Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Part 1 Setting the scene
- Part 2 Benefits for unemployed people
- Part 3 Benefits for disabled people
- Part 4 Benefits for children and families
- Part 5 Benefits for retirement
- Part 6 Towards a welfare class?
- References and further reading
- Index
7 - Beliefs, behaviour and unemployment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Part 1 Setting the scene
- Part 2 Benefits for unemployed people
- Part 3 Benefits for disabled people
- Part 4 Benefits for children and families
- Part 5 Benefits for retirement
- Part 6 Towards a welfare class?
- References and further reading
- Index
Summary
Summary
Since the late 1980s many policies have been premised on the assumption that people need to be coerced to find work, and there is much concern about the financial disincentives to work created by the benefit system.
The empirical evidence is that very few claimants prefer not to work or fail actively to engage in job search. Most people who become longterm unemployed appear to do so not as a result of receiving benefits, but because they do not have the attributes that would help them secure employment.
The evidence on disincentive effects is equivocal. Financial disincentives may be less important than uncertainty, risk aversion and the practical constraints imposed by complex systems and poor administration. Partners of unemployed claimants receiving benefits are less likely to work than those with employed partners, but only a fifth of the difference is due to financial disincentives created by the benefit system. On the other hand, there is some evidence of people on in-work benefits not seeking better paid work.
The largest portion of fraud relates to people working while claiming benefit. The work is typically casual and of short duration.
The change in policy thrust described in Chapter 6 reflects a sustained shift in ideology away from a belief in the possibility of full employment towards a commitment to evolve modern supply-side policies that are thought better to support a flexible labour market. The focus in this chapter is less on the ‘big ideas’ that guide policy, and more about the prevalent beliefs about how policy works. The correspondence between beliefs and empirical reality provides further qualitative insight into the likely effectiveness of policies in reducing unemployment levels.
Attachment to the labour market
There has been a growing acceptance that some people remain unemployed because they want to (Deacon and Mann, 1997). Some have argued that people are feckless, others that there has been a breakdown of community norms such that “the messages of responsibility, striving, self-help and self-improvement have been progressively weakened” (Dennis, 1997, p 89). Yet others suggest that means-testing sets up incentives to cheat and mix illicit work with benefit receipt (Field, 1996a).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Making of a Welfare Class?Benefit Receipt in Britain, pp. 93 - 102Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2000