There is no evidence for the growth of 'a culture of worklessness', a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found. Even two generations of complete worklessness in the same family is very rare, and children of working age are keen to avoid the poverty and worklessness experienced by their parents.

Key points

• Despite strenuous efforts, the researchers were unable to locate any families in which three successive generations had never worked. Even two generations of complete worklessness in the same family was a very rare phenomenon, which is consistent with recent quantitative surveys of this issue.
• Families experiencing long-term worklessness remain committed to the value of work and prefer to be in jobs than on benefits.
• There is no evidence of ‘a culture of worklessness’ – values, attitudes and behaviours discouraging employment and encouraging welfare dependency – in the families.
• Workless parents are keen for their children to do better than they did, and actively try to help them find jobs. Working-age offspring remain strongly committed to conventional values about work as part of a normal transition to adulthood. They are keen to avoid the poverty, worklessness and other problems experienced by their parents.
• The long-term worklessness of parents in the families in the study was a result of complex, multiple problems associated with living in deep poverty over years.
• Policy-makers and politicians need to abandon theories – and resulting policies – that see worklessness as primarily the outcome of a 'culture of worklessness' held in families and passed down the generations.

Source: Tracy Shildrick, Robert MacDonald, Andy Furlong, Johann Roden and Robert Crow, Are 'Cultures of Worklessness' Passed Down the Generations?, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
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