ANALYSIS: Is the welfare system really a "lifestyle choice" for early school leavers?
MINISTER FOR Social Protection Joan Burton has stoked up some hot-tempered debate over the past few days by her comments.
Just about everyone agrees living on welfare isn’t good for young people. All research shows that the longer a young person stays on welfare, the poorer their chances are later in life.
But Burton’s suggestion that there’s an element of choice about living on the dole has really raised the temperature of her political opponents.
Her constituency rival Joe Higgins was quick to label this an “arrogant insult” to a generation let down by a Government that was failing to create new jobs.
Sinn Féin went one better, comparing the Labour Minister’s comments to Margaret Thatcher’s attacks on welfare recipients in the 1980s.
But does independent research back up Burton’s claims?
First, research shows there is a significant problem with early school leaving. About 9,000 young people leave school every year before their Leaving Cert.
The sooner a young person drops out of education, the greater the chances of unemployment and low expectations, which can lead to poverty and even deeper social exclusion. This group could well become our lost generation.
The numbers leaving school have been steady since the mid-1990s – the only difference now is there are fewer jobs for early school leavers to walk into.
But is there anything to suggest young people are dropping out of school to live off the State?
The latest research doesn’t back up this part of Burton’s argument. Last year, the Economic and Social Research Institute published No Way Back, an in-depth study of early school leaving by Dr Delma Byrne and Prof Emer Smyth. It explored young people’s experiences across 12 different schools and followed up those who dropped out.
The reasons young people left school were surprising. They had less to do with welfare or even employment, for that matter. But they had much more to do with the education system itself.
Many early leavers were low achievers in school, developing negative views of school and teachers. In most cases, the decision to leave school was driven by a long-term process of disengaging from education: being late for school, being repeatedly absent and truanting.
Many simply hadn’t considered their next move. The decision was often driven by their negative experiences of school and just wanting to leave education.
“It was also evident that many of these young people were so keen to find employment that they would consider any job, rather than focusing on their interests and aspirations,” the report found. “Furthermore, there was some evidence that many of the young people we spoke to were unaware of the welfare benefits that they were entitled to, thus reducing their chances of benefiting from State support in terms of finance but also guidance.”
Overall, the study highlights the need to develop “engaging educational experiences” and pathways for young people at risk of early school leaving, given the huge costs involved.
Burton, clearly, was right in diagnosing the scale of the problem that early school leaving is creating for society. But the reasons why young people choose to opt out of the system appear much more complex than getting easy access to a welfare cheque.
