The Welfare to Work policy reforms were introduced by the Howard Government in 2006. Reforms were introduced with the aim of increasing employment participation and the self-reliance of people otherwise dependent on social security payments, including single mothers with school-aged children, the long-term unemployed and people with disabilities. The Welfare to Work policy is a form of conditional welfare founded on the principle of “mutual obligation”, where recipients must complete compulsory activities in order to access income support. Some of these criteria involve monitoring income support recipients for such breaches as a false reporting of relationship status, substance abuse and outstanding fines or debt owed to Centrelink or the courts. Other obligations ensure ongoing activities to promote jobseeking behaviour. These include applying for an agreed number of jobs per month, attending compulsory training and attending regular meetings with the provider as detailed in a binding agreement called an Employment Pathway Plan. Breaches in compliance may result in a partial or complete cessation of payments.

The policy is implemented by independent contractors – known as jobactive providers (“providers”) – who are contracted by the government to provide job placement services and to monitor compliance of welfare recipients. Payments to contractors use a bonus system, which encourages providers to push clients towards certain outcomes regardless of individual circumstance. Further, despite the complex barriers to employment faced by individuals enrolled in the Welfare to Work policy, providers are unable to offer tailored, specialised services; their options for supporting individuals into work are inevitably limited. Providers are not required to have specialised skills, training or accreditation to work with vulnerable people.

This research examines the lived experience of single mothers subject to the provisions of the Welfare to Work policy by answering the following questions:

• Has participation in Welfare to Work assisted in achieving the policy’s aims of increasing workforce participation and self-reliance (financial security)?
• What are the barriers to workforce participation and financial security experienced by single mothers (both practical and administrative)?
• How have single mothers experienced Welfare to Work (from both Centrelink and Job Network/jobactive providers in charge of their compliance)?

The following five themes emerged from the research:

• Welfare to Work is not increasing participation in employment
• Welfare to Work is increasing financial insecurity
• Poor policy implementation and excessive compliance inhibit women’s efforts to become self-reliant
• Post-separation abuse adds to women’s financial insecurity
• Aggressive behaviour from providers erodes women’s motivation and agency

Each section focuses on one of the identified themes and incorporates a brief description of the relevant research and policy landscape, followed by the experiences of the women we interviewed.

With a small sample size and a snowball recruitment process, we do not claim that these findings are exhaustive. However, the interviews that are included here indicate that even women who have comparatively high capacity for self-advocacy and for navigating complex bureaucratic systems (such as those who responded to the recruitment call) experience a disregard for their emotional, social or economic wellbeing. It is possible that women with lower levels of agency are more likely to experience greater barriers to successful outcomes than the women whose stories are represented here.