Men’s Welfare State

Abstract

The more the details of state intervention are examined, the clearer it becomes that the welfare state is essentially different for different people. Women experience the welfare state differently from men. So too do the various classes and people of differing racial and ethnic backgrounds (Williams, 1989). We could also consider welfare from the point of view of the old, the young, people with disabilities, people from different regions (for example, the North/South divide in Britain), and so on. However, I am not going to deal with all these perspectives; my concern is mainly with the gender dimension. In this chapter I am specifically concerned with men’s welfare state and in the next, women’s.