Spatially-concentrated worklessness and neighbourhood policies: experiences from New Labour in England

The persistence and entrenchment of spatial concentrations of worklessness is a key characteristic of labour markets in advanced industrial economies. Understanding the causes of worklessness concentrated within particular neighbourhoods requires linking together an understanding of wider processes of labour market restructuring with the operation of various negative cycles that reinforce patterns of persistent worklessness. Such cycles are particularly rooted within person and household factors and the overall population mix, and are compounded by the operation of housing markets and neighbourhood effects. This chapter considers the precise role of neighbourhood effects in relation to the wider causes of concentrated worklessness and then considers the development and effectiveness of work-related neighbourhood policies. Through an examination of the extensive set of employment related initiatives developed under successive New Labour governments in relation to deprived neighbourhoods, this chapter considers the aims, outcomes and effectiveness of these initiatives and identifies the factors that constrained the ability of this policy agenda to transform the employment fortunes of England‟s most deprived neighbourhoods.

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an chapter published in Neighbourhood effects or neighbourhood based problems? A policy context. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6695-2_3