Medicine, Faculty of
Non UBC
Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, Department of
DSpace
Societies 10 (3): 65 (2020)
Aldrich, Rebecca M.
Rudman, Debbie Laliberte
Park, Na Eon (Esther)
Huot, Suzanne
Inquiries that rely on temporal framings to demarcate long-term unemployment risk generating partial understandings and grounding unrealistic policy solutions. In contrast, this four-phase two-context study aimed to generate complex understandings of post-recession long-term unemployment in North America. Grounded in a critical occupational perspective, this collaborative ethnographic study also drew on street-level bureaucracy and governmentality perspectives to understand how social policies and discursive constructions shaped people’s everyday ‘doing’ within the arena of long-term unemployment. Across three phases, study methods included interviews with 15 organizational stakeholders who oversaw employment support services; interviews, participant observations, and focus groups with 18 people who provided front-line employment support services; and interviews, participant observations, time diaries, and occupational mapping with 23 people who self-identified as being long-term unemployed. We draw on selected interviews and mapping data to illustrate how participants’ definitions and experiences of long-term unemployment reflected and moved beyond dominant temporally based framings. These findings reinforce the need to expand the dominant conceptualizations of long-term unemployment that shape scholarly inquiries and policy responses. Reflections on the benefits and challenges of this study’s design also reinforce the need to use multiple, flexible methods to center the complexity of long-term unemployment as it is experienced in everyday life.
societiesArticleCentering the Complexity of Long-TermUnemployment: Lessons Learned from a CriticalOccupational Science InquiryRebecca M. Aldrich 1,* , Debbie Laliberte Rudman 2 , Na Eon (Esther) Park 1 andSuzanne Huot 31 Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of Southern California,Los Angeles, CA 90008, USA; naeonpar@usc.edu2 Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada; drudman@uwo.ca3 Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of British Columbia,Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada; suzanne.huot@ubc.ca* Correspondence: rebecca.aldrich@chan.usc.eduReceived: 11 August 2020; Accepted: 7 September 2020; Published: 11 September 2020Abstract: Inquiries that rely on temporal framings to demarcate long-term unemployment risk generatingpartial understandings and grounding unrealistic policy solutions. In contrast, this four-phase two-contextstudy aimed to generate complex understandings of post-recession long-term unemployment inNorth America. Grounded in a critical occupational perspective, this collaborative ethnographicstudy also drew on street-level bureaucracy and governmentality perspectives to understand howsocial policies and discursive constructions shaped people’s everyday ‘doing’ within the arenaof long-term unemployment. Across three phases, study methods included interviews with 15organizational stakeholders who oversaw employment support services; interviews, participantobservations, and focus groups with 18 people who provided front-line employment support services;and interviews, participant observations, time diaries, and occupational mapping with 23 people whoself-identified as being long-term unemployed. We draw on selected interviews and mapping data toillustrate how participants’ definitions and experiences of long-term unemployment reflected andmoved beyond dominant temporally based framings. These findings reinforce the need to expandthe dominant conceptualizations of long-term unemployment that shape scholarly inquiries andpolicy responses. Reflections on the benefits and challenges of this study’s design also reinforce theneed to use multiple, flexible methods to center the complexity of long-term unemployment as it isexperienced in everyday life.Keywords: long-term unemployment; critical occupational perspective; methods1. IntroductionDuring and following the 2008 recession, the increased prevalence and persistence of long-termunemployment [1–4] reignited discussions about the adequacy of dominant economic classificationsfor informing governmental statistical and policy approaches [1,4–15]. The International LabourOrganization [16] defines long-term unemployment as being without formal paid employment forat least one year despite an active job search in the past four weeks. Critical commentary highlightshow this definition underestimates long-term unemployment by creating an oversimplified dichotomy,one that demarcates people as in or out of work based on temporal markers and the active natureof job-seeking activities. Such a dichotomy masks ‘hidden unemployment’ experiences whereinpeople vacillate between a lack of paid work, underemployment, and cyclical engagement in insecureemployment. Inquiries that rely on dichotomous, rigid, or reductionistic definitions and categories ofSocieties 2020, 10, 65; doi:10.3390/soc10030065 www.mdpi.com/journal/societiesSocieties 2020, 10, 65 2 of 22long-term unemployment risk failing to capture the scope and complexity of this social problem; in turn,such inquiries can only offer a partial basis for informing policy solutions that aim to address people’sexperiences with long-term unemployment. By limiting who ‘counts’ as long-term unemployed,inquiries and policies also risk contributing to the further marginalization of people outside full-time,sustained engagement in the formal labor force.Within this context of persistent long-term unemployment and debates about the adequacyof temporally based economic classifications, the study described herein aimed to illuminate thecomplex character and implications of contemporary long-term unemployment in North America.In recognition of the blurred boundaries between unemployment, underemployment, precariousemployment, and long-term unemployment, the study aimed to move beyond a basis in dominanttemporal classifications. Instead, it generated grounded conceptualizations to illuminate long-termunemployment as “an entire social process related to