Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T16:50:19.509Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Workfare: conditioning the attitudes of benefit recipients towards social security?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Louise Humpage  and
Simone Baillie
Louise Humpage*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Simone Baillie
Affiliation:
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Have increasing levels of conditionality fundamentally changed the attitudes of the unemployed towards social security, work obligations and welfare dependency? Both neopaternalist and governmentalist theorising suggests that workfare policies should have shifted this group's conceptions of self-interest over time yet previous evidence has been rather mixed. This article makes a fresh contribution to the literature by drawing upon New Zealand Election Study data (1990–2014) and New Zealand qualitative data (2007–2008; 2014) to analyse the attitudes of “undeserving” unemployed benefit recipients who are subject to work obligations over 21 years and by comparing their attitudes to those of “deserving” benefit recipients not subject to work obligations (the retired and students) and wage/salary earners. It finds a notable hardening of unemployed people's attitudes towards some welfare dependency propositions over time and evidence of “self-governing rationalities” being adopted by some unemployed individuals but, overall, attitudes amongst this group remain nuanced and ambivalent.

Keywords

unemployedbenefit recipientsattitudesself-interestNew Zealand
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 17 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Taylor & Francis

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

3 News. (2011, November 22). New Zealand First policies at a glance. Retrieved from http://www.3news.co.nz/New-Zealand-First-policies-at-a-glance/tabid/419/articleID/233627/Default.aspxGoogle Scholar
Barron, J. (2011). Election 2011: Party policies. Retrieved from http://www.interest.co.nz/node/54506Google Scholar
Blekesaune, M., & Quadagno, J. (2003). Public attitudes towards welfare state policies: A comparative analysis of 24 nations. European Sociological Review, 19(5), 415–427. doi:10.1093/esr/19.5.415CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borland, J., & Tseng, Y. P. (2003). Does ‘work for the dole’ work?. Melbourne: University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Bullock, H. (1999). Attributions for poverty: A comparison of middle-class and welfare recipient attitudes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29(10), 2059–2082. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1999.tb02295.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chong, D., Citrin, J., & Conley, P. (2001). When self-interest matters. Political Psychology, 22(3), 541–570. doi:10.1111/0162-895X.00253CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clasen, J., & Clegg, D. (Eds.). (2011). Regulating the risk of unemployment: National adaptations to post-industrial labour markets in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clery, E. (2012). Are tough times affecting attitudes to welfare?. In Park, A., Clery, E., Curtice, J., Phillips, M., & Utting, D. (Eds.), British social attitudes: The 29th report (pp. 1–26). London: NatCen Social Research.Google Scholar
Cook, K. (2012). Neoliberalism, welfare policy and health: A qualitative meta-synthesis of single parents’ experience of the transition from welfare to work. Health, 16(5), 507–530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dean, H. (2000). Managing risk by controlling behaviour: Social security administration and the erosion of welfare citizenship. In Taylor-Gooby, P. (Ed.), Risk, trust and welfare (pp. 51–70). Basingstoke: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Dean, H., & Taylor-Gooby, P. (1992). Dependency culture: The explosion of a myth. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Dean, M. (1999). Governmentalitity: Power and rule in modern society. London: Sage.Google Scholar
De Parle, J. (2012). Welfare limits left poor adrift as recession hit. The New York Times, 7 April. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/us/welfare-limits-left-poor-adrift-as-recession-hit.html?_r=0Google Scholar
Eardley, T., Saunders, P., & Evans, C. (2000). Community attitudes towards unemployment, activity testing and mutual obligation (SPRC Discussion Paper No.107). Sydney: Social Policy Research Centre.Google Scholar
English, B. (2015, May 21). Budget speech, Wellington. Retrieved from https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/budget-speech-3Google Scholar
Fok, Y-K., & McVicar, D. (2013). Did the 2007 welfare reforms for low income parents in Australia increase welfare exits? IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 2(1), 3–21. doi:10.1186/2193-9004-2-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallie, D., & Alm, S. (2000). Unemployment, gender and attitudes to work. In Gallie, D. and Paugam, S. (Eds.), Welfare regimes and the experience of unemployment in Europe (pp. 109–33). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gelissen, J. (2002). Worlds of welfare, worlds of consent? Public opinion on the welfare state. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Grahame, T., & Marston, G. (2012). Welfare-to-work policies and the experience of employed single mothers on income support in Australia: Where are the benefits? Australian Social Work, 65(1), 73–86. doi:10.1080/0312407X.2011.604093CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartman, Y. (2005). In bed with the enemy: Some ideas on the connections between neoliberalism and the welfare state. Current Sociology, 53(1), 57–73. doi:10.1177/0011392105048288Google Scholar
