Dr. Kerry Woodward’s research on post-welfare reform programs for work & marriage

Dr. Kerry Woodward’s co-authored (with Dr. Jennifer Randles) research, “Learning to Labor, Love, and Live: Shaping the Good Neoliberal Citizen in State Work and Marriage Programs” has been published in Sociological Perspectives. This paper brings together two ethnographic studies of post-welfare reform programs for work and marriage, respectively. Drs. Woodward and Randles found that both programs encouraged individual responsibility and economic self-sufficiency by teaching poor parents skill-based strategies for regulating their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. They argue that welfare programs’ attempts to create good neoliberal citizens obscure the structural factors that sustain poverty and the need for welfare.