Punish, protect or redirect? Synthesising workfare with ‘spatially Keynesian’ labour market policies in times of job loss
Journal article
Barnes, Tom. (2023). Punish, protect or redirect? Synthesising workfare with ‘spatially Keynesian’ labour market policies in times of job loss. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 55(4), pp. 871-889. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221140891
Authors | Barnes, Tom |
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Abstract | The relationship between job loss and workfare has been well documented. Workers who lose jobs, including long-term careers in previously secure employment, enter systems of workfare that churn them through precarious jobs in return for meagre income support. But the relationship between workfare and alternative systems of labour market assistance rolled out before job loss is less understood. To shed new light on this issue, this article critically analyses an attempt to synthesise two labour market policies implemented in response to the closure of Australia's automotive manufacturing industry in 2017. The first policy was an altruistic, spatially Keynesian response to deindustrialisation; the second policy was based on Australia's notoriously punitive system of workfare. The article asks: how was it possible to synthesise systems framed in mutually incompatible terms? This question can be addressed, it argues, by deploying an Agency-Structure-Institutions-Discourse (ASID) approach to understand how and why these labour market policies were hybridised. The article's results are instructive in a ‘post-pandemic’ environment in which opportunities to rollout alternatives to workfare will be forced to contend with resurgent workfare states. |
Keywords | agency; ASID; deindustrialisation; job loss; redundancy; workfare |
Year | 2023 |
Journal | Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space |
Journal citation | 55 (4), pp. 871-889 |
Publisher | SAGE Publications |
ISSN | 1472-3409 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221140891 |
Scopus EID | 2-s2.0-85143830210 |
Page range | 871-889 |
Funder | Australian Research Council (ARC) |
Publisher's version | License All rights reserved File Access Level Controlled |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | |
Online | 12 Dec 2022 |
Publication process dates | |
Deposited | 16 Jun 2023 |
ARC Funded Research | This output has been funded, wholly or partially, under the Australian Research Council Act 2001 |
Grant ID | DE170100735 |
https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/8z247/punish-protect-or-redirect-synthesising-workfare-with-spatially-keynesian-labour-market-policies-in-times-of-job-loss
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