Vaccine refusal and hesitancy pose a significant public health threat to communities. Public health authorities have been developing a range of strategies to improve childhood vaccination coverage. This study examines the effect of... more
Vaccine refusal and hesitancy pose a significant public health threat to communities. Public health authorities have been developing a range of strategies to improve childhood vaccination coverage. This study examines the effect of removing conscientious objection on immunisation coverage for one, two and five year olds in Australia. Conscientious objection was removed from immunisation requirement exemptions for receipt of family assistance payments (national No Jab No Pay) and enrolment in childcare (state No Jab No Play). The impact of these national and state-level policies is evaluated using quarterly coverage data from the Australian Immunisation Register linked with regional data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics at the statistical area level between 2014 and 2018. Results suggest that there have been overall improvements in coverage associated with No Jab No Pay, and states that implemented additional No Jab No Play and tightened documentation requirement policies tended to show more significant increases. However, policy responses were heterogeneous. The improvement in coverage was largest in areas with greater socioeconomic disadvantage, lower median income, more benefit dependency, and higher pre-policy baseline coverage. Overall, while immunisation coverage has increased post removal of conscientious objection, the policies have disproportionally affected lower income families whereas socioeconomically advantaged areas with lower baseline coverage were less responsive. More effective strategies require investigation of differential policy effects on vaccine hesitancy, refusal and access barriers, and diagnosis of causes for unresponsiveness and under-vaccination in areas with persistently low coverage, to better target areas with persistent non-compliance with accordant interventions.
The ‘Air Jamaica generation’ of undocumented migrant families who came to the UK over the past 30 years, have received less political and scholarly attention than the so-called Windrush generation, yet are some of the most socially... more
The ‘Air Jamaica generation’ of undocumented migrant families who came to the UK over the past 30 years, have received less political and scholarly attention than the so-called Windrush generation, yet are some of the most socially excluded in the UK.
These families, particularly those with dependent children, are often invisible in social policy discussions because they lack the legal right to paid employment, and are subject to the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) rule, which excludes them from accessing the majority of welfare state services, including most social security benefits, local authority housing and homelessness assistance.
One of the few statutory welfare services which undocumented migrant children and families do have the entitlement to are services provided by local authority children’s services. This paper analyses the levels of support provided to undocumented children by local authorities under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, arguing that in the absence of access to mainstream social security benefits, the level of support provided is not an adequate safety net to prevent poverty and to protect a child’s health and wellbeing.
The article concludes that the lack of support to prevent undocumented migrant children falling into poverty and destitution is rooted in discriminatory legislation and policy, and results in situations which are structural in cause, but which would be viewed as neglectful if as a result of action by an individual parent or carer.
The welfare state has played an important role in promoting social integration without discrimination and distinctions. In the last years, welfare has become an area of intervention which is less and less inclusive: "conditional welfare"... more
The welfare state has played an important role in promoting social integration without discrimination and distinctions. In the last years, welfare has become an area of intervention which is less and less inclusive: "conditional welfare" and "welfare chauvinism" are the two main configurations of this emerging system of social interventions. Welfare is increasingly selective and systematically reduces access to benefits for immigrants, ethnic minorities and traditionally 'undeserving' groups, the homeless and other people whose values and behaviour are considered the primary cause of their condition.
Governments’ attempts to link the provision of welfare services to (more) responsible self-conduct of citizens (i.e. responsibilization) is seen as a distinctive feature of the post-welfare state. Responsibilization often requires welfare... more
Governments’ attempts to link the provision of welfare services to (more) responsible self-conduct of citizens (i.e. responsibilization) is seen as a distinctive feature of the post-welfare state. Responsibilization often requires welfare receivers to comply with specific duties or behavioural patterns (i.e. conditionality). Except for UK-based studies, little is known about responsibilization strategies of social housing tenants based on specific allocation policies or management approaches. To fill this gap, this paper examines recent cases of tenants’ responsibilization through conditionality, i.e. allocation of housing on the condition that receivers regularly engage in supportive activities, in Utrecht (The Netherlands) and Milan (Italy). Through a qualitative methodology, this paper unpacks the use of conditionality as a means to increase tenants’ responsibilization. The paper contributes by showing both innovative aspects, such as eligibility criteria, obligations, accountability measures, and potential pitfalls connected to diverging expectations between tenants and professionals, and to specific context-related factors.