Higgins, J. (1997). No longer a burning social issue? Employment assistance policy and the closure of the unemployment debate in New Zealand. Journal of Sociology, 33(2), 137–152. doi:10.1177/144078339703300201CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humpage, L. (2015). Policy change, public attitudes and social citizenship: Does neoliberalism matter? Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Kempson, E., Ford, J., & England, J. (1997). In-work benefits: Do they assist the transition into work? Benefits, 19(April/May), 20–23.Google Scholar
Leggett, W. (2014). The politics of behaviour change: Nudge, neoliberalism and the state. Policy & Politics, 42(1), 3–19. doi:10.1332/030557312X655576CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Grand, J. (1997). Knights, knaves or pawns? Human behaviour and social policy. Journal of Social Policy, 26(2), 149–169. doi:10.1017/S0047279497004984CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lunt, N. (2006). Sickness and invalid's benefits: New developments and continuing challenges. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, 27, 77–99.Google Scholar
Maharey, S. (2000, March 26). Suppressed report shows work-for-the-dole scheme failing. Retrieved from http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/7135Google Scholar
Marston, G., & McDonald, C. (2008). Feeling motivated yet? Long-term unemployed people's perspectives on the implementation of workfare in Australia. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 43(2), 255–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, C., & Marston, G. (2005). Workfare as welfare: Governing unemployment in the advanced liberal state. Critical Social Policy, 25(3), 374–401. doi:10.1177/0261018305054077CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mead, L. (1989). The logic of workfare: The underclass and work policy. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 501, 156–169. doi:10.1177/0002716289501001011Google Scholar
Mead, L. (1997). Welfare employment. In Mead, L. (Ed.), The new paternalism: Supervisory approaches to poverty (pp. 39–88). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Ministry of Social Development. (2007). The 2002 domestic purposes and widow's benefit reform: Evaluation report. Wellington: AuthorGoogle Scholar
Morris, A., & Wilson, S. (2014). Struggling on the Newstart unemployment benefit in Australia: The experience of a neoliberal form of employment assistance. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 25(2), 202–221. doi: 10.1177/1035304614533462CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, C. (1984). Losing ground: American social policy, 1950–1980. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
van Oorschot, W. (2000). Who should get what, and why? On deservingness criteria and the conditionality of solidarity among the public. Policy & Politics, 28(1), 33–48. doi:10.1332/0305573002500811CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Oorschot, W. (2008). Popular deservingness perceptions and conditionality of solidarity in Europe. In Van Oorschot, W., Opielka, M. & Pfau-Effinger, B. (Eds.), Culture and welfare state: Values and social policy in comparative perspective (pp. 268–288). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orton, M., & Rowlingson, K. (2007). Public attitudes to economic inequality. Warwick: Warwick University/ Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Peace, R., Wolf, A., Crack, S., Hutchinson, I., & Roorda, M. (2004). Wellbeing, employment, independence: The views of Sickness and Invalids’ Benefit clients (Working Paper No. 07/04). Wellington: Ministry of Social Development.Google Scholar
Pierson, P. (1993). When effect becomes cause: Policy feedback and political change. World Politics, 45(4), 595–628. doi:10.2307/2950710CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raubal, H., & Judd, E. (2014). 2014 Benefit system performance report, for the year ended 30 June 2014. Wellington: Ministry of Social Development.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawer, H. (2005). ‘One fundamental value': Work for the dole participants’ views about mutual obligation (Unpublished PhD thesis in Global Studies). Melbourne: RMIT University.Google Scholar
Schiller, B. (1973). Empirical studies of welfare dependency: A survey. Journal of Human Resources, 8(Supplement: Work and Welfare), 19–32. doi:10.2307/144812CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, A., & Ingram, H. (1993). Social construction of target populations: Implications for politics and policy. American Political Science Review, 87(2), 334–347. doi:10.2307/2939044CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sefton, T. (2003). What we want from the welfare state. In Thomson, K. (Ed.), British social attitudes: The 20th report: Continuity and change over two decades (pp. 23–51). London: Sage.Google Scholar
Singley, S. (2003). Barriers to employment among long-term beneficiaries: A review of recent international evidence (Working Paper No. 04/04). Wellington: Ministry of Social Development.Google Scholar
St John, S., & Rankin, K. (2009). Escaping the welfare mess?. Auckland: Child Poverty Action Group.Google Scholar
Svallfors, S. (2003). Welfare regimes and welfare opinions: A comparison of eight Western countries. Social Indicators Research, 64(3), 495–520. doi:10.1023/A:1025931414917CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watt, B., Fitzpatrick, S., Bramley, G., & Watkins, D. (2014). Welfare sanctions and conditionality in the UK. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Ziguras, S. (2004). Australian social security policy and job-seekers’ motivation. Journal of Economic and Social Policy, 9(1), 1–19.Google Scholar