Gregory Marston

Unemployed citizen or ‘at risk’ client? Classification systems and employment services in Denmark and Australia:

The paper explores recent developments in Australian and Danish unemployment policies with a special focus on the technologies used to classify and categorize unemployed people on government benefits. Using governmentality as our theoretical framework, we consider the implications of reducing complex social problems to statistical scores and differentiated categories — forms of knowledge that diminish the capacity to think about unemployment as a collective problem requiring collective solutions. What we argue is that classification systems, which are part and parcel of welfare state administration, are becoming more technocratic in the way in which they divide the population into different categories of risk.

Motivating the Unemployed? Attitudes at the Front Line

Abstract Underlying employment services policy in many countries is the assumption that the unemployed exhibit a range of deficits. The goal of employment activation programs is to develop self-efficacy. Noting the determinants of self-efficacy, we illustrate how case managers and social workers think about the unemployed and suggest that negative attitudes held by case managers are not conducive to the promotion of self-efficacy, unlike the orientation displayed by social workers. We suggest that employment services, wherever provided, would be significantly improved if social work frameworks informed policy and practices.

A war on the poor: Constructing welfare and work in the twenty-first century

This paper examines how the discourse of workfare, which has swept a number of Western countries over the past two decades, perpetuates social divisions and facilitates the intensification of Western capitalism. The social politics of workfare in Western countries is underpinned by dubious notions about the flawed behaviour and morality of welfare recipients on the one hand and the virtue of paid work on the other, often expressed as a ‘work-first’ approach. This policy narrative is guided by the belief that the sources of economic disadvantage are largely attributable to the behavioural problems and moral shortcomings of an established ‘underclass’, rather than the result of structural inequalities in the national and global economy. While some critical attention has been paid to the words of welfare, far less attention has been paid to the effects of discourse, particularly in terms of analysing how ‘target’ populations respond to the policy frames that are used to legitimate welfare state restructuring. This paper draws on a 3 year semi-longitudinal study with long-term unemployed in Australia to examine how low-income people respond to problematised constructions of citizenship, such as ‘welfare-dependent’ and ‘work shy’. Through this form of ‘reader research’ I aim to show that ‘welfare reform’ is much more than a set of policies aimed at managing the poor and the long-term unemployed in advanced capitalist economies; it also reinforces a system of values and beliefs about how all citizens should behave.

A case of misrepresentation: Social security fraud and the criminal justice system in Australia

In this article we examine the extent of social security fraud in Australia and the sentencing outcomes for a sample of social security recipients prosecuted in two magistrates’ courts in Queensland. What the empirical study illustrates is that the characteristics of those prosecuted for social security fraud challenge the media driven stereotype of the organised criminal willingly defrauding the government for large sums of money. In terms of sentencing outcomes, we conclude that people prosecuted for welfare fraud have a high conviction rate and may lack independent legal representation. In the final analysis, we make an argument for examining the issue of social security fraud in the context of labour market changes and levels of poverty and shifting social security policy objectives.

On ‘Activation Workers' Perceptions’: A Reply to Dunn (1)

Andrew Dunn challenges social policy researchers to include the perspectives of other policy actors in the debate about the merits and limits of activation policies that emphasise greater conditionality for those in receipt of benefits. In his provocative article, he focuses on the views and experiences of people who work with unemployed people. His study focuses on a sample of forty employment advisers in the UK and his particular interest is in their attitudes about unemployment and the unemployed, particular their views on the ‘welfare dependency’ thesis. While his discussion of these issues is interesting and engaging, there are a number of limitations that deserve further discussion.

Re-visiting the Quasi-Market in Employment Services: Australia’s Job Network

Australia’s Job Network is an example of the quasi-market model applied to employment services. It has been in operation now for over ten years. This article explores its functioning predominantly in terms of public choice and agency theory which promotes the quasi-market model. It augments that analysis with the application of a normative framework asking if the Job Network promotes choice, voice and citizenship. Using evidence and data from different sources, it suggests that the Job Network, despite claims, largely fails to deliver in the manner suggested by the theoretical accounts.

