Winner of the British Academy Peter Townsend Prize for 2013
How do men and women get by in times and places where opportunities for standard employment have drastically reduced? Are we witnessing the growth of a new class, the ‘Precariat’, where people exist without predictability or security in their lives? What effects do flexible and insecure forms of work have on material and psychological well-being?
This book is the first of its kind to examine the relationship between social exclusion, poverty and the labour market. It challenges long-standing and dominant myths about ‘the workless’ and ‘the poor’, by exploring close-up the lived realities of life in low-pay, no-pay Britain. Work may be ‘the best route out of poverty’ sometimes but for many people getting a job can be just a turn in the cycle of recurrent poverty – and of long-term churning between low-skilled ‘poor work’ and unemployment. Based on unique qualitative, life-history research with a ‘hard-to-reach group’ of younger and older people, men and women, the book shows how poverty and insecurity have now become the defining features of working life for many.
153 10 Insecurity Sarah Pollock Introduction This chapter will explore the different but interconnecting facets of insecurity in contemporary Britain; how political and ideological decision making has increased insecurity by introducing policies of welfare conditionality; and the impact this has had on those needing support. The chapter ends with a consideration of social work’s role in supporting individuals, families and groups to manage living with insecurity. This chapter combines a range of issues not often considered together, for example, housing and
195 Conclusion: social insecurity and ‘welfare’ ‘This government is all about security … Security is also what drives the social reform that I want this government to undertake in my second term. Individuals and families who are in poverty crave security – for them, it’s the most important value of all. … So for people in Britain who are struggling today, our mission as a government is to look every parent and child in the eye, and say ‘Your dreams are our dreams. We’ll support you with everything we’ve got.’ (Cameron, 2016) In his successful 2015
Known as ‘the land of fire’, Azerbaijan’s politics are materially and ideologically shaped by energy. In the country, energy security emerges as a mix of coercion and control, requiring widespread military and law enforcement deployment.
This book examines the extensive network of security professionals and the wide range of practices that have spread in Azerbaijan’s energy sector. It unpacks the interactions of state, supra‐state, and private security organizations and argues that energy security has enabled and normalized a coercive way of exercising power. This study shows that oppressive energy security practices lead to multiple forms of abuse and poor energy policies.
275 FOURTEEN Feelings of insecurity and young people in housing estates Manuel Aalbers, Agnieszka Bielewska, Franck Chignier-Riboulon and Anna Guszcza Introduction Many residents on large housing estates experience feelings of insecurity. Some of the estates have serious problems involving juvenile crime, while on other estates youngsters just hanging around cause feelings of insecurity. Residents and officials label such behaviour as deviant, and apply different types of measures to attempt to decrease the level of insecurity that it causes in a neighbourhood
167 9 Poverty and social insecurity In this chapter we turn to the interviewees’ experiences of poverty. A primary aim is to show how these experiences related to encounters with employment, with the welfare system and with debt. In other words, the chapter aims to examine the relationship between cycling between low-paid jobs, unemployment and poverty. While inadequate benefits and low pay were each important factors in explaining poverty, it was also the case that moving between these different states – between employment and unemployment – was in and of
The Problem The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant increase in the number of people who experience food insecurity and hunger worldwide. Simultaneously, new solidarity alliances have emerged to bridge the gap between food destined to be wasted and the rising need. Hunger is life-threatening. In 1948 the United Nations General Assembly first recognized the right to food as a universal human right. The current pandemic deepens the global hunger crisis, thereby jeopardizing much more than the right to food. The European Food Banks
In this provocative history of parenting, Harry Hendrick analyses the social and economic reasons behind parenting trends. He shows how broader social changes, including neoliberalism, feminism, the collapse of the social-democratic ideal, and the ‘new behaviourism’, have led to the rise of the anxious and narcissistic parent.
The book charts the shift from the liberal and progressive parenting styles of the 1940s-70s, to the more ‘behavioural’, punitive and managerial methods of childrearing today, made popular by ‘experts’ such as Gina Ford and Supernanny Jo Frost, and by New Labour’s parent education programmes.
This trend, Hendrick argues, is symptomatic of the sour, mean-spirited and vindictive social norms found throughout society today. It undermines the better instincts of parents and, therefore, damages parent-child relations. Instead, he proposes, parents should focus on understanding and helping their children as they work at growing up.
217 9 Dualisation or normalisation of part-time work in the Nordic countries: work insecurity and mobility over time Jouko Nätti and Kristine Nergaard Introduction Research interest in part-time work has recently increased in pace given the greater attention paid towards the growth in atypical employment in many Western countries. There is concern for increased social inequality, which is ascribed to the growth in poor- quality and insecure jobs, and that the growing group of outsiders with atypical employment contracts is not composed of random
PART II Labour market insecurity and youth autonomy
