Introduction

Many of the case studies in this book look at policies aimed at groups of women whom New Labour has specifically targeted: working women, mothers, lone parents, and women living in poverty in particular. Policies aimed at these groups of women have clearly followed the overarching theme of making work pay and enabling women who were previously excluded from the labour market because of childcare duties to participate in paid work (see Chapters Six, Seven, Eight; Rake 2001). However, for some groups of vulnerable women at risk of or living in poverty, engagement in paid work is of much lesser significance. Older women, if they have been engaging in paid work are usually retired from doing so by the age of 60, and younger disabled women have a much lower rate of economic participation than the population generally and than non-disabled women particularly. In examining how far any government has managed to engender politics and policy, we therefore need to be aware that it is necessary to look critically not just at the position of women as a group in relation to men, but also to look at social divisions within the category of women, and particularly to look at groups of women for whom the intersection of social categories (such as gender, age and disability) has a significant impact on their citizenship (Jordan 2004; Lister 2003).

This chapter therefore looks at the area of caring and citizenship, and examines areas of policy which particularly affect disabled and older women's lives. It critically examines areas which have a significant impact on disabled and older women, contrasting areas where New Labour has taken a gender aware approach (such as pensions) with those in which a gender blind approach to policy has been adopted (such as the New Deal for Disabled People, direct payments and health and social service reorganisation), and discusses the effects these approaches have had on disabled and older women's lives and their citizenship status. It draws the conclusion that New Labour has favoured the worker-citizen over the carer-citizen, and examines why that is the case, and what that means for disabled and older women.