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Social Exclusion, Social Inclusion
It is scarcely a decade since the identification of social exclusion as a problem distinguishable from poverty, inequality and unemployment.[2] It is still very difficult to define. No statistics use social exclusion as an official category. The European Union, for example, falls back on poverty indicators - like the 52 million Europeans with incomes below half the average per head in their member states, or the 16 million unemployed persons, half of whom have been out of work for a year or more.[3] Such definitions as international agencies or governments proffer tend to be the vague product of consensus-seeking or the ideological upshot of national traditions or interest-group rhetoric.[4]
Thus, designing policies to combat social exclusion in Northern Ireland will inevitably raise questions about social membership, in the light of historical and institutional legacies as well as visions of the future. Combating exclusion will need a specific model of integration.
Yet while few European societies have experienced social conflicts
as prolonged and violent as in Northern Ireland, the region nevertheless
shares some common aspects of exclusion. These commonalities can
help define policy options. Virtually all agree that exclusion is multi-dimensional: disadvantage is simultaneously economic and social. Poverty and unemployment often isolate people, making it difficult to participate in social institutions. Further, it is rare for exclusion from a minimum standard of living or from the labour market to be randomly distributed: they tend to be concentrated among particular social groups. 'Insiders' may exploit cultural solidarities or the costs of their replacement, transforming social boundaries that exclude outsiders into inequalities.[5] Many consider exclusion to be a recent phenomenon, traceable to the global economic restructuring, family dissolution and strained social contracts of the last two decades. It is thus sometimes conflated with a 'new poverty' or 'structural' unemployment that persists and even worsens despite resumed economic growth. Yet, there are reasons to question the novelty of social exclusion, rather than its growth, since many who are disproportionately excluded today resemble traditionally disadvantaged populations.[6] Northern Ireland reminds us that some groups and regions were even excluded during the post-war boom. The third EU Poverty Programme pulled together the "main ingredients" of social exclusion.[7] In addition to its multidimensionality, exclusion was considered a dynamic process which may result from a lack of resources or denial of social rights. Exclusion itself may result in multiple deprivations: breaking of family ties and social relationships, loss of identity and purpose. The European Commission's 1994 white paper, Growth, Competitiveness, Employment, called for solidarity between those who had jobs and those who did not, between men and women, between generations, and between more and less developed regions. It advocated "neighbourly solidarity" in the fight against exclusion, through urban renovation, subsidised housing, intensive education and - in place of passive income support - "an active employment policy which attaches high priority to the search for an activity or training accessible to everyone". It called for the creation of 15 million jobs by the year 2000. The European Social Fund, which pays 13 per cent of the member states' expenditure on active labour market policies, focuses on "combating long-term unemployment and exclusion from the labour market". This priority accorded to unemployment was reiterated in a 1994 white paper on European social policy. This called for "a package of measures which form a pathway of reintegration", ensuring youth have the skills and opportunity to work, and helping the workforce adjust to structural change through continuing training. It also advocated decentralised management, better coordination within government, and broadening social partnerships to include non-governmental organisations and community bodies.
These proposals illustrate the types of policy options Northern
Ireland may wish to adopt. Long-term unemployment is a key indicator of social exclusion.[8] In 1993, Northern Ireland's overall unemployment rate was 14 per cent, exceeded only by Spain (22 per cent) and the Republic of Ireland (16 per cent); its long-term unemployment ratio was 55 per cent, just below that of Belgium (59 per cent), the republic (60 per cent), and Italy (58 per cent).[9] Long-term unemployment may be viewed as either symptom or cause of social exclusion. The longer a person is unemployed, the less likely he or she is to find employment and the greater the social isolation.[10] Both 'supply-side' (worker) and 'demand-side' (employer) factors may be responsible for this condition of 'duration dependence', which some sociologists use as evidence of a rising 'underclass'. For the worker, long-term unemployment can be demoralising. As constant rejection diminishes the motivation to keep looking for work, job searches may tail off. Loss of a socially recognised status may also lead to substance abuse, poor health, mental illness and family instability - not to mention loss of friends and job contacts. Insufficient income may restrict other forms of sociability as well. Even if alternative economic activities-from crime to gardening - are found, formal work habits and social skills may atrophy. Nevertheless, while some unemployment may result from such personal problems, most studies find it is more likely to be their cause. From the employer's point of view, however, the long-term unemployed may seem increasingly 'unemployable'. A hiatus from work signals more than a loss of motivation and social skills: persistent unemployment may erode vocational skills or human capital and implies that many employers have already rejected the applicant. In this way, the long-term unemployed become stigmatised. Moreover, joblessness is often concentrated among identifiable social groups, making it easier to ignore even their most talented and motivated members. All of the information conveyed by long-term unemployment promotes statistical discrimination. In Northern Ireland, for example, Catholic men remain over twice as likely to be unemployed as their Protestant counterparts. Although Catholics are younger, less well-qualified, have larger families, live more in western areas of high unemployment, and tend to work in more cyclical industries and less skilled occupations, they still have a higher unemployment rate than Protestants after these factors are taken into account.[11] It would be wrong to assume, however, that all of the long-term unemployed are socially excluded. Studies throughout Europe find a variety of reactions to joblessness, with some following the downward trajectory of cumulative disadvantage and others persisting in their efforts to stay socially connected or even to regain employment.[12] The fact that joblessness does not inevitably result in social exclusion gives policy-makers some clues about preventing it. Three sets of policies to combat long-term unemployment can be identified:
(i) lowering the cost of unskilled labour or enhancing human capital,
'Neo-classical' economists, who tend to see untrammelled markets as arriving at a natural equilibrium, have concluded that the resumption of economic growth means there is sufficient demand to absorb the jobless. The secular rise in European unemployment, they argue, is caused by the reluctance or inability of the unemployed to accept work at a lower wage rate. This diagnosis implies the need for supply-side policies to 'price' the unemployed into work. The 'Great American Job Machine' is taken as a case in point. Thanks to only short-term unemployment insurance benefits, low wages and transfer payments, weak unions and minimal regulation of contracts, the us has created many more jobs and has much lower unemployment and very little long-term unemployment. Unfortunately, there are trade-offs. The war on unemployment may be won at the price of increasing poverty. The us has much higher income inequality than most European countries; the UK, following the American model, exhibits similar trends. The US has also had lower productivity growth, partly because cheap labour discourages capital investment and training. Finally, under-employment in precarious jobs is widespread in the US. Most European countries have pushed forward with policies to encourage hiring the long-term unemployed by lowering labour costs - temporarily or permanently, generally or selectively. A favourite mechanism is assisted private-sector employment: governments encourage hiring, often in conjunction with training, by providing subsidies to employers or workers. Sweden and Germany subsidise much of the wage of newly-hired long-term unemployed workers.[13] France used to offer only exemptions from social charges, or non-wage labour costs; under the latest subsidy programme, however, employers also receive a bonus grant for hiring certain categories. Evaluating such policies is hindered, however, by the need to assess hidden or unintended outcomes. 'Deadweight' costs are incurred when policies subsidise activities that would have taken place in the absence of intervention: some workers might have sought training or found jobs without assistance; some employers might have hired workers without incentives. The public bears these costs. 'Displacement' effects may also result: employers may replace unsubsidised workers with subsidised employees or trainees, without increasing net employment. The public and unsubsidised workers bear these costs. Moreover, employers may 'cream' the best workers, doing little for the least employable: the most motivated, most skilled and most recently employed will disproportionately reap the benefits. The EU white paper expressed concern that of the 10 million new jobs created during the 80s, only 3 million were taken by those on unemployment registers. Thus, without 'positive discrimination' in favour of the least employable, the excluded may be excluded from the very initiatives designed to help them. In general, the more short-term the subsidy and the more targeted it is on hard-to-employ categories, the fewer the unintended effects. But a comparative analysis of employment subsidies pessimistically concluded that "perverse and wasteful effects appear to dominate".[14] A related strategy is to relax the minimum wage. For example, the UK eliminated wages councils in 1993. In the US and France, proposals for a lower minimum for unemployed youth were met with protests. Economists are still debating the size of the trade-off between jobs and minimum wages.[15] Yet there are less visible ways to achieve the same result. In the us, low wages are supplemented by an earned income tax credit, to 'make work pay'; in the UK, Family Credit supplements the incomes of low-paid families with a full-time household head. Germany's 'dual system' of apprenticeships and academic training also reduces young workers' wages relative to adults'. The fact that the unskilled have higher unemployment rates than the skilled during technological change leads some economists to focus on upgrading human capital. Indeed, it appears that everyone - employers and labour, right- and left-wing parties - supports training programmes. Yet, given the potential perverse effects, there is no theoretical reason why government training should necessarily reduce unemployment. Employers can reap the benefits of deadweight effects by using training funds to subsidise wages while skimping on skills, or to raise productivity and insiders' wages without creating new jobs. Displacement effects may also result, since skilled workers can also perform unskilled jobs. And training people for nonexistent jobs may be more expensive and less effective in reducing unemployment than demand-side interventions. If the unemployed belong to stigmatised groups, even training may not overcome such bias. Indeed, the excluded individuals who need training most - the young and long-term unemployed - are ironically least likely to benefit, whether because of creaming or their basic skill deficiencies. Training systems vary considerably across countries.[16] In the us, work experience is considered as on-the-job training. On the European continent, however, training is understood as resulting in a recognised credential. Germany and the Netherlands provide apprenticeships in growing occupations identified by the social partners. France subsidises private employers to provide on-the-job training. Other nations, like Sweden, rely more on schools and universities. Further, the content of training differs, in the mix of general-transferable, occupation-specific and firm-specific skills. The depth of public subsidies and financing of training programmes also varies. Countries like France and Germany impose a training levy on employers, while the UK eliminated its training levy and apprenticeship subsidies. Indeed, since its Training and Enterprise Councils cannot charge fees, they tend to be underfunded.[17] The us never really had levies, although President Clinton has proposed policies to encourage employers to provide more than informal, on-the-job training.[18] There is some cross-national evidence that employer-provided training raises productivity, employment and wages, benefiting both firms and workers.[19] Yet many employers consider it uneconomical to invest in the training of easily substitutable and readily expendable workers-especially if their competitors do not. Subsidising employer training can favour 'insiders', workers who are already the most skilled and 'trainable' or who can impose hiring or firing costs on firms. In Britain, firms are more likely to train those with prior qualifications[20] and in France, despite a rising training levy, private employers are still least likely to train the most unskilled.