DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-856977
title: Youth Unemployment Under Devolution: A Comparative Analysis of Sub-State Welfare Regimes, 2020-2023

description: Youth unemployment rose sharply as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent sector lockdowns in the UK and across the world with 18.5% of young people aged 15-24, unemployed across EU, 40% in Spain (European Parliament Study, 2021), and 14.9% in the UK (House of Commons Library, 2023). Although, the employment rates are showing some recovery, research shows that youth unemployment has delayed long-term negative impacts on future well-being, health and job satisfaction of individuals. It increases young people’s chances of being unemployed in later years and carry a wage penalty (Bell and Blanchflower, 2011). Young people (15-24 year olds) are also more likely to work part time, often not out of choice (Pay Rise Campaign 2015), are at higher risk of ‘in-work poverty’ (Hick and Lanau 2018), more likely to be employed in low-paid and insecure jobs (across OECD countries). In the UK, labour market disadvantage is coupled with the rising cost of higher education and crucially the tightening of social security conditionality through Welfare Reform (since 2012) which could be linked to a drop in eligible young people claiming welfare support (Wells 2018). A vast body of literature has emerged in the West on youth policies and the nature of welfare state (Esping-Andersen 1990; Taylor-Gooby 2004; Wallace and Bendit 2009; Pierson 2011). It, however, remains silent on the crucial question of devolution. This ESRC funded research examines the impact of devolution on welfare provision and the sub-state welfare regimes in the UK in the focused context of youth unemployment. The project is progressing in three phases (Wave 1: 2020-21 / Wave 2: 2022-23). Wave1 identified, categorised and compared scales and types of civil society involvement in youth unemployment policy between the three devolved nations of the UK: England, Scotland and Wales. In doing so examined the implications of these differences for both youth unemployment provision and devolved policy arrangements. It has provided an internationally salient analysis located in the global phenomenon of state reconfiguration, the emergence of sub-state welfare regimes and the adoption of welfare pluralism. The research found that devolved social policy in Scotland and, to a lesser extent, Wales goes some way to mitigating the work first policy approach emanating from Westminster. Crucial to this are the key points of convergence and contention between devolved (education) and non-devolved (welfare) areas of youth employment policy on the ground (Pearce and Lagana 2023). The way in which these key points of policy tension play-out in key institutional areas like Jobcentre Plus, is the focus of the second phase of project. Wave 2 focused on ground level sites of service delivery (2022-2023). Research shows that the policy structures and the perceptions of frontline staff about the policy provisions and people claiming them, shape the nature, attitudes and processes of service delivery, and have implications for service claimants and unemployment addressal (Cagliesi and Hawkes 2015; Fletcher 2011; Fletcher and Redman 2022; Rosenthal and Peccei 2006). This phase of project was a more in-depth, critical and comparative examination of the way policy plays out on the ground through a systematic investigation of the perspectives of frontline staff interacting with the young people, in the specific context of devolution. We interviewed frontline staff in England, Scotland and Wales to study how policy is perceived and translated on ground level at the sites of service delivery in these three devolved nations from the following five categories: 1). Work Coaches (Jobcentre Plus- All ages) 2). Youth Employability Coaches (Jobcentre Plus- Young People) 3). Additional Work Coaches (Youth Hubs) 4). Careers Wales / Fair Start / National Careers Service Advisers 5). Civil Society job advisers (CWVYS/Skills Development Scotland /Youth Employment UK) This research will continue to take advantage of the UK’s unique, asymmetrical devolved arrangements to address the identified gap in research examining youth (un)employment under devolved systems of governance. The broader aim is to critique the notion of 'one UK welfare state' and, in doing so, progress our understanding of the impact of decentralisation, devolution and territorial rescaling on welfare state formation across Western Europe.