Introduction
Under Universal Credit (UC), the extension of active labour market policies (ALMPs) have increasingly targeted low-income parents for mandatory work-first interventions. These policies are designed to encourage rapid labour market entry, thus sidelining the work of unpaid parental care and eroding families’ choices to determine how to manage work and care responsibilities (Wright, Reference Wright2023; Andersen, Reference Andersen2024). The devaluation of parental care is occurring at a time when parents are facing mounting challenges: more working families are falling below the poverty line (JRF, 2024), core and family-related public services have been subject to extensive cuts, and mental health challenges for children and young people are rising (Newlove-Delgado et al., Reference Newlove-Delgado, Marcheselli, Williams, Mandalia, Dennes, McManus, Savic, Treloar, Croft and Ford2023). Parents need to navigate these challenges whilst facing increased intrusion of the state through rising work-related conditionality.
Parental care is gendered: in the UK, mothers still take on the majority of caring responsibilities for children, but lived gendered realities are largely written out of UC policy and guidance (Wright, Reference Wright2023). Campaigners (CPAG, Gingerbread) and researchers (Bennett and Sung, Reference Bennett and Sung2013; Millar, Reference Millar and Hallett2018; Wright, Reference Wright2023) have evidenced how mothers, as primary carers and lone parents, are disproportionately impacted by changes in welfare-to-work requirements. Given the gendered impacts of UC, there has been less focus on fathers, however, how fathers navigate work and care responsibilities is important to explore.
Across Jobcentres, Work Coaches are responsible for activating parents, delivering UC policy, and personalising support. However, very few empirical studies have examined how frontline staff implement policy and adapt delivery to meet families’ needs. This article draws on research with Work Coaches and parents to understand how parental activation is experienced and enacted under UC. Using the experience of coupled parents, we examine delivery implications for both mothers and fathers, adopting a gendered street-level approach (Durose and Lowndes, Reference Durose and Lowndes2024) to shed light on Work Coach-parent interactions.
Parenting in challenging times
Low-income families face mounting challenges in the UK, navigating a complex social security system, inflexible or poor-quality work, and caring commitments. Support for families and children has decreased, a trend termed the ‘increased privatisation of parenting in the UK’, where parents increasingly shoulder the responsibility of bringing up children with declining state support (Wood and Bennett, Reference Wood and Bennett2023), with greater burdens often falling on mothers (Jupp et al., Reference Jupp, Bowlby, Franklin and Hall2019).
From 2010, welfare provision for families has been subject to significant cuts, with social security spending on children falling by £10 billion over the decade to 2019/2020 (Cooper and Hills, Reference Cooper and Hills2021), and child benefit losing almost a quarter of its real value (CPAG, 2023). Two austerity-era policies – the two-child limit, restricting means-tested additions for children to two per family for those born after April 2017, and the benefit cap, limiting the total amount of social security a household can receive, have had significant negative impacts, particularly on larger families (Patrick et al., Reference Patrick, Andersen, Reader, Reeves and Stewart2023). In addition, austerity policies have left crucial public provision for families (such as parks and libraries) drastically reduced (Institute for Government, 2020). The devolved nations have attempted to compensate for these impacts, for example through the Scottish Child Payment and free school meals for primary school children in Wales. In England, there were no attempts to support families or reduce child poverty under the Conservative government (2010 coalition, 2015–2024), although the incoming Labour Government is developing a Child Poverty Strategy (Cabinet Office, 2024). There have been some localised efforts in England (for example, Manchester City Council’s Anti-Poverty Strategy (2023)), but local leaders acknowledge that without central government investment these efforts will have limited impact (Hansard HC debate, 2024, col.275).
One of the key challenges for working parents is patchy and costly childcare provision. Most parents are eligible for some financial support for childcare, but the system is complex, with multiple streams of financial support, each with their own rules, restrictions, and application processes (Wood, Reference Wood2021). Despite the recent extension of ‘free’ childcare hours for working parents from April 2024, there are concerns about funding, delivery capacity, and additional costs for parents (NAO, 2024). Means-tested support is available through UC, where working parents can receive up to 85 per cent of childcare costs. However, there are limitations to the UC childcare offer: parents are required to pay fees upfront and reclaim in arrears, with discretionary help for upfront costs limited to parents starting new jobs or increasing their work hours; financial support is tapered off as earnings increase above a certain threshold; the amount awarded varies if earnings change due to monthly means-testing; and parents endure a monthly administrative burden in evidencing their childcare costs (Wood et al., Reference Wood, Griffiths and Pearce2025).
