Individualism

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the impact of training programs and employment policies on people who are ditionully vulnerable to ..... The last excerpt discusses employee discrimination ...
Individualism Perceptions of People Experiencing Difficulties Integrating into Labour Markets DR. 101-IN R. GRAHAM and MR. ivtICHEAL L. SIHIER Faculty of Social Work, Un~versityof Calgary DR. MARION E. JONES Departnlent of Economics, U~liversityc~fReg~na DR. ERIN GRAY Schoul uf Social Work, Lakehead University

Abstract

Although labour market training is emphasized in Canada, few publications examine the impact of training programs and employment policies on people who are ditionully vulnerable to being unemployed or underemployed. One-to-one and focus-groul~interviews were held with 72 respondents who were receiving training in labour market integration programs in Calgary and Xegina. Rather than attributing their difficulties in finding and maintaining employment to structural issues or systemic barriers, respondents often presented causes in terms of their personal characteristics or circumstances. They associated low Inbour-mmket participation with, inadequate education, health issues, personal identity, and individual and family-rooted problems. The response of individual causes is a direct result of the influence ofneo-liberalismwithin our social environment. Keywords: individualism; employment; skill training; neo-liberalism Resume

Si le Canada fait une large place h formation professionnelle pour l'insertion au mud6 du travail, seul un faible nombre de publications examinent l'incidence des programmes de formation et cles politiques d'emploi sur les personnes qui sont traditionnellement vulnAables au chbmage ou au sous-emploi. Des entrevues individuelles et des groupes d'entretiens en profonlleur ont it6 rialisis avec 72 ripondants qui recevaient une formation dans le cadre de programmes d'intigration au march6 du travail h Calgary et Regina. Plut6t que d'attribuer leurs difficultis h trouver et garder un emploi h des probl2mes scructurels ou des obstacles systimiques, les ripondants interpre'taient souvent les causes 2009, No. 62

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en tennes d'attributs ou de circonstances personnels. 11s imputuient la faible participation au marche' du travail h ces facteurs : e'ducation i d q u a t e , probhs de sante', identite' personnelle et probkmes individuels et ceux lie's h la famille. Le fait que les causes individuelles e'tuient cite'es dans les re'ponses est directement attribuable h l'influence du ne'olibe'ralisme au sein de notre environnement social. Individualism: Perceptions of People Experiencing Difficulties Integrating into Labour Markets

The 1990s brought widespread international support for globalization, and in particular, the increasingly rapid movement of capital, production, and labour across national borders (Steger, 2003). The competitive environment that emerged requires flexibility and adaptability in the labour market (Cranford & Vosko, 2006). The different characteristics of labour markets through various periods of history (Iverson & Armstrong, 2006; Wilson, 1996) demonstrate how market changes outside an individual's control can routinely affect labour. The focus of our recent research is to investigate the impact of the present labour market and the various policy and programmatic responses on vulnerable people (Graham, Jones, &Shier, 2010; Jones, Graham &Shier, 2007/2008; Shier, Graham, & Jones, 2009). Recently, these changing factors, along with widespread reductions in the scope of government programs, have placed significant pressures on countries to decrease efforts to regulate and restrict labour markets (Malmberg-Heimonen & Vuori, 2005). The result is a growth in non-standard and precarious employment: jobs that are temporary, part-time, split shifts, or contractually limited, with inadequate wages, job security, and benefits, are creating a new underclass of working poor or pushing people into welfare dependency (Frade, Darmon, & Laparra, 2004; Saunders, 2003; Stanford & Vosko, 2004). As a response to these labour market changes, governments in such countries as Canada, along with employers, have exerted considerable pressure on the unemployed to increase their human capital and life skills that would make them more employable, while making it harder for them to renlain on social assistance (Torjman, 2000; Lowe, 2002). These policies focus priinarily on the individual conditions and characteristics that are perceived to explain why someone might be unemployed (Butterwick, 2003). For example, the major policy objective set out in the 2003 OECD Employment Outlook was to mobilize "under-represented groups into jobs," calling for "a broader approach of reducing non-employment, embracing both unemployment and labour inactivity" (OECD, 2003, p.12). One must also consider the pressure to meet the denland for low-cost, flexible workers. We do not have to look too far in our own country to see how these beliefs about employment have affected programs here in Canada. The government restructured social assistance programs throughout the 1990s, placing the emphasis on changing people's 2

