"If you sit and cry no one will Help you": Understanding Perceptions of Worthiness and Social Support Relations among Low-Income Women under a Neoliberal Discourse

Drawing on Wax's concept of "condition reciprocity," this study draws on data from 35 in-depth interviews to examine how low-income women in Israel frame their reliance on personal networks for survival. Findings reveal that women used a similar rationale focusing on productivity with respect to their interpersonal relations. Consistent with the neoliberal principle of market citizenship, most women perceived themselves as worthy of support from personal networks based on their work commitment. By contrast, women who could not rely on a current, past, or future definition of productivity did not consider themselves as deserving support and experienced extreme social isolation.