Explaining the Factors Shaping the Likelihood of Poverty Among Working Families by Using a Concurrent Mixed Method Design 

Asaf Levanon, Einat Lavee & Roni Strier  

University of Haifa, Israel

Working poverty is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon. Prior quantitative

research has painted a representative but narrow picture of the contours of in-work poverty,

while ethnographic case studies have provided a nuanced account of the mechanisms shap-

ing the experiences of workers in specifc low-wage labor markets. However, none of these

studies provides an account that, at the same time, covers the main theories explaining

working poverty, is based on a representative population sample, and is attuned to the prox-

imate interactional dynamics shaping poverty risks. The current study employs a concur-

rent mixed-methods design combining information from repeated cross-sectional nation-

ally representative surveys with in-depth interviews, and argues that this design is ideal for

explaining the factors shaping the likelihood of in-work poverty. 

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-021-02689-5

Changing labour market risks in the service economy: Low wages, parttime employment and the trend in working poverty risks in Germany

Jan Brülle and Markus Gangl

Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Asaf Levanon and Evgeny Saburov

University of Haifa, Israel

The article presents an analysis of the development of labour market risks in Germany in light of changing working poverty risks. Low hourly wages and part-time employment are identified as the main demand-side-related mechanisms for household poverty. Their measurement and development are discussed as well as their contribution to trends in working poverty risks. A rise in low wages, especially among part-time employed households, was decisive for the increase in working poverty risks in Germany by 45% between the end of the 1990s and the end of the 2000s. We therefore study these trends more closely in the multivariate analysis. The results show that while low wages are unequally distributed across occupations and industries, shifts in employment between sectors explain only a minor part of the change in low wages. However, they reveal a polarization of low-wage risks by skill-level and sector of employment, on the one hand, and full-time and part-time employees, on the other hand. 

journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.haifa.ac.il/doi/full/10.1177/0958928718779482

Trends in the demographic composition of poverty among working families in Germany and in Israel, 1991–2011

Asaf Levanona ∗a, Evgeny Saburov *a, Markus Gangl *b, Jan Brülle *b

a University of Haifa, Israel

b Goethe Universität- Frankfurt Am Main, Israel

While the working poverty rate in advanced economies is about 7%, the demographic composition of the working poor varies considerably across countries. Providing an in-depth look at the demographic composition of working poverty, this paper builds on a typology of three major antecedents of poverty among workers – age, household structure, and minority status – and documents their changing association with the likelihood of poverty in Germany and Israel for a 21-year span during which both countries underwent major labor market and welfare reforms. The paper utilizes data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the Israeli Income Survey, 1991–2011, and includes logistics models and a decomposition analysis of the demographic components of trends in working poverty. Results document a pronounced increase in poverty risks among the Arab population and households with more than two children in Israel since 2000. Contrastingly, the most pronounced changes in Germany have occurred among single-headed households. 

www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.haifa.ac.il/science/article/pii/S0049089X18310342

Labor Market Insiders or Outsiders? A Cross-National Examination of Redistributive Preferences of the Working Poor

Asaf Levanon

Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel.

Prior research on attitudes toward redistribution documents an association between one’s policy preferences and socioeconomic position, as well as an impact of welfare policy on the mean level of support for redistribution. Building on both traditions, the current paper aims to expand our understanding of the sources of public support for welfare policies by examining the role that social policy plays in shaping the policy preferences of the working poor. Building on the distinction between labor market insiders and outsiders, this paper examines whether preferences by the working poor more closely resemble those of non-poor workers or those of non-working poor individuals. Results from this study show that the degree of support for redistribution among the working poor is notably closer to the average degree reported by non-working poor individuals than the mean level reported by non-poor workers. Moreover, utilizing cross-national data from 31 countries in 13 different time-points between 1985 and 2010, the paper documents a much smaller preference gap between non-poor workers and the working poor and a higher overall level of support for redistribution in countries providing a greater degree of employment protection.

www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/8/3/72

Who Is in Charge? The Provision of Informal Personal Resources at the Street Level