joblessness” [12] (p. 35) that people navigate andnegotiate every day [17]. The study utilized a critical perspective developed within the discipline ofoccupational science [18,19] to explore how discursive constructions and concrete conditions shapedeveryday ‘doing’ in relation to long-term unemployment. Departing from common understandings of‘occupation’ as solely referencing work, the international discipline of occupational science focuseson the range of ‘doings’ that constitute people’s lives and routines, including but not restricted towork (broadly conceived), caregiving, household maintenance, resource management, leisure, and rest.In turn, a critical occupational perspective underscores the influence of expectations about howpeople ought–and ought not–to engage in occupations based on their intersectional identities [20],social positions, and circumstances, with particular attention to how such expectations are shaped bywider sociopolitical systems and structures [21].In situations of unemployment specifically, people are subject to explicit and implicit expectationsabout the ways they should and should not spend their time; these expectations manifest directlyin benefit and support systems such as employment/unemployment insurance and job counseling.In many contemporary societies, activity expectations within these systems often derive from abroader neoliberal emphasis on individual responsibility and activation. This neoliberal emphasisprioritizes activities and decisions that enhance marketability and facilitate rapid (re)employment,such as engagement in skill-building workshops, acceptance of precarious employment, and activejob-seeking [22–29]. However, compliance with activity expectations does not guarantee escape fromthe problems associated with long-term unemployment, given labor market changes, persistent formsof discrimination, and other systemic barriers to sustainable employment [30]. Moreover, in line withan occupational perspective, employment-related activities comprise only part of what people need todo to survive and support themselves, their families, and their communities as they navigate everydaylife. Thus, this study aimed to center and highlight the complexity and full range of occupationalengagements that comprise daily life as a means of more fully illuminating the nature of contemporarylong-term unemployment.This paper presents selected findings to problematize limitations placed on what and whocounts and is addressed within services, policies, and inquiries on long-term unemployment. After abrief description of the study’s design and methods, the paper presents three sets of findings:participant-generated definitions and descriptions of long-term unemployment; stakeholder and serviceprovider perspectives on how various definitions enter into their work; and participant-generatedmaps of their lived experiences of long-term unemployment. These findings complement existingethnographic accounts of unemployment [14], and by demonstrating the connection between groundedconceptualizations and concrete lived realities of long-term unemployment, they extend critiquesadvanced in sociological and anthropological literature. Our discussion focuses on the need for anexpanded conceptualization of long-term unemployment and highlights how methodological choicesbased on a commitment to centering complexity and everyday occupations illuminated understandingsand phenomena that might otherwise have remained invisible. The paper ends with a critical discussionSocieties 2020, 10, 65 3 of 22of the policy implications and conceptual and methodological challenges associated with investigatingthe contemporary production and complex experience of long-term unemployment.2. Materials and Methods2.1. Theoretical UnderpinningsTo understand how long-term unemployment is shaped, navigated, and negotiated in contemporaryNorth American contexts, this study drew on three theoretical foundations. First, a governmentalityperspective [31,32] based on the work of Foucault [33] helped illustrate how particular ways of doingcome to be shaped as ‘ideal‘ or ‘non-ideal’ for particular types of subjects (e.g., active job seeking andself-marketing are idealized for ‘the unemployed’), and how technologies of governance circulateidealized subjectivities and practices through discursively framed social policies and service provisionprocesses (e.g., activation-based job counseling services). We drew on a governmentality perspective todeconstruct how the market-ethos and individualism at the center of neoliberal rationality are drawnupon to govern the conduct of the unemployed. In particular, we used this perspective to foregroundhow neoliberal rationality seeks to activate self-governing entrepreneurial subjects, who are seen asdriven to optimize their marketability in alignment with the needs and aims of the labor market [28,34].Our inquiry focused on the impact of this narrow conceptualization of entrepreneurial beings asmobilized through neoliberal discourses and policy changes, specifically how the individualizationof responsibility for the social problem of unemployment obscures socio-political barriers to itsresolution [18,34–36]. Second, we drew on the notion of street-level bureaucracy [37], which framesservice provision interactions as sites of governance and front-line service providers as people who‘make’ policy through their everyday work. This perspective helped us understand how everydayneeds for resource seeking [38] to make ends meet during long-term unemployment brought peopleinto direct contact with structures of governance (e.g., front-line service providers), which in turnshaped their broader behavior in alignment with idealized subject positions (e.g., activated job-seeker).Third, we drew on the critical occupational perspective described above to focus on the occupationalimplications of long-term unemployment vis-a-vis people’s complex negotiations of human andnon-human influences on everyday life [30,39,40]. A critical occupational perspective begins from theassumption that people are occupational beings who need to engage in a variety of occupations–notjust work–to survive and thrive as individuals and members of collectives. The critical framing ofthis