Abstract
Poverty is a complex cultural phenomenon that is very much in existence in contemporary post-industrial Britain. A young person’s poverty-striken situation, in addition to their marginalised hierarchal position, shapes their repetitive life cycle comprising different but interrelated forms of marginality. The young people in this ethnographic study were found to experience marginalisation in their education, training and work spheres, as well as in their community, family and home. The purpose of this article is to carefully analyse the link between marginalised young people’s (in)ability to participate in key social systems and their (lack of) access to financial, cultural and social resources.
Introduction
There is wide-ranging debate in education and the sociology of work studies regarding NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) young people’s transitions in and out of the labour market (Maguire, 2015). Discussions of employment are intertwined with those of poverty, with work usually being posited as a means of escaping marginalisation. Of course, the two are linked, but the complex nature of feeling poor and the effect this has on a young person’s ability to gain sound paid work requires further interrogation. Furthermore, being in work does not necessarily mean the individual has escaped poverty. In fact, low pay, job insecurity and negative workplace experiences can reinforce exclusion rather than alleviate it (Simmons et al., 2014). Being and feeling poor, while simultaneously being out of decent secure paid work, facilitates the production of a self-reinforcing cycle of deprivation, in which people are progressively less able to escape poor forms of work (Shildrick et al., 2012). The central position of this article argues that while many NEET young people negotiate their way through the oppressive nature of various interacting structures, they simultaneously remain agentic by sometimes resisting and actively working against such structures. They work voluntarily, aspire to gain secure paid employment and show resilience in the face of their poverty-striken situation. Findings are drawn from a three-year ethnography that explored the lives of 24 young people as they moved in and out of education and, where applicable, employment spheres. The aim of the research was to gain longitudinal nuanced understandings about how NEET young people experienced their transitions in and out of education, training and work environments, while also investigating the effectiveness of the support structures they encountered.
Concerns about the current NEET population in post-industrial Britain are outlined, together with a summary of literature regarding NEET transitions in and out of various forms of employment and education in relation to poverty, social exclusion and marginalisation. Understandings of poverty and how they relate to NEET young people are drawn on. Wacquant’s (1996) theory is then used as a useful conceptual apparatus to understand the cumulative effect of poverty and how this may be linked to a young person’s (in)ability to access work and, indeed, other important spheres of participation, such as education, the community and family. The ethnography is then outlined before specific stories are used to highlight key issues that act to marginalise NEET young people’s engagement in society. Acknowledging these complexities while moving away from deficit models of explicating poverty and unemployed youth is a central message that policymakers need to recognise if they are to help NEET young people feel part of society, actively engage in meaningful work and contribute to the economic security of Britain.
Youth unemployment
Most countries across Europe, including Britain, have seen a dramatic rise in the number of NEET youth since the beginning of the economic recession in 2008. From February to April 2015, 740,000 young people aged 16–24 were unemployed in Britain, with 165,000 people aged 16–24 having been unemployed for over 12 months during that same period, meaning 22% of unemployed 16–24-year-olds had been long-term unemployed for over 12 months (Darr, 2015). This has led to concerns about these young people becoming a ‘lost generation’, impacting on the social cohesion of post-industrial Britain (Maguire, 2013, 2015). Others, such as Bryne (2005), maintain a Marxist argument and claim that the socially excluded are actually functional to the requirements of flexible post-industrial capitalism in their role as a ‘reserve army of labour’ Marx (1867/1976) p.781 – a group which the NEET category may be seen to adequately fit. Within this frame of theory, the poor may be kept in a repetitive cycle of being poor (and unemployed) to suit the needs of the current post-industrial British economy.
The term ‘NEET’ emerged in the UK during the late 1980s following changes to unemployment benefit entitlement regulations, which essentially removed young people under the age of 18 from the unemployment statistics. 1 Now it is widely used across European Union states and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, and typically covers 15–24-year-olds (Maguire, 2013). The concept of ‘NEET’ is now commonly used to capture notions of youth disengagement and social exclusion, in addition to a young person’s unemployed status. The concept of social exclusion implies that there is a downward spiral in which labour market marginality leads to poverty and social isolation, which in turn reinforces the risk of long-term unemployment (Gallie et al., 2003). Lack of employment affects an individual’s living standards and ability to access and exploit resources, which impacts on their ability to access and maintain decent paid work. This repetitive life-cycle effect, referred to as the ‘low-pay, no-pay cycle’ by Shildrick et al. (2010), is of particular concern for young people. They occupy a precarious position within the labour market due to their lack of skills and experience. More young people are struggling to make the initial transition from education into sustained work (Sissons and Jones, 2012). The long-term effects of this are particularly damaging for society as a whole, in terms of both its social cohesion and costs to the public purse (Simmons and Thompson, 2016).
