Carefully capacitating? Agentic capacity and coercion in the activation of lone mothers in Ireland

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dc.contributor.authorWhelan, Joe
dc.contributor.authorDukelow, Fiona
dc.contributor.funderResearch Ireland, R21975-R20744
dc.date.accessioned2026-09-18T14:57:01Z
dc.date.available2026-09-18T14:57:01Z
dc.date.issued2026-06-16
dc.description.abstractThis article assesses whether recent Irish activation reforms for lone parents’ function as capacitating elements of a social investment (SI) strategy. Although activation is presented as evidence of Ireland’s shift towards SI, our analysis questions this claim using the concept of agentic capacity-the structured conditions enabling individuals to balance care, employment, and education. Drawing on two small-scale studies, we centre lived experiences of activation requirements and income supports and find that while access to education and training can strengthen autonomy and future planning, these benefits are constrained by conditionality, administrative burdens, childcare shortages, and age-based thresholds. The reforms thus represent a model in which coercive activation logics persist within SI rhetoric. By advancing agentic capacity as an evaluative criterion, the article contributes to debates on activation and SI, highlighting how institutional design, childcare provision, temporal alignment, and conditionality shape meaningful choice for lone parents.en
dc.description.sponsorshipIrish Research Council|R20744|New Foundations
dc.description.sponsorshipIrish Research Council|R21975|New Foundations
dc.description.versionPublished Version
dc.format.extent15
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.authororcidWhelan, Joe
dc.identifier.authororcidDukelow, Fiona§0000-0003-3800-2653
dc.identifier.citationWhelan, J & Dukelow, F 2026, 'Carefully capacitating? Agentic capacity and coercion in the activation of lone mothers in Ireland', Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1017/ics.2026.10098
dc.identifier.doi10.1017/ics.2026.10098
dc.identifier.endpage15
dc.identifier.issn2169-9763
dc.identifier.journaltitleJournal of International and Comparative Social Policy
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0003-3800-2653/work/227181658
dc.identifier.startpage1
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/19293
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherCambridge University Press
dc.relation.urihttps://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105042519937
dc.rights© the author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Social Policy Association Social Policy Association. ThisisanOpenAccessarticle,distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
dc.rights.accessrightsopen access
dc.rights.licensenameAttribution 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.statusPeer reviewed
dc.subjectChildcare
dc.subjectEducation
dc.subjectIreland
dc.subjectLone mothers
dc.subjectSocial investment
dc.subject[SocialStudies]
dc.titleCarefully capacitating? Agentic capacity and coercion in the activation of lone mothers in Irelanden
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)
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