Unemployment is no 'lifestyle choice'
I didn't choose to see my PhD wasted and hopes repeatedly kicked in the teeth – whatever George Osborne believes
o Marianne M Gilchrist
o guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 September 2010 12.09 BST
So George Osborne plans to slash welfare for people who are disabled or too ill to work, saying he will be targeting those who sit on benefits as a "lifestyle choice". A lifestyle choice? Really? I never chose it, yet for most of what should have been my working life, I have endured repeated rejections and have been constantly forced to lower my expectations.
In December 1993, I got my PhD. I was 28 and passionate about art and history. I found it impossible to gain a toehold in academia: no one wanted my specialism and my first degree was in a different subject. Interviews for lectureships dried up after I turned 30.
I took courses in IT and cultural management to make myself more employable. I taught in adult education, but benefit restrictions on part-time work meant I was only allowed to keep £5 a week of what I earned. I did freelance research and writing. I volunteered in museums – a catalogue raisonné here, an exhibition there – only to be rejected for basic posts because I "might be bored" and for curatorial posts because I was "too research orientated". When, after eight years, I obtained a job in heritage, which was low-paid but at national level, it was a fixed-term contract: three years later, at 40, I was again unemployed.
And yet, I still looked for any jobs available. I lowered my sights to entry-level clerical and administration posts, for which I was rejected as "over qualified". After 18 months, the job centre was forced to pass me on to an "Employment Zone" – a private company paid by the government for every client it got into work, suitable or not.
It offered nothing that I was not already doing: I have internet access and know how to fill in forms and write CVs. My "adviser" was the Scots incarnation of League of Gentlemen's Pauline, who relished humiliating people better qualified than herself: "We have to find ways of hiding the fact you've got a PhD," she said. I wondered how she would explain away six years. I told her that I had been applying for jobs to which I was suited in skills. She replied: "If you were suited to them, you'd be getting them, wouldn't you? Try cleaning or call centres." Fortunately, just as she was demanding that I come in twice a week (on pain of stopping my benefit), the temping agencies with which I was registered began coming up with short-term work in academic administration.
I have been working, off and on, as a temp for less than £8 an hour since early 2008. There are fallow periods. Reorganisation and cutbacks have meant that the institutions with which I have been working are not taking on as many agency staff as they were. I apply for permanent posts, but so far without success. I have been told that my qualifications still raise questions, as if I might bolt in an instant if something better came along.
But something better is not there. I have been unable to re-enter academia or museums because I lack a straightforward career progression. Meanwhile, I sign on, or else take insecure positions, with all the complexities of working tax credits and benefit claims that accompany low-paid, short-term work.
A "lifestyle choice"? I did not choose to see my talents wasted and my hopes repeatedly kicked in the teeth. If it were a choice, I would not feel betrayed by life.
Unemployment is no 'lifestyle choice' | Marianne M Gilchrist | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Unemployment is no 'lifestyle choice'
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