This article contributes to our empirical understanding of self-respect in rising meritocracies by focusing on the experiences of unemployed, low-skilled people recruited as workfare volunteers in the Netherlands. As many theorists have argued, the longterm unemployed struggle to maintain self-esteem. We found that workfare projects that introduce them to voluntary work can help them regain self-respect through four types of emotional labour: feeling respected through their newfound status, enjoying a craft, being able to perform in less stressful working environments, and taking pride in the meaning bestowed by voluntary work. But the emotional labour necessary to experience their situation more positively also increases the risk of experiencing negative emotions, thereby posing new threats to the fragile self-respect of unemployed citizens.
In many countries in north‐western Europe, the welfare state is changing, and governments expect a great deal of informal care. In the Netherlands, citizens are also increasingly expected to rely on informal instead of professional care. In this study, we aim to determine to what extent Dutch care‐dependent people want to rely on social network members and what reasons they raise for accepting or refusing informal care. To answer this question, we observed 65 so‐called ‘kitchen table talks’, in which social workers assess citizens’ care needs and examine to what extent relatives, friends and/or neighbours can provide help and care. We also interviewed 50 professionals and 30 people in need of care. Our findings show that a great deal of informal care is already given (in 46 out of 65 cases), especially between people who have a close emotional bond. For this reason, people in need of care often find it difficult to ask their family members, friends or neighbours for extra assistance. People are afraid to overburden their family members, friends or neighbours. Another reason people in need of care raise against informal care is that they feel ashamed of becoming dependent. Although the government wants to change the meaning of autonomy by emphasising that people are autonomous when they rely on social network members, people who grew up in the heyday of the welfare state feel embarrassed and ashamed when they are not able to reciprocate. Our findings imply that policymakers and social professionals need to reconsider the idea that resources of informal care are inexhaustible and that citizens can look after each other much more than they already do. It is important that social policymakers approach the codes and norms underlying social relations more cautiously because pressure on these relations can have negative effects.
We examine whether, and under which conditions, volunteering contributes to migrant integration. We identify two main goals of workfare volunteering-empowerment and employability-which build on two distinct images of the ideal citizen: the empowered citizen and the worker-citizen. Life story interviews were held with 46 first-and second-generation migrant women from Turkey, Morocco and Suriname living in the Netherlands. We found that volunteering contributes to employability and empowerment. However, for two mutually reinforcing reasons it eventually disempowers. Firstly, volunteering hardly ever results in paid employment because employers do not recognize volunteering as real work experience. Secondly, the focus on paid employment as ultimate form of integration misrecognizes migrant women as active citizens, which often results in disempowerment. Our findings show that the double policy goals of workfare volunteering require different conditions, and as such striving for both simultaneously often results in failing to achieve the set goals.Résumé Nous avons examiné si, et dans quelles conditions, le bénévolat contribue à l'intégration des migrants. Nous identifions deux principaux objectifs du bénévolat Resumen Examinamos si el voluntariado contribuye a la integración de inmigrantes, y bajo qué condiciones. Identificamos dos metas principales del voluntariado de ''workfare'' (obligación de trabajar para recibir subsidios) -empoderamiento y empleabilidad -que se basan en dos imágenes diferentes del ciudadano ideal: el ciudadano empoderado y el ciudadano trabajador. Se realizaron entrevistas biográficas a 46 mujeres inmigrantes de primera y segunda generación de Turquía, Marruecos y Surinam que viven en los Países Bajos. Encontramos que el voluntariado contribuye a la empleabilidad y al empoderamiento. Sin embargo, por dos motivos que se refuerzan mutuamente les desempodera eventualmente. En primer lugar, el voluntariado raras veces resulta en empleo pagado porque los Voluntas (2017Voluntas ( ) 28:1900Voluntas ( -1921Voluntas ( 1901 123 empleadores no reconocen el voluntariado como una experiencia de trabajo real. En segundo lugar, el foco de atención en el empleo pagado como forma última de integración reconoce erróneamente a las mujeres inmigrantes como ciudadanas activas, lo que da lugar a menudo al desempoderamiento. Nuestros hallazgos muestran que las dos metas de la política de voluntariado de ''workfare'' requieren diferentes condiciones, y como tales, esforzarse por ambas simultáneamente a menudo resulta en no lograr las metas establecidas.
Social workers are often depicted as street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) or professionals interchangeably. However, to find out how social workers relate to new policy measures, a clear distinction between SLBs and professionals is helpful. Ideal–typical SLBs subscribe to new policies although they may diverge from them in practice, to accommodate clients. Ideal–typical professionals weigh new policies against their ethical code. If the new policy goes against their professional principles, they protest on behalf of their clients. In this article, we study Dutch social workers who have to implement a new policy that (i) obliges their clients to actively participate in society and (ii) obliges them to rely on family and friends when they need help. The data for this article are derived from two projects: interviews with twenty-nine experienced social workers and interviews with social workers in neighbourhood teams and observations of their interactions with clients in six municipalities. We found that Dutch social workers think as professionals: they weigh the new policy against their ethical code and have serious doubts about the second part of the new policy. Hence, they find ways to avoid implementation. However, they behave as SLBs, bending the rules in practice. They rarely confront policymakers or higher management.
Dutch citizens on welfare have to volunteer at Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in return for their benefits. Through applying the 'worlds of justification' of Boltanski and Thévenot, this article aims to provide a better theoretical and empirical understanding of social justice of policies that obligate welfare clients to participate in CSOs. The analysis of 51 in-depth interviews with Dutch welfare recipients shows that respondents perceive these policies partly but not unilaterally as unfair. If respondents perceive welfare as 'free money' and if they are convinced that civic behavior demands interventions against free riding on welfare resources, 'mandatory volunteering' is considered as fair. Our main contribution is to the theoretical debate on recognition and redistribution by showing empirically how 'othering' plays an important role in determining when mandatory volunteering becomes a matter of redistribution or recognition.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.