Work and thrive or claim and skive: Experiencing the ‘toxic symbiosis’ of worklessness and welfare recipiency in Ireland

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to shed much needed light on lived experience in the context of worklessness coupled with welfare receipt in Ireland. In doing so, the work ethic is presented as an objective social force that can be imposed externally and in a number of social and administrative contexts. Coupled with this, receiving welfare is argued as being a ‘problematic’ and potentially shameful social position. On this basis, it will be shown how worklessness and welfare receipt can coalesce to form a ‘toxic symbiosis’, something which can deeply and negatively affect those who experience it. The claims made in this paper are based on original research conducted in Ireland, in which 22 people were interviewed about their general experiences of being welfare recipients and their interactions with the Irish welfare state. Drawing on rich qualitative data, epistemic integrity is offered through depth of understanding meaning that what is presented here sheds lights on the social implications of the continuous denigration of welfare recipiency coupled with the continuous valorisation of work. In a practical sense, this suggests that, on the one hand, a new, less corrosive societal relationship with work is both desirable and necessary in respect to the well-being of persons, while on the other, a more holistic approach to the administration of welfare, in which a return to work is only one part of an overall approach, is both needed and ultimately more humane.

The Marketisation of Welfare-To-Work in Ireland

“…This was to ensure that the sample captured a balance of service-users across different providers. A limitation of previous qualitative studies of people's experiences of JobPath is that they are focused almost entirely on people's experiences of services delivered by Turas Nua (Finn, 2021;J Whelan, 2021;Boland et al, 2022;Whelan, 2022). This stems from the locations of that research (Cork, Waterford, Wexford, and Kildare) which are all counties where Turas Nua is the only JobPath provider.…”

Introduction: The dual tracks of welfare and activation reform – Governance and conditionality

“…Dukelow, in this issue, continues this theme, examining the relationship between conditionality and structural retrenchments of income support, which lead to some citizens being sacrificed for international competitiveness. Joe Whelan's research on the lived experience of worklessness and welfare in Ireland highlights the now 'compulsive geography of the welfare state' (Whelan, 2021a, p. 47), and how the spectre of shame and stigma are operationalised through social and administrative contexts to form a 'toxic symbiosis' (Whelan, 2021b) which continually valorises a work ethic. Likewise, Gaffney & Millar (2020) relate the emergence of welfare fraud as a contentious issue, with the workfarist turn leading to the 'scapegoating' of welfare claimants and constituting them as subjects under constant surveillance.…”

Specters of Goffman: Impression Management in the Irish Welfare Space

“…Since the time in which Esping-Andersen (1990) was writing, welfare provision in Ireland has arguably undergone a paradigmatic shift, much of which has devolved upon increasing levels of welfare conditionality. Welfare conditionality and its effects have seen an abundance of recent contributions in the context of the United Kingdom but have arguably suffered from a lack of cognate data that shed light on the Irish example, although this is slowly changing (see Boland 2018; Boland and Griffin 2015a, 2015b, 2016, 2018; Collins and Murphy 2016; Gaffney and Millar 2020; Millar and Crosse 2018; Murphy 2018, 2020; Whelan 2020a, 2020b; Wiggan 2015). Internationally, literature suggests that ongoing reforms to welfare regimes across jurisdictions since about the 1970s are indicative of the bedding in of neoliberalism as a “global” ideology (Dardot and Laval 2013; Harvey 2007).…”

“…Putting across a positive image to welfare administrators as a mode of impression management differed for many of the participants. For example, Jane links forming a favorable impression to work and to the work ethic (see Whelan, 2020b):I feel better about myself when I have a part-time job. And I feel like when I’m on the phone to the social welfare people that if I can say, well, I am working this alongside rearing my two children by myself, I feel a bit better about that—and I feel it’s received better.…”