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The Productivity of Unemployment and the Temporality of Employment-to-Come: Older Disadvantaged Job Seekers

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Listed:
  • Jessica Gerrard

    (The University of Melbourne, Australia)

  • Juliet Watson

    (RMIT University, Australia)

Abstract

This article demonstrates how unemployment is made productive through workfare activities for older disadvantaged job seekers. We suggest that the requirement to look for work, engage in education and training, and participate in voluntary work blurs the boundaries between employment and unemployment. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research with older disadvantaged job seekers, we demonstrate how this obligatory productivity is lived and felt, characterised by shame and frustration and framed by the temporality of waiting and searching for work. We suggest that this experience of ‘productive’ unemployment can be described as a dissonant state of ‘transitional stasis’, whereby job seekers are expected to transition out of unemployment and poverty while experiencing the long-term and ongoing effects of immobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica Gerrard & Juliet Watson, 2023. "The Productivity of Unemployment and the Temporality of Employment-to-Come: Older Disadvantaged Job Seekers," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 28(1), pages 21-36, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:28:y:2023:i:1:p:21-36
    DOI: 10.1177/13607804211009534
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Michelle Peterie & Gaby Ramia & Greg Marston & Roger Patulny, 2019. "Emotional Compliance and Emotion as Resistance: Shame and Anger among the Long-Term Unemployed," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(5), pages 794-811, October.
    2. Jamie Redman, 2020. "The Benefit Sanction: A Correctional Device or a Weapon of Disgust?," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(1), pages 84-100, March.
    3. Considine, Mark & Lewis, Jenny M. & O'Sullivan, Siobhan & Sol, Els, 2015. "Getting Welfare to Work: Street-Level Governance in Australia, the UK, and the Netherlands," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198743705.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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