The Commission on Youth Unemployment revealed that unemployed people aged 16–24 were more likely to spend longer periods out of work throughout their lives, be paid less when in work, have poorer mental and physical well-being, and be involved in criminal activity. Estimations disclose that, in 2012, the costs of youth unemployment were £4.8 billion, plus £10.7 billion in lost output (Maguire, 2013). The cumulative effects of the significant NEET population are revealed to be damaging to the health, social engagement, education and employment outcomes for the NEET individuals, but are also shown to have far wider damaging consequences for society as a whole. The additional costs associated with remaining NEET far outweigh those of a successful intervention. Simmons and Thompson (2016) report that youth unemployment has detrimental consequences for the public purse in relation to welfare benefits, lost tax revenue and increased demand for health and social services, in addition to the consideration of the resources lost via their reduced contribution to economic activity.
Poverty and social exclusion
Defining poverty has a long and complex history, from Townsend’s (1979) seminal study Poverty in the United Kingdom, which demonstrated the contingent and multidimensionality of the concept, embracing both material and social factors, to more recent alerts regarding the notion of in-work poverty (Marx and Nolan, 2012). Official statistics in Britain and the European Union currently adopt a relative measure, but even this is contentious and fuels debates about how we measure and, indeed, tackle the issue: Poverty should be restricted to forms of capability deprivation that are related to low income and wealth, maintaining the traditional definitions of poverty. Absolute poverty is living at such a low level of income and wealth that one’s health, or even survival, is threatened. Relative poverty is living at a level of income that does not allow one to take part in the normal or encouraged activities for one’s society … In a way the wrongness of poverty follows very easily from its definition. Human beings have vital needs for health and to be included in their social groups. People in poverty are unable to meet their needs, and therefore suffer from forms of deprivation. In addition, we endorse the observation by Lotter and Jones that poverty is an affront to human dignity. We are also sympathetic to the luck egalitarian argument that those who are in poverty through undeserved bad luck suffer from an injustice. However, the distinction between luck and choice can be very difficult to make in practice. (Wolff et al., 2015: 49–50)
Explanations for poverty and social exclusion can be placed into two broad positions underpinned by two competing political and philosophical perspectives. Both, consequently, view poverty and social exclusion differently, and promote different ways of dealing with them. Reducing poverty and social exclusion has been a concern for British governments past and present (MacDonald and Marsh, 2005), which is evident from the foundations underpinning the social inclusion programme emblematic of the transition from ‘Old’ to ‘New’ Labour, to David Cameron’s Conservative government’s more recent pledge to implement a ‘living wage’ and boost the quality and number of apprenticeships to 3 million by 2020 (Department for International Development, 2016). Structural explanations regard social, economic and political processes as the source and potential solution to poverty and exclusion, whilst the other explanation individual and cultural inadequacies as the problem (Simmons et al., 2014). The theory of unemployment entrapment in neo-liberal economics views the benefits system as one of the main causes of being poor (Gallie et al., 2003). From this standpoint, sharp financial deprivation is viewed as a stimulus to get people back into work. Some countries have employed this line of thinking within their policies to increase the threat of financial sanctions for those judged not to be seeking work or unwilling to take up job offers (Dormont et al., 2001; Fougère, 2000; Lodemel and Trickey, 2001). It is argued that welfare encourages reliance on the state. In contrast, social exclusion theory maintains that the principal determinants of labour market marginalisation are not related to motivational deficiency or cultural reliance on the state and welfare benefits, but are instead due to structural barriers that people encounter in the labour market, and the way these are reinforced by the experiences of the unemployed (Gallie et al., 2003). The redistribution of wealth via taxation, improvements in welfare benefit and other forms of state intervention are put forward as interventions that are needed to improve the conditions of the poor (Simmons et al., 2014).
