Medicalization of unemployment: individualizing social issues as personal problems in the Swedish welfare state

Abstract

This article reports qualitative data on how the Swedish Public Employment Service classifies unemployed individuals as ‘occupationally disabled’ in order to transfer them to various labour market programmes.The article draws on a framework of medicalization, arguing that the individualization of the social issue of unemployment into a personal trouble of disability is a neglected yet important phenomenon that has interesting implications for theory and policy. By classifying some people as disabled in order to explain their unemployment, medicalization can be seen as an important yet so far neglected mechanism in understanding how this individualizing enterprise comes about. It is concluded that by medicalizing unemployment, the target for society’s intervention to fight the spectre of unemployment is primarily individuals’ personal troubles rather than any social issues.

The ‘Active Welfare State’ and Its Consequences

“…By claiming that some people are disabled as explanations to their poor employability, their problems are individualized, removing them from the broader social context. The ideology of individualization can promote an idea of bad living or bad behavior among people that may have important individual and social consequences, e.g., by acting as a mechanism for deviance amplification by reinforcing the stigma associated with unemployment and disability in addition to projecting an image of disablement as personal tragedy rather than as a socially produced state (see Holmqvist 2009). This critique argues that modern policies for combating social problems that bring the individual's character into focus largely fail to address the consequences of industrial capitalism: social inequalities, poverty, structural discrimination and other social and material disadvantages of people's lives.…”

“For the Crime of Being Different…”:

“…The continuing unemployment and underemployment of people with disability may stem from past (and current) foci on individual and functional limitations that effectively legitimate exclusion from work and society (Barnes and Mercer 2005;Holmqvist 2009), as we have seen in the case above. The term "disability" has been inextricably linked to negative assumptions surrounding paid work.…”

“…Since the industrial revolution, being disabled has meant being unemployed or underemployed (Barnes 1999). Despite the rhetoric surrounding sustainable workplaces, employers continue to ignore the possibilities for changing the social organisation of the workplace (Cockburn 1991;Harlan and Robert 1998) with many employers continuing to treat disability as a personal issue, something beyond the domain of the workplace, subject to medical control, and the sole responsibility of the affected employee (Beatty and Joffe 2006;Holmqvist 2009). In many workplaces, the person with disability remains the locus of the "problem" (Foster 2007;Harlan and Robert 1998).…”

“…Societies are recognised to "disable" people by adhering to barriers of social inclusion and by creating disabling environments, social attitudes, social structures, institutions, policies and cultures (Oliver 1983;Oliver 1990;Albrecht 1992;Barnes 1999;Barnes and Mercer 2005;Harlan and Robert 1998;Holmqvist 2009). The social model of disability presents disability as, not a physical problem, but as a socially imposed condition, and one potentially remedied by social change (Galvin 2003;Barnes et al 1998;Oliver 1990).…”

Should Love Conquer Evidence in Policy‐Making? Challenges in Implementing Random Drug‐Testing of Welfare Recipients in Australia

“…The government's new policy fails to acknowledge that no amount of preparation, prodding, or incentives can push these jobseekers into non‐existent jobs, or force employers to choose them to fill vacancies over preferred candidates. Ignoring the demand side of the labour market, the policy links ‘unemployability’ to substance abuse (Australian Government , p. 11) and shifts the focus of government intervention from managing a socioeconomic problem to treating an individual, medicalised condition (Holmqvist , pp. 405–406).…”