[21] Even if training subsidies are targeted on 'outsiders', employers may simply use them to lower labour costs without providing any meaningful job skills. By default, the public sector may be forced to train the least advantaged workers; the cost may encourage superficial, short-term courses. Finally, even the best public training programmes do not guarantee success: Job Corps, the residential, long-term job training programme for inner-city US youth, considered the most effective and expensive policy, places only 12 per cent of graduates in related jobs. us training programmes rarely raise earnings by more than $1000 and some may have negative net effects.[22] During the 80s, Britain and France devoted considerable resources to training programmes, but in both countries the share of trainees who later found work remained low, forcing many to retrain yet again.[23] After a decade of experimentation, both countries consolidated their programmes. The governments promised unskilled youth a recognised qualification to improve marketability; indeed, the EU now wants to give all youth a right to such a credential. Secondly, emphasis shifted from training in a 'socially useful' activity towards 'real' private-sector jobs; both governments are trying to involve business further in training schemes. Thirdly, in return for benefits, unemployed individuals sign personalised contracts or action plans, detailing how they would obtain a position. The goal is to motivate the unemployed to participate actively in their insertion into the labour market. Though there have been recent cuts, Britain increased expenditure on employment and training programmes during the 80s. All existing adult vocational programmes were consolidated under Employment Training in 1988 (replaced by Training for Work in 1993). ET has had a high (43 per cent) dropout rate, and many who finished earned no qualification. Moreover, about 58 per cent of those leaving ET between 1991 and 1992 ended up in unemployment.[24] As the union apprenticeship system declined, British government youth training expanded. Yet only 35.6 per cent of British 16-19 year olds are in full-time education, compared to 80.4 per cent in Germany and 72.2 per cent in France.[25] Like FT for adults, ET had a low and falling penetration rate among the long-term unemployed and drop-out rates have been high.26 YT compensates for most of trainees' wages, but those are very low compared to traditional apprenticeships. Although some have argued that British employers do not train because apprentice wages are too high, youth now have no rights to income support if they do not train. Moreover, YT is shorter than apprenticeships, and has not improved the ability of youth to pass national qualifying examinations, find jobs faster or earn higher wages.[27] Not only do employers devalue the credentials earned; they may even view them negatively.[28] The introduction of National Vocational Qualifications was intended to solve the problem, but employer training in Britain remains largely unregulated. Germany has largely obviated the need for youth training programmes, because over 70 per cent of youth leaving compulsory schooling enter the labour market as apprentices. Its dual apprenticeship system trains students on the job and in vocational college general education classes. Because employers and local chambers of commerce help decide on the content and standards of vocational training, three-year apprenticeships lead to widely-recognised certification for up to 378 occupations. Bank policies and internal labour markets encourage corporations to make long-term investments in workers, but even small firms hire apprentices as their wages are lower (trainees' allowances cost employers about 25 per cent of adult wages). Simultaneously, publicly-financed, college-based training provides strong basic skills that make it easier for workers to adapt to changes in the labour market. Because better apprenticeships go to those performing well in school, students have an incentive to work hard even if they do not plan to attend university. Unions also help monitor quality. Some suggest Germany's low youth unemployment reflects not only the integration of training with employer practices, but also - thanks to widespread unionisation and works councils - the greater value placed on manual and technical skills relative to academic qualifications.[29] Indeed, Germany is the only European country where manual unemployment is not much higher than among non-manual workers. Neo-classical economists have further argued that long-term unemployment is caused not only by inadequate skills but also by the disincentives to work associated with social transfers. Throughout Europe, most of the expenses devoted to combating exclusion have in fact gone to income replacement; less money is spent on the prevention of exclusion or on insertion.[30] Yet the social policy régime that once fitted a full-employment economy is not compatible with the contemporary labour market. Contributory social insurance assumed that risks were distributed across a life-cycle and that unemployment was cyclical. Structural, long-term unemployment and family break-ups have increased the number of persons - especially youth and lone parents - who have not contributed enough to qualify for the benefits of universalist programmes and raised the number of eligible persons whose benefits have expired. If, as in France, employers are exonerated from payroll taxes to hire the long-term unemployed, the social security funds are rapidly depleted. If, as in Britain, the long-term unemployed are shifted to cheaper, once-residual, means-tested programmes, public deficits balloon. Yet even these reduced benefits supposedly contribute to 'malingering' on income support. Mounting fiscal pressures and the argument that generous and long-term income support create poverty and unemployment traps have spurred some governments to change benefit systems to reintegrate the unemployed. There is some cross-national evidence that the duration, if not the level, of benefits is related to unemployment. Sweden's active labour market policies, for example, include a time-limit on benefits to motivate recipients to find work. Similarly, the EU has suggested topping up earnings from work with income from social security and tax benefits. But other governments have reduced the level, or shortened the time limit, of unemployment benefits, making job-seeking more attractive and compulsory. 