Einat Lavee

University of Haifa

Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) nowadays provide services under conditions of increased demand for public services coupled with scarcer fnancial resources. The literature that focuses on how workers adapt to this situation mainly examines their provision of formal resources as part of their job. What researchers have not systematically examined is the delivery of informal personal resources (IFRs) by street-level workers to clients. Understanding the provision of IFRs is particularly important when “no one is fully in charge” of public services. Drawing on 214 in-depth qualitative interviews with SLBs who provide education, health, and welfare services in the public sector in Israel, we found a remarkable range of IFRs they provided to clients. We also found that four main factors influencing the provision of IFRs: lack of formal resources; professional commitment; managerial encouragement; and a work environment whose values combine old and new approaches to public service. The fndings contribute to the public administration literature by exposing how public service function in a somewhat vague reality, and they contribute to the SLB literature by highlighting the unrecognized component of informal service provision.

academic-oup-com.ezproxy.haifa.ac.il/jpart/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jopart/muaa025/5854331 

Ethical Conflicts in Social Work Practice: Challenges and Opportunities

Corey Shdaimah & Roni Strier

Most of the moral distress in current literature stems from the health professions research whereas social work scholarship lags behind. This issue seeks to bridge this gap by exploring in a critical way the moral conditions and ethical praxis of social workers in different national, institutional, cultural and political contexts. It also contributes to the general discussion of moral distress by highlighting how moral distress is experienced (if it is experienced) and managed in the context of the profession. This means that the articles here pay special attention to the evolving contexts for social work practice and, in light of the profession's value base and moral commitments, how social workers manage these in the day-to-day arenas of practice (especially Wilson, this issue). In the spirit of Jane Addams (1907), who reminded us from the beginning that ‘the sphere of morals is the sphere of action’ (pp.66), this collection of articles describes the ways in which social work confronts the moral crisis and challenges characteristic of this critical historical stage of the profession.

The articles presented in this issue illustrate how social workers circumnavigate within the troubled waters of the unethical institutional environments of the era in order to preserve their moral integrity. They clarify social workers’ challenges at different levels of practice with individuals, families, community, and policy practice from a variety of national contexts. They convey the conflicts and dilemmas of frontline workers as well as the impact of neo-liberalism and new public management (NPM) practices on how social workers identify, frame and resolve ethical concerns, especially in government and non-profit practice settings in times of austerity and retrenchment. This context focuses on individuals as a source of fault and intervention while obscuring social, systemic factors; rote practices that undermine professional discretion, relationships building, and responding to actual and self-determined goals; and accountability that prioritises quantifiable and market-based markers over real assistance and change.

The issue, comprised of nine articles, addresses the central role of social work education, supervision, and ethics awareness development in preparing future social workers to identify and manage ethical conflicts that arise from a mismatch between social work values and organizational/institutional settings. Together these articles shed light on how social workers address ethical conflicts that arise from tensions between social work values and organisational goals and priorities in different practice settings and workplace environments.

In her study of criminal justice social workers in Scotland, Jane Fenton describes how new contexts for social work education and practice contribute to internalisation of neoliberal norms and values that undermine ethical practice by impeding social workers’ ability to recognise ethical concerns in the first place. Such workplace contexts further hinder ethical practice by making it harder for social workers who do identify such concerns to summon the moral courage to act upon them. Social workers’ increasing atomisation, dwindling access to appropriate social work supervision, and bureaucratic imperatives inhibit reflexive practice and dialogue with peers and clients. The neglect of the moral content of actions, and internalisation of the neoliberal ethos, can lead to adoption of managerial, bureaucratic and technical practice that belies the reality of service users’ lives. The focus on individual responsibility of clients and the accountability of social workers to bureaucratic imperatives hampers critical analysis of structures that might engender radical responses over compliance and collusion.