With the backdrop of declining support for families, children and young people’s mental health needs are growing. One in five children aged eight to sixteen in England has a probable mental health concern in 2023, compared to one in nine in 2017 (Newlove-Delgado et al., Reference Newlove-Delgado, Marcheselli, Williams, Mandalia, Dennes, McManus, Savic, Treloar, Croft and Ford2023), with rates and access problems highest amongst those in low-income families (The Office of the Children’s Commissioner, 2020). Many conditions do not qualify for health- or caring-related benefits or remain undiagnosed, and therefore caring-related support is not accessible for parents.
Parental care is gendered. Whilst fathers are taking on more unpaid care, mothers still shoulder the responsibility of caring for children (Jupp et al., Reference Jupp, Bowlby, Franklin and Hall2019). In the UK, parental policies that support shared care are limited, there is low provision of parental leave (Atkinson, Reference Atkinson2023) and low take-up, with estimates suggesting only 2 per cent of eligible new fathers took leave in 2019 (Howlett, Reference Howlett2020). Whilst fathers’ take-up of care responsibilities has shifted slightly, women’s role in the labour market has seen dramatic changes since the 1950s, with the adoption of an ‘adult worker model’ – where both men and women are expected to engage in full-time work (Lewis, Reference Lewis2009). However, women also face ongoing marginalisation and challenges in the labour market; women are more likely to be in lower-paid professions and face job insecurity, and mothers are more likely to work part-time and have periods out of the labour market, which can limit their access to well-paid, good quality work (Wright, Reference Wright2023).
In the UK, parents on a low income – particularly mothers – have to navigate parenthood, care, and working, within a threadbare network of support in terms of benefits and services. Parents in receipt of UC must traverse these challenges within the conditionality regulations and welfare-to-work framework, which pushes parents towards increasing engagement with poor quality work (Jones et al., Reference Jones, Wright and Scullion2024), and erodes choice for parents in how they manage work and care responsibilities.
Active labour market policy and parents
The growth of ALMPs, where working-age social security recipients are beholden to certain conditions (Fletcher, Reference Fletcher2015; Watts and Fitzpatrick, Reference Watts and Fitzpatrick2018), has seen increased intervention for parents since the 1990s across European welfare states (Ingold and Etherington, Reference Ingold and Etherington2013). In the UK, mandatory engagement with employment services has reached lone parents and primary caregivers, the majority of whom are women, and increasingly includes those in work with low earnings. This ‘ubiquitous conditionality’ (Dwyer and Wright, Reference Dwyer and Wright2014), underpinned by sanctions, has been intensified and extended since the introduction of UC, a working-age benefit that merged six in-work and out-of-work social security payments (Millar and Bennett, Reference Millar and Bennett2017).
UC claimants are compelled to enter work or increase their earnings as quickly as possible, with a work-first activation approach (DWP, 2022). Conditionality requirements centre on searching for work full-time, with regular meetings with Jobcentre Work Coaches. Parents are afforded certain allowances from the 35-hour-a-week job search required under UC, however, couples must designate a lead carer, which means care responsibilities cannot be shared and couples are divided into carer or worker roles, reinforcing divisions of labour within the household. Lead carers have lower work requirements, as partial recognition of their caring role. But from Spring 2023 onwards the work requirements on lead carers have been tightened. As Table 1 shows, the difference between the two members of a couple has eroded, and it disappears by the time the youngest child reaches teenage years. These changes, alongside increases in the earnings thresholds, mean an estimated additional 700,000 lead carers – the majority of whom are women – will be targeted for activation (HM Treasury, 2023). For couples, the targeting of primary carers will have implications for both parents, as there is no flexibility for parental responsibilities to be shared, limiting choices for families and reinforcing a one or one-and-a-half breadwinner family model.
Table 1. Work related requirement for lead carers and lone parents
Source: Andersen (Reference Andersen2020) and Department for Work & Pensions (2024).
Given increased conditionality for mothers, there has been less attention on the experiences of fathers (see Griffiths et al., Reference Griffiths, Wood, Bennett and Millar2020, Reference Griffiths, Wood, Bennett and Millar2022 as a notable exception). Lead carer policies discourage shared parental care of children. This is especially problematic for fathers in low-paid and insecure work who are more likely to be struggling to gain positive identity through work, yet continue to be restrained in achieving positive identity through the parental role (Tarrant, Reference Tarrant2021). Instead of moves towards more gender-equal parenting, the opposite is occurring, with a reduction in parental identity for both mothers and fathers. There are no policies which incentivise fathers to work part-time or take on care responsibilities – despite research suggesting this is the best way to increase the value of unpaid care (Nedelsky, Reference Nedelsky, Bertrand and Panitch2023).
