Breaking Down Dependency

1
Breaking Down Dependency

• Lawrence M. Mead
• Department of Politics
• New York University

2
Books

• Beyond Entitlement The Social Obligations of
  Citizenship (Free Press, 1986).
• The New Politics of Poverty The Nonworking Poor
  in America (Basic Books, 1992).
• The New Paternalism Supervisory Approaches to
  Poverty (edited, Brookings, 1997).
• Government Matters Welfare Reform in Wisconsin
  (Princeton University Press, 2004).

3
Articles

• Welfare Reform and the Platonic Master
  Science, Public Administration Review 66, no.
  6 (Nov/Dec 2006).
• Why Welfare Reform Succeeded, Journal of Policy
  Analysis and Management 26, no. 2 (Spring 2007).
• Toward a Mandatory Work Policy for Men, The
  Future of Children 17, no. 2 (September 2007)

4
Summary

• What is dependency?
• What the American experience suggests about
• Causes.
• Solutions.
• Key issuesHow does one
• Enforce good behavior?
• Apply lessons to the aborigines?
• Make the case for enforcement?

5
Intergenerational dependency

• Meaning.
• Incidence
• In general, limited.
• More serious in heavily poor areas, including
  native communities.
• Chief causes
• Unwed pregnancy.
• Nonwork.

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Reasons for nonwork

• Social barriers lack of jobs or child care,
  welfare disincentives, racial bias, etc.
• Research has questioned these theories.
• Welfare reform showed the poor could work.
• Immigration shows opportunity exists.
• Barriers explain inequality among workers rather
  than poverty.

7
Reasons for unwed pregnancy

• Here less is known.
• Poor parents get along less well than they used
  to.
• But one cause of breakup clearly is nonwork.

8
Culture of poverty

• A condition where people want to do the right
  thing but usually fail to do so.
• Nonwork largely due to lack of confidence,
  disorganization in private life.
• Logically, the solution is enforcement.
• But until recently public policy were permissive.
• Recently, enforcement has improved.

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Stopping dependency

• Need for clear direction backed by sanctions.
• Welfare reform successfully enforced work.
• Work demands drove rolls down.
• Other causes good economy, wage subsidies.
• Reform had its positive side.
• New money was spent on benefits.
• Message we will help you succeed.

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Did welfare reform affect unwed pregnancy?

• Direct effects on family and children were small.
• Indirect effects were larger
• Nonmarital births declined in 1990s.
• May reflect message of welfare reform.

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Marriage programs?

• Not yet available.
• Programs to improve marital relationships are
  under development now.
• Promoting marriage is less popular than enforcing
  work.

12
Work requirements for poor men?

• Their role as absent fathers.
• Weakness of existing programs
• Child support enforcement.
• Prison rehabilitation programs.
• Needed mandatory work programs for men.
• Improved prison reentry programs are now under
  development.

13
Enforcing good behavior

• Requires explicit programs.
• But the programs mainly express changed
  expectations in the culture.
• Public opinion does the main work of change.
• Examples
• Welfare reformdiversion effects.
• Crimerecent declines.
• Educationrecent improvements.

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Enforcement is a political process

• Social authority does most of the work.
• Behind this must lie a political consensus
• In welfare reform
• Liberals had to accept conditionality.
• Conservatives had to accept higher funding.
• Public opinion was strongly in favor.

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Applying this to aborigines

• Poverty appears due mostly to culture, as in
  America.
• But barriers issues appear more pressing than in
  America
• Remoteness and job availability.
• Racism.
• Authority Does government have a right to set
  standards?

16
Steps toward welfare reform

• Mutual obligation requirements.
• Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP).
• Shared Responsibility Agreements.
• Regional Partnership Agreements.
• Cape York Institutes Welfare Reform Project.
• Full solutions will be long-term.

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The politics of reform

• National
• Mutual obligation norms have strengthened.
• The case for conditionality must still be made.
• In indigenous communities
• Local leaders must accept the need for change.
• They must give up
• Appeals to victimhood based on the past.
• The security of assured funding.

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Making the case

• The need for obligations
• Citizenship means not only rights and claims.
• The common obligations.
• Good behavior is essential to belonging.
• The need for self-command
• Directing ones energies to ones own ends.
• Self-command as an Australian virtue.
• Those who would be free must first be bound.