Afnan Attrash and Roni Strier show how social work moral distress is associated with the privatisation processes in neoliberal transitions. Based on a qualitative study of social workers working in privatised long-term nursing care agencies in Israel, findings revealed multiple expressions of moral distress. Attrash and Strier describe moral distress as emanating from four main sources: illegal actions, violation of caregivers working rights and benefits, clash between professional principles and economic profit considerations, and harm to elderly wellbeing. The study identified three patterns of coping with these forms moral distress: compliance, denial, and resistance. Most participants follow the pattern of compliance and denial and just a minority offers some signs of resistance. Their findings show that even social workers in this long-term nursing context who identify ethical concerns address them – if at all- through covert acts that leave systems unchallenged. Privatisation of the Israeli social services workforce that compromises client well-being also conspires to make it harder for social workers to express their concerns due to their own vulnerabilities. Privatised provision of services with little oversight offers little hope that concerns will be taken seriously, reinforcing social workers’ motivation to overlook such problems or manage them with covert forms of resistance.

Cheryl Hyde's exploratory study shows how the growing employment of contingent workers in a market-driven neoliberal US welfare state can severely compromise practice ethics. Similar to Israeli social workers in a privatised system, this precarious form of labour makes workers more vulnerable in their reliance on employers and less likely to challenge unethical practices or agency policy. It also limits their access to regular supervision, professional peers, and agency support or training. This leaves them unable to consult with others when ethical challenges arise. Hyde's study is novel because it exposes how neoliberalism impedes identification of ethical concerns not only through agency policies ostensibly implemented to influence client behaviours, but also through employment decisions aimed at workers themselves. Neil McMillan, writing about Scottish residential care workers, is also concerned with the impact of neoliberal policies and new managerialism on workers. He theorises that workplaces that prize bureaucratic accountability over love and care will amplify these low-paid and low status workers’ experience of powerlessness and erode their motivation to do the emotionally difficult labour of caring for children in residential placements. Similar to Hyde's contingent workforce, McMillan posits that practices that lead to low social worker morale may prevent them from coming together to help them better understand the social context for the powerlessness that they experience in their own work and in their ability to meet their client needs.

Soile Juujärvi, Elina Kallunki, and Heidi Luostari provide an important counterpoint from Finland in their examination of social workers using Carol Gilligan’s (1982) characterisations of moral reasoning. In contrast with the findings from the US and Scottish context, social counsellors and social workers in Finland identified conflicts and were confident in their ability to successfully advocate for clients. They saw NPM strategies as a means to ensure transparent and equitable access rather than a tool to discipline clients. Masters-level social workers, invoking an ethics of justice, acted in the best interests of clients, primarily by challenging unjust or harmful rules and procedures generated by organisational changes. Bachelors-level social counsellors primarily appealed an ethic of care explicated through maintaining relationships with clients to secure their access to services and considering their particular circumstances when using professional discretion. Juujärvi et al.'s description points to the national context of Finland as more congruent overall with social work values, making rule-based references more likely to reinforce rather than undermine social workers’ identification of and ability to address ethical concerns when they assert moral courage. The social workers in Juujärvi et al. believed that such assertions would be supported through recognition of their professional status and expertise both by themselves (self-confidence) and managers or multi-professional team members. This points to the importance of considering the social-political context in assessing the impact of NPM on neo-liberal inspired policies and programmes. The relatively long tenure of Juujärvi et al.'s study respondents may also help them draw on professional values to use both rules and situational discretion as needed.

Hillary Wilson's practice note (peer-reviewed as an academic paper) shows how the exigencies of managerial health systems that focus primarily on cost to the exclusion of patient well-being expose social workers in health systems to multiple ethical conflicts. Wilson provides a concrete example of the adoption of health assessment tools with older adults as an ethical concern. The study described the use of manualized assessments that rely on decontextualised, singular aspects of a patient's functioning. In contrast, holistic social work assessments probe health concerns as communicated by those experiencing them as well as people's goals and strengths in the context of their families and communities. Social workers are ‘misunderstood or perhaps even seen as disruptive’ by hospital professionals who operate within systems that have developed a range of strategies to speed up the discharge processes. The perception of social workers as disruptive indicates that they challenge the status quo, and begs the question of what makes such moral courage possible for these hospital social workers? Perhaps the existence of, training on, and use of the holistic social work assessment facilitates the identification and articulation of concerns with other hospital protocols. Wilson's practice experience raises additional questions, including whether workplace structures, confidence that their specialised area of geriatric practice, or other factors, may contribute to a more robust social work ethics that facilitates rather than impedes reflexive and critical practice.

