You can go your own way! The long-term effectiveness of a self-employment programme for welfare recipients in Germany

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Wolff ◽  
Anton Nivorozhkin ◽  
Stefan Bernhard
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Self Employment

Turkish Muslims in a German city: Entrepreneurial and residential self-determination

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Sarah Hackett
Keyword(s):  
Residential Patterns ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
German City ◽  
Post War ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Term Objective

Drawing upon a collection of oral history interviews, this paper offers an insight into entrepreneurial and residential patterns and behaviour amongst Turkish Muslims in the German city of Bremen. The academic literature has traditionally argued that Turkish migrants in Germany have been pushed into self-employment, low-quality housing and segregated neighbourhoods as a result of discrimination, and poor employment and housing opportunities. Yet the interviews reveal the extent to which Bremen’s Turkish Muslims’ performances and experiences have overwhelmingly been the consequences of personal choices and ambitions. For many of the city’s Turkish Muslim entrepreneurs, self-employment had been a long-term objective, and they have succeeded in establishing and running their businesses in the manner they choose with regards to location and clientele, for example. Similarly, interviewees stressed the way in which they were able to shape their housing experiences by opting which districts of the city to live in and by purchasing property. On the whole, they perceive their entrepreneurial and residential practices as both consequences and mediums of success, integration and a loyalty to the city of Bremen. The findings are contextualised within the wider debate regarding the long-term legacy of Germany’s post-war guest-worker system and its position as a “country of immigration”.

scholarly journals Solo self-employment, entrepreneurial subjectivity and the security–precarity continuum: Evidence from private tutors in the supplementary education industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110092
Author(s):  
Sarah L Holloway ◽  
Helena Pimlott-Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Choice ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Development Economic ◽  
Long Term Outcomes ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Supplementary Education ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Education Industry

Entrepreneurship is regarded by policy makers and politicians as an accelerant for economic development. Economic geography demonstrates that rather than stimulating entrepreneurship in general, policy makers should support specific forms of entrepreneurship that fuel wider growth. The paper's original contribution is to insist that entrepreneurship research must also explore less growth-oriented, but crucially very widespread, forms of entrepreneurial activity. The paper therefore places solo self-employment – the self-employed without employees – centre stage as an exemplar of this trend. Research is presented on private tutors who run businesses from home, offering children one-to-one tuition in the burgeoning supplementary education industry. The paper scrutinises the causes, configuration and consequences of such solo self-employment as an economically marginal, but numerically dominant, form of entrepreneurship. In so doing, it makes three conceptual advances in the exploration of heterogeneous entrepreneurship. First, in examining why individuals become self-employed, the paper moves beyond classic efforts to understand entrepreneurship through binary push/pull mechanisms in models of occupational choice. Instead, the analysis demonstrates the importance of risk in entrepreneurship and paid employment, highlighting the multiple pathways into solo self-employment as opportunities and constraints coalesce in individual's lives. Secondly, in considering how the solo self-employed think about business, the research breaks through conventional definitions of entrepreneurship to demonstrate that solo self-employment involves a distinctively entrepreneurial subjectivity and practices. Thirdly, by investigating the consequences of solo self-employment, the findings transcend dualist interpretations of self-employment as the realm of entrepreneurial wealth or economic precarity, highlighting instead a security–precarity continuum in immediate and long-term outcomes.

Sustainability of Microbusinesses and Success of Microfinance

Paradigm ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105
Author(s):  
Aradhana Chouksey ◽  
Yamini Karmarkar
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
Fixed Capital Investment ◽  
Training Need ◽  
Funding Resource ◽  
Selection Of

Emergence of microfinance facilities has raised self-employment opportunities for the disadvantaged group. There are many small and micro entrepreneurs who have started their business with funding support from microfinance agencies. Though this increased funding resource has increased the number of businesses that are started by entrepreneurs in rural areas, another important fact is that all these new businesses are not necessarily successful. In Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh (MP), only 20 per cent of businesses funded by microfinance agencies are profitable. There are multiple reasons behind this lack of success of microenterprises. There are paucity of information in selection of right opportunity, absence of technical assistance, lack of business knowledge and marketing and finance skills, which are few of them. This is an alarming sign for funding agencies as higher failure rate of microenterprises bound to jeopardize, the sustainability of the microfinance in long term and retard the development of region. This research conducted on microenterprises of Malwa region of MP tries to identify the specific training needs of microfinance clients. Further, this research tries to evaluate empirically what are the potential and sustainable microbusiness opportunities, which can be started and run by people of disadvantage groups. Empirical findings through a survey designed on a sample of 54 microenterprises of eight villages of Malwa region show that any microbusiness having higher ratio of working capital to fixed capital investment are successful in Malwa region. Also, it is found that the most important training need of these enterprises is in the field of ‘managing finance’ for small business.

scholarly journals Emotional Compliance and Emotion as Resistance: Shame and Anger among the Long-Term Unemployed

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 794-811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Peterie ◽  
Gaby Ramia ◽  
Greg Marston ◽  
Roger Patulny
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Policy Tools ◽  
Sociology Of Emotions ◽  
Unemployed People ◽  
Everyday Resistance ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
Emotional Resistance ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Important Form

Contemporary governments employ a range of policy tools to ‘activate’ the unemployed to look for work. Framing unemployment as a consequence of personal shortcoming, these policies incentivise the unemployed to become ‘productive’ members of society. While Foucault’s governmentality framework has been used to foreground the operation of power within these policies, ‘job-seeker’ resistance has received less attention. In particular, forms of emotional resistance have rarely been studied. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 80 unemployed welfare recipients in Australia, this article shows that many unemployed people internalise activation’s discourses of personal failure, experiencing shame and worthlessness as a result. It also reveals, however, that a significant minority reject this framing and the ‘feeling rules’ it implies, expressing not shame but anger regarding their circumstances. Bringing together insights from resistance studies and the sociology of emotions, this article argues that ‘job-seeker’ anger should be recognised as an important form of ‘everyday resistance’.

scholarly journals Factors Welfare Recipients View Significant to Become Self-Sufficient

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Lucson Francois
Keyword(s):  
Community Service ◽  
Vocational Training ◽  
Computer Software ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Housing Assistance ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Social Work Research ◽  
The Government ◽  
Depth Interviews

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of welfare recipients regarding factors significant to becoming self-sufficient in Southeast Florida. The study took a qualitative approach, administering in-depth interviews to 20 current welfare clients. To ensure valid and reliable results, a computer software program known as QSR NVivo 10 was utilized for the accurate coding of responses. Findings in the study suggest that benefits, such as child care, transportation, Medicaid, subsidized employment, housing assistance, and vocational training provided by the government are significant in helping welfare recipients successfully transition from relying on the governmental assistance to obtaining reliable employment with the ultimate goal of becoming self-sufficient; however, their perception differs from policy makers in terms of the benefits provided by the government and how those benefits should be provided. Participants reported that the most helpful programs to their becoming successful were subsidized employment and vocational training. They believed the programs should be redesigned to focus on clients’ success. They believed community service did not help them achieve their long- term goal of becoming independent. Implications for social work research and practice are suggested.

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