Book Review: Disability Benefits, Welfare Reform and Employment Policy
| Author | Filip Bojić |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271401600305 |
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
European Jour nal of Social Sec urity, Volume 16 (2014), No. 3 277
BOOK REVIEWS
Colin Lindsay and Donald Houston (eds.), Disability Bene ts, Welfare Reform
and Employment Policy, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xv + 244 pp.,
ISBN 978–0-230–34 994–0 (hardcover)
Disability Bene ts, Welfare Reform and Employment Policy is one of the titles in the
important Palgrave Macmillan series and project, Work and Welfare in Europe, in
which a group of signi cant professors, researchers, sociologists, economists from
European universities and institutes try to provide, through detailed analysis and
academic debate, future perspec tives and useful answers to questions concerned w ith
the pr oblems of w ork and we lfare i n modern Europea n socie ties. I n thir teen ch apters,
this book examines one of the key problems of contemporary European society, that
of the very high number of disability bene ts claimants, placing special emphasis on
the United Kingdom, where the numbers of claimants have been rapidly increasing
in recent years.
One of the editors of this interesting book is Colin Lindsay, a senior lecturer
in human resource management at the University of Strathclyde, UK who has
had a signi cant research career in the area of labour market policies and welfare
reform, whose special research i nterests are on the relationship between health and
employability and recent policies to combat labour market inequalities. e second
ed it or is Don a ld Hou st on , a le ct ur er in ur ba n s tu d ie s at t he U ni ve rs it y o f St A nd rew s ,
UK, who has written many academic journal articles and reports spanning een
years on subjects including bene ts, unemployment and poor health. ese two
editors, together with a group of twenty further authors from various academic
disciplines, who specialise in the area of employment and disability bene ts, have
prepared a truly useful book for anyone interested in the reform of disability
bene ts.
e aim of the book is to promote measures wh ich will be useful for polic y makers
in reducing the number of disability bene t claimants. e problem of the high
number of people claiming disability bene ts in the UK has become more and more
serious over the decades. According to the authors, ‘at the start of 2012, more than
two and a half mi llion people of working age were out of work and claiming disabi lity
bene ts’. In the introductor y chapter, ‘Fit for work? Representations and Explanat ions
of the Disability Bene ts “Crisis” in t he UK and Beyond’, Lindsay and Houston lay out
the major aims of the book and t he research methods which are used, ex plaining that
the book ‘explores whether these policy responses are t for purpose by presenting
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