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behaviours and attitudes about work and their place in the labour market (Herd, Lightman, & Mitchell, 2010). These policy objectives ration. 1'lze an excessive focus on those who are seen as having chosen not to work, and as Lowe (2002) suggested, the accoinpanying employment programs represented a "new, individualized social safety net that emphasized greater individual responsibility" (p. 98). What do these elnployinent policies imply for those directly affected? Several researchers (Dean, 2003; El~renreich,2001; Schneidei; 2006; Seccoinbe, 1999) have consulted disadvantaged, laid-off workers to better understand how they interpret the conditions they live in and the struggles they confront in the e1nployment market. The present article seeks to develop these ideas by analyziilg the experiences of 72 people in Calgary and Regina, Canada, who are or have been both precariously enlployed and involved in one or inore labour market training programs. Each of them also has at least one (and frequently several) characteristics that are often associated with difficulty in labour market integration: aboriginal status, involvement with the criminal justice system, single-parent status, disability, low socioeconomic status, and female gender. Using data collected from individual and focus-group interviews conducted in 2005 and 2006, we show how self-perceived "individual vulnerabilities" inay influence a worker's capacity to realize self-determination and general well-being. We argue that it is not a coincidence that vulnerable workers personalize labourmarket barriers, as the political and econoinic environment in which they live places extreme onus on individual effort. Not surprisingly, we also find that respondents' understanding of labour inarket involveinent is influenced by their positionality: their marketability as determined by characteristics such as race, socio-economic status, ability, and other factors mentioned above. CA

Individualism and the labour market

In the present labour-market environment, the individual is the primary focus when governments, policy makers, and employers are considering barriers to enlploynlent and developing labour inarket policies and interventions. This focus suggests that governments can make work attractive by pronloting conditional, time-limited elnployment benefits that closely target (and are restricted to) groups of people who are well outside the labour illarket and would otherwise have little incentive to work. Such efforts to increase labour-force participation are strongly rooted in the individualist ideology of neoliberalisin, an econoinic and ideological perspective that argues for decreased state interventioil in economic markets (Lee, 2007). The impleinentation of economic policies to support privatization, tax reform, and deregulation (among others) it is claimed will result in market efficiency. However, growth of market exchange undermines other modes of redistribution, including

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John R. Graham, Micheal L. Shier, Marion E. Jones, and Erin Gray state-supported social welfare provisions (Hettne, 1995). With greater emphasis placed on markets, less en~phasisis placed on collective responsibility and social relationships of exchange. The result is individualism, a political perspective that elevates personal rights and orientations above collective ones. As the term relates to social welfare, George and Wilding (1985) fa~llouslycontrasted individualism with collectivism, linking the foriner to the post-1970s cutbacks in social welfare, and the latter to post-World War 11 notions of universality and comprehensive welfare states. Mishra (1984) and others have col~vincinglyportrayed the trend in many advanced industrial societies toward increasingly individualist orientations in p b l i c and social policies. This has certainly been the case in Canada (Graham, Swift, & Delaney, 2008). Individualism focuses primarily on individual or internal capabilities in relation to the demands of external systems of social contexts.. Sen (1999) argues that this capability perspective premised on the achievement of overall well-being and selfdetermination has much to do with the manner in which personal characteristics and external social conditions interact. This interaction between the individual's capabilities and the views held in the external environment can either increase or reduce a person's ability to benefit from available resources and power, and how people perceive themselves. Drawing on Becker (1995), Nussbaum (2000), for example, surmises that "social prejudices" influence disadvantaged persons' lack of investment in their own human capital. They are made to "internalize their second-class status in ways that cause them to make choices that perpetuate that second-class status" (pp.126-127). This is also what we came to realize from our data set. But how has this ideological thinking influenced people's perception of their present issues or situations! The term "internalization" refers to the process of perceiving a particular issue as the result of one's own actions or behaviour, as opposed to being caused by some factor within the social environment. Paolo Freire (197011990) described the phenomenon we call internalization as "prescription": one person's choice is imposed on another, and the imposed-on person internalizes the values of the "oppressor" person (p. 31). Members of vulnerable groups who internalize negative notions of self-worth and an "inner sense of non-entitlement" tend to be poor advocates for their own best interests (Nussbaum, 2000, p. 288). A person intemalizes self-worth as a result of the ideological construct of individualism, and that internalization affects how he or she interacts with the environment. Thus we need to understand more about how individually focused perceptions of failure are manifested internally for people and how these people interact as a result. We are particularly interested here in how internalization affects labour market attachment and the many factors associated with success and failure in earning a living. Furthermore, recognizing the impact that individualism (with regard to social welfare,

