Mobilising entry into work
pete quentin, 27 June 2008
This week Gordon Brown gave us his assessment of the factors thwarting social mobility in Britain today. Where he was right, was to point to the impact which unemployment had on social mobility under Thatcher. Where he was wrong, was to ignore the role which his very own government is playing in thwarting social mobility today – again through unemployment.
A general decline in employment has perhaps distracted attention from the hugely problematic recent rise of unemployment amongst 16-24 year-olds. Under New Labour the number of unemployed young people (who are neither in education or training) has risen by 15 per cent and today 16-25 year-olds are twice as likely to be unemployed in Britain than their older counterparts. This unemployment is not only crippling the social mobility of these young adults themselves, but also their children’s. Looking at patterns in family formation the young, the poor and the unstable family are all closely connected to youth unemployment. Subsequently, so is the threat to children’s life chances and the corresponding threat to social mobility. Reams of research has shown us that the impact of home-life deprivation affects both children’s short and long term development more than any other factor in their lives. The greatest cause of household deprivation, in turn, is parental unemployment.
New Labour has revealed not only difficulty in realising an equalising agenda but difficulty in conceptualising the problems social mobility currently faces. On the one hand poverty traps through poorly-arranged welfare organisation, together with an education system which is inadequately preparing pupils, are perpetuating unemployment. On the other, a lack of joined-up thinking is stopping Labour from identifying the necessary focus on social mobility and its companion issue, child poverty. Although the Labour government is genuinely committed to eradicating child poverty its haste to reach its targets have led to a focus on short-term strategies, in which the context creating poverty is sidestepped in favour of shorter term remedial cash strategies. A significant part of the problem is that child poverty is being treated too much in isolation from its causes: parental poverty. Looking at the causes of parental poverty, parental unemployment (particularly paternal) is central. Underemployed families are not just at risk of poverty but also at risk of parental separation. Parental separation significantly increases the risk of further poverty as an outcome of one household splitting into two.
In short, this government’s top priority should be to once and for all tackle youth unemployment, firstly through schooling and secondly through the welfare system. With jobs available for a high proportion of those currently unemployed, the problem centres on a lack of motivation to leave benefits. This relates in part to the weaknesses in the education system, which are too often leading to a scenario where young people’s qualifications offer them jobs less desirable than what welfare has to offer. The second – formative – part of the equation is that unemployment arrangements currently act as stallers, rather than bridges, to work, creating disincentives to move into employment and generating stagnant dependency.
If we are to see future social mobility in this country, the first thing which needs to happen is policy which mobilises entry into the workforce.
So, the question is, how do we persuade parents to want to go to work?
Some of the most basic psychology theories of the past 100 years explain what is wrong with left-wing approaches to the problem i.e. support these people on benefits.
Most simplistically of all, McGregor took lots of measurements and noted two psychological types, X’s and Y’s. Type X’s dislike work and must be forced to do it, he concluded. Type Y’s will be self-managing and achieve objectives to which they are committed.
Similarly, Hertzberg noted the workplace to be populated by two types which somewhat overlap: the hygiene seeker (they want food and shelter) versus the motivation seeker (who want fulfilment).
Other more sophisticated, contemporary research has indicated how the {sic} “working class” are motivated to achieve short term gains, rather than long term ones, which is the preserve of the middle classes.
So, all in all, the non-working parents of poor kids are typically people who dislike work and must be coerced to do it, are motivated by more basic needs and who seek short-term solutions.
… So, the long-term altruistic project of creating a home for raising a child, to be a self-sufficient and well-functioning human being isn’t really anywhere on the radar is it? And, how attractive on a scale of 1 to 10 do we think ‘the benefits option’ is?
The problem is the age old one, where the left-wing’s response to the problem is to avoid facts and evidence and seek solace in self-gratifying acts of charity.
The effects are predictable and evident. But, so long as they feel virtuous, that’s all that matters then.
The right wing view – of insisting these people become self-sufficient – because we know they would if they had to – is inhumane and fascist.
Of course it is.
I am afraid i must disagree. Labour are not, in any shape or form, committed to any such act as eradicting child poverty. Labour are incompetent liars committed to an agenda of self-gratification, through actions that appear liberal, but are in fact simply a baseless attack on institutions that achieve things.
The depth of their cyncism is that they would rather allow child poverty, rather than retrospectively examine their own assumptions and give credit to established social structures which would mitigate it.
As the article otherwise suggests, a true attempt to eradicate child poverty would see an attack on the fatherless generation, would support and foster indepenedence in young adults, provide a sound education and uphold a framework of boundaries and values which were carried forwards to the next generation.
Like all of the social areas that the Government attempts to engineer, they are flawed because of a ridiculous and immature ideology that places the fault instead with a generally decent society and places virtue with arbitrary groups of miscreants and opportunists. Salivating over the prospect of demonstrating their virtue towards these ^victims^, Labours senseless policies subsequently simply breed and nurture more victims and thugs in an opportunistic underclass, all to ready to play their part.
Labour are simply some horrible hybrid of Stallinist Russia and a second-rate 1970s student reactionary group, not capable of being sincerely committed to anything.
At last somebody has realised what I have been saying for a long time. Child poverty doesn’t really exist, except as Parental poverty. It is precisely because people are producing children when they haven’t a hope in hell’s chance of properly providing for the poor souls, that chidren are born into poverty. But you don’t eradicate this poverty by giving money to those in this situation, because what you are actually doing is saying to these people ‘Get yourself into this situation and the taxpayer will be stupid enough to give you money’. It should not suprise anyone that there will be a lot of takers for this offer, just as there are takers when they are told ‘If you want a tax-payer funded Flat, that’s easy – just go and get pregnant’. If you pay people to behave in a particular way, there will be takers, especially when it apparently doesn’t involve much effort, e.g not bothering to get up in the morning or not bothering to get a job. That this Governemnt aims to solve the problem by actually making it more financially attractive to behave irresponsibly is bewildering. One wonders what their real motive is – because it cannot be to ‘eliminate child poverty’. As your researcher rightly concludes, the answer lies in opening up avenues for work. Although I wonder how many people in the ‘child poverty’ situation would be interested in work, when it is much easier to sit at home and get paid not a great deal less than the jobs they could get. I just hope I’m wrong in this latter view.