Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I : Historicizing Social Reproduction, Welfare And Neo-liberalism. Women, social reproduction and the neo-liberal assault on the US welfare state / Mimi Abramovitz ; Women, the state and welfare law : the Canadian experience / Shelley A.M. Gavigan and Dorothy E. Chunn -- Part II : Women's Agency And Activism In The Welfare State : Comparative And Historical Perspectives. Gender and the rise of the welfare state in fin-de-siècle New York City : the case of tenement regulation / Felice Batlan ; "Mothers at work" : the welfare rights movement and welfare reform in the 1960s / Premilla Nadasen -- Part III : The Precarious Citizenship And Legal Construction Of Poor Women. Women in the workforce in the context of neo-liberalism : the case of Israel / Mimi Ajzenstadt ; "Risky women" : the role of "risk" in the construction of the single mother / Karen Swift ; Intimate intrusions : welfare regulation and women's personal lives / Janet Mosher ; Retrenchment not reform : using law and policy to restrict the entitlement of women with disabilities to social assistance / Joan M. Gilmour -- Part IV : Reconceptualizing State Forms And Socio-legal Policy. Substantive universality : reconceptualizing feminist approaches to social provision and child care / Hester Lessard ; Women's work and a guaranteed income / Margot Young.