Declining support for parents and increased focus on parents in work is indicative of wider global trends towards the devaluing of unpaid care, where care is not considered to hold the same economic value as labour market participation (Westman, Reference Westman2019; Richards-Gray, Reference Richards-Gray2023). Most relevant for this article, the devaluation of care within conditional activation policy has implications for the relationship between state and citizens (Andersen, Reference Andersen2020), through ‘limit[ing] the entitlements of social citizenship by increasing work related requirements for accessing collective social security benefits’ (Dwyer and Wright, Reference Dwyer and Wright2014: 33). Moreover, ‘responsible’ citizenship has been firmly cast as being in paid work, with the value of unpaid care not recognised, and the choice for parents to care for their children or pursue their desired work-care balance eroded (Millar, Reference Millar and Hallett2018; Andersen, Reference Andersen2024). In policy discussions, there is little mention of rights for parents to choose how work and care are organised (Andersen, Reference Andersen2024).
A gendered approach to street-level analysis
Work Coaches are frontline staff based in Jobcentres responsible for delivering policy objectives, providing employment support, enforcing conditionality requirements, and encouraging employment seeking behaviours (WPC, 2016; NAO, 2018). Indeed, the Work and Pensions Select Committee (2016) has described them as:
A new kind of public servant, possessing new skills and operating on a new agenda. They will need to address structural barriers to progression, such as access to childcare, skills development and job opportunities, on a personalised basis.
Work Coaches are expected to provide a personalised service ‘tailored to individuals’ specific needs and circumstances’ (Rotik and Perry, Reference Rotik and Perry2012: 7). This means Work Coaches have some degree of discretion in their role, but (as discussed in the previous section) are required to work within clear policy and delivery parameters, including conditionality regulations. Questions have been raised around whether personalisation can be achieved in the context of fewer Jobcentres and high caseloads (Finn and Peromingo, Reference Finn and Peromingo2019), with research highlighting that employment support can be of poor quality, does not match work aspirations, and can vary by Work Coach (Wright et al., Reference Wright, Dwyer, Mcneill and Stewart2016; Dall and Danneris, Reference Dall and Danneris2019). There has been limited research exploring how Work Coaches manage the challenges of navigating complex policy aims while being expected to respond to individual circumstances and needs. Analysing these spaces and interactions can enhance understanding of where and how policy is being enforced or negotiated at the street-level – termed as the ‘black-box of policy implementation’ or the ‘missing middle of policy analysis’ (Caswell et al., Reference Caswell, Kupka, Larsen, van Berkel, van Berkel, Caswell, Kupka and Larsen2017).
How policy is operationalised in welfare-to-work agencies has become its own field of enquiry following Lipsky’s (Reference Lipsky2010 (1980)) conceptualisation of the ‘street-level bureaucrat’. In examining the street-level, Lipsky evidenced how frontline staff’s decisions and coping strategies determine how policy is realised in their day-to-day interactions with the public. There has been considerable attention in the literature on how different policy, governance and organisational contexts (van Berkel et al., Reference van Berkel, Caswell, Kupka and Larsen2017), and personal characteristics or views of frontline workers, impact day-to-day working practices (Blomberg et al., Reference Blomberg, Kallio, Kroll and Niemela2015). There is often an emphasis within ALMPs on the need to change claimants’ attitudes to work. Subsequently, street-level bureaucrats must make ‘moral judgements’ about their clients (Hasenfeld, Reference Hasenfeld2000; Prior and Barnes, Reference Prior and Barnes2011), and categorise clients as ‘good’ and deserving or ‘bad’ and undeserving (Rosenthal and Peccei, Reference Rosenthal and Peccei2006; O’Sullivan et al., Reference O’Sullivan, McGann and Considine2019). However, Zacka (Reference Zacka2017) finds that the values of frontline workers are by no means fixed, but are constantly tested and re-negotiated through their day-to-day practices.
The gendered dimensions of street-level contexts, practices and dispositions has received attention in a small, but growing, body of literature that have explored frontline practices through a ‘gendered lens’ (Durose and Lowndes, Reference Durose and Lowndes2024). However, there have only been a few empirical studies on ALMPs that use a gendered analysis framework, despite women increasingly being targeted for activation and drawn into street-level encounters (e.g. Mansson and Delander, Reference Mansson and Delander2011; Hansen, Reference Hansen2018). Developing empirical research that explores gendered dynamics will ‘facilitate a more nuanced analysis of the effects of welfare reforms in terms of gender roles and relationships within the household’ (Bennett and Sung, Reference Bennett and Sung2013).
