Money, competences or behaviour? On the many worths of the unemployed

ABSTRACT

The article investigates how ordinary citizens establish the worth of unemployed persons when discussing politics. It analyses data from two deliberative forums held in Copenhagen, Denmark and Birmingham, UK at which citizens discussed welfare policies. It uses core concepts from French pragmatic sociology in an attempt to grasp the moral complexity of such discussions. Contrary to the moral singularity found in the majority of existing analyses—distinguishing ‘negative’ from ‘positive’ perceptions of the unemployed—the article emphasises the plurality of coexisting normative standards that people turn to when establishing the (lack of) worth of the unemployed. It finds that three normative standards are most important in both countries but being applied in quite different ways: an industrial standard of worth, measuring worth in terms of competences; a domestic standard of worth, measuring worth in terms of behaviour; and a market standard of worth, measuring worth in terms of money.

KEYWORDS:

• Pragmatic sociology
• welfare regimes
• unemployment policies
• deliberative forums
• workfare
• deservingness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The 34 English participants included 18 men and 16 women. Politically, 17 of the respondents positioned themselves in the middle of the political spectrum, three to the right, four to the left and 10 answered that they did not know. Four were under the age of 24, 12 were between 25 and 34, four between 35 and 44, nine were between 45 and 64, and four were more than 65 years old. Seven had high personal incomes (1st to 3rd decile), 12 had medium personal incomes (4th to 7th decile), while 14 had low personal incomes. The 35 Danish participants included 21 women and 14 men. Seventeen voted for centre-left parties, and 12 voted for centre-right parties in the most recent Danish election for parliament (six did not answer the question). Seven were less than 30 years old, 10 were between 30 and 45, seven were between 46 and 60 years old, whereas 11 were more than 60 years old. Nine had high personal incomes (more than €55,000 per year), 10 had medium incomes (between €30,000 and €55,000 per year), and 10 had low incomes (less than €30,000 per year). Six were old-age pensioners, seven were students, and two were unemployed. The remaining contained a mixture of self-employed, public front-line workers, workers and academics. All participants lived in the capital region of Denmark.

2 In practice, the theme of unemployment occurred as a subtheme in debates about numerous topics such as the tax system, personal responsibility, immigration, the social safety net and the labour market.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by EU's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program NORFACE: [Grant Number 618106].