The Shame of It

Global Perspectives on Anti-Poverty Policies

Gubrium, Erika K., Pellissery, Sony

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781447312109
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política social

The shame experienced by people living in poverty has long been recognised. Nobel laureate and economist, Amartya Sen, has described shame as the irreducible core of poverty. However, little attention has been paid to the implications of this connection in the making and implementation of anti-poverty policies. This important volume rectifies this critical omission and demonstrates the need to take account of the psychological consequences of poverty for policy to be effective. Drawing on pioneering empirical research in countries as diverse as Britain, Uganda, Norway, Pakistan, India, South Korea and China, it outlines core principles that can aid policy makers in policy development. In so doing, it provides the foundation for a shift in policy learning on a global scale and bridges the traditional distinctions between North and South, and high-, middle- and low-income countries. This will help students, academics and policy makers better understand the reasons for the varying effectiveness of anti-poverty policies.

FIVE

‘Not good enough’: social assistance and shaming in Norway

Erika K. Gubrium and Ivar Lødemel

Introduction

Norway is a thin, stretched country with a population of just over 5 million. It is one of the world’s richest countries, and its residents possess among the lowest variability in living standards (The World Bank, 2011). There is a long-standing consensus among all political parties that the quality of health, education and social services should be equalised as much as possible throughout the nation. Hence, the Norwegian welfare state is built on the ‘citizenship’ principle, with schemes, for the most part, financed through general taxes and a tax system that is redistributive in nature (Kuhnle, 1994a, p 81). This consensus is based on a prerequisite strong work ethic and commitment to full employment, as well as the ideals of equality, social justice, social security, solidarity and social integration (Christiansen and Markkola, 2006; Halvorsen and Stjernø, 2008).

These ideals are subject to positive and negative tensions. The redistributive and integrative goals of the Norwegian welfare state are premised on an economy that maintains high employment levels and economically active people (Lødemel et al, 2001). The country’s policy focus on employment and employability – crystallised as its ‘work approach’ – is not, however, always conducive to the broader ethical ideals listed above and may, for particular groups, work to heighten a sense of marginalisation and exclusion.

Norway’s broader welfare state is characterised by a diverse array of social reforms, where eligibility is based not on class or occupation but instead on residency. Development was encouraged early on by a traditionally strong peasant/agricultural class (Halvorsen and Stjernø, 2008) joining forces with organised labour, by the relatively strong position of democratic government and by political consensus on issues related to social protection and welfare (Baldwin, 1990; Hatland, 1992). The concept of folkeforsikring (the people’s insurance) and the principle of universal coverage entered the Norwegian policy arena well before the end of the 19th century and certainly before the universal welfare ideas of Beveridge some 50 years later (Seip, 1981; Kuhnle, 1994b).

The Norwegian Labour Party’s near-hegemonic rule from 1935 until the early 1960s, along with a pragmatic post-Second World War political consensus supporting the development of a broader welfare state, ensured the rapid expansion of coverage and increased benefit levels (Lødemel, 1997a). Political disagreements swirled around early on concerning the question of whether benefits should be means-tested or universal, yet by 1960 the Labour Party had introduced a series of broad and generous social insurance schemes that were targeted at varying risk categories. Beginning with older people and then extending to ‘deserving’ groups such as those with a disability, the unemployed, the widowed and single parents, these were available without means-testing (Lødemel, 1997a; Halvorsen and Stjernø, 2008). Along with a redistributive tax system, the discovery and subsequent export of oil in the nation’s North Sea waters since the 1970s have provided a substantial economic boost and acted as a crucial cash generator for the generous Norwegian welfare state (Halvorsen and Stjernø, 2008). Contrary to popular understanding, however, Norway is not a purely universal welfare state. While most benefits are not means-tested, most are contingent on having had a history of gainful employment (with the exception of a more basic level of benefits, including child benefit, a pension for those with congenital disabilities and the minimum/basic old-age pension). The connection between worthiness for benefits and one’s employment has reflected a Labour Party emphasis on the wage earner and its aim to clarify the relationship between rights and duties (Baldwin, 1990; Hatland, 1992; Halvorsen and Stjernø, 2008).

The broad extension of generous social insurance benefits that characterises the Norwegian welfare system has also resulted in a paradox of sorts. Over the last century, broadly targeted welfare provisions have lifted (deserving) risk groups out of poverty,1 social assistance or family dependency. At the same time, the character of the system means that those individuals not eligible for, or perceived as deserving of, generous benefits have been reduced to the few who are then eligible only for social assistance (Lødemel, 1997a, p 83).2 As Norwegian social assistance is granted when all other support options in connection with loss of income have been exhausted, it is considered poverty relief. The groups making up Norway’s disparate social assistance population resemble those living in relative poverty (Halvorsen and Stjernø, 2008), and it is the social assistance claimant, therefore, that forms the focus of this chapter.

Due to these features, social assistance is considered the benefit of last resort and plays a residual role in the larger Norwegian social protection system. The paradox of a residual system prevailing under extensive institutional welfare arises from the national focus on the extensions of alternatives to social assistance. In this process, social assistance has remained more similar to the preceding and stigmatising Poor Law.3 The residualism of this scheme and its ‘stigma by association’ are reflected in the status of claimants and in the implicit aim to pay only the minimum benefit necessary to claimants, who face negative social sanctions ‘in the form of lost citizenship rights’ (Lødemel, 1997a, p 269).