Similarly, Theresa Anasti uses Michael Lipsky’s (1980) theory of street-level bureaucracy to show how social workers use professional discretion when working with US-based sex workers. Anasti specifically explores how the emotional and moral discourse surrounding sex work has shaped the response of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) who work with this population. Frontline service providers negotiate their responsibilities to sex workers amidst conflicting personal ethics and service technologies. Most strikingly, Anasti finds that social workers in her study, when confronted with actual clients or engaged with sex worker activists, utilise their discretion to secure resources for these clients to meet their self-identified needs regardless of the mismatch between agency rhetoric or personal beliefs and client experiences. Social workers in Anasti's study are able to identify and utilise the often conflicting discourses of sex worker agency, abolitionist ideals, and marginalised social status in order to work across professions and agencies to further their own values, provide resources to the clients they serve, and at times educate other professionals in what may be seen as meso-level social change.

Margo Campbell, Anne Dalke, and Barb Toews, in a reflexive article, explore their experiences contending with and managing the many ethical concerns of social work and pedagogical practice within the institutionalised, heavy-handed control of the US prison system. These authors work in the field of restorative justice projects created and led by incarcerated individuals that bring together ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ students and teachers. Campbell et al. show the many ways in which social workers can enact bureaucracy through the performance of expertise, which undermine the self-determination of clients and create further hierarchy within these relationships. Even as they grapple with and are appropriately troubled by their positions of power, they have come to realise the limitations of their knowledge and good intentions through appreciation of what they have learned from their inside partners. These pertain not only to first-person knowledge about being incarcerated, but also about what constitutes meaningful work and how to navigate total institutions that are characterised by unpredictable enactments of control and power with dignity and self-determination. This article provides another clue as to how social workers might better meet the challenges of ethical practice: through working in collaboration with the people and communities with whom we wish to be in solidarity, a model that stresses working with over doing for. Campbell, Dalke, and Toews’ model also helps tie together – without equating – powerlessness, precarity, and being subjected to bureaucratic accountability as a manifestation of dehumanisation and mistrust that social workers and their clients share.

McCarthy, Imboden, Shdaimah, and Forrester suggest that supervision is a critical component of professional socialisation for social workers that helps them develop skills to practice in complex private and public organisations whose values may be at odds with social work ethics. They report findings from a qualitative study exploring the perspectives of social workers from diverse work contexts and experience levels about their experiences managing ethical challenges in practice. McCarthy et al. highlight the importance of quality supervision, early supervisory experiences, components of supervision, interprofessional aspects of supervision, power dynamics, and the function and impact of supervision for the ethical competency of social workers. Supervisors require training that prepares them to help supervisees identify and manage ethical concerns, and practice in interprofessional and dispersed workplaces with limited resources – included limited opportunities for workplace supervision. Similar to the findings of Fenton, Hyde, and McMillan, McCarthy et al. found little discussion of supervision that implicated systemic concerns. This suggests the need for explicit preparation of supervisors to consider the socio, political, and regulatory context as a normalised aspect of supervision.

The articles in this special issue reveal the potential for ethical conflicts and moral distress to create opportunities for shared action aimed at vindicating the ethical mission of the profession in this era of moral fluidity and precariousness. We hope that this invited issue of ESW will contribute to energising the social work academic, educational and practice involvement in the topic. Taken together, the articles point to challenges and opportunities for social workers. Some question whether social workers- especially those whose employment leaves them precarious or vulnerable- are able to recognise situations where their practice options conflict with professional values or obligations (Attrash & Strier; Fenton; Hyde). A hallmark of neo-liberalism is the drawing away of our attention from structures and policies by focusing attention almost exclusively on the individual. We also see that it accomplishes this goal through strategies like NPM, which keep individual clients and social workers so (pre)occupied and isolated as to make it harder for them to detect policies or larger social trends as a cause of their distress (McMillan). Such practices also drive a wedge between social workers and their clients in that imposed calculations of deservingness, supervision, and compliance are prioritised over relationships and social solidarity.

