Labour market status, requirements and social support—single male clients with problematic alcohol consumption

Abstract

The study presented in this article investigates relations between two phenomena that are widely considered to be social problems—unemployment and alcohol abuse. The investigated group is that of single male clients receiving social assistance in Sweden. Difficulty in supporting themselves is thus the main reason why these clients have contact with the social welfare office, but to some extent the clients in focus do also have a drinking problem (defined as notes on drinking problems in their case files). Case files on male, single clients in which alcohol-related notes were present are investigated (n=297). The results indicate that social workers are more active in making demands on clients to change their alcohol habits if the clients are able to support themselves through work than if they are not. This implies that resources for the treatment of alcohol and drug abuse may be allocated on the basis of which clients it is possible to remove from the social service system—i.e. who are able to support themselves through work—and not on the basis of which clients are the most needy.