Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T13:30:03.951Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Unemployable Workers? Comparing the Context and Contract in Voluntary Work and Regular Jobs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2012

Tone Alm Andreassen*
Affiliation:
Work Research Institute, Oslo E-mail: tone.alm.andreassen@afi-wri.no

Abstract

In welfare societies, disability pensions or incapacity benefits provide income security to people who, due to health problems or disability, are assessed as being unemployable. However, it is sometimes possible for people on disability pensions to work, for instance on a voluntary basis in and on behalf of associations of disabled people. This article applies perspectives on employability and discusses whether voluntary workers, like representatives of associations of disabled people, could have been employed in the ordinary labour market or whether there are definite characteristics of voluntary work which allow their capacity for work to be utilised.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alm Andreassen, T. (2009) ‘The consumerism of “voice” in Norwegian health policy and its dynamics in transformation of health service’, Public Money and Management, 29, 2, 117–22.Google Scholar
Andrew, A. (2009) ‘Challenging boundaries to “employability”: women apprentices in a non-traditional occupation’, Social Policy and Society, 8, 3, 347–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, C. and Mercer, G. (2005) ‘Disability, work and welfare: challenging the social exclusion of disabled people’, Work, Employment and Society, 19, 3, 527–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, H., Thornton, P. and Maynard Campbell, S. (1998) Disabled People and Employment: A Review of Research and Development Work, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, M. (1997) Care, Communities and Citizens, London: Longman.Google Scholar
Barnes, M. and Walker, A. (1996) ‘Consumerism versus empowerment: a principled approach to the involvement of older service users’, Policy and Politics, 24, 4, 375–93.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. (2007) ‘Society enables and disables’, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 9, 1, 5860.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boardman, J. (2003) ‘Work, employment and psyciatric disability’, Advances in Psyciatric Treatment, 9, 5, 327–34.Google Scholar
Bolzan, N. and Gale, F. (2002) ‘The citizenship of excluded groups: challenging the consumerist agenda’,Social Policy and Administration, 36, 4, 363–75.Google Scholar
Brown, K., Hamner, D., Foley, S. and Woodring, J. (2009) ‘Doing disability: disability formations in the search for work’, Sociological Inquiry, 79, 1, 324.Google Scholar
Dalgin, R. S. and Bellini, J. (2008) ‘Invisible disability disclosure in an employment interview. impact on employer's hiring decisions and views of employability’, Rehabilitation Counselling Bulletin, 52, 1, 615.Google Scholar
Duff, A., Ferguson, J. and Gilmore, K. (2007) ‘Issues concerning the employment and employability of disabled people in UK accounting firms: an analysis of the views of human resource managers as employment gatekeepers’, The British Accounting Review, 39, 1, 1538.Google Scholar
Falkum, E. (2012) Inkludering og risiko: Betingelser for funksjonshemmedes og eldres deltakelse i arbeidslivet, Oslo: Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet/Work Research Institute.Google Scholar
Fugate, M., Kinicki, A. J. and Ashforth, B. E. (2004) ‘Employability: a psycho-social construct, its dimensions, and applications’, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65, 1, 1438.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma, Hammondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Guevara, K. and Ord, J. (1996) ‘The search for meaning in a changing work context’, Futures, 28, 8, 709–22.Google Scholar
Hillage, J. and Pollard, E. (1998) Employability: Developing a Framework for Policy Analysis, London: Institute for Employment Studies/Department for Education and Employment.Google Scholar
Holmquist, M. (2008) ‘Creating the disabled person: a case study of recruitment to “work-for-the-disabled” programs’, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 10, 3, 191207.Google Scholar
