Introduction

Modern states have always constructed social provision around the paid work – welfare relationship; it is this that has in large measure distinguished them from needs-based and arguably universal, but punitively deterrent poor law systems. Governments have always been concerned about the conditions for providing welfare – the nature of entitlements in the language of many policy analysts, but more a matter of conditionality in the mind of government. There has been a long-standing firm conviction, too, that wages are the best form of welfare. In the UK in the early twentieth century the Labour Party fought for a legislative proposal called the Right to Work Bill more fiercely than it did for pensions, while it was not at all keen on the new idea of social insurance because trades unions feared state intrusion into the territory of mutuality. What was at stake, of course, was the fight for the old-style labour contract, to which social insurance was successfully joined and which is now under profound review (Supiot 1999). The settlement at the heart of the modern welfare state was that between capital and labour. But it is increasingly recognised that there was a second key settlement between men and women. The old labour contract was designed first and foremost for the regularly employed male breadwinner and provision had to be made for women.

The gender settlement meant that those marginal to the labour market got cash cover via dependants' benefits.