanded in England in the 16th during the Elizabethan poor laws and later on in America between 17 and 18th century (Dulmus & Sowers, p.6). This essay is going to focus on how social work has evolved or changed for the better from the 1960s till present.

Public health researchers with the UC San Francisco group, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, conducted a longitudinal study of 956 women who sought an abortion and were turned away. Diana Foster’s study reveals what happened to the women’s economic standing, health and relationship status after being denied their right. She claims that, “When a woman is denied the abortion she wants, she is statistically more likely to wind up unemployed, on public assistance, and below the poverty line” (Newitz). This is clear because one of the major factors in a woman’s decision to abort, is because of her awareness that she will not be able to financially support her child. One of a woman’s most formidable fears is to fail to adequately raise her child and provide him with his greatest odds to succeed. Naturally, a mother’s ultimate goal is for her children to have a better life than she did. This fuels the majority of people’s ambition and determination to obtain a comfortable and promising life style, to then pass on to their offspring. Women living in poverty seek abortions because they do not want to bring a child in a life of misery and suffering. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is not just blindly decided, all aspects of the mother’s and child’s life are considered. In fact, after initially being denied the right to abort, the survey demonstrates that 45% of the women were on public assistance (Newitz). However, Foster concludes, “a year later, they were far more likely to be on public assistance — 76% of the turnaways were on the dole…67% percent of the turnaways were below the poverty line” (Newitz). Therefore, it is evident that not allowing women to legally have abortions creates more strain on the state because of these mothers' increased dependence on social assistance programs.

Often condemned as one of the primary societal problems of today, non-marital childbirth has been the subject of many sociologist’s explorations in an attempt to understand its rapid increase and growth in desirability. In their book Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage, Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas delve into the underlying reasons for the increase in non-martial child bearing, especially among women in low-socioeconomic communities. Through their two-and-a-half-year study, in which they conducted by interviewing over one hundred single mothers living in Philadelphia and Camden, Edin and Kefalas strove to understand why poor, single women were purposefully getting pregnant. Nearly eight years after Promises

Welfare started as a temporary response to the economic crash in the 1930s. Its primary goal was to provide cushioning to the families who lost the ability to be self-sufficient during the Great Depression. Yet, as America slowly rose back to becoming prosperous and wealthy, a significant chunk of America's population stayed below in the transitioning social system. The welfare system started to become counterproductive to the government so that, in the 1990s, Clinton hastily came up with legislation to end welfare, more famously known as the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. This road that Clinton led ended in a downfall as more people than ever before are now dependent on the federal government for food, housing, and income. Our current welfare reform may need another reform before welfare can truly end.

Under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) replaced AFDC, ending some Federal responsibility to welfare assistance. States operate their own programs; determine eligibility services to be provided to needy families, within Federal guidelines. The Federal government cannot regulate the conduct of states except to a few requirements, and states have a wide latitude in administering the program to "provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes; to reduce dependency by promoting job preparation, work and marriage; to prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and to encourage the formation and

The book I chose to write my paper on is Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform by Sharon Hays. In the book, the author looks at the welfare reform act enacted in 1996, known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. . She examines both the positive and negative effects that the Act has had on the poor as well as the effects it has had on society overall.

"The U.S. Congress kicked off welfare reform nationwide last October with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, heralding a new era in which welfare recipients are required to look for work as a condition of benefits." http://www.detnews.com/1997/newsx/welfare/rules/rules.htm. Originally, the welfare system was created to help poor men, women, and children who are in need of financial and medical assistance. Over the years, welfare has become a way of life for its recipients and has created a culture of dependency. Currently, the government is in the process of reforming the welfare system. The welfare reform system’s objective was to get people off the welfare system and onto the

Welfare has been around for than six decades. Since the beginning of its creation people have question whether the programs offered is helping the community. As American taxpayer's, your funds contribute to welfare for others. Due to the large number of members who receives government assistants, it is not that simple to monitor every individual. But, I propose that welfare should be reformed. Society is abusing the access to social welfare and to change the downfall sure to come, the government needs to reform the accessibility and ownership of welfare because it defiles the reason why it was formed, it is creating a dependent nation, and effects taxpayers and people who really need government assistance.

Historically, one of the most economically vulnerable groups in New Zealand and other Western countries are sole-parent families (Family Commissions, 2010). When examining historical influences in New Zealand on sole-parenting, one must consider the influential changes the Second World War era had on families and family structures. Sole-parenthood was not particularly common during the this period, as most women married young and went on to have children while the men worked to provide for their families or went off to war. (Families Commission, 2008, June). Unmarried women who fell pregnant were scrutinized as being unfit mothers and shamed for getting pregnant outside of marriage. These women were heavily encouraged to give their babies up for adoption to allow their children to live a “normal” life and were seen as selfish if they chose to keep the baby (Else, A., 2012).

One of the many reasons why America is called “The Land of Opportunity” is because its citizens can move up in socio-economic status through hard work and dedication. However, when U.S. citizens fall on hard times, government-established programs offer financial assistance.

In the beginning of both codes of ethics and statement of principles it gives a clear detail of what the social worker should be doing to furnish help the community. The same ideas are being shared on each separated document but are formatted in a different way. The preamble list six core values service, social justice, dignity and worth of person, importance of human relationships, integrity, competence. These values are embraced by social workers throughout the profession’s history and are the foundation of social work’s unique purpose and perspective. The preface just listed four bullets on how social workers across the world should reflect on the challenges and dilemmas that face them and make morally informed choices about how to react in each different case.

This essay will consider whether the welfare state has eliminated poverty. It will examine what poverty is and how the definition varies from societies. The essay will look at the aims of the welfare state from conception and how it has changed to present times. The welfare state being analysed is the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It will discuss the nature of the social democratic welfare state and liberal criticisms of the problems this type of state brings. The recent changes to the welfare state will be reviewed and what the consequences of the changes may be. It will then look at recent statistics to determine whether the welfare state has eradicated poverty.

Their position in society was no longer just in the home as a wife, they now had the choice to work outside the home if they wanted to and through the introduction of contraception they could decide when and if they wanted children. They now could make decisions and have an impact on society. Macionis & Plummer (2002:31) highlight the fact that it is evident that sociology was centred on men and the voices of women were devoid. They argue that it was because of feminism and feminist theories that there was a significant change within society for women.

Consequently, in the professional literature, there is a wide gap to be filled in the need for a critical perspective within the profession. We feel that the important contributions made by outside groups- Gay liberation, the women’s movement, mental patients’ union, trade unions and tenants’ associations- reflect lack of confidence in social workers, usually with good reasons. It is not intended to demoralize those social workers who are themselves conditioned and controlled by the very institutional structures, in which they work, but to make them aware of contradictions, and to assist them to develop critical action.

Among the many fights against poverty, improving children’s’ health is one of the major responsibilities. A healthy child becomes a healthy adult, a person who has the ability to create a better life for them, the people around them, their community, and their countries. One of the core UNICEF objectives is to improve the health of the children of the world.