Høgsbro, K. (1992) Sosiale bevegelser og selvorganisert selvhjelp i Danmark, Fredriksberg: Samfunds-litteratur.Google Scholar
MacKenzie, R. and Forde, C. (2009) ‘The rhetoric of the “good worker” versus the realities of employers’ use and the experience of migrant workers’, Work, Employment and Society, 23, 1, 142–59.Google Scholar
Marin, B., Prinz, C. and Queisser, M. (eds.) (2004) Transforming Disability Welfare Policies: Towards Work and Equal Opportunities, Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
McQuaid, R. W. and Lindsay, C. (2005) ‘The concept of employability’, Urban Studies, 42, 2, 197219.Google Scholar
Morrow, M., Wasik, A., Cohen, M. and Elah Perry, K.-M. (2009), ‘Removing barriers to work: building economic security for people with psychiatric disabilities’, Critical Social Policy, 29, 4, 655–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nice, K. and Thornton, P. (2004) Job Retention and Rehabilitation Pilot: Employers’ Management of Long-Term Sickness Absence, Leeds: Corporate Document Services/Department for Work and Pensions.Google Scholar
OECD (2003) Transforming Disability into Ability: Policies to Promote Work and Income Security for Disabled People, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
OECD (2010) Sickness, Disability and Work: Breaking the Barriers − a Synthesis of Findings across OECD Contries, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Oliver, M. (1990) The Politics of Disablement, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Onken, S. J., Craigh, C. M., Ridgway, P., Ralph, R. O. and Cook, J. A. (2007) ‘An analysis of the definitions and elements of recovery: a review of the literature’, Psyciatric Rehabilitation Journal, 31, 1, 922.Google Scholar
Patrick, R. (2011) ‘Disabling or enabling: the extension of work-related conditionality to disabled people’, Social Policy and Society, 10, 3, 309–20.Google Scholar
Peck, J. and Theodore, N. (2000) ‘Beyond employability’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 24, 6, 729–49.Google Scholar
Rose, D. and Lucas, J. (2007) ‘The user and survivor movement in Europe’, in Knapp, M., McDaid, D., Mossialos, E. and Thornicroft, G., Mental Health Policy and Practice across Europe, Maidenhead: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Rummery, K. and Glendinning, C. (2000) ‘Access to services as civil and social right issue: the role of welfare professionals in regulating access to and commissioning services for disabled and older people under New Labour’, Social Policy and Administration, 34, 5, 529–50.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, T. (2006) Disability Rights and Wrongs, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sharone, O. (2007) ‘Constructing unemployed job seekers as professional workers: the depoliticizing work-game of job searching’, Qualitative Sociology, 30, 4, 403–16.Google Scholar
Stairs, M. (2005) ‘Work happy: developing employee engagement to deliver competitive advantage’, Selection and Developement Review, 21, 5, 711.Google Scholar
Swain, J. (ed.) (1993) Disabling Barriers: Enabling Environments, London: Sage Publications in association with the Open University.Google Scholar
Swain, J. and French, S. (2000) ‘Towards an affirmation model of disability’, Disability and Society, 15, 4, 569–82.Google Scholar
Thomas, C. (2004) ‘How is disability understood? An examination of sociological approaches’, Disability and Society, 19, 6, 569–83.Google Scholar
Thornton, P. (2005) ‘Disabled people, employment and social justice’, Social Policy and Society, 4, 1, 6573.Google Scholar
Tritter, J. Q. and McCallum, A. (2006) ‘The snakes and ladders of user involvement: moving beyond Arnstein’, Health Policy, 76, 2, 156–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van der Heijde, C. M. and Van der Heijden, B. I. J. M. (2006) ‘A competence-based and multidimensional operationalization and measurement of employability’, Human Resource Management, 34, 3, 449–76.Google Scholar
Woodward, K. (2008) ‘The multiple meanings of work for welfare-reliant women’, Qualitative Sociology, 31, 2, 149–68.Google Scholar
Zissi, A., Rontos, C., Papageorgiou, D., Pierrakou, C. and Chtouris, S. (2007) ‘Greek employers’ attitudes to employing people with disabilities: effects of the type of disability’, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 9, 1, 1425.Google Scholar