Commentary: 'Work First': Workfare and the Regulation of Contingent Labour Markets

Jamie Peck and Nikolas Theodore

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2000, vol. 24, issue 1, 119-38

Abstract: The paper presents a critical review of UK and US welfare-to-work strategies, stressing their implications for changing forms of labour regulation. The favoured policy orientation--"work first"--forcefully redistributes the risks and burdens of job-market instability from the state to unemployed individuals, the solution to whose "welfare dependency" is presented in terms of a one-way transition into (low) waged work. At a systemic level, the analysis suggests that a regressive regulatory accommodation may be emerging between mandatory welfare-to-work programming on the one hand and the lowest reaches of deregulated, "flexible" labour markets on the other, as the destabilisation of welfare via work-activation measures creates a forced labour supply for contingent jobs. Copyright 2000 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cambje:v:24:y:2000:i:1:p:119-38

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().