Challenging welfare mythmaking : Caps, (mis)classification and concealment of larger families’ labour in austerity Britain

Patrick, Ruth and Jensen, Tracey (2025) Challenging welfare mythmaking : Caps, (mis)classification and concealment of larger families’ labour in austerity Britain. Critical Social Policy. ISSN 0261-0183

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Abstract

The alleged ‘welfare dependence’ of larger families has long been used as a symbolic anchoring point in seeking to legitimise British welfare reform. This article focuses on the Benefit Cap and Two-Child Limit, setting out how defences of both reforms framed impacted claimants as ‘workless’, ‘welfare-dependent’ and requiring welfare constraint and restriction to ‘activate’ them. Larger families are particularly sensitive to social security policy changes due to their higher needs and yet their everyday experiences are rarely heard. This article is a corrective to this, drawing on qualitative longitudinal research with families affected by both policies. We document how larger families are both routinely engaged in the labour market and doing extensive social reproductive labour. A dominant policy framing of ‘worklessness’ collides with the everyday realities of larger families. We argue that a re-imagined welfare state can and should recognise and resource social reproductive labour and make that work possible.