Beyond the workfare state: Labour markets, equalities and human rights

"Beyond the Workfare State" explores equality, discrimination and human rights in relation to employability and 'welfare-to-work' policies. It draws extensively on new research from the SEQUAL Project, undertaken for the European Social Fund, which investigated seven dimensions of discrimination in a labour market that is theoretically 'open to all'. The book provides an overall analysis of policy shifts and presents a wide and distinctive range of illustrative studies that give voice to a variety of potentially marginalised groups. Chapters deal with obstacles to labour-market access around each of the following themes: gender and class; disability; race and ethnicity; geographical exclusion; sexual orientation; the problems of old and young people; and, refugees. The authors draw attention to localised examples of promising practice, but also connect these to a broader 'human rights' agenda, linking them to changing legislative and governance frameworks. Its scope covers the whole of Great Britain and it shows how devolution in Scotland and Wales, and at the regional level in England, is creating new possibilities for mainstreaming good practice in this key area. The book will be of great interest to academics and students in social policy and related fields. It will also be valuable for professionals, policy makers and practitioners in the regeneration, community development and anti-discrimination fields, particularly in the UK but also in Europe and beyond.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: towards a better workfare state, or one beyond it? ~ Mick Carpenter, Stuart Speeden and Belinda Freda; Part one: Case studies in labour marlet discrimination and inequalities: Beyond the ghost town? The 'promising practices' of community-based initiatives in Coventry ~ Mick Carpenter, Barbara Merrill, Phil Cleaver and Inga Šniukaitė; 'It's about having a life, isn't it?' Employability, discrimination and disabled people ~ Debby Watson, Val Williams and Claire Wickham; Between work and tradition: minority ethnic women in North West England ~ Stuart Speeden; Discrimination and geographical exclusion: a case study of North West Wales ~ Brec'hed Piette and Rhian McCarthy; Out of the picture? Sexual orientation and labour market discrimination ~ Anne Bellis with Teresa Cairns and Susan McGrath; Youth discrimination and labour market access: from transitions to capabilities? ~ Mick Carpenter and Belinda Freda; Employability in the third age: a qualitative study of older people in the Glasgow labout market ~ Pamela Clayton; Refugees and the labour market: refugee sector practice in the 'employability' paradigm ~ Azar Sheibani. Part Two: Implications for wider policies: Origins and effects of New Labour's workfare state: modernising or variations on old themes? ~ Mick Carpenter with Stuart Speeden; Capabilities, human rights and the challenge to workfare ~ Mick Carpenter and Stuart Speeden with Colin Griffin and Nick Walters.

About the Author :
Mick Carpenter is a Reader in Social Policy in the Department of Sociology, University of Warwick. He has researched and published widely in health and social policy, and since the late 1990s been engaged in collaborative research and evaluation of efforts to tackle poverty and exclusion in Coventry. Belinda Freda was Project Officer and researcher for SEQUAL project at the University of Surrey, investigating the exclusion, discrimination and employability of young people, refugee groups and discrimination and equality in the workplace. She now works at the University of Sussex. Stuart Speeden is Reader and Head of the Centre for Policy Studies at Edge Hill University. His wide ranging policy related work includes developing the Local Government Equality Standard for England and Wales, and evaluative research for the Commission for Racial Equality.

Review :
"This book contains important evidence and relevant conclusions, and everyone interested in labour market participation should read it." Citizen's Income Newsletter "Superbly informed by eight detailed and fascinating case studies, this is an excellent and lucid critique of the government's approach to labour market integration, and a major contribution to the debate about what needs to be done to tackle inequality and discrimination in modern British society." Professor Keith Ewing, Institute of Employment Rights "This excellent book shows how it is race, gender, disability, sexuality and particularly class that shape lives. It offers the reader a wide spectrum of knowledge and understanding of labour market access issues, while, importantly, challenging the government's position on how 'employability' can be achieved." Dr Sonia McKay, Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University '...this empirically detailed and theoretically stimulating work ought to be required reading for employment ministers and their civil servants who talk glibly of 'welfare dependency' and 'activating' the 'workless'. But it is, perhaps, the type of evidence that would make them uncomfortable.' Stephen Clayton, University of Liverpool