Gender, Work and Social Control

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Jackie Gulland

   Pages 1-22

3. From National Insurance in 1911 to Employment and Support Allowance

   • Jackie Gulland

   Pages 23-31

4. Only Those Unconscious or Asleep: Definitions of Incapacity for Work

   • Jackie Gulland

   Pages 33-52

5. The Necessity of Questioning the Doctor: Medical and Other Evidence

   • Jackie Gulland

   Pages 53-78

6. Bridge Toll Attendants and Driving a Quiet Horse: The Labour Market and Structural Barriers to Work

   • Jackie Gulland

   Pages 79-107

7. Fit for the Ordinary Work of the Home: Women and Domestic Work

   • Jackie Gulland

   Pages 109-133

8. Not Incapable of Playing Bingo: Ideas About “Work” in Incapacity Benefits

   • Jackie Gulland

   Pages 135-154

9. Immoral Conduct: Moral Regulation in Incapacity Benefits

   • Jackie Gulland

   Pages 155-181

10. Unacceptable Snooping: Sick Visitors and Other Methods of Surveillance

    • Jackie Gulland

    Pages 183-202

11. Conclusion

    • Jackie Gulland

    Pages 203-209

12. Back Matter

    Pages 211-241

    PDF

This book uses previously unknown archive materials to explore the meaning of the term ‘incapable of work’ over a hundred years (1911–present). Nowadays, people claiming disability benefits must undergo medical tests to assess whether or not they are capable of work. Media reports and high profile campaigns highlight the problems with this system and question whether the process is fair. These debates are not new and, in this book, Jackie Gulland looks at similar questions about how to assess people’s capacity for work from the beginning of the welfare state in the early 20th century. Amongst many subject areas, she explores women’s roles in the domestic sphere and how these were used to consider their capacity for work in the labour market. The book concludes that incapacity benefit decision making is really about work: what work is, what it is not, who should do it, who should be compensated when work does not provide a sufficient income and who should be exempted from any requirement to look for it.

• Welfare State
• Disability Rights
• Benefits
• Sociology
• History
• Gender
• gender, sexuality and law
• disability studies
• ethnicity, class, gender and crime

“Gender, Work and Social Control: A Century of Disability Benefits is a carefully researched book that will be of interest to Critical Social Policy readers. Its strength lies in the extensive use of appeal hearing notes and decisions to bring to life the struggles over an extended period that sick and disabled people have had in accessing incapacity benefits. In doing so, it demonstrates various means through which the state and, under the National Insurance Act 1911 its proxies, have sought to limit the number of incapacity benefit claims by denying claimants were incapacitated for wage-labour, but, in contrast, were malingering, hiding their displeasure for wage-labour behind claims of sickness and disablement” (Critical Social Policy, Chris Grover, Lancaster University, UK)

• Edinburgh, UK

  Jackie Gulland

Jackie Gulland is Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her work is inter-disciplinary and crosses the fields of social policy, sociology, social work, history and law. She has held a series of lectureships and research posts in higher education, crossing the disciplines of social policy, sociology and law, with a continuing focus on socio-legal issues and research methods.

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