Scandinavian studies exploring cultural conceptions and personal experiences of poverty have reported on the psychosocial barriers – including shame and stigma – experienced in tandem with financial instability within the larger Scandinavian setting (Jönsson and Starrin, 2000; Jönsson, 2002; Underlid, 2005; Angelin, 2009). The combination of financial difficulties and the receipt of public aid may heighten this experience. Our conversations with individual claimants, in tandem with discussions with members of the more economically secure ‘general public’ and a review of media coverage of poverty offer a unique space within which to analyse Norway’s social assistance policy for its role in heightening shame or building the dignity of claimants.

Fifteen years ago, Ivar Lødemel (1997a) began a conversation that directly connected the residual nature of social assistance in Norway with stigma and shame. Since that time, however, empirical studies within this setting have not straddled the fields of social policy and social psychology to more closely evaluate this connection. This chapter provides empirical grounding to this effort by discerning how shaming has occurred within the framing, shaping and delivery of this welfare scheme. The focus on national policy-making spans the years 2000-12 as this period has represented a revitalised public focus on poverty in Norway, a shift that has been reflected by vast reforms to Norway’s labour and welfare system.

Framing policy: marginality in a generous welfare setting

As far back as the 1537 Lutheran Reformation and in contrast to most Continental European nations, the Norwegian state has restricted the role of charities and voluntary organisations in the social welfare arena (Halvorsen and Stjernø, 2008, p 11). Since the Second World War, its generous mainstream social security system has been overwhelmingly aimed at mitigating the effects of social inequalities (Esping-Andersen, 1990) and removing the significance of social origin on social mobility (Wiborg and Hansen, 2009). Yet the broader understandings of social assistance and the more personal experiences of those receiving this benefit underscore the sense of social shame that may arise from the dissonance between the standard expectation of mobility and the reality of constrained options (Gubrium, 2013a; Gubrium and Lødemel, 2014).

Our investigation of Norwegian literature suggests a larger narrative in which, following a period of urbanisation and industrialisation, new urban dwellers experienced increased means for upward social mobility and a higher standard of living. Yet modernity was also accompanied by a greater dependence on the broader labour market (Gubrium, 2013a). In modern times, shame has become an increasingly individualised phenomenon. It is associated with an internalised failure to realise social expectations and individual goals or to reach a level of personal fulfilment and potential. This has the potential of resulting in loneliness and self-blame (Frønes, 2001; Skårderud, 2001; Underlid, 2005). The presence of newer internalised shame may mean that its effect is even more crippling in its more modern incarnation and has, in this sense, acted more as a de-motivator than a motivator to participate in the workforce.

Norwegian respondents claiming social assistance linked an internalised and individualised sense of shame to their social identities as ‘dependent’ on last resort public benefits. This experience was mediated by the public discourse surrounding the issue of poverty. The economically secure people we spoke with frequently described the receipt of social assistance as ‘not normal’ given Norway’s rich and generous welfare state setting, low level of unemployment and record levels of labour market participation. They placed responsibility for economic difficulties – for unemployment in particular – on the individual. Economic precariousness was described largely as a matter of unfortunate choices. Norwegian newspaper coverage, while not unduly negative, also showed a general presumption of individualised responsibility for poverty. Those portrayals of poverty that were negative were often connected with system abuse and with low levels of ‘self-reliance’ among welfare system claimants (Gubrium, 2014). An especially negative focus was placed on non-Western immigrant claimants who were described as not ‘play(ing) by society’s rules’ (Herland, 2007).

Poverty in Norway is primarily a relative phenomenon and Norway might be said to represent a best-case scenario. The country’s population has a median income of US$51,000 (295,500 NOK) and among the lowest levels of income inequality in international comparisons4 (Statistics Norway, 2010). The term ‘poverty’ was, in fact, largely absent from policy discussions in the preceding half-century of welfare expansion. It has, however, resurged as a matter of public concern in the past two decades (Hagen and Lødemel, 2010). Despite political promises across the political spectrum to ‘reduce’ or even ‘eliminate’ poverty, poverty in Norway has, thus far, been ‘ineradicable’ (Halvorsen and Stjerno, 2008, p 103). The relational character of poverty is mirrored in the shame and social exclusion felt by those struggling economically in the midst of a rather rich majority (Gubrium, 2013a). This strain may have been further heightened with more recently increasing income disparities (Aaberge and Atkinson, 2008)5 and a new cultural emphasis on consumption (Gubrium, 2014).

Norway’s relatively high standard of living is also reflected by the fact that while the average level of social assistance cash benefit provided is comparatively high in international terms6 (Hatland and Pedersen, 2006), the scheme is simultaneously critiqued within Norway for providing a benefit rate that is so low as to be ‘nearly under the hunger line’ (Aasheim, 2009). Aside from whether the benefit is too high or too low, its low level of take-up means that it remains a relatively ineffective measure for eliminating poverty (Halvorsen and Stjernø, 2008). The challenge, then, may lie in the social aspects of social assistance that have prevented its full or...