A critical analysis of historical and contemporary discourses around worklessness, economic inactivity, and the factors that contribute to people withdrawing from the conventional labor market.
How do we define and respond to worklessness? This book combines analysis of media and political narratives around worklessness and factors that limit individuals' capacity for conventional paid work-from disability and long-term illness to caring responsibilities-with interviews that shed light on the lived experience of so-called economic inactivity.
In dissecting popular portrayals of "the workless" in the present and tracing the historical evolution of discourses around "inactivity"-especially work-limiting disability-James Morrison draws heavily on sociological theories of stigma and symbolic annihilation. Conceptualising the contemporary narrative about the UK's supposed crisis in economic inactivity as the latest in a continuum of periodic moral panics about worklessness, he argues that neoliberal definitions of work and worklessness are too narrow, as they deny-and render invisible-the importance of various forms of unpaid labor performed by many people classified as "inactive," notably informal caregiving and volunteering.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Corralling the ‘Workless’ – Contemporary Policy Debates in Perspective
1. ‘Sturdy Beggars’ and ‘Swinging the Lead’: Images of Inactivity through Time
2. From Scroungers to Snowflakes: Economic Inactivity in UK Public Discourse
3. Inactivity and Intersectionality: The Lives of the Economically Inactive
4. Caring, Volunteering and Disabled Labour: The Hardworking ‘Inactive’
5. Opting Out of the Rat Race? Meet the ‘Elective’ and ‘New’ Inactives
Conclusion: Towards Redefining Work and Recognizing ‘Active Inactives’
Appendix 1: Textual Analysis Methodology
Appendix 2: Interview Methodology
References
About the Author :
James Morrison is an Associate Professor in Journalism Studies at the University of Stirling, Scotland, whose research focuses on the interplay between media and political discourses, social attitudes and the lived experiences of people from marginalized groups. He is a former journalist and the author of several previous books, including Scroungers: Moral Panics and Media Myths and The Left Behind: Reimagining Britain's Socially Excluded.
Review :
'This book offers an extremely timely account through the longstanding controversy surrounding dubious notions such as the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. The Workless challenges many of the underlying assumptions made by opinionated protagonists involved in this debate, not least the common belief that the cash poor are necessarily also among the most time rich. Far from being the "shirkers" of former Chancellor George Osborne’s imagination, James Morrison demonstrates that many of those misrepresented in this way by the former Chancellor are in fact "strivers" contributing to society through supporting themselves, their families and the communities in which they live.'
'This incisive and meticulously researched book cuts through the misinformation and confusion that dominates contemporary public debates about worklessness and economic inactivity. A must-read for those interested in how the media and political elites have maligned and stigmatised some of Britain’s most vulnerable citizens'