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employment policy, or labour Inarket attachment) has on self-determination, self-esteem, and self-advocacy, it is important to explore research questions that highlight this impact.

Methods Our research is based on individual and focus-group interviews with people who have experienced ongoing difficulties integrating into Canadian labour markets. In 2005 and 2006, we interviewed respondents in Regina, Saskatchewan, and Calgary, Alberta. Calgary is a major Canadian urban centre of one nlillion people in a region that has been the epicenter of the Canadian oil industry. Regina is a smaller, prairie city of 200,000 and traditionally a centre of government and a service economy for the agricultural region. We were particularly interested in hearing from aboriginal people, single parents, people with police records, and people with visible or invisible disabilities (such as physical and learning disabilities, nlental illness, substance abuse, or epilepsy) that appear to be barriers to employment One particular category shared by all respondents was their socioeconomic class: all were poor. Each respondent was a current or former welfare recipient, and each was currently enrolled, or had recently been enrolled, in a vocational training program. In some instances these programs were three-hour, three-day, or six-months life skills training programs. Other programs sought to increase human capital through achievement of high-school equivalency or training in job-specific skills. A minority of respondents were working, either having lnade a successful transition to permanent employment, or through a work-term placement. The respondents were drawn randomly from a list of potential participants provided to us by our civil society partners. Our initial goal was to interview 100 people, 50 in Regina and 50 in Calgary. In each city, these would include seven people in each of six categories: (1) single parent (SP); (2) Indigenous (I); (3) Disabled (D); (4) SP & I; ( 5 ) SP & D; (6) I & D, plus an additional eight people with all three characteristics - SP, D and I. Interviews would continue until these numbers were reached, or until no new categories were emerging from the interviews. It soon became clear that with at least three respondents and at least one Inale and one female respondent in each category, strong patterns emerged. We therefore reduced our sample size to 27 cases in Calgary and 45 cases in Regina. Our data analysis followed an ethnographic approach-initial coding followed by axial coding to examine relationships and create subcategories-ensuring internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity of categories. We classified the coded data under various themes. Individualism emerged as a significant category from this analysis; respondents had a strong tendency to perceive barriers to seeking

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and maintaining employment as personal weaknesses and inadequacies. This individual perception contrasts with strongly identifying exterilal issues (for example, a macroecononzic trend such as the rising prevalence of non-standard work) as major inhibitors to stable labour force attachment. Some other personal factors that interacted with the external environment were transportation, child care, employer expectations, past experiences,, tipping points, and the absence of a living wage. In this paper, we are concentrating on qualitative data pertaining to individualization. Respondents were asked to identih their own perceptions about the kinds of barriers that precluded their integration into the labour market. Barriers determined by respondents were grouped under 10 main categories: persoi~alillness or disability, individual identity, personal and family problems, cultural factors, cost versus rewards of working, lack of education and work skills, basic needs (food, shelter, health) not being met, transportation issues, labour market conditions, and other n~iscellaneousbarriers. The present analysis is limited to four of these 10 categories: (1) lack of education and work skills, (2) personal illness or disability, (3) individual identity, and (4) personal and family probleins. Our presentation is limited to the personal issues associated with each of these categories. Findings