Marginalisation
As with social exclusion, the concept of marginalisation divides opinion, between attributing the individual with blame or viewing structural deterministic factors as shaping and reproducing inequality. Individuals may be viewed as actively withdrawing from the labour market and opting to remain reliant on an overgenerous welfare system. Employers could be viewed as being encouraged to promote low-pay work options and underemployment through strategies such as zero-hours contracts or via benefits such as working tax credits (Simmons et al., 2014). This article favours the alternative view of marginalisation offered by Wacquant (1996), whereby marginalisation is understood as a process that is determined by structural logics related to neo-liberalism and globalisation, where the welfare state is attacked ideologically and there is a decrepitude and fragmentation of wage labour. Thus, forms of marginalisation are inherent within dominant economic and social structures and policies.
Wacquant purports a complex and interrelated characterisation of marginalisation. He recognises that while the economically inactive tend to be hardest hit by recession downturns, they also find it harder to benefit from subsequent periods of prosperity, thus limiting the chances of improving those people’s lives based at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Labour markets are viewed as becoming increasingly fragmented, which acts to erode the marginalised’s ability to enter fruitful wage–labour relations. Moving from the economic, Wacquant also acknowledges the socio-spatial conditions of ‘bad neighbourhoods’, whereby the poor living conditions in certain communities promote the reduction of social capital that some people have access to, which is related to their precarious, unemployed and sense-of-worklessness culture. This article takes the view that marginalised young people do not actively reject certain social norms within society, such as the aspiration to work, settle down and have a family, but rather lack the cultural, social and economic resources that enable them to participate in certain social systems. A young person’s poverty-striken situation often has a cumulative effect, emanating from their education, employment, financial situation and lack of decent housing. Marginality for all in this study was an unattractive state and, while certain forms of marginality may at first appear to be the product of voluntary actions and decisions, voluntary exclusion should not always be regarded as any different in nature from exclusion itself, which is clearly involuntary.
The ethnography
The findings presented in this article are founded in a longitudinal ethnography that was conducted from October 2010 to March 2013. Twenty-four NEET young people formed the focus of the study. The 24 young people comprised 14 females and 8 males, who were aged between 15 and 20 at the start of the fieldwork. Gaining and maintaining access with NEET young people can be problematic, especially on a longitudinal basis (Russell, 2013). Thus, the participants were accessed via a variety of means, including a Youth Offending Team, parent groups, a housing charity, Connexions and word of mouth. 2 The ethnography was based in two neighbouring metropolitan local authorities located in the north of England. Both regions have a significant rural dimension and a strong history in the production of woollen textiles.
The main corpus of data included over 340 hours of participant observations conducted in education, training, work, social and home settings. The research was participant-led – the participants dictated when and where the fieldwork took place, with some giving more time than others. Seventy-nine semi-structured interviews with practitioners, employers, parents, family members and young people were conducted and transcribed. Each young person completed a life-story map to exemplify the life events and relationships that were important to them. Photographs were taken by the researcher and young people in order to portray their daily routines, special activities, and feelings of inclusion and exclusion. Photographs taken by the young people were used as a form of interview-probing in subsequent interviews with the young people. All of the young people were interviewed at least once, with some being interviewed up to five times, depending on their circumstances and preferences for data collection. Observation notes and minutes of meeting documents from the local NEET strategy group, copies of qualifications and certificates, minutes of practitioner meetings, national and local NEET statistics, and course information literature were analysed. All of the data was hand-coded and triangulated. The analytical themes included: feelings of exclusion and inclusion; trajectory decisions and destinations; the effectiveness of support structures; home, residence, education and training provision; employment patterns; family and peer influences; and individual pathways. All of the participants and their associated institutions have been given pseudonyms throughout this article to protect their identity.
Rejecting notions of welfare dependency
Over the last 20 years, concerns about poverty have been discursively reconstructed as problems of participation – in education, work and other social contexts. Poverty and interrelated forms of exclusion from numerous social systems are thought to go hand in hand, each relating to the other and creating a cycle of deprivation from which it is difficult to escape (Simmons et al., 2014).
