Work ethic alive and well as people on welfare challenge the stereotype
By ADELE HORIN
Increasing numbers of people on unemployment and sole parent benefits
also receive some income from low-paid or intermittent work, according
to new research by the Federal Department of Family and Community Services.
The research shows the proportion of welfare recipients who do some
allowable paid work has more than doubled in 15 years, challenging
theories that welfare payments undermine people's work ethic.
The research by Mr John Landt and Ms Joceyln Pech, of the department's
welfare review team, will be presented tomorrow at the Australian
Institute of Family Studies conference in Sydney.
Although the paper notes that the views expressed do not necessarily
represent those of the department or the Federal Government, it presents
a strong case in support of the current social security system at a time
when major reforms are being mooted.
At the same time, the research challenges the tougher US approach to
welfare reform and the assumptions of its best-known guru, Professor
Lawrence Mead, the keynote speaker at the conference today. His visit
has been co-sponsored by the Federal Government.
The research shows that the long-term unemployed person who is entirely
dependent on welfare for years is a "relatively rare" individual in
Australia. Rather, many Australians receive payments for short periods
or have alternating periods of employment and welfare receipt or get a
low wage as well as a benefit or part-benefit.
Behind this pattern is Australia's volatile and uncertain labour market,
where job tenure with the same employer is one of the shortest in the
OECD, the paper says. As well, the reduction in secure full-time jobs,
especially for men, the growth in part-time and casual jobs, and
under-employment has created a labour market that is "increasingly
insecure for many groups".
A far larger number of Australians than in the past, for example, move
in and out of employment over the course of a year, with turnover
highest in lower-skilled white and blue-collar occupations, the authors say.
In this environment, the social security system has played a central
role in supplementing low income from earnings, providing income in
between short-term jobs, and providing support to people in education or
training.
"Widespread under-employment and casualisation have meant that many
people who in previous times might have been independent of the income
support system have had to rely on it to top up their inadequate
earnings," the paper says.
At the beginning of the 1980s few working-age social security recipients
were on a part-payment because they earned some income from a job. But
18 per cent were on a part-payment by June 1998.
The proportion of sole parent beneficiaries doing some paid work grew
from about 12 per cent in 1982 to over 25 per cent by 1996. The
proportion of jobless recipients in some work rose from about 5 per cent
to almost 20 per cent.
As well, an increasing proportion of sole parent beneficiaries were in
education or training.
The authors' findings are in contrast with Professor Mead's influential
theory that poor people's weak attachment to work means a welfare system
must use much more compulsion.
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