'Workfare' reforms of means-tested income-support policies require once-passive recipients of benefits to participate actively in their own insertion. The UK reformed its income support programmes in the late 80s in line with this logic. Although British unemployment benefit levels have always been relatively low, and there is little evidence that generous payments created work disincentives, the maximum duration of unemployment benefit was reduced from one year to six months, and the long-term unemployed were shifted to less generous supplementary benefits.[31] Indeed, by the late 80s, supplementary benefits were worth only about one-eighth of average male earnings for a single person.[32] Eligibility standards were meanwhile tightened, although those excluded from benefit may have found their job search further impeded without support.[33] Active job-seeking was also made mandatory for benefit recipients. The young, the unskilled and the long-term unemployed were expected to attend Restart courses, undergo training, actively seek work and accept job offers. In the US, Congress has recently been elaborating a welfare reform placing a time-limit on all support, despite experimental evidence that state-level welfare-to-work programmes have had only modest income and employment effects for the hard-to-employ.[34] In late 1988, France introduced a guaranteed 'minimum income of insertion' that requires recipients to sign a contract to participate in a social or professional activity. But evaluations found that only a minority of recipients obtained a stable job; indeed, by mid-1992, only 44 per cent of recipients had even signed a contract. Having done so, recipients waited six months on average to be offered an 'insertion' activity, twice the anticipated waiting period; entrants to the programme still exceed exits.[35] The question remains as to whether the labour market is able to absorb so many workers without intervening on the demand side or making government the employer of last resort. Indeed, if workfare is designed to draw more unemployed workers into the labour market and, thereby, lower wages, elsewhere policies have sought to reduce labour supply. For example, part-time pensions or lowering the retirement age can encourage pre-retirement of older workers. But this has not necessarily reduced unemployment among displaced workers over 50 years old, because it inadvertently signals to employers that older workers in general are expendable. Women workers pose a more difficult problem in fighting unemployment. In the EU overall, female unemployment was 12 per cent in 1993, compared with 9 per cent among men, though there is considerable cross-national variation. On the one hand, equity calls for programmes that reconcile work-family conflicts, guard against discrimination, offer equal social benefits and provide access to predominantly male occupations. On the other hand, these policies make paid work more attractive to women, increasing the labour supply. In jobs where women compete, wages may be pushed downward. It may be surprising to learn that, during the 80s, Northern Ireland did not lag behind the UK in job creation. But four-fifths of those new jobs went to women, most of whom were previously not in the labour force. Few of the officially unemployed, most of whom are men, were hired. In sum, the premise of supply-side policies is that wages are too high to absorb available workers. But these policies have not been very successful: even the drastic deregulation of the British labour market during the 80s did little to reduce unemployment.
Although countries with less flexible labour markets and centralised
bargaining do have more stable employment and unemployment, and
less income inequality, they do not have higher average unemployment
rates or slower productivity growth.[36] While social
programmes do affect employer and worker behaviour, they do not
create major inflexibilities.[37] And high unemployment
insurance benefits and minimum wages do not appear to raise a
country's long-term unemployment rate. Matching policies Related to supply-side and wage-setting policies are those labour-market interventions that improve the match between supply and demand. Indeed, as firms operate in global markets, become less hierarchical and require transferable skills, improving mobility between employers has become increasingly important for reducing the concentration of long-term unemployment in particular regions and among particular workers.
Because the excluded have fewer social and financial resources, the most disadvantaged are most likely to rely on the employment service. In prosperous areas of the UK, advertisements are used more often, but the long-term jobless in high unemployment regions turn most frequently to job centres and are more likely to take Restart courses.[40] Yet, while Restart is compulsory for the long-term unemployed, only one in 110 claimants acquired ajob in 1991. This led some observers to remark that job centres were policing and discouraging, rather than assisting, the unemployed.[41] In contrast, Swedish local employment agencies perform a myriad of functions well, allowing rapid adjustments of labour to shifts in demand. They provide assistance for geographical mobility and a job orientation service. They systematically collect and analyse labour - market information, and anticipate changes in demand and necessary training. Even as Swedish subsidies have been increasingly targeted on youth and the unemployed, they are as concerned with shifting labour into growing sectors as with retraining per se. In Sweden, Austria, France, Germany, Britain and Ireland, the trade unions have established local centres for the unemployed to provide job counselling and benefits advice, and to represent the unemployed in local public affairs. For example, there are 118 TUC centres for the unemployed in Britain, most operating in local authority premises. Italy's CGIL confederation has a national network of centres, which share information about rights, jobs, and training. In the fight against exclusion, it is particularly important to find effective ways to enforce equal opportunity laws. As experience in Northern Ireland testifies, informal networks act as a form of social capital: the 'chill factor' of unfriendly workplaces or neighbourhoods may exclude certain job applicants. Similarly, clubbishness and sexual harassment may drive women out of male-dominated fields. It is very difficult for public policy to expunge these informal sources of social preference and exclusion, however. In the us, affirmative action and court-ordered desegregation were modestly successful in integrating segregated workplaces and neighbourhoods, but they have been very controversial. France, too, is still ambivalent about legally recognising immigrant minorities. Any programme placing people in categories has the potential of reinforcing the very social cleavages it seeks to eliminate.[42]
Moreover, there is only so much coercion governments can apply.