Recent work by Durose and Lowndes (Reference Durose and Lowndes2024) puts forward the argument for applying a ‘gendered lens’ to street-level bureaucracy and the importance of centring gender in analysing discretion. Drawing on feminist institutionalism, which examines how institutional ‘rules’ and contexts ‘shape behaviour and outcomes in gendered ways’, and street-level bureaucracy, Durose and Lowndes (Reference Durose and Lowndes2024: 1027) establish three analytical propositions: first, street-level bureaucrats’ discretion is shaped through working in gendered institutional contexts; second, as gendered actors street-level bureaucrats decision-making is informed through their own gendered disposition; third, street-level discretion has gendered effects.
Durose and Lowndes’ analysis is particularly relevant in the case of UC policy for mothers and fathers, as gender is not acknowledged in policy texts, and care responsibilities – largely the domain of women – are devalued (Wright, Reference Wright2023). Given the central role of Work Coaches’ in the delivery of UC, and with increased activation of parents, a gendered analysis of what is happening at the street-level warrants further investigation, as it is through frontline workers’ discretionary decision-making that policy is often realised (Lipsky, Reference Lipsky2010 (1980)).
Methodological approach
This paper draws on findings from two qualitative complimentary research studies. An ESRC funded study (ES/R004811/1) exploring the experiences of couples claiming UC (Griffiths et al., Reference Griffiths, Wood, Bennett and Millar2020, Reference Griffiths, Wood, Bennett and Millar2022) and a PhD Project ‘Welfare-to-work at the Street-Level in the Household’ (Magnus, Reference Magnus2023). The PhD research was auxiliary to the main study, resulting in an ongoing dialogue between the researchers. By bringing together two qualitative studies (see also Wright and Patrick, Reference Wright and Patrick2019), we sought to address a gap in the research – to understand how activation policy for parents was experienced and enacted at the Jobcentre. Both sets of data were analysed using MAXQDA software package, and a thematic analysis approach was used to ‘acknowledge[s] the ways individuals make meaning of their experiences, and, in turn, the ways the broader social context impinges on those meanings’ (Braun and Clarke, Reference Braun and Clarke2006: 9). The projects were reviewed by the University of Bath research ethics committee, and pseudonyms have been used to ensure participant anonymity.
Ten semi-structured interviews with Work Coaches were collected as part of the PhD research project in March 2020. The Work Coaches (six women, four men) were based across three different Jobcentres in England. Most participants were over forty-five, with two participants aged between twenty-five and thirty-five years old. Four had been employed by the DWP for under five years and six had been in the civil service for more than fifteen years. The first two visits to Jobcentres occurred before lockdown measures were introduced, with the final set of interviews taking place remotely. Process-focused and ‘how’ questions allowed for an exploration of some of the more politically sensitive aspects of Universal Credit, such as sanctioning, which a few Work Coaches expressed discomfort discussing in the interview setting (Duke, Reference Duke2002).
Interviews with parents on UC were conducted in 2018/2019 (sixty-seven parents – fifty-eight in couples and nine lone parents) and again in 2020 (fifty parents – forty-four in couples and six lone parents) as part of the couples study. Lone parents who had previous experience of being in a couple were included. Forty-three were living in England and sixteen in Scotland. The interview questions focused on experiences of navigating life, work, money, parenting, care and relationships whilst on Universal Credit, and included questions on Work Coach interactions and conditionality. The parents ages ranged between eighteen and fifty-five, and the age of their youngest child between ten months and sixteen years. The majority were white British and all couples were in female/male relationships. Most of the parents had dependent children, however, twelve parents had children under eighteen living outside of the household, with another parent or in the care system. Both partners in couples were interviewed, meaning that fathers’ voices were included in the research – which can often be a gap in social security research. Thirty-nine of those interviewed at phase one were mothers and twenty-eight were fathers. Nearly all of the phase one interviews took part in participants’ homes. Phase two interviews were conducted over the phone due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Couples were interviewed separately and then also jointly. Great care was taken by the researchers to ensure that information shared by each partner in their separate interviews was not disclosed to their partner.
It has been difficult to engage frontline welfare-to-work staff in research in recent years, particularly DWP staff. Although there were a limited number of interviews with Work Coaches, the experiences of parents interviewed suggest that these interviews have wider applicability than just those Work Coaches interviewed. Thus, this research was in the rare position of being able to explore Work Coach perspectives, that have largely been absent from the social policy field.