Respondents tended to focus on how personal problems and inadequacies prevented their stable participation in the labour market. They appeared to be overwhelmed by the many different, yet interlinking, challenges they have to face. Significant to the argument presented in this paper is that, although many respondents identified barriers attributed to individual deficiencies, such as illness or disability (identified by 51%) and lack of education (67%), fewer respondents identified labour market conditions as hindering their employment. Responses that cited employers' unwillingness to provide "acconznzodation" (32%) and "opportunity" (30%) as having detrimental effects on their employment were linked to respondents with disabilities (Shier, Grahain, &L Jones, 2009). The interview extracts below reveal the respondents' subjective perspectives on the barriers to their e n ~ p l o ~ l n e and n t de~nonstratehow people internalize their own difficulties with labour market attachment. Lack of Education and Work Skills It is commonly perceived that adequate levels of education and work skills are essential for workers to compete in the contemporary labour force (Merriam & Caffarella, 1999). It is a fact that lack of education and work skills can make workers more vulnerable to loss of employment (OECD &a CPRN, 2005; Reich, 2000). Respondents saw their lack of education and limited capabilities as having

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Individualism

an impact on their being unemployed., pointing to their difficulties in a wide range of areas, including reading comprehension, document use, writing, numeracy, oral communication, thinking skills, working with others, and computer use. Changes in the school curriculum, for exalnple in mathematics, have created additional problcms: I had troubles with math because the muth is totully different jiom when I went to school. So they said, "Well, you might be grade 12 when you were in pude 12, but now it's like grade 9 or 10." 1 basically have to go buck to school and relearn everything, even though I graduated. (FG 5 10)

Both this participant and potential einployers perceived that the high school education attained was no longer the "right" education, and this perception acted as a constraint on securing and maintaining employment. A fundamental aspect revealed in our research is the relationship between selfawareness of these individual constraints in the person experiencing labour-market difficulties and recognition of the need to satisfy the expectations of employers (and society in general). One respondent commented on attaining a level of education for their particular field and still had difficulty in securing stable employment: I'm an I T guy, [ a d in my idustry there [are] requirements for IT guys to have a lot of paper . . . to have certain certifications-and there is no leealay. It's either you have it, or you don't, and if you don't have it, well, sony . . . you know, Get out, get out. I've already been to school, and I'm still struggling to find a job. (FG 513)

Identifying skills and education that one could attain is perceived by lnany to result in improving a person's situation in the present labour market. Is this really the case? If one of these respondents acquired inore skills, would it be likely for them to obtain a job than another similarly qualified person? What about Aboriginal status, gender, or being a single parent? The relationship between education, skill development, and employinent needs further investigation, particularly in the case of people who are underemployed or precariously employed. The fact that employers are now using high school eq~iivalencyqualifications as a mechanism for labour market rationing is causing these workers to further internalize their hutnan capital inadequacies and to erode the sense of self that is so important to their success in finding a job (Graham, Jones & Shier, 2010).

Own Illness or Disability Disabilities, whether mental, physical, or developmental, affect potential employees1 chances of securing and maintaining a position. Many studies have illustrated the barriers that disabled people experience in the labour market (Blessing, 2005;

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Crudden, Sansing & Butler, 2005). While these barriers are often socially defined, it was the ii~dividualizationof those experiences that respondents identified as a significant constraint on their employment. Some participants in this study with health issues, a life contingency out of their control, still tended to perceive barriers to employment as their own personal lack of marketable abilities:

I hud to walk uwuy from working in a duycare because of my health, my seizures. I'm epileptic. And my seizures were just getting too bad.. . . I had to quit. And I didn't want to. (FG 525) We should ask: Why could this person not continue to do that work? Was it a personal decision, or was it forced on the daycare worker by the employer or the advice of a physician? How was the personal decision to quit working in daycare informed by the worker's perception of herbis personal capabilities? We find possible answers in cornments from other respondents. Some had physical injuries, such as severe back and brain injuries, either caused by workplace accidents or resulting from vehicle accidents or violent personal attacks, including domestic abuse. Twenty,three percent of respondents had a permanent physical disability such as paraplegia or a congenital disability such as spina bifida. Many of these respondents revealed that their own perceptions of their abilities influenced the way they interacted with the labour market. Some respondents pointed to health as a reason for their present difficulty in securing employment:

Well, my health issue . . . I got diagnosed with u tumor in my head . . . I have seizures quite often.. . . I have blackouts: [this] is my main concern. A couble years ago, I had an accident that knocked me clear out of my days for two months. So, they figured that's what the cause of it was, from that accident. (FG 521) There is nothing to suggest that people's health-related issues or particular abilities cannot be interwoven with the expectations of the present labour market. Another respondent expressed his exhaustion froin trying to attach to the labour market:

I put in a lot of resumes and went for interviews . . . but you come in with that [points to walker], it's like, "next." So, it's like . . . you don't even know if I can do it or not. I was a full-time cashier. I used to stock, receive, do a whole bunch of stuff. It's just the lower portion (of the body) thut's not good; the upper portion still works. (FG 524) We were given multiple similar responses. The last excerpt discusses employee discrimination based on abilities and provides evidence that "ableism" (discrimina-

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Individualism tion in favour of the able-bodied) exists in the e~nploymentsector. Such employer discrimination is a significant barrier to labour market participation for disabled people (Shier, Grahain, & Joi~es,2009). This respondent faced discrimination from employers, but also pointed out the disabling quality of herlhis 'lower portion' of the body. This individual's perception of perso~lalcapabilities or deficiencies needs to be understood as more than just a matter of low self-esteem; it should be connected to larger systemic discussioils about individuality and how people are socially co~lditionedto think about the problems they face. Also, the respondent provides a realistic assessment of herlhis situation, they identify that because of their experience they are perfectly able to do shelving but this is not recognized. Individual Identities As in previous studies (Adams, 1989; Quadagno, 1994), a significant minority of our respondents recognized racism and discri~nination as factors inhibiting employment. It is noteworthy that 32% of our respondents (more than half of all indigenous respondents) perceived that because of widespread racism, their aboriginal identity hindered their attachment to the labour force. Recouilting their experiences, respondents reported tensions with non-aboriginal employees in the workplace. In fact, these past experiences of workplace discrimination have made them reluctant to apply for any jobs because they believe they will face further discrin~ination.One respondeilt describes how potential employers look at him:

They look at Natives as not good in jobs . . . being lag l guess, not being able to follow through. (FG 022) A n aboriginal woinall comments that she feels she has been "brushed away" (IN 024) when applyiilg for a job. Potential employers never called her back. It appears that experiences of racism are recognized and shape respondents' perceptions about their place in the labour force and their identification as employees. Coi~sec~uently, these workers tend to minimize their potential as workers and adhere to pessiillistic views about their f~itureprospects. The following excerpts from an interview with an aboriginal respondent illustrate this pattern:

People look at you and they go, " O h , my God there's somebody brown! We're not interested, thank you. The job's taken." 1find a lot of racism out there. (IN 5 15) When asked to identify the biggest barrier to employment, the respondent reported:

Being nutive and overweight. People look at you and they go, " O h well, she doesn't care about herself, why would she care about our company?" (IN 515)

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John R. Graham, Micheal L. Shier, Marion E. ]ones, and Erin Gray Though the respondent acknowledges the negative impacts of discrimination, when asked about the main challenge encountered when completing any training program, she answered:

I huve problems. I self-sabotage everything. (IN 5 15) These comments suggest that respondents' negative experiences, including discrimination, lead to apathy, self-blame, self-criticism, and generalized negative self-perceptions, including the feeling that they are abnormal or simply out of step with the rest of the world. It is possible that respondents do not feel valued in general or as workers specifically because of their self-ascribed deficiencies, and this feeling leads to disappointnzent in themselves and poor self-images as potential workers. Additional excerpts identify examples of these cyclical patterns and interrelated outcomes: I find a lot of times my family chinks I'm not putting myself out there, as far as

