Documents van Wel, Frits 3 results

"In spite of active labour market policies, a considerable number of welfare recipients in the Netherlands are long-term unemployed. In order to investigate the job search behaviour of this group, we developed a model of job search behaviour, inspired by the theory of planned behaviour, expectancy value theory and self-determination theory. Survey data relating to 193 individuals receiving welfare benefits for at least one year were collected. A model, consisting of six social-demographic and eight social and psychosocial variables, was tested with hierarchical multiple regression. Seven factors were found to be positively related to job search behaviour: being a non-Western immigrant, having recently started receiving welfare benefits, receiving encouragement in searching for work from an intimate social network, having a job search requirement imposed, having an expectation of finding a job, individual work valence and job search attitudes. Of these, duration of welfare assistance, the encouragement of an intimate social network, work valence and job search attitude appeared to be mediating factors. The article concludes that activation policy might benefit from a combination of improving job searching attitudes, for instance by discussing ideas about the valence of employment and expectations of success or by considering potential barriers to finding employment within social networks, and introducing a clear requirement to search for jobs, in particular for native Dutch, single mothers and people who have been in receipt of benefits for a long period of time. Such policies have been absent in the Netherlands for a long time, priority being given to those with better chances in the labour market."

"In 2006 new social policy legislation was introduced in the Netherlands, under which employees with chronic health problems may be allocated a ‘double identity', being assessed simultaneously as partly sick and partly able to work. Employees in this situation receive a proportion of disability benefit according to their assessed loss of earning capacity and are required to engage in paid work in order to earn an income over and above this. Our central research question is: Which factors elicit the labour market participation of these partially disabled employees? This article reports results from a survey of 772 partially disabled employees. We analyse our data using structural equation modelling and find that labour market participation of partially disabled employees is particularly strongly associated with perceptions of their capability to work and of their chances of returning to work. The results are considered in relation to Parsons' (1951) classical theory of the sick role and are elaborated on the basis of Sen's (1993, 1999) conceptualisation of capability."