The Illiberalism of Behavioural Conditionality: A Critique of Australia’s ‘No Jab, No Pay’ Policy

Abstract

Internationally the payment of welfare benefits is increasingly being made conditional on recipients’ behaviour. Behavioural conditions and the payments to which they apply are diversifying. This article aims to contribute to the debate among scholars and policymakers over the ethics of welfare conditionality. While other assessments of the ethics of welfare conditionality have focused on the potential harm caused to vulnerable welfare recipients, this paper develops the argument that welfare conditionality is illiberal. Drawing on findings from behavioural science, it argues that relying on extrinsic motivation in the form of financial incentives is a less desirable approach to behavioural change than bolstering intrinsic motivation. The argument is illustrated with the case of the Australian ‘No Jab, No Pay’ policy, under which family payments and childcare subsidies are denied to parents whose children are not fully immunised. As behavioural conditions and the payments to which they are applied diversify, the cumulative effects of these conditions pose an underappreciated threat to citizens’ autonomy.

Introduction to the special issue on welfare conditionality in Australia

“…The conditionality in Australia’s welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique (Cox & Priest ; Klein & Razi ; Curchin ), including critique published in this journal (Shaver ; Carney ; Altman ; Lovell ; Mendes et al ; Taylor et al ). In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues , we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality.…”

“…The conditionality in Australia's welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique (Cox & Priest 2012;Klein & Razi 2018;Curchin 2019), including critique published in this journal (Shaver 2001;Carney 2011;Altman 2016;Lovell 2016;Mendes et al 2016;Taylor et al 2016). Lisa Fowkes examines how information technologies have been important in the emergence of new forms of control and surveillance of welfare recipients and of those who administer labour market programmes.…”

“…The conditional approach, and the stark rejection of individual autonomy that it represents, amounts to what Curchin () argues, is a form of illiberalism. Moreover, the behaviours identified by the state to be changed/endorsed are arbitrarily chosen to suit political ends (Curchin ).…”

“…The conditional approach, and the stark rejection of individual autonomy that it represents, amounts to what Curchin () argues, is a form of illiberalism. Moreover, the behaviours identified by the state to be changed/endorsed are arbitrarily chosen to suit political ends (Curchin ). Conditionality’s assumption of the state’s right to impinge on the liberty of citizens also marks a movement away from what Deacon () characterised as the quasi‐Titmuss paradigm: a dominant belief among a generation of (mostly British) social policy scholars that ignored human agency of welfare recipients and actively rejected the proposition that “one of the purposes of welfare is to shape the behaviours and aspirations of those who receive it” (Deacon :14).…”

“…Although school attendance has been compulsory in Australia since the 19th century, SEAM was a form of conditionality that sanctions the welfare benefits of parents who do not send their children to school, with the policy aiming to create responsible parents and to reduce welfare dependency (Taylor et al ). The initial form that childhood immunisation conditionality took – the Maternity Immunisation Allowance – can be considered a positive form of conditionality, but more recently, childhood immunisation conditionality has taken the form of a sanction (Taylor et al ; Curchin ).…”