resumes or talking to people. I mean, I go to career shows; I go to things like technology expos. But it's hard to put yourself out there when you've been given a disability. I mean, I'm not trying to use that as an excuse.. . . But, l know my family means well; it's that they don't understand the fact that I am trying. And I've been shot down each time.. . . A person gets to a certain point where the motivation level drops, and you eventually say, "Why a m l doing this? W h y do I keep puttingmyself out there to get shot down?" (FG 5 13) This respondent clearly described the relationship between sense of self and societal perceptions on labour market attachment. They root their inability to secure einployment in personal characteristics that are stigmatized by society. Rather than acknowledging the structural deficiencies within policies and their negative repercussions for individuals who are considered "different," the respondents consider their inability to find work a personal failure. Even something as obviously external as a driver's license or car ownership became internalized, particularly for respondents who could not drive for medical reasons. Problems Rooted in the Individual or the Family Working families with low income often tend to experience difficulties in accessing infor~naland cominunity resources (Gregg & Wadsworth, 1995; Williams & Windebank, 1999). The onset of personal problems (often associated with disadvantaged personal histories) and the struggle of dealing with them increase the employment vulnerability of working families with low income. Though lowincome families may depend for survival on informal resources such as kinship networks, these may be nonexistent, very weak, or even negative in their influence. It is therefore short-sighted to assume that they will compensate for the challenges 10

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these families face (Dean &L Shah, 2002). The nature of i~ldividualis~n roots these issues within fanlilies or individual family members. Other perceived individual problems that impede einployinent include being shy and unassertive, struggling with low self-esteem, and with anger, which can be directed toward themselves or others:

I was not a very strong person when I went to [organization].I hud low self-esteem. I would not tulk to anybody. I would look down at things: I would not look (well, I a m trying to right now) - I would not give eye contact. N o body language, nothing. Basically I had "attitude" written on my back. Just because of what was going on in my life. Once I hit life skills and I was able to give the eye contuct comfortubly my confidence burst up. (FG 522) This respondent recognized, the assessment of one's inability to secure employment is related to self-esteem. Addictions also play a significant role. Respondents observed the debilitating effects oil e~nploynlentcaused by personal and family addiction problems. Whereas 29 percent of respondents perceived that their own addiction had a negative influence on their ability to participate in the labour force, another 25 percent observed that the addictions of other family ~nernbershindered their own employment. The addiction-related problems some respondents faced, either currently or in the past, included addiction to illegal drugs such as heroin or inethamphetainines, and to legal substances such as alcohol, methadone, and prescription medications. Addictions do indeed interfere with employment. Some respondents, however, were able to make connections with the reasons for their addictions and stated that the stress they experience in their lives leads to their reliance 011 drugs or alcohol. Again, it is noteworthy that they are considering their own individual perceptions and abilities as the leading cause of their personal difficulties. Practical Suggestions for Policy and Practice

This study was conducted by a close-knit, interdisciplinary team of researchers in social work, social policy, and welfare economics. The findings, based on extensive interviews with people who have experienced difficulties integrating into labour markets, suggested that the neo-liberal ideological assumptions of individualism are essential in two respects. First, iildividualism is the lens through which informants saw their labour market integration to be inhibited by their own shortcomings. Second, the same informants saw individualism, as manifest in self-improvement, as the means through which labour nlarket integration could occur. Thus, individualism constituted both a barrier to einployineilt and a potential nleans to enter the market. Individualism is manifest both at the informants' level and at the societal

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John R. Graham, Micheal L. Shier, Marion E. Jones, and Erin Gray level, where informants have to meet the expectations of social or skills training services intended to help them enter or re-enter the labour market. The various employment barriers described by respondents were associated with their individual characteristics, such as level of education, illness or disability, identity, personal or familial problems. We presented these themes separately for the purpose of this paper, but it was not unusual for respondents to identify numerous interconnected barriers that tended to exacerbate the associidentified by one ated with their employability. The barriers to her en~plo~ability respondent included both physical and psychological problems related to a car accident as well as her great difficulties with essential math skills.

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I was in a car accident in 1998. Before then, like you /