In socially divided societies, a strong and prolonged commitment
to integration is essential to overcome cultural practices of
exclusion while still protecting civil liberties. Integrating
civil societies requires the creation of a public sphere in which
strangers can find common interests and co-operate despite their
differences. It is a challenge that Northern Ireland will also
have to face. Demand-side policies 'Neo-Keynesian' economists - more sceptical than their neo-classical counterparts about the self-regulating capacity of markets-believe European monetary policy has been too restrictive in the face of high unemployment. Since 1991, 6 million European jobs have been lost[43] and because unemployment has risen for both skilled and unskilled workers (albeit at different rates), supply-side remedies alone, they argue, are unlikely to work. Moreover, high-unemployment countries do not and did not have higher wages than low unemployment countries, so wage levels alone have not been the source of the problem.[44] Supply-side remedies cannot work if employers are not persuaded to hire the long-term jobless. The government may thus have to institute selective fiscal policies or guarantee such workers a job. In Germany and Sweden, all institutions give priority to full employment. There, the social partners operate a coherent system of centralised bargaining. In Britain and France, by contrast, conflicts between labour and employers have made it difficult to institute comprehensive reforms that would produce a noninflationary wage consensus to help reduce unemployment.[45] Without a vision of national integration, based on a consensus between the social partners, political problems can result. Employers often consider public and nonprofit projects promoting the 'social economy' to be 'make work', and they may insist these be restricted to less profitable niches the market has yet to fill. Unions, meanwhile, already under pressure to relinquish hard-won benefits and protections, may oppose the hiring of the long-term unemployed on more flexible terms or at a lower wage. Demand-side interventions seek to overcome the institutional obstacles to hiring the unemployed. Selective deregulation and job creation are the two main strategies. Most governments have been relaxing labour regulations on hours, overtime or length of contracts, to encourage the flexible restructuring of production. Temporary jobs can give more workers experience and prevent skills from atrophying, while part-time jobs can encourage hiring two workers in place of one. Flexible work arrangements can also be used to replace skilled with unskilled workers who have higher unemployment rates. Finally, deregulation can reduce hiring and firing costs that discourage employers from taking on new workers until they are sure that growth has resumed, or from firing insiders protected from dismissal. A related way of increasing employment in a slow-growth economy is work-sharing. In the Netherlands and Denmark, in particular, reducing the number of weekly work hours and raising the share of part-time jobs succeeded in redistributing a given volume of work among more workers. Other policies that could fulfil similar functions are job-sharing (creating two part-time jobs out of one) and encouraging parental and training leaves, to provide temporary jobs for others. But the problem with all these strategies to repackage labour supply into different 'bundles' of hours is that labour can not be perfectly substituted:[46] work schedules mesh with production constraints and the ebb and flow of demand, and additional hiring costs may require compensating declines in wages. As the French debate on work-sharing revealed, employers see a reduction in the working week, without a corresponding wage reduction or productivity increase, as a windfall for labour, rather than an opportunity to engage more workers. Advocates have concluded that the length of the working week must be reduced by more than a few hours to have a siguificant impact on unemployment. In contrast, Sweden uses subsidies not so much to increase flexibility or lower wages as to compensate for downturns in demand that would otherwise raise unemployment. Subsidies shift workers into growth industries and make up the shortfall between 'handicapped' workers' productivity and a just wage. Unfortunately, this counter-cyclical approach can be expensive. While most EU countries have cut or held constant social expenditures as a share of gross domestic product, Swedish expenditures have soared.[47] Sweden spends much more than other countries on active labour-market policies to maintain full employment. Creating new jobs avoids the zero-sum conflicts that require sacrifices from some members of society to integrate the excluded. New firms may undercut insiders who prefer augmenting their own wages to expanding employment. In addition to macro-economic policies, there are many programmes aimed at creating new jobs for the least advantaged. The three most important are 'insertion by economic means'; assistance to small enterprises and the self-employed; and local economic development. Insertion by economic means is an increasingly popular way to bring the long-term unemployed back to the labour market. Whereas an effective industrial or urban policy with financial incentives is often necessary to coax private employers to expand employment, the idea behind insertion by economic means is to encourage new firms that integrate social purposes with the economic goal of job creation. As with the co-operative movement, work is here conceived as going beyond the cash nexus to encompass cultural, educational, health and family life. In France, a job may be tied to personalised social services; this social framework prevents the long-term unemployed from becoming isolated, losing the discipline of daily routines and falling into illegal activities. Such activities are usually confined to the less-profitable, labour-intensive 'social economy' - domestic services, home health care, care of children or the aged, or 'green' tasks - where they do not directly compete with private businesses, and most require public subsidies. Moreover, the small scale of such insertion efforts has so far been insufficient to cope with the enormity of unemployment. These work organisations reintegrate the most socially marginal populations who have trouble holding a traditional job and who are unassisted by more conventional insertion programmes (for example, the long-term unemployed, ex-convicts, substance-abusers and homeless persons). They originated in the efforts of ordinary citizens, social workers and social action groups. Often headed by strong, even charismatic leaders, they nonetheless require active participation of volunteers and the beneficiaries of their services. There are no more than a few thousand such initiatives in France - all told they have created about 22,000 full-time equivalent jobs - and evaluations suggest that, while they re-orientate the long-term unemployed to work norms and social relations, the employment prospects of participants are not much enhanced by their experience. As in Germany's work creation schemes, the majority of those leaving do not find an 'ordinary' job.