Care and Minimum Income Policies: When Welfare Conditionality Meets Unpaid Care Work

ABSTRACT This paper proposes an exploratory analysis of the conditionality criteria attached to minimum income schemes (MISs) in three European countries: Italy, Spain, and the UK. The aim is twofold. First, to identify differences and similarities in how care responsibilities are incorporated in the conditionality design of welfare programmes. Second, to contribute to the debate on the importance of recognising care's social and economic value in social policy design. I introduce a novel approach by applying Fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Fs/QCA) first to create three policy items building on Clasen and Clegg's levels of conditionality. Second, to assess how closely each scheme aligns with Nancy Fraser's feminist models of welfare state. The results reveal that women's access to minimum income protection is inadequately addressed due to a narrow conceptualisation of care in the three schemes studied. This also affects how care duties and responsibilities are incorporated into their conditionality design, underestimating care's social and economic value. However, some complex and interesting differences emerge. Italy and the UK score slightly above the cross‐over point in the Universal‐Breadwinner and Caregiver‐Parity models. This suggests greater policy similarities between the two and emphasises work conditionality for women's participation in employment while strengthening their roles as unpaid carers. Conversely, the Spanish MIS demonstrates a strong alignment with the Universal‐Breadwinner model, indicating a clear inclination to promote women's labour market participation without considering their caring responsibilities.