In the 1980s a team of Dutch sociologists conducted a study on the daily life of unemployed in the Netherlands. They were inspired by the classical work Marienthal: the Sociology of an Unemployed Community first published in 1933. The authors conducted three neighborhood studies to analyze the social behavior of the unemployed. Based on the work of Robert K. Merton and Mary Douglas they developed a typology of different cultures of unemployment. This typology is still relevant to analyze contemporary reactions to unemployment in European welfare states. The authors also demonstrated that their cultural analysis is fruitful to understand the heterogeneity of urban marginality in the United States. A foreword by U.S. scholar William Julius Wilson emphasizes the universality of the method and the findings presented here.
Author(s): Godfried Engbersen, Kees Schuyt, Jaap Timmer, Frans van Waarden
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 292
Contents
......Page 10
Tables and Figure......Page 14
Foreword
......Page 16
Part One: Introduction
......Page 20
Ch. 1: Cultures of the Welfare State
......Page 22
Ch. 2: The Central Issues of the Study
......Page 58
Part Two: Empirical Study
......Page 70
Ch. 3: A Jobless Market
......Page 72
Ch. 4: Making Ends Meet
......Page 86
Ch. 5: Dealing with Time
......Page 106
Ch. 6: Looking for a Job
......Page 124
Ch. 7: The Perceptions of Rights and Obligations
......Page 146
Part Three: Analysis and Comparisons
......Page 166
Ch. 8: Cultures of Unemployment
......Page 168
Ch. 9: Homo Calculans and Homo Honoris
......Page 200
Ch. 10: A Profile of Urban Poverty
......Page 218
Appendixes
......Page 246
Acknowledgements
......Page 266
Bibliography
......Page 268
About the book and the authors
......Page 282
Index
......Page 284
