Work to Welfare: How Men Become Detached from the Labour Market (review)

With this book, the authors promise to provide new perspectives on why increasing numbers of working-age men become detached from paid work. Based on research carried out in the UK, the book is organized into three parts: Part I provides the context with a description of current conditions in the UK labour market and the relevant benefits system, as well as a chapter providing some comparative information on employment and inactivity trends of men in other European countries.

Part II offers the main empirical evidence from the data collected by the authors. Their analysis of men's labour force inactivity is based on quantitative survey data and in-depth interviews. The survey data covered economically inactive men aged 25 to 64 in seven different and contrasting labour markets in the UK (n=1,703). Key variables in the survey included men's present status of inactivity (e.g., unemployed, retired, sick), marital status, social class, educational and work history, financial circumstance, benefit status, and household composition and activities. The in-depth interviews were carried out with a sub-sample of survey respondents. Inclusion in the sub-sample was based on respondents' key characteristics, allowing the researchers to analyse in-depth the influence of different employment histories, work inactivity, finances, family/home situations, and health.

Beginning with a more descriptive, statistical profile of the respondents, the authors attempt to unravel the influence of these different characteristics on the respondents' status of inactivity. The various forms of labour market detachment or inactivity studied include early retirement, long term unemployment, family and home care responsibilities, and health. The latter is of particular interest to the authors and is investigated at great length in their analysis of the number of men in the UK drawing on Incapacity Benefit (IB). IB is a form of benefit paid to those who are unable to work due to illness or disability. While not suggesting fraudulent behaviour of claimants (entitlement is based on relatively tight medical criteria and strict assessments), the authors argue that IB, at the macro-level, has become a way of artificially reducing the national unemployment level.

Their research indicates that many male workers currently drawing on IB have a strong desire to take up work again, but are largely unable to find employment either due to their disabilities, or due to depressed labour markets. If the labour market was stronger, these workers could conceivably find employment that accommodated their various levels of incapacity. In a market with relatively weak demand for labour, individuals can be moved to or kept on IB, which masks deeper labour market problems. According to the authors, the latter is what has happened in the UK in the past decade of apparent "labour market recovery." These findings are initially drawn from the quantitative survey data, but are confirmed in the qualitative analysis of the in-depth interviews in the last chapters of Part II.

Finally, Part III of the book addresses the policy implications of these findings and concludes with a number of policy suggestions aimed at re-engaging male workers and promoting labour market attachment.

The book offers an extremely thorough analysis of what appears to be a rather rich data set. Unfortunately, this thoroughness is also somewhat of a problem, particularly for readers outside the UK. As the inclusion of an internationally comparative chapter suggests, this problem is not unique to the UK and some engagement with the ways in which other countries have dealt with this issue would have gone a long way to strengthen the final policy chapters of the book. As a reader not particularly familiar with the UK benefits system, I found myself skipping over large passages of the book that dissect in excruciating detail work inactivity patterns in relation to benefit structures. Similar types of analysis are revisited in many of the chapters in Part II, making the findings appear redundant. Although the level...