Work, Welfare and Mental Health: Transitions Over Time

This project uses qualitative longitudinal methodology to explore transitions between work and welfare benefits over time, for people who have experience of mental health problems.

A large and ever-growing body of literature reports the harmful mental health effects of UK welfare reforms over the past two decades, and the particularly distressing experiences for those with existing mental health problems. Meanwhile, government welfare-to-work policies and initiatives over this period have had little effect on reducing the numbers of people receiving welfare benefits due to mental health problems.

This study seeks to provide in-depth, real-world and multifaceted qualitative evidence on how people with experience of mental health problems move between welfare and work, what are the key influences on change and what are the significant enablers and barriers.

We will enhance the extant evidence base by taking a more critical approach to concepts of mental health, and by inviting participant-led accounts that take a life course and lifeworld perspective on experiences of work-welfare transitions. Our approach will unpack and privilege subjective interpretations of mental health, and take a holistic approach to causal explanations of work-welfare transitions. By tracking transitions into and out of work over time, we will also deliver insights into the role of precarious and insecure work and one of the most recent and contentious strands of welfare reform policy, in-work conditionality for those claiming Universal Credit.