What Can Welfare Stigma Do?

Abstract

In this ‘state of the art’ review, we draw on the Irish and UK context to ask ‘what can welfare stigma do?’ Our question provokes thinking about welfare stigma not as an inevitable ‘cost’ of the structure of welfare provision, but as something that does socio-political work and which may be deliberately mobilised to do so. This, we argue, is a particularly pertinent question to ask in the Irish and UK contexts, bound together by some shared liberal welfare regime characteristics that are particularly associated with welfare stigma and by the effects of a period of austerity capitalism that continues to re-shape the meaning and experience of welfare. Yet, going beyond welfare stigma as inherently negative, we highlight a limited literature on resistance that suggests the potentialities of welfare stigma in the service of positive social change toward a new welfare imaginary.

“I’m Not Worthless, I Do Help Society”: Exploring the Lived Experience of Community Placement in Activation Schemes

“…The stigma haunting welfare recipients and underlying the social meanings about deservingness are contrasted by the form of reciprocity the schemes enable. This process must be read in light of a society and welfare system that valorise paid work and the good worker while stigmatising the unemployed (Whelan, 2021;Boland et al, 2022;Bolton et al, 2022). Doing something for the community and accessing a volunteer-like identity sustained much of the process of change that participants experienced.…”

“…Qualitative evidence has demonstrated how welfare conditionality deteriorates the self-image of individuals who are affected by the 'spoiled identity' of the welfare recipient deprived of the status, identity, and recognition that come from contributing through paid work (Wright, 2012;Patrick, 2014Patrick, , 2016Dwyer, 2019;Gaffney and Millar, 2020;Peterie et al, 2019). In the case of Ireland, research has highlighted the stigmatising effect of conditional measures, arguing that stigma has become intrinsic to welfare activation (Boland et al, 2022;Bolton et al, 2022). Correspondingly, while the unemployed are stigmatised, paid work provides the status of the active citizen contributing to society (Whelan, 2021).…”

A Hidden Cost: Estimating the Public Service Cost of Poverty in Ireland

“…First, the UK study models mental health experiences rather than service usage and in using its results it is assumed that mental ill-health and mental health care usage are strongly correlated. Second, the study assumes the UK results provide a reasonable proxy for experiences in Ireland; while there are differences in mental health care provision and poverty experiences between both countries, and particular differences in benefit systems (Bolton et al, 2022) with the welfare conditionality aspects of the UKs shown to exacerbate mental health challenges (Wright & Patrick, 2019), we assume that these are unlikely to be so large that they would significantly alter the general pattern.…”

A constant threat? A narrative exploration of the relationship between benefit receipt, mental distress and the threat of homelessness

“…Recently there has been a shift away from an individualised focus on stigma (Link and Phelan, 2001), with a resurgence of critically unpacking ‘welfare stigma’: or the 'negative socio-physiological consequences of ‘psychic costs’ of being on welfare' (Besley and Coate, 1992: 167). Bolton et al (2022: 645) describe the ‘costs’ of welfare stigma as being part of a cultural and political crafting in the service of power and austerity capitalism, which '(re)produce norms of power and erode actual or potential solidarities and critical consciousness'. Pinker (1970: 17) argued that stigma is a unique, ‘slow’ and ‘highly sophisticated’ form of violence 'which can best be compared to those forms of psychological torture in which the victim is broken psychically and physically but left to all outward appearances unmarked'.…”