This article discusses welfare-to-work schemes, places schemes with strict conditionality in the theoretical framework of structural injustice, and argues that they may violate human rights law. Welfare-to-work schemes are schemes that... more
This article discusses welfare-to-work schemes, places schemes with strict conditionality in the theoretical framework of structural injustice, and argues that they may violate human rights law. Welfare-to-work schemes are schemes that impose obligations on individuals to seek and accept work on the basis that otherwise they will be sanctioned by losing access to social support. The schemes are often presented as the best route out of poverty. However, the system in the UK, characterised by strict conditionality, has ended up coercing those who are poor and disadvantaged into precarious work, and conditions of in-work poverty. Because schemes with strict conditionality force people to work in these conditions, structures of exploitation are created and sustained, becoming widespread and routine. The article further situates the problem in the theoretical framework of structural injustice, and argues that a framework of ‘state-mediated structural injustice’ is the best way of explaining the wrong. It finally claims that this injustice violates principles that are enshrined in human rights law, which the authorities have an obligation to examine and address.
Initially introduced as part of Australia's Northern Territory Intervention in 2007, Income Management (IM) explicitly targeted inhabitants of remote NT Indigenous communities. IM is a form of welfare conditionality that involves... more
Initially introduced as part of Australia's Northern Territory Intervention in 2007, Income Management (IM) explicitly targeted inhabitants of remote NT Indigenous communities. IM is a form of welfare conditionality that involves compulsorily 'quarantining' at least half of individuals' social security income. It has been heavily criticised for being racist, discriminatory, and a violation of individual rights. The introduction of New Income Management (NIM) in 2010 extended IM beyond Indigenous communities and introduced a new set of eligibility criteria that shifted the focus of IM from Indigenous people to working‑age recipients of social security income. This in‑depth study of the early parliamentary debates on the compulsory IM programs traces the patterns of political discourse that led to IM coming to be seen by many policy makers as a normal and legitimate technique within Australian social policy. Situating the IM programs within neoliberal concerns about welfare dependency and active citizenship, this article argues that the introduction of NIM heralded a shift from a conception of IM as part of a focused social experiment targeted at remote Indigenous communities to a potentially mainstream social policy option.
After three decades in which needs, rights and egalitarianism have dominated the moral agenda among supporters of social housing, desert is making a controversial come-back. I argue that desert as a moral concept is useful but is... more
After three decades in which needs, rights and egalitarianism have dominated the moral agenda among supporters of social housing, desert is making a controversial come-back. I argue that desert as a moral concept is useful but is secondary to other moral forces, rather than being a primary driving force itself. Its job is to allow us to factor responsibility into our moral interactions with others. Desert suffers from having kept bad company, and I outline the still resonant history of the abuse of the concept when it was dominant in housing and other “poor relief”, but argue this should not blind us to its force. If we have a moral duty to provide social housing assistance, whether on the basis of need, rights or egalitarianism (but not pure utilitarianism), I argue that desert does have a legitimate limited role to play in adjusting the primary duty governing the allocation of that assistance. There are practical difficulties of restraining abuse of the concept of desert. But these are outweighed by the practical problems in ignoring it, as that can bring an allocation system into disrepute as well as leaving us unable to argue convincingly for appropriate restraint, rather than eradication, of the use of desert.
Young EU citizens are encouraged to enhance their ‘employability’ by taking advantage of intra-EU mobility, but, for many, moving to another EU country can instead generate disadvantages in the labour market. Drawing on a qualitative... more
Young EU citizens are encouraged to enhance their ‘employability’ by taking advantage of intra-EU mobility, but, for many, moving to another EU country can instead generate disadvantages in the labour market. Drawing on a qualitative study on the experiences of university-educated young Nordics and southern Europeans working in precarious jobs in Brussels, we examine how their access to income support in the context of mobility shapes their access to financial independence. We argue that the variation in European welfare models regarding young peoples’ social entitlements impacts this access in multiple and complex ways. The article advances a tripartite approach that looks at the regulation and enforcement of conditionality of social entitlements on the levels of EU, their country of origin and their country of destination. The analysis shows how, in Belgium, precarious EU migrant citizens are denied access to income support due to the interplay between general welfare conditionali...
The interim briefing presents initial findings from a project exploring the support available to migrants with no recourse to public funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research included a survey of local authorities in England, and... more
The interim briefing presents initial findings from a project exploring the support available to migrants with no recourse to public funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research included a survey of local authorities in England, and a call for evidence from migrant support organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.
More than 90 percent of local authorities had not shared information about support for people with NRPF during the pandemic, and support organisations reported that service users had struggled to access food, shelter and subsistence support during the pandemic.
