Benefits conditionality for disabled people: stylised facts from a review of international evidence and practice

Geiger, Ben Baumberg

doi:10.1332/175982717x14939739331010

Cited by 40 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Because of the major variations across national models with regards to the design and facility of conditionality throughout OECD countries (Eichhorst et al, 2008), it has been argued that each form of conditionality should be explored on its own merits in a context-specific manner (Geiger, 2017;Grant, 2011;Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2018). This has major implications for the exploration of justificatory narratives.…”

Section: Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frontline managers' perceptions and justifications of behavioural conditionality

Sadeghi¹,

Terum²

2020

Soc Policy Adm

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The debate on behavioural conditionality is characterised by abundant controversies. Frontline managers have a particularly important role in implementing these policies because their interpretation of the welfare policies regulates the frameworks of street‐level bureaucrat's discretionary powers. A nationwide survey among frontline managers in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration revealed that 86% of the managers expressed strong normative support towards welfare conditionality. With this as a backdrop, this paper develops a better understanding of managers' perceptions and justifications of the Norwegian type of behavioural conditionality. Analysis of focus group interview data showed that the managers adopted a broad definition of conditionality, meaning promotion of an overall (re)integration of the client into the society as opposed to the narrow definition focusing solely on labour market integration. Furthermore, the implementation of welfare conditionality primarily was perceived as mild and client sensitive. The managers mainly justified welfare conditionality in terms of care and paternalistic defences, arguing that requirement of work and activities are in the client's best interest, understood in terms of social democratic values.

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Section: Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frontline managers' perceptions and justifications of behavioural conditionality

Sadeghi¹,

Terum²

2020

Soc Policy Adm

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“…Within social security benefit systems, the application of welfare conditionality links eligibility to continued receipt of work-related benefits to claimants' engagement with mandatory, work focused interviews (WFIs), training and support schemes, and/or job search requirements, with failure to undertake such specified activities leading to benefit sanctions (Dwyer, 2016). In recent decades, conditionality has increasingly been applied to working-aged disabled people in receipt of incapacity benefits in many high-income welfare states across the globe (Baumberg Geiger, 2017;Lantz & Marston, 2012;Lindsay & Houston, 2013), and it has become a key component of the UK's "work first" approach to disability benefit reform (Dwyer, 2017;Patrick, 2017). Advocates of welfare conditionality argue that many disabled benefit recipients are essentially unemployed rather than incapacitated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work, welfare, and wellbeing: The impacts of welfare conditionality on people with mental health impairments in the UK

et al. 2019

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The personal, economic, and social costs of mental ill health are increasingly acknowledged by many governments and international organisations. Simultaneously, in high‐income nations, the reach of welfare conditionality has extended to encompass many people with mental health impairments as part of on‐going welfare reforms. This is particularly the case in the UK where, especially since the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance in 2008, the rights and responsibilities of disabled people have been subject to contestation and redefinition. Following a review of the emergent international evidence on mental health and welfare conditionality, this paper explores two specific issues. First, the impacts of the application of welfare conditionality on benefit claimants with mental health impairments. Second, the effectiveness of welfare conditionality in supporting people with experience of mental ill health into paid work. In considering these questions, this paper presents original analysis of data generated in qualitative longitudinal interviews with 207 UK social security benefit recipients with experience of a range of mental health issues. The evidence suggests that welfare conditionality is largely ineffective in moving people with mental health impairments into, or closer to, paid work. Indeed, in many cases, it triggers negative health outcomes that make future employment less likely. It is concluded that the application of conditionality for people with mental health issues is inappropriate and should cease.

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“…The main purpose is to use these data to understand more about the impacts of TANF conditionality on mental health over this same period. It responds to a growing interest among social policy academics in the wider consequences of benefit conditionality for health, wellbeing and social rights, especially among disadvantaged groups (Dean, 2003; Garthwaite et al , 2014; Reeves and Loopstra, 2016; Shutes, 2016; Geiger, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is the Relationship between Benefit Conditionality and Mental Health? Evidence from the United States on TANF Policies

Davis

2018

J. Soc. Pol.

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This article provides new evidence on the relationship between benefit conditionality and mental health. Using data on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families policies (TANF) – the main form of poverty relief in the United States – it explores whether the mental health of low-educated single mothers varies according to the stringency of conditionality requirements attached to receipt of benefit. Specifically, the article combines state-level data on sanctioning practices, work requirements and welfare-to-work spending with health data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and evaluates the impact of conditionality on mental health over a fifteen-year period (2000 to 2015). It finds that states that have harsher sanctions, stricter job search requirements and higher expenditure on welfare-to-work policies, have worse mental health among low-educated single mothers. There is also evidence that between-wave increases in the stringency of conditionality requirements are associated with deteriorations in mental health among the recipient population. It is suggested that these findings may reflect an overall effect of ‘intensive conditionality’, rather than of the individual variables per se. The article ends by considering the wider implications for policy and research.

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Benefits conditionality for disabled people: stylised facts from a review of international evidence and practice

Cited by 40 publications

References 12 publications

Frontline managers' perceptions and justifications of behavioural conditionality

Frontline managers' perceptions and justifications of behavioural conditionality

Work, welfare, and wellbeing: The impacts of welfare conditionality on people with mental health impairments in the UK

What is the Relationship between Benefit Conditionality and Mental Health? Evidence from the United States on TANF Policies

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