Less frequently, we see some examples where social workers use a form of moral entrepreneurship when they have opportunities for discretion to enact social work values (Hasenfeld 2000; Shdaimah and McGarry 2018). The articles also provide us with clues as to a number of factors that may facilitate recognition of concerns and the moral courage to act upon them (Fenton). These include a larger socio-political context that is congruent with social work values (Juujärvi); a sense of mission and a willingness to work across professions and ideologies to serve their clients (Anasti); models of ethical social work practice (Wilson); and quality supervison (McCarthy, Imboden, Shdaimah, & Forrester). Including communities impacted by the work that we do (Anasti) and allying ourselves with them as equal partners to identify and challenge injustice and harm (Cambell, Dalke, & Toews) are promising strategies to facilitate ethical social work practice: they are also grounded in social work values and obligations. Shared precarity and vulnerability among social workers and clients suggest that these alliances may be welcome and fruitful (Attrash & Strier; Hyde; McMillan).

Social work has always aspired to be a leading light for ethical practice and at various times in our history we have acted as a social conscience to decry unjust and harmful policies and programmes. Even though these radical voices have been on the margins, they were considered exemplary (Specht and Courtney 1994), as evidenced from social work codes of ethics worldwide. Social workers today are confronted with insidious forms of erosion of the social conscience that are harder to identify and challenge. We can view this as a moment of moral distress not only for us as individuals, but for us as a profession. Fenton describes moral distress as an opportunity for learning: a ‘gut check’ for us to slow down and think about the normative implications of our work. For this to be the case, however, we must first recognise that we are facing concerns that have ‘moral meaning’. Social work education and supervision must proactively and explicitly connect social workers to the profession's values and mission or we risk ignoring and reproducing an environment that undermines ethical practice. Social workers must come together to discuss ethical concerns, and dialogue with our affiliated communities. Only then will we have the opportunity, as a profession, to exercise moral courage.

https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.haifa.ac.il/doi/full/10.1080/17496535.2020.1718848

Blurring the Borders with Anzaldu´ a in Context-Informed, Anti-Oppressive Research: The Case of Bedouin Women

Ibtisam Marey-Sarwan, Dorit Roer-Strier, Roni Strier 

Studies show that context-blind, quasi-universalist professional discourses may engender oppressive social work practices with excluded populations. For example, research confirms that social work with children and families, overtly or covertly embedded in Eurocentric, binary discourse of risk and protection, has played a highly negative role in the history of social work with non-Western populations. Based on Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of the border, the article proposes context-informed, anti-oppressive social work research as a strategy to deconstruct binary and essentialist social work discourses with marginalized populations. Exemplified by a research project conducted in partnership with thirty-three Bedouin women in the southern part of Israel, the article offers a platform for the examination of the border as a liminal arena in which change took place by blurring theoretical, methodological and practical borders. 

https://academic-oup-com.ezproxy.haifa.ac.il/bjsw/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjsw/bcaa113/5916440

Moral Distress and Privatisation: Lost in Neoliberal Transition

Afnan Attrash-Najjar & Roni Strier

This article discusses social workers’ moral distress associated with privatisation processes in neoliberal transitions. Based on a qualitative study of social workers (N = 15) working in privatised long-term nursing care agencies in Israel, findings revealed multiple expressions of moral distress. The study shows that moral distress relates to four main sources: illegal actions, violation of caregivers’ employment rights and benefits, clashes between professional principles and profit considerations, and harm to elders’ wellbeing. In addition, the study identified three patterns of coping with moral distress: compliance, denial, and resistance. Most participants follow a pattern of compliance and denial and only a minority offer some signs of resistance, mostly through covert actions. Implications for social work education and policy are discussed. 