Limits and pockets of discretion at the Jobcentre
UC’s conditional work-first approach to activation created clear parameters for how Work Coaches engaged with parents. UC policy and Jobcentre guidance set out who is subject to mandated work-first activation, how many work search hours are expected, how conditionality easements are applied, and what actions warrant a sanction. As noted above, for parents, certain work search allowances are given to the lead carer of young children, however, these allowances are restricted to one parent. Work Coaches and parents experienced the policy parameters differently. Work Coaches felt that whilst there was a tension between upholding UC policy and the aim of personalisation, there were nevertheless pockets of discretion available to them to tailor policy for parents. By contrast, parents experienced activation at the Jobcentre as creating little room for their choices to be recognised and for policy to be effectively adapted to reflect the needs of families. This section explores how UC policy, namely conditionality requirements, work-first and sanctions, and Jobcentre contexts shaped Work Coach-parent interactions.
The tailoring of conditionality requirements is centred on the Claimant Commitment, a personalised document drawn up by Work Coaches. However, the parameters of the Claimant Commitment are clearly established in legislation and operational guidance (SSAC, 2019). For coupled parents, work search hours centred on their lead carer status (see Table 1), with the other parent subject to full work-search and afforded no flexibilities for care responsibilities. The Work Coaches interviewed relied on this framework for setting work search hours and did not have options to recognise the care responsibilities of the other parent:
If they are part of a couple … we look at the ages of the children to tailor that commitment for that person. Because, that person’s got you know responsibility for the children, which only one of them should have. – Angela, Jobcentre Work Coach
Work Coaches saw the lead carer allowances as a ‘flexibility’ embedded in the policy design, and as ‘making sense’ in allowing one partner to care for the children, reflecting how they felt most families organised work and care. There was little acknowledgement of how the policy limited families who shared parental responsibility, despite all the Work Coaches interviewed having parents on their caseload who wanted their shared responsibilities taken into account. Work Coaches noted the gendered differentiation, and said they primarily saw mothers in the lead carer role. Some Work Coaches described giving additional flexibilities to lead carers, for example, not expecting lead carers to take on jobs that required weekend or evening hours because of the difficulties in finding childcare during those times. However, there were no examples of such flexibilities being offered to the non-lead (typically male) partners, with switching lead carer roles the only option available.
Parents who shared childcare responsibilities found that work search expectations could not be adapted to their families’ needs and limited their work-care choices. The impact on families was gendered, with women more likely to take on the lead carer role, but nevertheless some felt that old fashioned values were being imposed on their families.
I think if they could find a way to split it … it would be better … this isn’t the olden days, you know, it’s not always the man going to work and the woman staying at home. – Nathan, male, non-lead carer, couple with one child
Parents struggled with the rigid regulations and inflexibility afforded by the Work Coaches to non-lead carers, who were largely fathers. Fathers were frustrated by how lead carer/non-lead carer policy limited their involvement in parenting. Many fathers needed to work long hours and often worked shifts to meet UC requirements and the financial needs of their families, meaning they could go for days without seeing their children:
I was out of here first thing in the morning at … say five o’clock…. and I wasn’t getting home here til nine at night….Four days a week… and then [daughter] came up to me one night and said, daddy… I can never get to see you anymore. – Joseph, male, non-lead carer, couple with two children
Non-lead parents were often met with harsh responses from Work Coaches, including one father who said he was sanctioned for being five minutes late to a meeting when he had been supporting his partner in feeding their baby. In the few couples where mothers were not the lead carer, there were also examples of sanctioning, in one case a mother was sanctioned when she was looking after her sick daughter and could not complete her work search requirements.
In addition to siloing care responsibilities to one parent, there are no allowances afforded for broader childcare responsibilities, including children not living in the home, older children (full work search starts for lead carers when youngest child is thirteen), or children with additional care needs that might not have a formal diagnosis. Several parents described how their older children had complex care needs, and that they needed to be at home to look after them, yet their parental role was not recognised, and instead they were expected to be in work:
My eldest has just been diagnosed with social anxiety and low mood, so she’s been really struggling and she’s on a part-time timetable at school, but the Jobcentre still expect me to go out and work. I’m like, well I’m sorry but if the school phone and say that she’s having to come home, I need to be there. But they don’t understand that. – Laila, female, lead carer, couple with two children
Parents found work-first approaches to activation deeply frustrating, as they felt that it would not lead to sustainable employment or higher paid work. Some described their Work Coach meetings in negative terms, including ‘nagging’, ‘hounding’, ‘hassling’, and ‘badgering’. Few were supported with the aim of achieving a good work-family balance, but most felt pushed to take on any job, rather than one that would work for their families. There are gendered implications here as mothers often face additional challenges when working. Lone mothers and most coupled mothers usually had been the primary carer from when children were very small, which often created gaps in their employment history and the need for flexible and part-time jobs as their children got older. Mothers also tended to be the ones arranging the childcare and being responsible for nursery payments, which created an additional burden in navigating the payoffs between often low-paid work, high childcare costs, and needs of their children. The lead carer easements did not fully meet these needs, being tied just to ages of children and not taking other caring circumstances into account.