[48] Among such initiatives, there are 60-100 local partnerships, comprising inhabitants, elected officials and landlords, who establish a neighbourhood structure for insertion. They operate in local markets - in building maintenance, gardening and other neighbourhood services - but also seek to increase access to the rest of the city. Priority is given to the most disadvantaged residents in hiring, employment is coupled with training and social services, and opportunities are provided for residents to participate in all stages of a project, most of which are aimed at developing the social life of disadvantaged neighbourhoods. What are called 'local plans for economic insertion' co-ordinate and rationalise the actions and funding of the many different partners. Some 50 French cities now have such plans, concentrating on the most excluded groups. They also disburse European Social Funds (objective 3) and funds from the French labour, social affairs and urban ministries. The EU is trying to widen the concept of work to include the 'social economy', intermediate associations and the informal economy, to assist those in marginal positions to re-enter the formal labour market. Whether through tax exemptions, public-private partnerships or income support coupled with work in the non-profit sector, the social economy should serve unmet social needs while assisting the unemployed. Indeed, the Poverty 3 projects concentrated on decentralised, small-scale production by local organisations, emphasising the social economy[49] Most projects combined diverse activities like vocational training and housing, health or social services with business assistance, job creation and local development initiatives. The scale was modest but intensive. Even Britain, with its emphasis on market enterprise, has counterparts to this. The growing voluntary sector has supplemented central government initiatives to fight social exclusion in British localities. Most similar to the French approach are community enterprises: development trusts, community companies, co-operatives and other voluntary associations. They comprise a grassroots approach to "sustainable, people-centred development", in partnership with local business and government. Established in the 60s and 70s, non-profit community development trusts now number in the hundreds, some funded through Task Forces, City Grant, or City Challenge. As in France, however, community enterprises in some localities have consisted of "short-term, disorganised activities", which contribute to the confidence and skills of the unemployed but have not realised their grander aims.[50] Community-led development remains small-scale, underfunded and marginalised in a national context favouring insertion in profit-oriented businesses. Like the British Community Programme (Community Action), the initiatives under the Republic of Ireland's Programme for Economic and Social Progress, and France's 'intermediary associations', Northern Ireland's Action for Community Employment scheme directly provides the long-term unemployed with up to a year of paid employment in projects of community benefit, particularly in deprived areas. Some training is also provided. About a third of the jobs are part-time, however, and so again attract women without reducing the unemployment rolls. In addition, placement rates after ACE (about 35 per cent) are about the same as those among the unemployed more generally, casting doubt on the quality of training provided.[51] Thus, Northern Ireland's experience with insertion by economic means is similar to that elsewhere. The British approach to job creation has emphasised entrepreneurship and small business development, and narrowly economic over social goals. Different countries promote self-employment in different ways - from training, low-cost credit, and targeted state contracting to reduced administrative costs, assistance with feasibility studies and reduced start-up expenses. In the US, for example, access to capital has been one of the greatest impediments to minorities seeking to start a small inner-city business. Community development banks and credit unions furnish disadvantaged entrepreneurs with small, low-interest loans, personalised business training and long-term attention, reducing defaults. France promotes small business creation by the long-term unemployed with technical assistance and subsidies. But no European government promotes entrepreneurship as a cure for unemployment more than Britain, including via the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, introduced in 1983, and offering a £40 weekly supplement to the profits of any approved business established by the previously unemployed on benefit, provided they invested at least £1000 and worked full-time. Yet in 1989, just 18 per cent of the newly self-employed in Britain were previously unemployed.[52] There is little evidence that self-employment is related to unemployment over time or cross-nationally. After all, many of the unemployed are unlikely to do well in self-employment. Successful entrepreneurs usually have capital, work experience, formal education and many social relations. Indeed, access to 'social capital' more generally seems essential to small business expansion. European countries with high unemployment, like Italy, have experienced a renaissance in self-help activities and household economies among the poor, a phenomenon once confined to developing countries. Although such 'concealed employment' is notoriously difficult to measure, most indicators suggest it is rising.[53] However, rising unemployment does not appear to be related to informal economic activities, because social capital is more plentiful in some areas and groups than in others. Informal economies are less likely among the socially disaffiliated: studies in Britain and France suggest that concealed employment complements official employment, while the unemployed are less likely to engage in informal economic activity.[54] Some argue that neighbourhoods with high jobless rates lack a reservoir of trust or social capital. Rather than social segregation having the positive economic consequences of protected markets, residents of such areas are socially isolated. That is why the social component of insertion is so important. Among the economically inactive, participation in local voluntary activities or a 'household economy' can enlarge social networks. Access to social capital can lead to paid employment as well. Local economic development activities are intended to reknit communities as well as create jobs. Instead of nonresident labour and businesses providing for residents' daily needs, local ones might. But, as many countries have discovered, the market for such goods and services is also limited, especially in poorer locales. To stimulate growth, any capital or wages earned must be captured and reinvested in the area.[55] Non-profit and community-based enterprises often collapse without public subsidies or protection. Alternatively, local economic development policy may aim to export goods and services, bringing new capital into the community Of course, urban development activities are motivated by social and political, as well as economic, considerations. Indeed, most governments initiated urban policies to quell neighbourhood disorders. For example, after violent incidents in disadvantaged suburbs, a 1991 French law aimed to redistribute resources from richer to poorer areas in the name of solidarity But social programmes on their own were insufficient to combat exclusion in these locales. As American and British urban policies illustrate, the trend has been to shift from social to economic interventions, and from public to private provision and investment. The emphasis is on physical, rather than social development. Not surprisingly, evaluations of both British and French urban policies have called for a better balance of social and economic objectives.