https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.haifa.ac.il/doi/full/10.1080/17496535.2020.1720107

‘The Faintest Stirring of Hope Became Possible’: Pandemic Postscript

Roni Strier & Corey Shdaimah

“And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of plague was ended.” The Plague, Albert Camus

Many of the concerns laid out by the authors in our special issue (No 1, Vol. 14), Ethical Conflicts in Social Work Practice: Challenges and Opportunities, have been brought into sharp relief during the COVID19 pandemic. It is our shared hope that social work will lead the way in making this greater urgency as an opening for greater opportunities. This postscript is based on our reflections during these days of crisis. We know that the pandemic is still extracting a heavy human, social and economic toll. Billions of families are still keeping quarantine in their homes. Others, less privileged, are looking for safe places to prevent their families and children from the contagion. Millions of people have been infected and hundreds of thousands of people have died from it. The crisis has placed social workers with other health and welfare professionals at the forefront of the struggle. At the end the crisis will pass and leave its mark on what is to come. Historically, global crises of this magnitude have given humankind an opportunity to examine the truths and values that gave a sense of order and meaning in ordinary times. They were fertile ground for far-reaching, paradigmatic changes. While it is still too early to predict what will come, it is already possible to identify some of the values embedded in the pre-COVID19 social and economic life, to examine how they stand up to the epidemic and to start setting the ethical foundations for a post-COVID19 Social Work.

https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.haifa.ac.il/doi/full/10.1080/17496535.2020.1798603

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PoTfTPOpPrCHDrMuqeNum5ePExHYWm3e/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FXAGlbizZXtEK9eNKIlVWO5jSPYAIwpE/view?usp=sharing

Low-income breadwinning Israeli mothers negotiating economic survival: The exchange of sex for material resources

Einat Lavee

Chapter 10 in: Women, vulnerabilities and welfare service systems. Edited by Marjo Kuronen, Elina Virokannas and Ulla Salovaara (forthcoming 2021; Routledge)

The ability of women in general, and mothers in particular, to rely on state support for economic survival has been drastically reduced during last few decades. This shift was generated by changes in the protection the welfare state offers its citizens, as well as the positions at the bottom of the labour market available to welfare recipients (Collins and Mayer 2010). Hence, women living in poverty turn to other paths, or combine survival strategies, relying on social networks of support and agency-based support (Offer 2010). However, studies have shown that the neoliberal ideology, which both celebrates independence and stigmatizes dependence, makes it virtually impossible to use these paths to attain sufficient material resources (Kissane 2012; Lavee and Offer 2012).

Additional studies have focused on material support received from men. From Edin and Lein’s (1997) classic research onward, such support has been described as a central survival strategy for low-income mothers. Edin and Lein (as do others, e.g., Nelson 2004) define men’s support as part of a broader strategy of interpersonal social support. Yet, it appears that understanding the receipt of material resources from men as just another type of social support is problematic for two main reasons. First, the receipt of support from men usually involves sexual exchange, wherein the woman has to give her body in exchange for material resources, and thus is significantly different from all other kinds of support, such as that of the family or friends. Second, placing the understanding of the receipt of men’s material support under the vast umbrella of social support ignores the linkage between macro-level structural constraints and women’s daily struggles on the micro level. Understanding this linkage is crucial in light of research claiming that welfare reforms (macro-level structural constraints) encourage women’s reliance on partnerships with men (micro-level daily struggles) (Scott, London, and Myers 2002; Weigt 2010).

Economic and institutional harm can accumulate in a vulnerable individual life, compounding the experience of vulnerability and causing greater harm (Fineman 2010). In this chapter, I focus on the ways the state’s withdrawal from its responsibility to poor mothers increases their gender and class vulnerability, exposing them to various oppressions. In doing so, I examine the case of Israeli mothers who provide for their families in poverty. 

www.routledge.com/Women-Vulnerabilities-and-Welfare-Service-Systems/Kuronen-Virokannas-Salovaara/p/book/9780367228026