According to new research conducted by the DWP benefit sanctions have only a negligible effect on lone parent job-seeking behaviour. The most common reasons for failing to attend work-focused interviews were ill health, caring responsibilities and simply forgetting.
Those who received sanctions were more likely to experience ill health, and greater debt. Based on the evidence it clearly shows that lone parents don’t make an “active decision” not to attend these work-focused interviews.
The report concludes: ”It has been reasonable to conclude that the sanction regime had only a negligible effect upon the labour market behaviour of the lone parents in this study”.
Contrary to the belief that sanctions are a deterrent coupled with the “workshy” ethos, this report shows that lone parents have a number of valid reasons for non-attendance from ill health, child care responsibilities and simply forgetting.
A parent who is under immense pressure and probably a chaotic lifestyle due to the everyday grind is expected to remember that extra little thing… a work-focused interview. And how does the system retaliate for non-attendance, it imposes a sanction which, as it shows, drags lone parents further into poverty and ill health. And considering that this will have a deeper impact on women where 1.6 million families are headed by a woman lone parent.
If NL was at all serious about supporting lone parents then universal free childcare would be at the top of the agenda along with decent jobs and training. It’s not. Instead it is about coercion and penalties.
Not to mention the suicides, mental health issues, substance misuse etc, that all spiral out of control as a consequence of the debts that arise from benefits sanctions. I quite agree, the policy is dreadful. Furthermore, even for those few who do end up in jobs, we’re talking low-level insecure jobs in retail etc, because they won’t have had time to acquire the skills to do anything else.
Yes, those kinds of jobs will collapse when something like..er..a credit crunch hits. And they aren’t the kind that will build confidence and increase your skills. But as far as Purnell et al are concerned…it’s a job.
I don’t get the idea that if you’re unemployed you somehow ‘don’t work’ just because you don’t get paid. I found I worked hardest when I was looking for work, both in Paris and in the UK. And I’m not a single parent, I’m a layabout who was making sacrifices for basically idealistic reasons. It wasn’t harder or more stressful than when I was a cleaner or on a production line, but definitely way harder than the more middle-class office jobs I’ve had since.
I agree Zenobia. The current ideology of NL is this obsession with work. Language revolves around “worklessness” “workshy” and so on. It is all based on reactionary assumptions: “Can’t work, won’t work” philosophy. It is also a way of creating myths and blaming the poor.
Well, on the surface of it it’s an obsession with work, scratch the surface and work isn’t being valued at all, it’s more being paid for work that’s being valued here: if it doesn’t have a monetary value, then it doesn’t count as work, however much hard work it actually is. So basically, it’s purchasing power that’s being valued, not work at all.
Besides, all this ‘a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay’ stuff is such bullshit, I can remember being bawled out by the forewoman in the dairy where I worked because I came back from my lunch break five minutes late, even though I was tossing yoghurts onto crates all day long at a hell of a rate (no choice, it’s not like the production line stops when you want it to). Whereas in other, better paid jobs, I’ve been praised to the skies for basically doing two bits of work in the day and dicking around on the internet the rest of the time, simply because I was getting all my work done on time, even though there wasn’t much of it.
And needless to say, ‘freelance translator’ got a far better reaction from people at the bank than ‘cleaner’ or ‘production operative’ – one elicited beaming smiles and credit card offers, the other elicited funny looks and advice on where to get education so I could get a better job.
Although all this is a bit off-topic, but being unemployed is actually really hard work, and if it is for a layabout like myself, it’s certainly worse for a single mum on a council estate.
I agree. But that’s the thing if NL were serious then they would put forward free childcare, flexible working hours, skill training, apprentice jobs and so on. But they aren’t. It is about exploiting the poor and to create a nasty climate that puts them under the spotlight. It is also part and parcel of the neo-liberal agenda.
I know what you mean about “fair day’s work” etc. I worked as a cleaner some years ago and you indeed knew where you were in the class pecking order. The union had been smashed, hardly any health and safety and no breaks…… but the women (and it was mainly women) were too scared to join a union. The behaviour of management totally broke any confidence and self-esteem.
Excellent post. My post (agreeing with you) at http://don-paskini.blogspot.com/2008/08/cutting-benefits-doesnt-make-people-get.html
Sorry Don, had to retrieve your comment from the spam filter as it had a link. Again, sorry about that and thanks as welll.
…coupled with the “workshy” ethos, this report shows that lone parents have a number of valid reasons for non-attendance from ill health, child care responsibilities and simply forgetting.
One could argue that claiming forgetfulness, illness or childcare needs is often a symptom of workshyness. Without the kind of detailed investigation that nobody actually does, it is impossible to distinguish between someone who missed an appointment because everybody that he uses for childcare was involved in a freak bus crash, and someone who “couldn’t get a babysitter, innit?” The fact that the self-employed and those whose pay is determined by their performance tend to take fewer sick days than people with seniority-based pay scales is probably not evidence that the self-employed are healthier than normal people.
This isn’t to say that the “cutting benefits” idea is a good one. Beating a bunch of malingering wasters about the head with a stick might elicit the occasional minimal effort, but does not tend to convert malingerers into responsible self-reliant taxpayers.
There are people that actively want to spend their time watching daytime TV in their underwear, but most people in that situation have drifted into it, and lack the personal skills required to sort themselves out. They need sensible help (and possibly a kick up the backside), not just being thwacked around the head.
Thanks for posting the link to the research. I’m interested in this area and feel you’re selectively quoting from the wider research evidence.
This study looked at the effect of the introduction of a requirement to attend a single interview with a reduction of benefit (sanction) made if the person didn’t attend. A single hour long interview with no follow up was never likely to change behaviour.
Let’s look at their research on the Pathways to Work pilot. This required disabled benefit claimants to attend more interviews (a maximum of 6 interviews) with sanctions applied if they didn’t attend. The option is there for the claimants to take up other back to work help if they want but few do. What do you know the % chance of being in work 18 months after joining the benefit increases from 28% to 35%. That shows a significant and sustained impact on
PSI research report is on the DWP website but I won’t post a link as I don’t want to be considered spam!
Turning back to lone parents from the Government’s recent announcements they have decided the lessons to be drawn from every European country where you have to look for a job or face a sanction (not just attend interviews) when the person’s child turns 7. These countries (many of them with no free child care at all) have much higher employment rates for lone parents – and generally better outcomes for the children. At the moment the equvilent age in the UK is 16 – which will come down to 9 shortly.
So what’s the point of benefit sanctions – well if coupled with the right requirements (multiple interviews/looking for work etc) they can have startling effects on the employment rates of benefit claimants. The evidence for that is clear. We can argue whether that produces the right outcomes overall. I tend to think it does but many others will disagree.
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2007-2008/rrep435.pdf
In case you are able to pick this out of the spam filter this is the research report I quoted.
Someone who “simply forgets” the occasional interview required to continue receiving the handout that pays for their existence doesn’t deserve to survive natural selection.
Plenty of people raise kids alone despite working full time. To claim overwork causes forgetting when the single biggest demand on your productive hours (a job) is absent is just the usual whiny open-palmed welfare mentality.
It doesn’t matter if sanctions work for the scrounger. Cutting the benefits relieves the taxpayer of another ungrateful undeserving parasite, so it “works” for the people who matter.
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The DWP doesn’t care. My incompetent FND provider told the DWP I was uncooperative. How could I be uncooperative when I couldn’t even read the paperwork they sent me. Despite stating this to the dwp and A4E they didnt see fit to send out large print paerwork.
It all ended up in them being extremely rude, intimidating I too have contemplated committing suicide