Unemployment, Gender, and Attitudes to Work

Abstract

Abstract For some, vulnerability to unemployment and, even more, vulnerability to long-term unemployment are seen as strongly linked to deficiencies in employment commitment among unemployed people. There are different views about the causes of this, but perhaps the most influential is the argument that it is the result of a calculative response to the incentives or disincentives for work provided by welfare systems. This has inspired, in several countries, an attempt by governments to cut back on welfare payments to the unemployed. Yet despite the prevalence and influence of such views, the evidence that has been adduced to date to support the underlying assumption that there is a problem of the ‘work motivation’ of the unemployed is remark ably slim, and there is correspondingly little well-grounded evidence about its determinants. This chapter sets out to use data from a new European survey to provide a more satisfactory description of the work attitudes of the unemployed, and to make an initial assessment of how far these are affected by the characteristics of benefit systems.