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Social housing and worklessness: Qualitative research findings

by Del Roy Fletcher, Tony Gore, Kesia Reeve and David Robinson (with Nadia Bashir, Rosalind Goudie and Sonia O'Toole)

This report is one of two reports to emerge from a qualitative study of social housing and worklessness, commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in March 2007. The first report – Key policy messages – are detailed in DWP Research Report No. 482, published in May 2008. This main research report presents detailed findings from a study that explored possible explanations for the relatively high levels of worklessness among tenants in social housing. DWP commissioned the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University (CRESR) to undertake the study. Five key research questions focused the research effort:

1. Are social tenants able to recognise and realise the work-related benefits of living in the social rented sector?

2. Does living in the social rented sector expose people to area effects that serve to distance them from work?

3. Do difficulties moving within the social rented sector for work-related reasons serve to restrict the job opportunities available to tenants?

4. Does the current system of benefits and tax credits serve to distance social tenants from work and are these effects more pronounced than in the private rented sector?

5. Are there any barriers, operating in isolation or combination, that help to explain the high levels of worklessness apparent among social tenants, in addition to those that have been already examined by quantitative analysis of administrative and survey data?

The team's approach to addressing these five questions was to adopt a qualitative approach, involving the in-depth interviewing of 107 social tenants and 30 private tenants.

This report is organised around consideration of the five key research questions – social housing as a work incentive; geography; mobility; tax and benefits; and further barriers to work facing social tenants.

August 2008 154 pages 297x210mm

ISBN 978 1 84712 413 5

 

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