Buying and Selling the Poor : Inside Australia's Privatised Welfare-To-Work Market.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Sullivan, Siobhan.

Contributor:

McGann, Michael.

Considine, Mark.

Series:

Public and Social Policy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public welfare--Australia.

Public welfare.

Unemployment--Australia.

Unemployment.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (278 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Sydney : Sydney University Press, 2021.

Summary:

Buying and Selling the Poor ventures behind the scenes of the multibillion-dollar welfare-to-work system, offering new insights into how Australia responds to unemployment and disadvantage. As the authors tell the story of four local employment offices, they paint a vivid picture of a critically important social service which many people are aware of but which few properly understand. They also reveal the wider impacts that processes of marketisation and welfare reform have had on these frontline services over decades, and how the work of frontline staff and service providers has been transformed. Buying and Selling the Poor looks closely at how these services operate, why some succeed where others fail, and what can be learned from the stories of staff and clients who have navigated the system. Three decades into this market experiment, how well are we doing in supporting our most vulnerable citizens to get back to work?

Contents:

Intro

Half title

Title

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword: On history, poverty, and the continuous quest for reform

Setting boundaries: the legacy of the British Poor Laws

Resetting boundaries in the modern era: the 'activation turn'

Contested boundaries and the path ahead

Introduction

1 The politics of managing the poor

Marketisation: 'the reform that never ends'

Working nation

The Job Network era

Market models after Howard

The activation turn in social policy

'Double' activation

(Not) working with the 'hardest-to-help'

2 Thinking inside the box

A street-level perspective on assisting the long-term unemployed

Opening the black box

The 'ethnographic turn' in policy studies

Study method in detail

3 Wilmore, the heart of Australian suburbia

The business of unemployment

Systems compliance

'New Australians'

Disappearing without a trace

Citizen or state agent?

Backstage

The (blurred) boundaries between disability and unemployment

Public displays of performance

Overall reflections

4 'Welcome' to Westgate

Command and control

Service rationing and sanctions

Mission drift in Australia's welfare-to-work system

Do we have a (warehouse) job for you (blokes)!

Clutching for answers

5 'Downtown' Crompton

The rise of the for-profits

Into the great wide open

Tight-knit and 'can do'

Suspicious minds

If you can't handle the heat!

In-house counselling: the fuzzy side of activation

'Triple' activation

For-profits v. not-for-profits: more that unites than divides

6 The Casual Cove

A charismatic office environment

Never set anyone up to fail

Emotional labour at the frontline

Caring professions for the ladies and hard yakka for the blokes

A little more mission than most.

Conclusion: Success and the significance of difference

Glossary

Works cited

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: O'Sullivan, Siobhan Buying and Selling the Poor

ISBN:

9781743328361

1743328362

9781743328378

1743328370

OCLC:

1305843208