Work-first and intensive work search conditionality requirements are underpinned by sanctions, most typically applied for missed appointments or failing to complete adequate work search (Webster, Reference Webster2020). The role of Work Coaches in implementing sanctions was not entirely clear to most parents. Work Coaches refer a case to a decision-maker, who ultimately makes the decision on whether a sanction is applied. Work Coaches interviewed were keen to make the distinction between their role and that of the decision-maker, however, importantly, Work Coaches make the referral in the first instance. Among the parents, some described sanctioning as a Work Coach decision, while others felt it was unfair that the decision was made by an unknown person. Parents were also unclear on how much discretion Work Coaches had, and even those who had good relationships with Work Coaches were worried that Work Coaches needed to ‘do their job’ and were beholden to UC policy. The relative position of Work Coaches within the wider Jobcentre mechanism and uncertainty over who had decision-making power was a source of anxiety and insecurity for parents:
I don’t think she’ll sanction us for no reason, but I think if it comes to it she’ll have to. – Angie, female, lead carer, couple with two children
Despite the uncertainty over how decisions were made, many parents found that Work Coaches had different approaches to monitoring conditionality requirements and imposing sanctions. Some parents were afforded flexibilities such as Work Coaches writing up job search entries for them, and others experienced leniency around work search hours and missing appointments (Magnus, Reference Magnus2023). Conversely, others experienced harsh responses, which could vary between different Work Coaches:
I’d been signing on for weeks up here, and everyone was saying that my signing on was perfect, like I was doing enough job seeking and there was just this one woman … the two times I went to see her … she sanctioned us saying that my job seeking wasn’t enough. – Rick, male, non-lead carer, couple with two children
This range in approaches was also evident in how Work Coaches described their assessments of job search requirements, with some saying they did not require written evidence but preferred to talk to people. Work Coaches also expressed different views on the purpose of sanctioning; some saw it as an essential component of policy, whereas others questioned whether sanctions were a helpful tool – ‘it just pisses people off’. These Work Coaches were more likely to describe being lenient around work searching and said they rarely, or never used sanctions.
As male partners were more likely to be subject to full conditionality, they were more likely to be sanctioned. However, as we can see in Rick’s account, the impact of a sanction was felt by the whole family – ‘she sanctioned us’. A few Work Coaches were aware of the consequences for the wider family.
I feel the consequences impact on the other partner who may do everything they need to do, and on the children, because it takes a pot of money away from them. So I feel that they’re being punished. It just doesn’t quite sit right with me. – Karen, Jobcentre Work Coach
Parents and Work Coaches did want relationships built on trust and understanding; however, there was low investment to support Work Coach-parent interactions. High caseloads, limited time for appointments, and Work Coach turnover limited opportunities for relationship building and understanding parents challenges. Both parents and Work Coaches were frustrated by the length of the appointments, which often left time for only a ‘catch-up’ and a review of work search activities. Work Coaches wanted to have more control over how long and how often they met with parents, and understood the frustration felt by those on their caseload. Parents accounts’ showed the brevity and rigidity of meetings, and many had changes in their Work Coach, which could be especially hard when they had to re-tell complex and difficult stories.
Work Coaches had few options to tailor UC policy to parents’ needs. Work Coaches drew on UC categorisations to determine how to navigate support for parents, relying on the lead carer regulations to judge whether a parent was afforded flexibilities. Pockets of discretion did emerge around enforcing conditionality requirements but the variation in Work Coach approaches was a source of worry and potential harm for parents in the case of sanctions. These findings suggest that fathers, who were largely not the lead carer, were afforded fewer flexibilities to accommodate caring responsibilities. This has the effect of re-enforcing gendered divisions of labour in the household. The limitations of the Work Coach-parent encounter raise questions about how Work Coaches can effectively understand the challenges for parents and adapt policy to meet their needs.
