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Long‐term ill health and the social embeddedness of work: a study in a post‐industrial, multi‐ethnic locality in the UK
Author(s) -
Qureshi Kaveri,
Salway Sarah,
Chowbey Punita,
Platt Lucinda
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.12128
Subject(s) - embeddedness , locality , ethnic group , sociology , context (archaeology) , welfare , work (physics) , social psychology , psychology , political science , social science , law , geography , anthropology , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , engineering
Against the background of an increasingly individualising welfare‐to‐work regime, sociological studies of incapacity and health‐related worklessness have called for an appreciation of the role of history and context in patterning individual experience. This article responds to that call by exploring the work experiences of long‐term sick people in East London, a post‐industrial, multi‐ethnic locality. It demonstrates how the individual experiences of long‐term sickness and work are embedded in social relations of class, generation, ethnicity and gender, which shape people's formal and informal routes to work protection, work‐seeking practices and responses to worklessness. We argue that this social embeddedness requires greater attention in welfare‐to‐work policy.