Dependency Culture by Hartley Dean & Peter Taylor-Gooby

Author:Hartley Dean & Peter Taylor-Gooby [Dean, Hartley & Taylor-Gooby, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Social Services & Welfare, Social Science, Political Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781317866954
Google: _22hAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-05-22T08:09:38+00:00

First and last resorts

In the context of discussing with the claimants in our sample the matter of dependency on family and friends, respondents were asked what they would do in the event of an immediate and permanent cessation of their benefits. The off-the-cuff answers received were more generally revealing than had been anticipated. In fact less than a fifth of the sample said they would turn to family, friends or to charity, whereas a third of the sample said they would try and get a job or go out to work (legitimate or otherwise). Smaller numbers of respondents said they would turn to crime (or, in one case, to prostitution); that they would sell their house or possessions or draw on their savings; that they would just have to walk the streets or starve or resort to institutional care; and one respondent said he would commit suicide. Some respondents (11) just had no idea what they would do: of these, the majority were passive or despairing at the prospect, but a few were positively aggressive, saying they would go down to the DSS and have it out with them, or shoot them, or blow them up (though one respondent said, having made such a remark, ‘that’s fantasy I’m sure . . . That sounds terribly pathetic, embarrassing, I’m ashamed, deeply ashamed of it’). Single parents were more likely than non-employed respondents to say (or to believe) they would or could find some kind of work.

Younger respondents were more likely than older respondents to be able to turn to their families. The more despairing or resentful responses to this question were most likely to come from older respondents and/or from men. Although this had not been the intention, this question focused the minds of many respondents upon the extent of their dependency on state benefits and, when answering a later question about state dependency (see Chapter 5), several respondents referred back to what had been said in reply to this one.

Conversely, respondents were asked what effect an increase in benefits would have: usually respondents were asked to suppose their benefits were increased by half as much again. Of the 77 respondents who answered, less than one eighth (9) said it would mean less dependency on family or friends, whereas nearly four-fifths of the sample (33) said it would mean a better standard of living; a few respondents said it would mean both these things. Thus, almost a half of those responding could envisage some immediate improvement in their living standards. Some respondents (8) said such an increase would make no or not much difference in their particular circumstances, while twice that number stressed that it would not so much improve their living standards as relieve their anxiety and/or reduce their indebtedness.

What became clear, therefore, was that family (or the wider kinship networks which the term was usually taken to encompass) is not seen by most claimants either as a first line of defence after the state, or as a first charge upon ‘surplus’ resources.

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