Good mothers, bad mothers, and missing fathers: moral assumptions at the street-level
Competing values around care emerged in Work Coach and parental accounts of the challenges of navigating work and parenthood on a low income. Research has highlighted the ways in which moral assumptions are often apparent in the way people conceptualise being a good parent (Duncan and Edwards, Reference Duncan and Edwards1999; Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson, Reference Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson2016). This moral view of parenthood was found in many of the accounts of the Work Coaches and was focused largely on mothers, whereas work and care expectations for fathers were not mentioned in the interviews. The previous section examined how UC policy and Jobcentre contexts meant that there were limited spaces where frontline activation practices could be tailored. Here, we examine how different moral dispositions around parenthood were at play at the street-level, and question how these different dispositions shape frontline decision-making.
Work Coaches did not always consider the work involved with managing a household or looking after children. This devaluation of unpaid care was evident in interviews with Work Coaches, where some mothers were described as wanting to ‘sit at home and get their benefit’, with the work of looking after children not acknowledged. A few Work Coaches had a more understanding view of the challenges parents were facing, and often related this to their own experiences of being a parent, or having worked as a Lone Parent adviser. Whilst some Work Coaches appeared more sympathetic, there was a mis-match between Work Coaches and parents’ understanding of the challenges of parenthood, and the support on offer. This was most evident in accounts of the UC childcare offer. Work Coaches described the childcare offer as a positive for families, and largely did not appear to be aware of challenging aspects of the policy other than the upfront costs. The Work Coaches were surprised about the low take-up of the childcare element, showing a lack of attention to the work-childcare challenge and shortfalls in current provision. A few Work Coaches questioned whether the low uptake was due to mothers’ motivations to return to work, rather than issues with the support on offer.
If they don’t want to go back to work, that [upfront childcare costs] is a good excuse. I mean if they really want to work they just think well, I’ll find a way. I might just borrow some off mum for the first bit. – Anne, Jobcentre Work Coach
Eleven parents had experience of using the childcare element of UC, several of whom experienced multiple barriers – not just upfront costs, but also having to submit monthly evidence, being reimbursed in arrears, and the way that the UC childcare element was means tested leaving them struggling to pay childcare costs alongside their regular living expenses. But parents described how there was no scope in interactions with Work Coaches to question the overall goal of being in work, or to engage in the real and present challenges parents faced:
I’ve got no problem searching for work, it’s just … you can’t turn around and be like, that eighty-five per cent childcare paid I don’t notice, we’re worse off at the moment working, you can’t say anything like that. – Erica, lead carer, couple with two children
Competing moral assumptions around being a good parent emerged in claimants and Work Coaches accounts. Work Coaches held that being in work, being an active labour market participant, was more valuable than performing unpaid care. Although a few Work Coaches spoke in gender neutral terms, mothers’ attitudes to work came under the closest scrutiny. Some Work Coaches felt that being a good mother meant being in work and using formal childcare, and did not consider how others might understand a good mother as someone who prioritises caring for their children. These Work Coaches felt that part of their job was to challenge what they saw as negative attitudes to work, and to demonstrate to mothers that not only would they be in a better financial position, but would be better parents to their children by being in work, or as one Work Coach described – being a good ‘role model’ for their children. Work Coaches tended to group mothers in terms of their ‘willingness’ to work, as has been explored in other frontline studies (Sztandar-Sztanderska, Reference Sztandar-Sztanderska2009).
Generally, it tends to fall into two categories. People who want to work … and ones that categorically don’t want to work until they need to work … Sometimes they have a fear of missing out! They genuinely say oh I’ll miss them walk or miss them talk for the first time. – Sarah, Jobcentre Work Coach
Work Coaches who had been working mothers themselves drew on their experiences to emphasise the value they placed on being in-work.
I think back and I’m thinking when I had two kids I held a full-time job, what are they on about you know? – Tara, Jobcentre Work Coach
On the other side of the encounter, parents often felt that they were being judged in their interactions with their Work Coach.
Their approach to everyone is that we are lazy people who don’t want to work. – Isla, female, lead carer, couple with two children
Work Coaches’ accounts revealed gendered moral assumptions about parenthood, with low value ascribed to mothers providing unpaid care and good mothers understood to be in work, whereas scrutiny of fathers’ role as caregivers and workers was less apparent. How policy plays through these assumptions was evident in experiences of the UC childcare offer, with parents experiencing the support as limited and Work Coaches understanding low take-up a result of mothers’ willingness to work. These moral positionings, underpinned by the work-first emphasis and stringent policy regulations, are also likely to be influenced by the lack of time to get to know parents, as well as wider societal devaluation of unpaid care. These combined factors compound to a sense of opposition between Work Coaches and parents in terms of work and care, experienced by both parents and Work Coaches, which was articulated by Anita, a Jobcentre Work Coach: ‘they’re not thinking on the same side that we are’.