Youth and the poor have a long history of being accused of holding flawed cultural values that serve as a detriment to the social cohesion of society (Mononen-Batista Costa and Brunila, 2016). Such powerful discourses are embedded in the public’s viewpoint and political dialogues, and often take priority over a detailed understanding and assessment of how social justice is experienced by the young people themselves. Negative connotations of young people in ‘hoodies’ and ‘pramface girls’ destined for a life of exclusion reliant on benefits are rife in Britain. One example of this is the moral panic surrounding the hoodie. The hoodie again became a symbol of youthful threatening behaviour during the 2011 riots: Feared, derided, misunderstood and still resolutely un-hugged, the utilitarian, hugely popular sportswear garment, the hoodie, has staged a comeback against a backdrop of pyromania and rioting. Worn by millions every day: a generation’s default wardrobe choice was transformed into an instant criminal cloak for London’s looting youth. It may be more newsworthy now, but the hoodie and the folk devil it represents have been with us for a long time. (Braddock, 2011) You can appreciate that the cost of dealing with benefit claimants and how politically sensitive that is and the public paranoia about people claiming things that they are not entitled to, so the rules have to be very clear-cut and very closely adhered to. (Local Authority Careers Director, Interview, 1 October 2010)
Notions of welfare dependency and cultures of worklessness were present amongst the professionals working with the NEET young people in this study and the young people themselves – even though they rejected them. Although the benefit claimants fiercely denied being lazy or feckless themselves, surprisingly they were willing to apply such labels to others in the same situation (MacDonald and Marsh, 2005). Shildrick et al. (2012) also evidenced such beliefs amongst the poor, but they found that these beliefs were largely based on myth and hearsay, with the reality being something quite different. The nature of the current labour market in Britain means that many working-class people ‘churn’ repeatedly between a series of insecure and poorly paid jobs, unemployment and various education and training spheres, meaning that many poor people are neither permanently unemployed nor lacking a work ethic. Indeed, the young people in this study tended to view their NEET status as temporary and unwanted, and often made every attempt to disassociate themselves from the ‘dole dosser’ label, instead labelling others (often living on the same street and within the same community) with such negative brands. Hailey, a teenage mother, describes how she does not aspire to remain on (lone parent) income support.
3
When questioned what people she feels are judging her, she is unable to be specific, but nevertheless feels that she is being judged: Hailey: I just want to be independent really, because I don’t want to be taking money off people because a lot of people criticise you for that. Lisa: What people? Hailey: Well, people just think that I’ve got a kid and I’ve got no money to support her and so I’m just dependent on the state. (Interview, 4 May 2012)
Rather than viewing NEET young people as occupying a constant unemployed status, this research acknowledges the ‘churn’ that many young people experience as they move in, out of and across education, training and work spheres. Indeed, the nature of today’s UK labour market means that many working-class people (irrespective of age) continually ‘churn’ between states of insecure poorly paid work, bouts of unemployment and assorted state-sponsored training and retraining programmes (Shildrick et al., 2012): You get quite a lot of churn through NEET for different reasons. EET [Engagement in Employment, Education and Training] itself can be disaffecting if people get disillusioned with the programme that they are on or they find that the programme that they are on doesn’t lead to anything. (Local Authority Careers Director, Interview, 1 October 2010) Vernon: I’d work in McDonald’s or something like that. It’s a job. I’d do anything … All I ever get told is that I’m lazy and all I ever do is sit on my arse all the time. Lisa: Who says that to you? Vernon: Some people … it’s not that I’m lazy, because I’m not lazy. I do everything I can. If I could get a job I’d do it, but there are no jobs around here. A lot of people don’t understand that. Those people that are out earning think that people are on benefits for no reason. Lisa: So being on benefits is not something that you’ve chosen to do? Vernon: It’s just what’s gone on. (Interview, 19 May 2011)
Vernon, like Hailey, felt that he was being judged for his unemployed status and often talked about his lack of ability to provide for his young family. Living on benefits (housing benefit, child benefit and Job Seeker’s Allowance) meant that finances were tight. Vernon, like other young people in this study, felt he was being perceived negatively by ‘other people’ for being unemployed, and expressed a desire to gain paid work and provide a better life for himself and his family.
