Children, Families and Social Security: Eleanor Rathbone's Welfare Legacy

In The Disinherited Family, published in 1924, Eleanor Rathbone argued powerfully for ‘family endowment’, involving the direction of collective resources towards family support via state-provided family allowances. This ground-breaking work influenced many, including the architect of Britain’s postwar welfare state, William Beveridge, who included universal family allowances in his plan. Rathbone’s central argument was that society would benefit greatly from a redistribution of collective resources towards subsidising child rearing and, in particular, supporting motherhood and guaranteeing the overwhelming majority of mothers not in remunerative work an independent source of financial support to this end. Starting with Rathbone’s seminal ideas and progressing through subsequent legislation and policy, including the introduction of child benefit, this article reviews the evolving legal framework down to the present day. Focussing on the current benefits system in Great Britain, including the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the under-occupancy restrictions, it assesses how successfully provision for children has adapted to changes in family structure and stability over the years, highlighting key problematic legal areas, especially in relation to shared childcare following relationship breakdown. Shortly after the centenary of her book, and in the light of these reforms, it finds Rathbone’s welfare legacy undermined.