Discussion
Successive changes to conditionality requirements has brought more parents, especially mothers, under mandatory work-first interventions at the Jobcentre. There has been an erosion of allowances for parental responsibilities, with almost all parents (except those with young children) expected to be active labour market participants. This expectation is mirrored by the expansion of privatised childcare, with parents pushed to use the childcare element of UC, despite limitations to the support on offer. Moreover, many children, especially since the pandemic, face complex needs that are not accommodated for in childcare, education, or healthcare systems, and support for families has been eroded in the last decade. As more parents are brought under conditionality, it is important to understand how parents are activated at the street-level.
Here we return to Durose and Lowndes (Reference Durose and Lowndes2024) gendered lens of street-level bureaucracy. Our findings demonstrate how the street-level activation of parents occurs within gendered institutional contexts, with work-care assumptions embedded in policy design; discretion is shaped by Work Coaches own gendered dispositions, which primarily emerged in moral assumptions on mothers’ labour market participation; and discretion has gendered effects, in determining how parents organised work and care responsibilities.
In respect to gendered institutional contexts, the targeting of parents for labour market activation under UC created clear parameters for Work Coaches. Central policy levers, including work-first, lead carer conditionality, and childcare support, have re-drawn expectations for mothers, whose caring role had historically been protected (Wright, Reference Wright2023). Despite DWP claims of personalisation, our research found that Work Coaches had limited spaced to adapt policy, with small pockets of discretion emerging around the enforcement of conditionality requirements. Work Coaches drew on lead carer/non-lead carer regulations to set conditionality requirements for parents, with no flexibilities given to non-lead carers, primarily fathers. There was little interrogation by Work Coaches of how UC policy reinforces gendered divisions of labour. Parents were frustrated by the lack of choice available in deciding how to manage care-work responsibilities. Importantly, fieldwork was carried out before the 2023 reductions to parental conditionality allowances – with these allowances almost completely removed. Further research with both Work Coaches and parents is needed to understand the effects of this policy change.
In terms of the gendered dispositions of Work Coaches, moral assumptions and judgements were made about good and bad mothers in relation to their labour market participation, whilst fathers’ roles as workers and parents received less scrutiny. There was a general castigation of mothers wanting to be stay-at-home parents, understanding the good mother as one in work. Some Work Coaches explained their position in relation to their experiences as parents, however, given that UC policy values labour market participation, it is difficult to untangle how policy and personal values impact moral assumptions made at the street-level. These moral assumptions could have policy implications, given how the lack of childcare support take-up was sometimes put down to willingness to work over issues with policy design.
The gendered impacts on parents were apparent across our interviews. Parents described how their choices in how they managed their work and care responsibilities were restricted, and how they often felt judged, not believed, or were viewed as workshy by Jobcentre staff. There is considerable danger in not recognising fathers whilst placing more pressure on mothers to be both in work and caring. The lack of recognition of their paternal role can leave fathers feeling unrecognised and question their usefulness as a father, potentially playing out in home dynamics.
We conclude that UC policy limited choices for both parents – in respect to work-care decisions – and for Work Coaches, with limited spaces for frontline discretion. Our findings show how the devaluation of unpaid childcare was evident in both UC policy and Work Coaches’ personal values. The current approach to labour market activation puts Work Coaches and parents in an adversarial position, where Work Coaches are required to make judgements within a work-at-all-costs framework, and the voice of low-income parents is often overlooked. Additionally, low investment in Jobcentre capacity means that Work Coaches and parents have limited interactions, which has serious implications for Work Coach-parent relationships. The Labour government is currently undertaking a review of employment support and Universal Credit: gender, care, and parents’ voices should be at the forefront of these reviews.
Acknowledgments
With thanks to Jane Millar for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and thanks to our colleagues on the Universal Credit and Couples Project, Rita Griffiths and Fran Bennett. Our thanks also to the research participants for their time and sharing their experiences.
Funding statement
‘Couples balancing work, money and care: exploring the shifting landscape under Universal Credit’ was funded by the ESRC (ES/R004811/1). ‘Welfare-to-work at the Street-Level and in the Household’ was a PhD project funded by the University of Bath.
Competing interests
The authors declare none.
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