Technocrats or Intellectuals? Reflections on the Role of Housing Researchers as Social Scientists

Like all social scientists, housing researchers must consider their role as knowledge producers in a changing social world. Questions about the appropriate means and ends of social research raise important considerations about policy impact, research quality and the public value of social inquiry. Answering these questions is not helped by the binary between the natural and the social sciences, which has created hierarchies of knowledge in which we have become comfortable and complacent with distinctions between “agency” and “structure”, “soft” and “hard” data; “objective” and “subjective” phenomena and “material” and “discursive” realities. Underpinning these distinctions is a fundamental tension between different rationalities, such as the difference between what Aristotle called techne (technical rationality) and phronesis (value rationality). Research that clarifies the risks and problems faced by contemporary societies should embrace both a value and technical rationality. In the first part of the paper I argue that much of what constitutes institutionally funded housing research, at least in Australia, has been dominated by a technical rationality; with much less attention being given to the significance of values and ethics in clarifying the problems of our time. In the final part of the paper I consider how housing researchers might reframe problems, design methods of inquiry and communicate their findings in a way that contributes to public debate.

Enhancing the social dimension of development: Interconnecting the Capability Approach and applied knowledge of social workers:

The current interest in sustainability within international development presents an important opportunity for social work to further promote the often-overlooked social pillar of sustainable development. The dominant paradigm regarding economic systems of development and organisation has influenced not only the scope of sustainable development, but also an increasingly depoliticised vision of social work knowledge and practice. Inattention to structural determinants of social inequalities limits the scope for radical, sustained change. The Capability Approach’s recognition of poverty and development as complex, multidimensional phenomena aligns with social work values, while social work’s well-established and reflexive direct-level practice may provide the applied knowledge needed in the theory.

Disability, work and motivation

A common assumption in welfare reform debates is that a more generous benefit payment rate provides a disincentive for the unemployed to seek paid employment. In the Australian and international context this assumption has recently been applied to certain types of people with a disability. We argue in this paper that not only is the empirical evidence unconvincing, there are also strong moral reasons why the assumption and the policies based on it are misguided (Berkel and Moller 2002; Larsen 2005). We argue that, in fact, the reverse is more likely to be true; increasing benefits is likely to be a better way of helping people find a job and will avoid some of morally dubious outcomes associated with lowering payments. The article is in two parts. In section one, we describe some of the arrangements that are currently in place in Australia and overseas. We consider evidence from Australia and overseas on income support policies for people with a disability and qualitative accounts of barriers to employment for people with a disability. The international context challenges the idea that lowering income support payments increases the likelihood that people will secure paid work. In the second part we argue that not only is there little empirical evidence to support the policy of cutting benefits, it is morally dubious as well. What we call the ‘motivation model’ of welfare policy does not accurately reflect the situation of people with a disability who are unemployed. The motivation model focuses on one cause of disadvantage in particular – individual motivation – and then applies penalties where motivation is lacking, often with disastrous results. More fundamentally, we also claim that welfare policy, especially for the disabled, should not be guided by considerations of assigning blame and praise, especially where doing so may reduce benefits to groups who are already significantly disadvantaged.

Why one size fits all approach to transition in Disability Employment Services hinders employability of young people with physical and neurological disabilities in Australia

The education-to-work pathways for young people with disabilities are becoming more diverse and lengthier in our post-industrial economy. Furthermore, it is recognized that a multitude of barriers still remain in securing employment at the end of these pathways. In this paper, we focus on Australia’s Disability Employment Services (DES) to understand how views of transition in DES policy may be influencing program rules in supporting secondary and tertiary students with physical and/or neurological disabilities in their employability and employment. We do this through critical policy analysis of DES and in-depth Interpretive accounts from service providers and advocacy organizations.