Certain structural barriers related to a lack of financial resources, powerful social networks and the quality of qualifications, alongside personal circumstances, often impeded a young person’s ability to gain employment and exit their poverty-stricken situation, leaving many young people feeling as though they were in a downward spiral of marginalisation that they struggled to exit. These young people were often unable to participate in certain social systems due to their lack of material and cultural resources. Marginalisation for them was undesirable and at odds with their values and aspirations to work, have a family and own a home. They did not actively reject normative schemes of being, and their cultural values were not inherently flawed, as deficit models of being young, poor and unemployed would argue. Rather, they accommodated to and resisted the structural barriers they existed and worked within by rejecting brands of being lazy and overcoming individual circumstances, prevailing non-progressive education and training pathways, and financial barriers (related to benefits and a lack of financial capital in general) to (re-)enter work and attempt to engage in society in a productive and meaningful way (Simmons et al., 2014).
Personal circumstances and material disadvantages
Many of the young people in this study expressed frustration regarding their financial situation, with several attributing this to their lack of ability to re-engage and participate in education and employment. Personal circumstances and material deprivation were often linked, each influencing the other and thus facilitating the challenges many young people faced even when trying to manage the simplest of tasks that could help them to participate in education and work spheres.
Cayden was 19 and defined as NEET when the fieldwork commenced at the end of 2010. Cayden did not take part in any paid employment during the research period, but he did participate in an employability training programme and undertook two spells of voluntary employment. He worked in a care home as part of the employability programme and continued to volunteer there after the programme ceased, and he worked for a charitable organisation from January 2012 until the fieldwork ended in 2013. Cayden was one of the nine participants from this study who had experienced some time in the care system after the death of his mother. He lived with his uncle and his partner for some time in foster care. He remained in contact with his uncle, but his uncle had since moved. Cayden subsequently became an ‘independent liver’ as a teenager. 4
Cayden’s flat
I meet Cayden at his flat. I ring the bell. Cayden runs down the stairs to meet me. He lives in an end flat at the top level. It is fairly quiet around here; he has a good view. He describes his flat as ‘fairly big’ – he has a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room. There is a Christmas tree up, with some cards and presents under the tree. He says the presents are for him and his brother. He says he will spend Christmas with his older brother, who also has no other family. He says he is very lucky and has all he needs. He has photographs of himself and people important to him displayed on the wall and scattered in a cabinet that was his mum’s. He shows me a photo of him, his sister and his brother, taken on the day of his mum’s funeral – he says this is very special. He says it has been hard being so young and watching his mum die. He still goes to counselling on a Monday. He has a photo-collage of him, his uncle and his partner on the wall too; he says he is good at taking photographs. He shows me one pebble photo that his uncle gave him as a moving-in present. He talks about getting another cabinet soon, but wonders about where he will fit it. Everything is in place, neat and tidy. He talks about wanting ‘to get my life back’ and talks about getting ready to start thinking about work. In the long term, he wants a job and a family. He’d like to move from this flat and own a house. He says many parents struggle with prams up the stairs here. (Field notes, 17 December 2010)
Like Vernon, Cayden aspired to one day own his own home, have a job and start a family. Cayden was relatively happy in his flat, but saw it as a short-term living arrangement. Cayden complained about young people throwing snowballs at his window and pointed to the impracticalities of living in a top-floor flat with a young family. Cayden certainly felt alone during points of the fieldwork and looked forward to our meetings.
Cayden’s personal circumstances, plus his learning difficulties, meant that he took a particular education and home and community pathway. He did not attend mainstream education and moved residence on a number of occasions after the death of his mother. These personal circumstances, plus his consequent occupation in certain spheres, shaped his ability to gain certain qualifications that hold currency in the labour market. Towards the end of the fieldwork, Cayden did work voluntarily for a charity and, although he benefited from the social aspect of working, he struggled to exit this placement and join the world of paid work. He enjoyed working for the charity, but never really gained confidence to move on from there, and had little opportunity to move from volunteer to a paid member of staff. Cayden gained most of his qualifications from his school in 2007. These included Assessment and Qualification Alliance (AQA) qualifications (from Entry Level to Unit 2), including topics such as ‘Shape’ and ‘Time’; Oxford Cambridge and RSA (OCR) Entry Level Certificates in Information and Communication Technology (Entry 3); and an Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network (ASDAN) Bronze Youth Achievement Award. The young people in this research supported Wolf’s (2011) findings that low-level bite-sized qualifications do not hold the same credibility as more traditional academic qualifications, nor are they so readily recognised by employers (Russell, 2014). Indeed, many of the young people in this study had folders full of certificates and credentials that would take anyone a long time to sift through, understand and remember. These low-level qualifications, together with Cayden’s instable home life and learning difficulties, affected his ability to gain paid work and his access to money.