[56] Urban policies should not only fight unemployment but also crime, delinquency, drug abuse, family dissolution and school-leaving. Schools must tackle social problems and police must learn more about the communities they serve. Cultural and recreational activities are particularly important in areas of high unemployment. Without social interventions to engage idle youth, infrastructural improvements can quickly fall into disrepair. Building projects should be coupled with apprenticeships in construction trades for local youth and contracts for local businesses. An effective urban policy locally co-ordinates physical planning, economic development and social insertion locally using each to leverage the other. An implicit assumption of urban policy is that people with multiple disadvantages concentrate in certain places. Yet designation as a deprived area requiring public intervention can stigmatise all residents and repel potential investors. An attack on urban exclusion focuses on places, not people. But it does provide a convenient, if inefficient, way to target social exclusion without mentioning the social groups who disproportionately live there. Urban policies are only beginning to take residents' opinions and identities into account, but they can be a powerful tool to empower communities, mobilise participation and enhance local democracy. Yet the difficulty of moving the long-term unemployed even into newly-created jobs suggests government may have to serve as an employer of last resort. Public works, particularly investments in productive infrastructure, have had some success in the past. The best known examples are the New Deal programmes, introduced in the us during the Great Depression, which built bridges, roads and dams, beautified cities, and planted forests. Between 1973 and 1982, one programme subsidised almost 3 million temporary public service jobs in localities for the hard-to-employ. Evaluations found small earnings gains, but substantial displacement of public-sector workers in some localities.[57] In Britain, the Community Programme, introduced in 1982 and ended in 1988, provided the long-term unemployed with temporary employment on "projects of benefit to the community". Of the 250,000 places in 1985, half were sponsored by local authorities and the others by voluntary associations.[58] Similarly, France plans a new housing construction programme, to create work and house the homeless. New environmental projects and large-scale public construction programmes, like Europe's planned high-speed rail network or more public housing, could also provide many manual jobs for the long-term unemployed, while benefiting the entire economy Maintaining the new infrastructure could sustain employment once these projects are completed. Fiscal and industrial policies are important tools to reduce unemployment. Jobs need to be reserved, however, for the least favoured groups. Sweden is the prototype. Sweden subsidises public employment for the 'handicapped', broadly defined as those whose employability is weakened for physical, intellectual or social reasons. In addition to 'sheltered' work in special enterprises and non-profit associations, local governments are required to hire the long-term unemployed if employment agencies cannot find them other jobs.
Yet the Swedish experience, like that of the us, suggests guaranteed
government employment has simply shifted labour to the public
sector, while doing little to reduce taxes or wage demands of
private employees. To overcome these problems, public-sector employment
may have to be made more undesirable or stigmatising, as in Workfare.
In sum, job creation programmes can lower unemployment, but they
are not a panacea in the absence of sustained economic growth.
In light of the mixed success of anti-exclusion policies, many conclude that new global economic realities and the common social problems associated with them have rendered nation-states impotent, if not irrelevant. Yet, despite the poor record of the policies surveyed here, states still have an important role to play.[59] As policies are continuously evaluated, more is learned about how to make them effective. And one of the most important lessons is that just as labour markets are restructuring, government interventions must restructure too. Rather than economic deregulation, state restructuring entails reregulation. If global or regional institutions, rather than sovereign states, are increasingly regulating trade, immigration and human rights, national governments remain the primary institutions that integrate national societies on the basis of shared citizenship. But they do need to change. Social welfare bureaucracies developed specialised areas of expertise that address one social problem at a time. Social welfare programmes could assume that passive recipients of transfer payments and services would rejoin the labour market when growth resumed. But just as hierarchical corporations are flexibly assembling problem-solving teams and orienting products to consumers, state bureaucracies are reorganising to address multiple, interrelated social problems and to encourage the excluded to participate in their own inclusion. The challenge is integrate institutions into a co-ordinated whole. Since social exclusion is multi-dimensional, and aspects of deprivation are inter-related in complex ways, a systematic approach is necessary New institutions are already drawing upon many disciplines and attempting to coordinate the interventions of many actors. And because social exclusion entails a lack of power, social relations and the economic resources needed to organise politically, new institutions provide a mechanism for the excluded themselves to participate actively in decision-making. Thus, institution-building is part and parcel of establishing a new régime of social regulation to fight exclusion. In virtually all the anti-exclusion programmes scrutinised, multiple actors and interventions are involved. At the national level, the fight against exclusion has promoted inter-ministerial commissions, encompassing representatives from human services, labour, commerce, housing, health, culture, education and other previously independent bureaucracies. In countries where they are officially recognised, the 'social partners' - business and unions - may join the discussions, especially where taxation, expenditures or wage restraint are involved. Where representatives of non-governmental organizations receive subsidies for service provision, governments may consult them as well. These new inter-ministerial, intersectoral, or corporatist institutions have facilitated the diffusion of information about programmes that work, and provide feedback about necessary reforms. Locally the same approach can be discerned in the new institutions of urban development policy. Decision-making has become more inclusive, especially of business and voluntary associations. Poverty 3 required the creation of new partnerships with public, private and voluntary-sector representatives, including employers, unions, "citizen interest groups" and "service consumers or local residents". This is not to say that these new multipurpose institutions have worked very well to date. Poverty 3 noted a tendency to accumulate functions rather than develop "coherent and integrated strategies containing interrelated priorities".