The sociology of unemployment is an analysis of the experience and governance of unemployment. By considering unemployment as more than just the absence of work, the book explores unemployment as a distinctive experience created by the welfare state. Each chapter explores an aspect of the experience or governance of unemployment, beginning with how people talk about their experience of being unemployed, individually and collectively, then moving on to the places of unemployment, and the processes, policies and forms of the social welfare system. Clear explanations of classic theories are...

Unemployment is not just the absence of work; it is a distinctive experience created by the welfare state. The sociology of unemployment challenges the 'deprivation theory of unemployment' which dominates sociology, psychology and social policy, by focusing on how governmental power forms the experience of unemployment. Governmentality theory is the key perspective, integrating subjective experience and state intervention into a single analysis, and, furthermore, pointing out that unemployment could be governed differently.

The sociology of unemployment is both an introductory text on the...