Understanding Workless People and Communities

A Literature Review

Ritchie H, Casebourne J, Rick J | Research Report DWPRR 255 | Department for Work and Pensions | May 2005

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This literature review firstly examines how psychosocial models are used to explain the effects that mass unemployment has on individuals. It then explores the concept of worklessness and the barriers faced by key groups of workless people.

The review moves on to examine, in turn, how worklessness can be understood at the individual level, the community level, and at the level of geographical concentrations of worklessness.