[60] Similarly, in France and Britain, evaluations have criticised the lack of co-ordination between professions and bureaucracies accustomed to working alone.[61] Different agencies still serve specific, rather than multiple, needs; this may duplicate services or bring contradictory effects. Co-ordination among institutions operating at different levels also remains elusive. A review of Poverty 3 found that after national governments agreed to co-fund local projects, support was provided in kind or too slowly or was restricted to specific uses. The evaluation also noted the importance of having national insertion policies in place even for modest, subsidised local initiatives to succeed. Finding the appropriate mix of local autonomy and national or international regulation remains a challenge for new insertion initiatives. In sum, institutions designed to combat social exclusion must be both comprehensive in scope and articulated at many levels. Political parties once operated in this manner: they aggregated broad sets of interests into integrated political programmes and operated at all levels of government. In recent years, however, local party organisations have atrophied, allowing new associations and movements to step into the breach. Political parties increasingly focus on organised constituencies or make direct appeals to voters through the mass media. This transformation has made it more difficult for parties to reconcile the interests of the excluded with those of better-organised groups. Political institutions appear to shelter insiders at the expense of outsiders, rather than fostering social integration. Moreover, expanding the number of chairs at the corporatist table makes bargaining more complex and consensus-building more elusive. It has also been difficult to foster voluntary participation in new insertion institutions. Unions are often ambivalent about representing the unemployed, whose interests may conflict with those of their members. Many employers are reluctant to participate in the fight against exclusion when their own employees are not involved. And although they often do not know much about them, small business people often complain that programmes to employ the excluded are too costly and burdensome. Perhaps the most difficult issue is deciding who shall represent the excluded themselves. National and EU insertion programmes have all suffered from insufficient participation by the target population. Yet in the headlong rush for interlocutors, the internal political practices and representativeness of non-governmental organisations are rarely scrutinised. Moreover, many NGOs may compete for the privilege of participation, and some associations, particularly the most militant, are often excluded. And institutions do not readily share power or encourage former clients to make decisions, leading to token representation. Further, advocacy group leaders are easily co-opted through patronage.[62] When the disadvantaged join organisations, they are no longer, in a strict sense, excluded. NGO representation 'creams' off those with more social capital. These problems of representing the excluded are inherent in a top-down approach to social policy. Poverty 3 noted that neighbourhood and voluntary groups co-operated in inclusive local partnerships best where "national traditions" were more "conducive to self-organisation and where institutions have set aside their rivalry and power struggles".[63] Still, some governments perceive grassroots initiatives as politically threatening or disorderly and seek to bring them under centralised control. Governments should be careful not to stifle grassroots participation or undermine informal social ties among ordinary members lest programmes create the very exclusion they seek to eliminate. One solution is to make resources and leadership training available to excluded groups. For example, during the 60s the Community Action Programme in the us created numerous new organisations in low-income neighbourhoods. Those that survived are today among the most successful American community development corporations, and their leaders went on to become mayors and other African-American leaders. In some severely depressed locations, Poverty 3 initiatives stimulated associational activity where it was previously absent. Support for constructive neighbourhood initiatives of all kinds can yield larger numbers of experienced, legitimate representatives of excluded groups to participate in broader institutions. Indeed, the fight against exclusion can revitalise citizenship more generally. As Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld, France's former Commissaire du Plan, has argued, "a citizenship for the unemployed" must be based on three related principles: expression, representation, and partnership.[64] Firstly the public thinks of unemployment as a statistic because, in daily life and civil society, the absence of a voice for the unemployed renders them invisible. Engaging the unemployed in 'social exchange' would have positive benefits both for them and the society more generally. Secondly citizenship refers both to active participation and to representation through intermediary groups. Contrary to popular opinion, the unemployed are already active, looking for work. But because they are dispersed and heterogeneous and united mainly by their common situation and values, they are best represented through voluntary associations. Mr De Foucauld proposes subsidising new organisations of the unemployed with a voucher to be redeemed at the association of their choice. Indeed, there is little distinction between associations of the unemployed and those helping the unemployed, because members of the latter were often formerly jobless. Finally, representation of the unemployed is essential to democracy. Now that majoritarian citizenship has been achieved, minorities must be included. The unemployed should have representatives in consultative and decision-making bodies and in partnerships among public agencies, unions and the associative movement.
Participatory democracy and a vibrant civil society can provide
excluded groups with a public forum to express their particular
concerns. Through representatives in new, broader, multi-purpose
institutions, the involvement of excluded groups can revitalise
active citizenship more generally In this way, the process of
constructing a new model of social integration can be truly inclusive.
Footnotes
Democratic Dialogue {external_link} |
The role of a public employment service is to facilitate
the match of available workers to available jobs. Indeed, in some
European countries, employers must hire from the national unemployment
queue.[38] A good employment service not only registers
existing jobs but analyses shifts in labour demand. By providing
clues about where jobs are opening up, workers can be guided to
specific regions or particular types of training. Studies have
found job-search counselling to be effective in reducing the length
of unemployment, in Britain, Sweden, and elsewhere.[39]
Indeed, job placement services may overcome employer biases better
than training and reduce recruitment costs.