The United Kingdom is in the middle of profound changes to the public sector that will radically alter the welfare state and the place of people with disabilities within that system. This edited collection, drawn from a conference held in 2012 at Lancaster University, is responding to these developments. Under both ‘New Labour’ and the recent Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition, a series of supply-side (increasing the number of disabled people in the labour market) and demand-side (increasing the capacity and willingness of firms to hire disabled people) policies have attempted to increase employment rates among this group. Disabled People, Work, Welfare takes stock of these changes but also offers critical perspectives on the ‘hegemonic discourse’ underlying recent reforms. The book brings together both ‘social administrative-type analysis’ and papers that critically engage with the notion of ‘work’, specifically addressing whether wage-work is a viable solution to the problems facing disabled people and the welfare state.
The collection includes a number of excellent chapters. Patrick and Fenney’s examination of the role of conditionality in different contract theories of the welfare state offers important theoretical reflections on the incoherence in recent policy rhetoric pertaining to activating people with disabilities. Their qualitative interviews highlight a striking gap between how non-disabled people perceived the consequences of conditionality for disabled people and how disabled people view those same issues. Both Stafford’s and Heap’s chapters cover the marketisation of employment programmes for disabled people in the United Kingdom, suggesting that these schemes have benefited some groups more than others primarily because the incentive structures favour those who are already close to being ‘work-ready’. However, Heap is more critical of these shifts than Stafford, arguing that the failures of these policy innovations are grounded in incorrect assumptions about how disabled people transition between employment and unemployment and uncritically accept a narrow conception of how ‘disabled people might contribute to society’ (101). In addition, Woodin provides a clear and succinct overview of the supply-side and demand-side policies introduced in the United Kingdom over recent years that will be invaluable to anyone looking for an introduction to these changes.
While the United Kingdom is the primary focus of most chapters, the collection also offers perspectives on these same issues in other contexts; including Poland (Struck-Peregonczyk; Chapter 6), the United States (Owen et al.; Chapter 7), Denmark (Etherington and Ingold; Chapter 8), and a chapter focused specifically on Scotland (Fordyce and Riddell; Chapter 9). These international chapters provided some of the most illuminating material, drawing attention to important differences and similarities across these contexts. In Poland, labour market activity has declined among disabled people since the collapse of Communism. Now, a quota system is in place which requires companies to ensure that at least 6% of the workforce is disabled; but this has not worked. Even the government department responsible for helping disabled people (re-)enter the labour market employs less than the required 6%. Strikingly, almost all of the country case studies show similar policy trajectories – that is, increasing focus on labour market activation through changing demand and supply – and both the chapters from the United States and Denmark embed these similarities into a broader narrative regarding neoliberalism and the valorisation of wage-work.
Yet the various contributions also suggested points of friction or disagreement. For example, Warren et al. examine an in-work support service in the North of England that takes a ‘health first’ approach to helping people who are at risk of dropping out of the labour market to stay in work. The chapter is an excellent contribution to the collection, providing a multi-method evaluation of what appears to be an effective intervention. (Both the quantitative and qualitative data suggest the service reduced health problems.) Yet this in-work support service could be viewed as simply another supply-side intervention which assumes ‘that people are disabled by their impairment, rather than the structures of capitalism that privilege the non-disabled over the disabled body’ (11). In short, this ‘health first’ approach may take for granted that supply-side barriers to employment are more fluid than the strictures imposed by the ‘hegemonic discourse that equates work with wage-work’ (6). Of course, Grover and Piggott offer thoughtful overviews of these questions in their introduction and conclusion to the volume, but I wonder whether more of the chapters could have engaged with these connections and very difficult questions more explicitly.
Part four of the book is the section that addresses the underlying theme of the original conference most directly: whether paid work is a solution to the intersecting challenges facing disabled people in the United Kingdom. Paid work can improve health, increase economic autonomy, and foster social inclusion. But the benefits of paid work may be greater for some groups more than others; and they may only materialise if the work is satisfying, well paid and allows connections with other employees. Currently, in the United Kingdom, disabled people are often under-employed and living in in-work poverty. In short, the labour market is organised in such a way so that the benefits of employment are often elusive for disabled people. Yet the authors of these contributions share a more fundamental concern. Chapters from Hall and Wilton and from Grover and Piggott both argue that current definitions of work unnecessarily reduce it to paid work only. Rather, they argue that the notion of work can be expanded to include other contributions to society, drawing on specific examples that are pertinent to disabled people but have broader implications for other groups in the society. One consequence of this narrow conception of work is that it undervalues alternative notions of work, thereby also undervaluing the contributions that disabled people make to society as a whole. Roulstone’s excellent chapter on historical and geographical variation in notions of work serves as a useful complement to these arguments. Of course, how a society views work is, in part, a product of specific modes of production and so it is not clear whether current notions of work can be challenged without offering an alternative vision of the economy more broadly. This is obviously beyond the scope of this collection but these chapters successfully raise these and other important questions.
In sum, this collection of essays offers a broad overview of the current policy context experienced by disabled people in a variety of countries whilst summarising key debates around the notion of work and the contribution that disabled people make to society. The volume certainly succeeds in bringing together quite different perspectives but the reader is left to draw out the implications and connections across the two types of contributions. Taken together, Disabled People, Work, Welfare is an important intervention into these debates and will be useful for those wishing to understand these issues in an international context.
International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics, London, UK
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© 2016 Aaron Reeves
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2016.1198554