8 ‘The ties that bind’: ill health and caring and their impact on the low-pay, no-pay cycle
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Tracy Shildrick
Abstract
This chapter shifts attention from ‘the demand side’ of employment – or at least interviewees’ experiences of the forms of work on offer – to ‘supply-side’ factors that sometimes inhibited engagement with employment, and which helped shape the low-pay, no-pay cycle. Ill-health and caring responsibilities are the two empirical foci here. The chapter unravels the connections between unemployment, poor work and ill-health and speculates that long-term churning between poor work and unemployment may itself add further detriments to health. The chapter shows how jobs often made demands of unsocial hours under unpredictable conditions. This made fulfilling caring responsibilities and accessing affordable and manageable childcare difficult. The chapter concludes, however, by arguing that in the long-term, lived experience of the low-pay, no-pay cycle it is not so easy to separate ‘demand’ from ‘supply-side’ factors. The pressures, constraints and demands of poor work did much to shape what, superficially, appear to be problems that reside in the situations of those looking for work (e.g. ill-health or difficulties with childcare).
Abstract
This chapter shifts attention from ‘the demand side’ of employment – or at least interviewees’ experiences of the forms of work on offer – to ‘supply-side’ factors that sometimes inhibited engagement with employment, and which helped shape the low-pay, no-pay cycle. Ill-health and caring responsibilities are the two empirical foci here. The chapter unravels the connections between unemployment, poor work and ill-health and speculates that long-term churning between poor work and unemployment may itself add further detriments to health. The chapter shows how jobs often made demands of unsocial hours under unpredictable conditions. This made fulfilling caring responsibilities and accessing affordable and manageable childcare difficult. The chapter concludes, however, by arguing that in the long-term, lived experience of the low-pay, no-pay cycle it is not so easy to separate ‘demand’ from ‘supply-side’ factors. The pressures, constraints and demands of poor work did much to shape what, superficially, appear to be problems that reside in the situations of those looking for work (e.g. ill-health or difficulties with childcare).
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and boxes iv
- Acknowledgements v
- Introduction 1
- Poor work, welfare and poverty 11
- Researching the low-pay, no-pay cycle and recurrent poverty 39
- The low-pay, no-pay cycle: the perspectives and practices of employers and ‘welfare to work’ agencies 61
- The low-pay, no-pay cycle: its pattern and people’s commitment to work 79
- Searching for jobs: qualifications, support for the workless and the good and bad of informal social networks 101
- Poor work: insecurity and churning in deindustrialised labour markets 125
- ‘The ties that bind’: ill health and caring and their impact on the low-pay, no-pay cycle 143
- Poverty and social insecurity 167
- Conclusions 193
- References 225
- Index 247
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and boxes iv
- Acknowledgements v
- Introduction 1
- Poor work, welfare and poverty 11
- Researching the low-pay, no-pay cycle and recurrent poverty 39
- The low-pay, no-pay cycle: the perspectives and practices of employers and ‘welfare to work’ agencies 61
- The low-pay, no-pay cycle: its pattern and people’s commitment to work 79
- Searching for jobs: qualifications, support for the workless and the good and bad of informal social networks 101
- Poor work: insecurity and churning in deindustrialised labour markets 125
- ‘The ties that bind’: ill health and caring and their impact on the low-pay, no-pay cycle 143
- Poverty and social insecurity 167
- Conclusions 193
- References 225
- Index 247
