The Stratification of Social Citizenship: Gender and Federalism in the Formation of Old Age Insurance and Aid to Dependent Children

Abstract

Recently, scholars have shown that welfare state development, across nations, has often incorporated social groups in distinct ways that stratify and divide the citizenry.1 Citizenship has become stratified in terms of gender as policymakers have treated men and women differently in the policymaking process, perpetuating ascribed roles and institutionalizing gender inequality. The American welfare state that was fashioned in the New Deal has long been regarded as a “two-tiered” system that divided men and women as “social citizens,” incorporating them into distinct types of programs for economic security and welfare. How was such stratification of citizenship created in the course of the policymaking process? Some scholars have surmised that policymakers' ideas about gender were responsible for gendered outcomes; others have suggested that preexisting institutional arrangements foreordained the “two-tiered” results. Neither of these approaches, however, has offered an adequate explanation.