Internalised Individualism: Young People, Welfare Conditionality, and the Psychological Framing of Employment Aspirations

Abstract

This paper argues that young people who claim state support in the UK are prone to accept the contemporary hegemonic conceptualisation within advanced capitalist societies, that individual behaviour and mindset are the key determinants of valorised labour market outcomes. The notion that the self is all encompassing and one can, and should, choose to overcome all challenges in life through self-improvement is particularly salient for recent generations of young people. Social policy reinforces this trend by encouraging changes in the individual to combat structural problems, and such ideology is present in the contemporary intensification of welfare conditionality. This paper draws upon secondary analysis of longitudinal qualitative data generated as part of the Welfare Conditionality Project (2013–2019) to demonstrate that young people who experience welfare conditionality are likely to individualise pathways to their future aspirations.