Cayden, like many of the young people in this study, experienced issues with transport, general administration issues and bureaucratic barriers that directly impacted on his access to the financial resources to which he was entitled. On my third meeting with Cayden, these challenges became very apparent. We met at the local Connexions centre along with his key worker. Simple tasks, such as gaining his Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA, a sum of £30 a week, paid fortnightly, for those young people officially recognised as being in some form of education) and a bus pass, had become a time- and resource-consuming exercise.
Accessing financial benefits
I am struck by the practicalities that could potentially act as barriers to Cayden’s ability to participate in an employability programme. Simple matters, such as gaining an EMA number and a bus pass, are not as straightforward as one would first expect. For example, Jack [Cayden’s Connexions key worker] explains that they need an EMA number to claim Cayden’s EMA. Jack tries to gain this information for Cayden, but the EMA will not give this to Jack – Cayden must do this himself. Consequently, Jack and Cayden ring them together, explaining that Cayden is about to start a course. Jack initiates the conversation and then passes the phone to Cayden to verify who he is. They ask Cayden what his previous address was. He cannot remember and, as such, they cannot get his EMA number. Jack then tries to resolve this by contacting one of Cayden’s past key workers to find this information out, but the key worker does not answer his phone. So, despite Jack’s best efforts, this issue is not resolved and is currently left. Furthermore, Cayden has no bank account currently set up for the EMA to go into. Jack organises for a bus pass to be made up for Cayden. These are weekly bus passes that are given to learners on a weekly basis, as some young people drop out of the course part way through. Cayden has no passport photograph, so Cayden and I go to the bus station to get these done. Cayden needs my assistance with this as he does not know how to work the machine. Jack gives us some money to do this. We need a £5 note and so, firstly, have to change a £10 note for two £5 notes at the bus station kiosk. With my and Jack’s help, his bus pass is sorted. (Field notes, 13 January 2011)
Bureaucratic inconveniences and complications gaining entitled benefits were rife in this study. Many of the young people in this ethnography experienced inconsistencies with their benefits, whether they were education or out-of-work-based benefits. These issues sometimes took months to resolve and, in some circumstances, prevented the young people from engaging with education and training programmes, or paid and volunteer work. They also left these financially vulnerable young people susceptible to getting themselves into debt, thus illustrating the cumulative effect of being unemployed and poor (Simmons and Thompson, 2016). For Wacquant (1996), one of the key drivers contributing to the process of marginalisation is the degradation of waged labour and, while elements of this ring true here, the obloquy of unpaid labour for the working classes, in addition to the day-to-day realities of being poor, reveals that many young and unemployed people in post-industrial Britain are currently suffering from the effects of being in a marginalised position. Cayden certainly struggled to escape the volunteer post he occupied. For many in this study, working was not a simple means of escaping poverty. Indeed, for many, it cemented their socially excluded position within education and work spheres as they struggled to escape the ‘low-pay, no-pay cycle’ identified by Shildrick et al. (2010).
The realities of signing on and gaining benefits
Obtaining the benefits to which young people were entitled was often problematic and very time-consuming, and frequently required the assistance of the professionals working with the young people. I first met Karla, an 18-year-old independent liver who had recently left care, on an employability programme designed by the local careers supervisor with the intent to get NEET young people from a looked-after care background into work. Looked-after care NEET young people were considered a vulnerable group within the local authority and, as such, special employability programmes were put in place for them to attend, along with extra financial assistance to aid their entry into work, education or training. Karla and I left the programme with the careers supervisor’s instructions to go to the local Jobcentre Plus centre to access her funds.
