Welfare Reform, Precarious Work and Health
Welfare programs in all advanced nations have been radically reformed over the past two decades. In Ontario, as elsewhere, welfare has shifted away from a ‘passive’ system of income support and towards an ‘active’ labour market strategy, with the emphasis on ‘the shortest route to employment’ rather than on longer-term education and training.
Despite claims of success, the research evidence demonstrates that the outcomes of such reforms are both more modest and more complex than headline figures suggest. Although many welfare leavers find employment, it is often precarious, with limited job retention and progression and frequent returns to welfare. Whether leavers secure employment or not, many remain in poverty, which, over time, exerts a damaging toll on their mental and physical health.
Welfare Reform, Precarious Work and Health brings together a multi-disciplinary team of academics exploring these issues with a variety of project-specific partners from both community-based organizations and municipal and provincial government.
A mix of quantitative and qualitative research strategies, including longitudinal in-depth interviews, ethnographic research and secondary analysis of large data sets such as the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and the National Population Health Survey (NPHS), form the basis of complementary research projects which are investigating the welfare and post-welfare experiences of social assistance recipients and the labour market experiences of the precariously employed.
Taken together, the research findings from this initiative are broadening and deepening our knowledge about the macro and micro-level impacts of welfare reform on individuals and communities across Ontario and beyond.