In this chapter, we reflect on T.H. Marshall's theory from a gender perspective and explore the extent to which a gendered analysis of welfare provisions challenges the ‘universal’ and ‘inclusive’ claims of Marshall's account of citizenship. In doing so we aim to consider the suitability, problems and possibilities of a Marshallian approach to citizenship from a gender perspective. We begin by considering women's relationship with welfare: how women's entitlement to social rights has been compromised because of their gender and the ways in which this creates their paradoxical inclusion and exclusion from citizenship. We then discuss some of the policy dilemmas that arise when trying to enhance the inclusiveness of citizenship experiences from a gender perspective. We end by considering whether Marshall's conceptualisation of citizenship serves as a useful benchmark for measuring achievement and whether it offers an aspirational or enabling device – as Marshall indicates in the extract above – once the question of gender is raised.

Marshall's citizenship framework, the postwar welfare state and gender

For Marshall, citizenship offers qualifying members of a nation a certain type of equality in the context of inherent economic inequalities of the capitalist system (Barbalet, 1988). Citizenship – through the equally shared entitlement to civil, political and social rights – ensures that all stand equally with respect to the formal status of citizenship, and entitlements to welfare benefits offer all citizens the right to a socially acceptable minimum standard of living. Marshall's work has been tremendously influential on the political reality of welfare claims in the UK and beyond, yet as Christopher Pierson (1998, p 34) summarises: ‘who counts as a citizen, whether citizenship is gender-specific, what is to count as a citizen's entitlement and under what circumstances welfare rights will be granted and by whom, continue to be daily concerns of political life’.