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‘There’s Nothing’: Unemployment, Attitudes to Work and Punitive Welfare Reform in Post-Crash Salford

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Listed:
  • Bob Jeffery

    (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

  • Dawn Devine

    (Independent Scholar, UK)

  • Peter Thomas

    (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Abstract

This article explores attitudes and barriers to work, and the impact of punitive welfare reform in the City of Salford (Greater Manchester). Contextualising our discussion in relation to the contemporary landscape of inequality and social class in the UK, we draw attention to the trends towards the expansion of low-paid work, precarity, and stigmatisation, and highlight the need for more qualitative, geographically sensitive studies of how these phenomena are being played out. Describing the economic context of the City of Salford and the current state of its labour market, we then present the findings from qualitative interviews with a sample of low income, mostly working-class participants, who describe their orientations towards employment, perceptions of the labour market, barriers to employment and interactions with punitive welfare reform. Ultimately, we conclude by noting that both strategies of neoliberal statecraft aimed at the reduction of the charitable state described by Wacquant are at play in Salford and that their result is a discouragement from claiming welfare and a recommodification of labour.

Suggested Citation

  • Bob Jeffery & Dawn Devine & Peter Thomas, 2018. "‘There’s Nothing’: Unemployment, Attitudes to Work and Punitive Welfare Reform in Post-Crash Salford," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 23(4), pages 795-811, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:23:y:2018:i:4:p:795-811
    DOI: 10.1177/1360780418787521
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Anne E Green & Yuxin Li & David Owen & Maria de Hoyos, 2012. "Inequalities in Use of the Internet for Job Search: Similarities and Contrasts by Economic Status in Great Britain," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(10), pages 2344-2358, October.
    2. Goldthorpe, John H. & McKnight, Abigail, 2004. "The economic basis of social class," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6312, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. John H Goldthorpe & Abigail McKnight, 2004. "The Economic Basis of Social Class," CASE Papers 080, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Juliette Wilson‐Thomas, 2021. "Time's up: Analyzing the feminist potential of time banks," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 2114-2131, November.
    3. James Pattison, 2022. "‘The whole of Shirebrook got put on an ASBO’: The co-production of territorial stigma in a former colliery town," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(1), pages 105-121, February.

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