The Interviews with Employed and Unemployed People

Abstract

The aim of the 70 in-depth interviews conducted in 2011 (and of 50 similar in-depth interviews from 2001/2 that also feature in this chapter) was to help map the social pattern of attitudes towards being employed and towards being unemployed by looking deeply at not only individuals’ attitudes, but also their actual labour market choices and the reasons for those choices.’ Most of all, I wanted to find out how individuals and groups of respondents differed when choosing between claimant unemployment and unattractive jobs. While people’s unique circumstances inevitably play an important part in determining the choices they make, the research aimed to shed light on how different kinds of people would be likely to behave in similar circumstances. For example, how would they differ when faced with a choice between claiming JSA and making a net gain of £30 per week working in a Minimum Wage job? In fact, despite the countless biographical details, not many clear, important overall differences in attitudes and behaviour patterns emerged, so this chapter is a similar size to Chapter 6 despite it being based on three times as many interviews each lasting about three times as long.