Chasing funds
We enter the building. Another man greets us and asks us if we need help. We repeat ourselves again; he takes us to a desk where a lady is sat; she asks us what we need and we repeat ourselves again. She makes a phone call and says she cannot get the money as she has no keys, but we are to wait while she receives another phone call – we don’t know who, why or for how long. About half an hour passes before the lady tells us there is nothing she can do as she doesn’t have the keys. Karla says she is feeling ill; she looks pale and says she’ll need to get a taxi home. I suggest she might want to see a doctor. She informs me that she has tried to register with a medical centre but they have said they are full. She says she could go to A and E [Accident and Emergency] if she feels any worse. I ask the lady what we should do and she looks at me with a blank face and says, ‘Go to the pharmacy’, and Karla responds, ‘But I have no money’. (Field notes, 3 February 2011)
As far as I am aware, Karla never managed to receive her money. She left the centre and caught the bus home alone (with her one-week-free bus pass given to her for attending the employability programme) without visiting the pharmacy. Many of the young people in this study expressed frustration with the bureaucratic, incompetent nature of their experience with Jobcentre Plus. The young people disliked these places and loathed the repetitive mandatory rules they had to abide by in order to receive their entitlements. Many hours were wasted waiting and repeating oneself, with the end result not always being financially fruitful. Jasmine’s response below is typical when describing ‘signing on’ – otherwise known as obtaining Jobseeker’s Allowance. Jobseeker’s Allowance is a form of unemployment benefit paid by the UK government to people who are unemployed and actively seeking work. It is part of the social security benefits system and is intended to cover living expenses while the claimant is out of work. One usually has to be over the age of 18 and one is required to sign on at least once every two weeks. Lisa: What’s it like signing on? Jasmine: Oh, it’s annoying. Seriously, I have to get up at a really early time – at half nine every single Monday morning and my £100 that I get paid on Thursday, after I sign on, that doesn’t last two weeks, so I have to walk into town every Monday and then sit in there for – it depends how packed it is. Lisa: And what do you have to do? Jasmine: You go to the people who are sat down behind a desk and they ask if I’ve been looking for a job, and if you say ‘No’, you don’t get your money. Lisa: Is this the Jobcentre Plus? Jasmine: Yeah, in the middle of town. And then they ask about it and blah, blah, blah, blah. Some people just blag it, and for a couple of weeks I’ve blagged it. That week I was in hospital I blagged it. I don’t blag it so much now because I do look on the Internet for jobs. Lisa: So if you’ve been ill, do you not get your money? Jasmine: No. You’re only allowed to be ill twice. Lisa: In a year? Jasmine: Yeah. Lisa: And do they check if you are looking for work? Jasmine: Well, if you say you’re job-searching, they can’t do much about it. Lisa: And what if you’re in education or on a course? Jasmine: Well, it’s only a little course on a Wednesday, so I don’t tell ’em about that. But if I got to Employability Programme or something, they will put me onto income support. Lisa: And is that less money? Jasmine: No. It’s more money and I don’t have to sign on. Lisa: So going to CMS might be something you would want to do, then, for that reason? Jasmine: It’s just that your money gets knocked off so much easier when you’re on income support. My money stopped when I turned 18. (Interview, 29 March 2011)
Jasmine was 18 when we first met. She was also an independent liver and struggled managing her own finances. She finished her schooling with six or seven General Certificate of Secondary Education qualifications at grades A–C. She was dyslexic and suffered with bouts of depression after her mother suffered brain damage following a car accident. She attended a local technical college to do performing arts, but did not finish this due to her depression. She then started an apprenticeship in childcare. She was there for nine months but did not manage to maintain participation as she was living with her mother at the time. She struggled simultaneously caring for her mother and training, and consequently decided to find a place of her own. She then volunteered in a nursery placement for a few months, but had to stop this as she was not getting paid and found it stressful. She then came into contact with a local housing support charity. She attended a ‘take on’ programme – a 12-week course that involved a housing support worker helping her to manage her finances and pay bills. She also attended several courses which involved improving drug awareness and entering the job market skills. After completing these courses, she attended a training centre to build on her mathematics and English. This was an old Entry to Employment project and was then termed a Foundation Level One course. She left this course, as she felt that it was wasting her time, and subsequently decided that she wanted a paid job.
Jasmine, like all of the participants in this study, had a complex education, employment and training pathway, which depicts the ‘churn’ often experienced by NEET young people. Jasmine was active in her local community and regularly managed charity events aimed at raising funds for people suffering from brain injury. She completed several low-level, bite-sized qualifications that held little credibility or acknowledgement in the world of employment. She spent some time volunteering and had to cut her planned education pathway short due to the related issues concerning caring for her mother and experiencing depression. Jasmine did some cash-in-hand cleaning for a neighbour to help supplement her income for a few months, too. She also had a short spell working in a care home, but experienced problems securing her wage. In such circumstances, it is useful to be reminded of the classic Marxist concept of alienation in order to conceptualise many of these young people’s experiences of trying to gain paid work and maintain it. None of the young people who started an apprenticeship during the course of the research completed it, and the employability courses that many repetitively undertook seldom led to a secure job or useful further training (for more details with regard to the insecure, low-paid nature of employment for young people, see Simmons et al., 2014).
