Lone Parents and Welfare-to-work Conditionality: Necessary, Just, Effective?

Whitworth, Adam; Griggs, Julia

doi:10.1080/17496535.2013.779001

Cited by 28 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Policymakers have relied in significant part on paternalistically informed normative justifications of mandatory activation schemes on the grounds that paid work is beneficial to well‐being and hence so too must be activation schemes that promote paid work. Such argumentation is empirically contestable (Whitworth and Griggs ) but, more fundamentally, misses the emerging need to shift and broaden the focus of current research and policy thinking on activation and well‐being to more fully address issues of process well‐being from participation in such activation schemes alongside the dominant emphasis on outcome well‐being from any employment transitions that may result. Theoretically, Jahoda's () latent deprivation theory and Fryer's () agency approach give different accounts of the non‐pecuniary benefits of paid work that offer important insights into ways in which employment activation has the potential to substitute for these employment effects and hence affect the process well‐being of the unemployed programme participants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work Activation Regimes and Well‐being of Unemployed People: Rhetoric, Risk and Reality of Quasi‐Marketization in the UK Work Programme

Carter

Whitworth

2016

Soc Policy Adm

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Well-being and employment activation have become central and intertwined policy priorities across advanced economies, with the mandation of unemployed claimants towards employability interventions (e.g. curriculum vitae preparation and interview skills). Compelled job search and job transitions are in part justified by the well-being gains that resulting employment is said to deliver. However, this dominant focus within the activation field on outcome well-being -the well-being improvement triggered by a transition to paid work -neglects how participation in activation schemes can itself affect well-being levels for unemployed people -what we term 'process wellbeing' effects. Combining theoretical literature with empirical work on the UK's large-scale quasi-marketized Work Programme activation scheme, we develop the limited existing academic discussion of process well-being effects, considering whether and how activation participation mediates the negative well-being effects of unemployment, irrespective of any employment outcomes. We further relate variation in such process well-being effects to the literature on activation typologies, in which 'thinner' work-first activation interventions are linked to weaker process well-being effects for participants compared to 'thicker' human capital development interventions. Confirming these expectations, our empirical work shows that Work Programme participants have, to date, experienced a largely 'thin' activation regime in which participants are both expected to, and empirically demonstrate, similar if not lower levels of process well-being than those who are openly unemployed. These concerning findings speak to all nations seeking to promote the well-being of unemployed people and particularly those perusing 'black box' activation schemes based around quasi-marketization, devolution and New Public Management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work Activation Regimes and Well‐being of Unemployed People: Rhetoric, Risk and Reality of Quasi‐Marketization in the UK Work Programme

Carter

Whitworth

2016

Soc Policy Adm

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“…Subsequent changes increased the regularity of WFIs, with age of youngest dependent child again the determining factor for conditionality (DWP : 12). Overall, however, the intensity of activation remained comparably weak when seen from the vantage point of contemporary arrangements (Haux : 2–3; Whitworth and Griggs : 125–8; Whitworth : 827).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…To accelerate the labour market entry of economically inactive benefit claimants, the Labour Government's attention turned to overhauling social security and active labour market programmes through commissioning two reviews. A review of welfare‐to‐work policy was commissioned in 2006, conducted by David Freud (the Freud Review: DWP ) (Hutton : 22), whereas a separate review into the structure and operation of benefit conditionality was commissioned, conducted by the academic, Professor Paul Gregg (the Gregg Review: Gregg ) (Whitworth and Griggs : 126). Each review could have been used as an opportunity for reflection and interrogation of the relative success or failure of UK activation policy directed towards lone parents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A key part of ‘selling’ potentially controversial and unpopular welfare reform is therefore the capacity to effectively frame the issue to advantage a preferred interpretation of the ‘problem/policy’ solution (Béland : 13). The Freud and Gregg Reviews provided the ostensible empirical and discursive means for repositioning lone parents, completing their transformation from primarily mothers or ‘mother‐workers’ to primarily ‘worker‐mothers’, altering their treatment within the social security system (Whitworth and Griggs : 126).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Time‐related Underemployment of Lone Parents during Welfare Reform, Recession and Austerity: A Challenge to In‐work Conditionality?

Rafferty¹,

Wiggan

2016

Soc Policy Adm

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Reforms to UK social security benefits introduced between 2008 and 2012 that increased lone parent obligations to enter employment coincided with economic crisis and government austerity. Increases in underemployment in the broader population during this period both in terms of unemployment and time‐related underemployment raise questions regarding the extent to which lone parents not only managed to enter paid work but obtain a sufficient number of employment hours. Activation policies have increased labour market exposure at a time of greater underemployment. At the same time, high levels of economic hardship, in the context of stagnant real wage growth and benefit cuts linked to broader austerity policy, could place additional pressures on lone parent time‐related underemployment where a desire for greater employment hours to improve household income is not met by availability. We present findings showing disproportionately high growth in time‐related underemployment among lone mothers with, at peak, around one in five employed lone mothers with a youngest dependent child aged over five experiencing such underemployment. The implications to in‐work conditionality policies and the roll out of the UK's new working age benefit Universal Credit are highlighted.

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“…Without recognising this in the implementation of welfare contractualism, austerity measures are rendered incongruous with policy ambitions for fiscal balance. Whitworth and Griggs (2013) contest the extent to which welfare to work conditionality is necessary, just or effective in the UK. In many respects, it is possible to conclude that the austerity imperative informing welfare contractualism also lacks internal and ethical coherence at the European level.…”

Section: The Self-defeating Logic Of Austerity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Age of Austerity: Contesting the Ethical Basis and Financial Sustainability of Welfare Reform in Europe

Edmiston

2014

Journal of Contemporary European Studies

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This paper examines the policy of austerity in three European welfare regimes with differing levels of social spending and fiscal balance: Italy, Sweden and the UK. In spite of significant material differences between the three countries, the paper begins by illustrating that there is ultimately convergence in their responses to the economic crisis. These welfare regimes have justified the terms of austerity by suggesting that economic and welfare reforms address questions of 'need', 'fairness' and 'sustainability'. Contrary to dominant political and policy rationale, the paper demonstrates that austerity measures in each country fail to meet policy objectives given their own conceptions of social and distributive justice. The three welfare regimes lack cogent strategies to safeguard their financial sustainability and this results in a neo-liberal paradigm that compromises the ethical and internal coherence of austerity.

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Lone Parents and Welfare-to-work Conditionality: Necessary, Just, Effective?

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 28 publications

References 16 publications

Work Activation Regimes and Well‐being of Unemployed People: Rhetoric, Risk and Reality of Quasi‐Marketization in the UK Work Programme

Work Activation Regimes and Well‐being of Unemployed People: Rhetoric, Risk and Reality of Quasi‐Marketization in the UK Work Programme

The Time‐related Underemployment of Lone Parents during Welfare Reform, Recession and Austerity: A Challenge to In‐work Conditionality?

The Age of Austerity: Contesting the Ethical Basis and Financial Sustainability of Welfare Reform in Europe

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