Social Security or Economic Insecurity? The Concentration of Unemployment (and Research) Within Households

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe social security structure has been seen as a serious disincentive to the employment of women married to unemployed men. The implied significance of this disincentive is not apparent from verbal accounts, where only a minority of such women cite social security considerations as having any direct relevance in their own labour force experience. Recent research, critical of the social security model, has been conducted with a view to exploring the employment strategies of couples. In such research, economic structure is seen as the context of household employment strategies but not, it appears, as part of their substance; household level processes and ‘external’ economic processes are separated. In this respect, such approaches parallel the social security model. The present paper is based on an analysis of the household circumstances and employment histories of 790 couples in Hartlepool. Our findings suggest that ‘strategies’ regarding household income maintenance are patterned in relation to labour demand and occupational opportunity. This association contributes to the coincidence of spouses' employment status and is indicative of the problems of separating employment demand and labour supply processes, a separation which leads the social policy literature to overstate the significance of social security disincentives to employment.