TY - JOUR
T1 - A Capability Approach to Understand the Scarring Effects of Unemployment and Job Insecurity
T2 - Developing the Research Agenda
AU - Egdell, Valerie
AU - Beck, Vanessa
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - Having a poor start in the labour market has a ‘scarring’ effect on future employment and well-being. Indeed, unemployment at any point of the life-course can scar. While there is extensive quantitative research examining scarring effects at the macro- and meso-levels, evidence regarding scarring from the micro-level that provides insights into individual perceptions, values, attitudes and capabilities, and how they shape employment trajectories is lacking. A qualitative approach which avoids the imposition of values and choices onto individuals’ employment trajectories, and accounts more fully for the contextual constraints which shape available options and choices, is argued for. In emphasising people’s substantive freedom of choice, which may be enabled or constrained by contextual conditions, the Capability Approach is proposed as providing a valuable lens to examine complex and insecure labour market transitions. Such an approach stands in contrast to the supply-side focused active labour market policies characteristic of neo-liberal welfare states.
AB - Having a poor start in the labour market has a ‘scarring’ effect on future employment and well-being. Indeed, unemployment at any point of the life-course can scar. While there is extensive quantitative research examining scarring effects at the macro- and meso-levels, evidence regarding scarring from the micro-level that provides insights into individual perceptions, values, attitudes and capabilities, and how they shape employment trajectories is lacking. A qualitative approach which avoids the imposition of values and choices onto individuals’ employment trajectories, and accounts more fully for the contextual constraints which shape available options and choices, is argued for. In emphasising people’s substantive freedom of choice, which may be enabled or constrained by contextual conditions, the Capability Approach is proposed as providing a valuable lens to examine complex and insecure labour market transitions. Such an approach stands in contrast to the supply-side focused active labour market policies characteristic of neo-liberal welfare states.
KW - Capability Approach
KW - job insecurity
KW - scarring effects
KW - unemployment
U2 - 10.1177/0950017020909042
DO - 10.1177/0950017020909042
M3 - Article
VL - 34
SP - 937
EP - 948
JO - Work, Employment and Society
JF - Work, Employment and Society
SN - 0950-0170
IS - 5
ER -