In 2008, I wrote a paper, presented at the International Council of Social Welfare conference, that considered questions of mobility from low end jobs to better jobs and the role of welfare to work social policies in facilitating this transition especially for women.

The paper is of interest now because it refers to the pre GFC era of high economic and employment growth citing a range of highly creditable international and Australian sources.

As the Australian economy enters a new phase of ‘transition’ with predictions of higher unemployment, the findings of the paper suggest that there may be even fewer opportunities for upward job and social/economic mobility. Of course, there are also the concerns for those unemployed and their trajectories out of unemployment. The 2008 paper can be downloaded here:

VS ICSW paper

The paper was published in Global Crossroads in Social Welfare which I co-edited with Dr. Elieth Eyebiyi and Professor Peter Herrmann.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Global-Crossroads-Social-Welfare-Sozialp%C2%84dagogik/dp/3941482777