BEYOND WORKFARE - ACTIVE LABOR-MARKET POLICIES

Approaches to labour-market policy and to workfare are conditioned by different perspectives on the causes of and prospects for unemployment and social exclusion. There appears to be a high level of correlation between advocates of workfare and those who use terms like the 'cultu re of dependency' and the 'underclass'. At this end of the debate, ass umptions about the values and behaviour of people who are unemployed o r who are lone parents lead to a belief that compulsion is necessary t o break that behaviour and change those values. Advocates of active la bour-marker policy might be more uncomfortable with assumptions that t he values and behaviour of these groups are different from those of ma instream society. For them, there are constraints and incentives which affect everyone, and the policy issues relate to relaxing those const raints and changing those incentives. The Labour Government reflects t he tensions between these two broad approaches. Some senior ministers are happy to talk about the 'underclass' and welfare dependency. Other s stress the vital need for further growth in regular employment as th e fundamental pre-requisite for any work or training programme to succ eed.