Claiming Citizenship: The Political Dimension of Welfare Fraud

תקציר

This article exposes the political dimension of welfare fraud by investigating — in the context of the Israeli welfare reform of 2003 — how forty-nine Israeli women who live on welfare justify welfare fraud. I find that women’s justifications cannot be fully explained by traditional noncompliance theories that view welfare fraud as an individual, private, criminal activity that solely reflects on the fraudster’s moral character or desperate need. Instead, women’s justifications for welfare fraud are better understood as a sociopolitical struggle for inclusion and deservedness — as a political act that reflects an alternative concept of citizenship with respect to women’s unpaid care work.