ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the results of a postal questionnaire sent out to long-term unemployed people in West Belfast in December 1995. It examines the survey evidence for what happens to people once they become unemployed and the processes which shape whether they stay unemployed or not. The chapter focuses on the basic characteristics of the sample including household size, economic status and duration of unemployment. It provides a basic profile of one of the most economically marginalised sections of the workforce in Northern Ireland. The long-term unemployed postal sample was drawn from the claimant register of the unemployed in the relevant West Belfast wards at October 1995, but in order to stratify the sample, figures for July 1995 were used. The necessity or desirability of social security reforms which are centred on compulsion can be evaluated from the survey of long-term unemployed people in West Belfast.
