El pecado de Israel: causa de su exilio y dispersión

In the UK in the early twenty-first century, there is an undeniable tendency to position work, specifically paid work, as the norm. Such assumptions are complex constructions, made and re-made through narrative, discourse and policy. It is useful to consider how research has contributed to the narratives that have been created around the primacy of paid work. In doing so, it is impossible to ignore the research of Jahoda et al. whose work is considered as a seminal study in relation to employment and unemployment. The research was conducted in the early 1930s during the depression and explored the experiences of mass unemployment in the Austrian town of Marienthal. Heavily dependent on one textiles factory and its subsidiaries, its closure in 1929 resulted in almost full unemployment for the town. The researchers embedded themselves within the community and sought to present a ‘comprehensive picture of life in Marienthal’ (Jahoda et al. 2002: ix). Existing statistics such as election results; population statistics; library

records; subscriptions to newspapers and membership figures of clubs were analysed in order to observe the changes in the community’s behaviour when affected by unemployment. The researchers made it a:

…consistent point of policy that none of our researchers should be in Marienthal as a mere reporter or outside observer. Everyone was to fit naturally into the communal life by participating in some activity generally useful to the community. (Jahoda et al. 2002: xiv – xv)

This led to initiatives such as a girls’ gymnastics course, a pattern design course and a clothing project through which the researchers undertook participant observations as a member, albeit a new member, of the community. Whilst the researchers did not conduct formal interviews, the conversations they had with members of the community are central to the study. Indeed, their sociography gave a voice to the individuals of Marienthal ‘quoting ordinary people at some length’ something which ‘occurred only seldom in scholarly publications at this time in Central Europe’ (Fleck, C. in Jahoda et al. 2002: vii).

Jahoda et al. described in detail how the unemployed community of Marienthal struggled to fill their time, became apathetic and seemed to lack a sense of purpose. They drew upon their observations to theorise that employment satisfies key needs of human nature:

… it imposes a time structure on the waking day; it enlarges the scope of social relations … ; by virtue of the division of labour it demonstrates that the purposes and achievements of a collectivity transcend those for which an individual can aim; it assigns social status and clarifies personal identity; it requires regular activity (Jahoda, 1982: 83).

Paid employment, then, is portrayed as occupying a privileged position. It is not simply a means through which collective goals might be achieved, and social relations built. Rather, employment is placed as essential to assigning status and developing personal identity. By defining employment in this way,

unemployment is forced into a negative or ‘deficit [position] in relation to a set of ‘enduring human needs’ that are provided by paid work’ (Cole, 2007: 1134). The success of the unemployed person is gauged solely by the extent to which they manage to fulfil these needs through means other than paid employment.

Despite the fact Jahoda et al.’s research was undertaken in the 1930s, it is seen by many as highly influential. Cole suggests that the theories drawn from Jahoda et al.’s research are so deeply ingrained that they are often accepted unquestioningly as ‘social scientific common sense’ (Cole, 2007: 1135). He maintains that most subsequent research into employment and unemployment either explicitly acknowledges the influence of Jahoda et al.’s study, or implicitly does so ‘through investigating one or more of the five ‘human needs’ ’ (Cole, 2007: 1135). It is in the field of psychology where the influence of Jahoda et al.’s research is most notable, with a raft of psychological studies which specifically set out to investigate whether Jahoda’s latent deprivation model has stood the test of time (see for example Creed and Reynolds, 2001; Paul and Batinic, 2010).

Cole (2007) suggests that a major weakness in Jahoda et al.’s work is their failure to acknowledge that employment and unemployment are ‘outcomes of an historically-contingent construction of (male) identities’ (Cole, 2007: 1135). They ignore the ‘social context’ and make the mistake of accepting the ‘conventional model of work as paid employment … as ‘normal’ (Grint, 1991: 9). According to both Cole (2007) and Grint (1991), paid employment should be understood as a construction, contingent on the dominant discourse of a particular time and space. This calls into question the theory that there are ‘enduring human needs’ that can only be satisfied by paid employment; there is nothing inherent about our relationship with paid employment, but rather it has been constructed in such a way that its absence is felt keenly.

Jahoda repeatedly re-visited the initial research and compared it with more recent studies. The purpose of this was to consider ‘given major social changes in the last half-century including a generally improved standard of

living, is the psychological response to unemployment now different from what it was in the thirties?’ (Jahoda, 1982: 58). In some ways, therefore, it would seem that Jahoda acknowledged that experiences of employment and unemployment are socially (and economically) contingent. However, Jahoda maintained that whilst financial hardship and unemployment remain intertwined, unemployed people did not experience severe deprivation in the 1980s compared with the 1930s. The fact that unemployed people still found the experience negative, Jahoda has suggested, only strengthens the argument that the consequences of unemployment are much further reaching than their financial implications:

… current psychological responses to unemployment can with somewhat greater confidence than in the past be attributed to the absence of a job not just to restricted finances. (Jahoda, 1982: 58)

This did not lead Jahoda to a fresh exploration of the experiences of unemployment in the 1980s. Instead, she returned unquestioningly to the latent deprivation model which maintains there are ‘enduring human needs’ that can only be satisfied by paid employment.

Fryer and Fagan (2003) suggest that one of the flaws in Jahoda et al.’s work is that they underestimated the impact financial deprivation has on the unemployed. They claim that whilst unemployed people frequently maintain that poverty is the major difficulty associated with being unemployed, this was only paid ‘lip service’ by researchers such as Jahoda:

… the self-report methods popular with orthodox researchers were insensitive (in every sense of the word) to the complex and stigmatizing factors involved in the experience of unemployed poverty.

(Fryer and Fagan, 2003: 91)

By focusing on the latent deprivation caused by unemployment, Jahoda et al. have neglected the manifest impact caused through poverty.

Jahoda claimed that it is extremely difficult for individuals to meet the ‘human needs’ provided through paid employment by engaging with other types of activities. Further, she claimed it would require:

… a degree of personal initiative that is rare among all strata of the population, but perhaps particularly so among those who form the bulk of the unemployed - the unskilled and the young.’ (Jahoda, 1982: 94)

This approach is completely opposed to Fryer’s model of understanding unemployment: the agency model. Fryer understands human beings as,

… active, initiating, future oriented agent[s], striving to make sense of, and influence events. (Fryer, 1990: 167)

According to Fryer, rather than accept unemployment in a passive way, unemployed people, as ‘future oriented agents’, are able to cope and make sense of their situations in a variety of ways. They are able to be ‘proactive’ and in being so ‘initiate, intervene in or reperceive situations in a way which allows the person (agent) to act in valued directions rather than respond passively to imposed change’ (Fryer and Payne, 1984: 273). As such, unemployment does not, according to Fryer and Payne, necessarily lead to psychological distress. Further, Fryer and Payne’s (1984) study of 11 particularly proactive unemployed adults demonstrated that some people are able to ‘distinguish work [and] purposeful activity from employment, the social institution’ (Fryer and Payne, 1984: 285). Therefore unpaid activity such as voluntary work or involvement with community activity becomes equally rewarding and important as paid employment. It is important to note, however, that the 11 participants were chosen specifically because they were proactive. They were also ‘generally well educated or had substantial work experience and were typically older (with ages ranging from late twenties to mid fifties)’ (Ball and Orford, 2002: 379). It is possible to question whether all unemployed people, particularly young adults with limited experience, are able to draw on personal resources to respond in such a proactive way.