Year: 2017
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Underpinned by the assumption that unemployed persons are passive recipients of welfare, recent welfare reforms have increased benefit conditionality in the UK and introduced harsher penalties for failure to meet these conditions. Yet, conditionality may result in vulnerable groups disproportionately experiencing disentitlement from benefits, one of the rights of social citizenship, because they are, in some cases, less able to meet these conditions. Rising sanctions, then, may be the product of a disconnection between welfare conditionality and the capabilities of vulnerable claimants. To test this hypothesis, we evaluate whether sanctions are higher in areas where there are more vulnerable Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants, namely, lone parents, ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities. We find that sanction rates are higher in local authorities where more claimants are lone parents or live with a disability, and that this relationship strengthened since welfare reforms under the Conservative-led coalition. Failure to meet conditions of benefit receipt may disproportionately affect vulnerable groups.
Source: Social Policy and Society
Authors: Aaron Reeves, Rachel Loopstra
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2529939172