ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an introduction to issues of work and employment, considered mainly from the perspective of their impacts on and interrelationships with welfare, in both a broad and a narrow sense. This view – that work, employment, and social policy must be considered together in a comprehensive and universal approach to welfare – was fi rst clearly articulated by William Beveridge in his report on social insurance in 1942. Welfare and work are interrelated; work is a source of welfare and its
absence may be problematic, but work may in various ways threaten welfare, in a broad sense. Issues of remuneration, working conditions, equality, discrimination, and exclusion can be considered under this heading. A key issue is that of unemployment – involuntary exclusion from work – and how policy has evolved to deal with it; in particular, attention is focused on the slow emergence of what is known as ‘active labour market policy’ in the UK since the 1980s.