Together with demonstrating the challenges NEET young people face when experiencing the ‘churn’ and signing on, Jasmine’s interview transcript reveals how one has to play the game and undermine the benefits system at times, just to survive. Here, Jasmine demonstrates knowledge and agency in her management of the benefits system. Jasmine had spent some time in hospital after a mental breakdown and so had to ‘blag’ Jobcentre Plus professionals while signing on to ensure she gained her Jobseekers Allowance. It is paramount that the young people physically attend and ‘sign on’, otherwise their benefits are cut and/or stopped. Jasmine had two non-attendance marks against her due to being ill, and so had to say she was looking for work during her recovery from a metal breakdown, even though actually this was not the case during this time frame.
Jasmine’s breakdown
Poor health and family tragedy were common amongst many of the young people who participated in this ethnography. These sorts of challenges sometimes acted as barriers to re-engagement, but at other times acted as motives to engage, as in Jasmine’s case, where she raised significant funds for local brain-damaged victims.
Limited opportunities
Feelings of marginalisation across work, home and education spheres were common amongst these young people and, while they sometimes internalised deficit individualistic explanations of their poverty-stricken situation, the structural implications regarding their limited opportunities also need to be recognised. Wacquant’s (1996) definition of marginalisation reminds us that one’s social hierarchical position can, indeed, inhibit one’s potential to exploit other life opportunities and finances, thus adding to the ‘downward spiral’ that many of the young people in this study described as experiencing: ‘What the fuck do you expect me to do? I’m spiralling downwards; I can’t live; I can’t even stay in my own flat because it is unliveable; no gas, no electric, no food. Jack shit!’ (Interview with Jasmine, 18 December 2012).
In addition to the issues the young people faced when trying to access financial entitlements, feel integrated within their community, and (re)integrate into credible employment, education and training spheres due to their lack of ability to gain viable qualifications that hold currency, structural barriers relating to the local employment landscape and education and training available also need to be recognised: Lisa: What sort of barriers do you think the young people face both locally and nationally? Jack: Lack of opportunity. Lack of jobs. There are fewer training places now available and there are fewer training organisations than there used to be because we keep losing them. Lisa: Is that due to the funding? Jack: Yeah. (Connexions Personal Assistant, Interview, 14 March 2012)
The structural barriers, in addition to the young person’s personal circumstances, need to be considered if any meaningful strategies are to be implemented to tackle a young person’s limited opportunities and fulfil their desire to exit poverty.
Conclusions
These young people are viewed as agentic individuals resisting, yet sometimes still accommodating to, certain class stereotypes. They demonstrate awareness and knowledge about how to manage the nuances involved with being poor and unemployed. How marginalisation manifests itself and is experienced by the individual shapes their motivation, ability and power to participate in education and work. These experiences are not inherent, but should rather be viewed as part of a process of marginalisation which is current, ongoing and cumulative. Marginalisation offers a powerful lens through which to view the lives of these NEET young people. In accordance with Wacquant’s (1996) conceptualisation of marginalisation, the macro impeding structures of globalisation, together with the intensification of capitalist accumulation, shape the nature of wage labour in these NEET young people’s localities and their ability to gain decent paid work and exit poverty. Indeed, in some instances, their marginalised position can be seen to be reinforced by current education, employment and welfare policy, which seems to underpin their cycle of deprivation, rather than alleviate it. Despite these overarching domineering structures, these young people expressed agency and often did not reject dominant normative schemes and values. Indeed, in most cases, they aspired to them. They wanted to work, own a house and raise a family. Furthermore, certain forms of marginalisation, which at first appear voluntary, such as the action of failing to turn up for work, need to be understood in terms of the overall process of marginalisation. The young people in this study felt marginalised; struggled yet still managed in certain circumstances to engage in education, work, family and community spheres; and negotiated their pathway to survival.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the young people and professionals who gave their time so willingly to share their involvements and insight into the experiences of being NEET.
Funding
The Leverhulme Trust funded the research which supported the possibility of doing a nuanced long-term ethnography.