perspective uses various critical social theories (such as governmentality, decolonial, and feministtheories, for example) to illustrate how taken-for-granted assumptions and power structures shapeaccess to and engagement in the occupations that constitute life [19,21]. Overall, our combinedtheoretical foundations in governmentality, street-level bureaucracy, and critical occupational sciencehelped us examine how neoliberal activity expectations, as mobilized through social policies andenacted in street-level bureaucracies, shaped the ways that people thought about and participated indiverse occupations in relation to long-term unemployment. These theoretical foundations also helpedus explore tensions that arose when narrow neoliberal conceptualizations of people as entrepreneurialbeings failed to acknowledge the full complexity of people’s lived experiences as occupational beings.2.2. Study DesignThis study utilized a collaborative ethnographic approach [41] in partnership with an internationalnon-profit organization. We generated data in two mid-sized cities–one in the United States and one inCanada–between 2014 and 2016 and engaged in knowledge mobilization activities through mid-2018.Across the first three study phases, methods included interviews with organizational stakeholders whooversaw employment support services; interviews, participant observations, and focus groups withpeople who provided front-line employment support services; and interviews, participant observations,time diaries [42], and/or occupational mapping [43] with people who self-identified as being long-termunemployed (See Figure 1).Societies 2020, 10, 65 4 of 22Societies 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 22 Figure 1. Study design. 2.3. Participant Recruitment and Demographics We purposively recruited participants for phases I and II from agencies that provided employment supports and related services in each study context. We recruited Phase III participants from similar agencies through flyers, presentations, and snowball sampling through word-of-mouth, using an approach that relied on participants’ self-identification as long-term unemployed to avoid undue exclusion that might result from the imposition of a standard definition. Table 1 illustrates the agency affiliations and lengths of professional experience for participants in Phases I and II, and Table 2 lists demographic and un/employment information for Phase III participants along with the study methods in which they participated. Table 1. Phases I and II participant information. Context Phase Alias Organization Type Length of Experience in Arena at Time of Interview Canada I Michael Regional business development organization 18 years Canada I Kim Provincially funded employment support and training services 1 year Canada I Victoria Municipal social services 40 years Canada I Alyssa/Lindsey Provincial employment support and training services 28 years/20 years Figure 1. Study design.2.3. Participant Recruitment and DemographicsWe purposively recruited participants for phases I and II from agencies that provided employmentsupports and related services in each study context. We recruited Phase III participants from similaragencies through flyers, presentations, and snowball sampling through word-of-mouth, using anapproach that relied on participants’ self-identification as long-term unemployed to avoid undueexclusion that might result from the imposition of a standard definition. Table 1 illustrates the agencyaffiliations and lengths of professional experience for participants in Phases I and II, and Table 2 listsdemographic and un/employment information for Phase III participants along with the study methodsin which they participated.Societies 2020, 10, 65 5 of 22Table 1. Phases I and II participant information.Context Phase Alias Organization Type Length of Experience inArena at Time of InterviewCanada I Michael Regional business development organization 18 yearsCanada I Kim Provincially funded employment supportand training services 1 yearCanada I Victoria Municipal social services 40 yearsCanada I Alyssa/Lindsey Provincial employment support and trainingservices 28 years/20 yearsCanada I Zack Provincial ministry of training and education 10 yearsCanada I Ria Regional employment advisory board 12 yearsCanada I Jenna Provincially funded employment supportand training services 6 yearsUnitedStates I Charlie Community college training program 11 yearsUnitedStates I Nick Municipal social services 3 monthsUnitedStates I Brian et al.Municipal/State employment support andtraining services Varied (group interview)UnitedStates I CatherineMunicipal/State employment support andtraining services 15 yearsUnitedStates I JenniferMunicipal/State employment support andtraining services 7 yearsUnitedStates I Andrea Regional training and resource center 11 yearsUnitedStates I CarterMunicipal/State workforce developmentservices 10 yearsUnitedStates I JoeNon-profit community organization forimmigrants 6 yearsCanada II Emily Provincially funded employment supportand training services (community based) 24 yearsCanada II Sarah Provincially funded employment supportand training services (community based) 5 yearsCanada II Dwight Provincially funded employment supportand training services (community based) 10 yearsCanada II CourtneyProvincially funded employment supportand training services (connected with localcollege)5 yearsCanada II HillaryProvincially funded employment supportand training services (connected with localcollege)3 yearsCanada II Natalie Provincially funded employment supportand training services (community based) 3 yearsCanada II Jerry Provincially funded employment supportand training services (community based)Unspecified (observationsession only)Canada II Kate Provincially funded employment supportand training services (community based) 22 yearsCanada II KevinProvincially funded employment supportand training services (connected with localcollege)5 yearsCanada II NicoleProvincially funded employment supportand training services (connected with localcollege)15 yearsCanada II Megan Provincially funded employment supportand training services (community based) 20 yearsCanada II Teresa Provincially funded employment supportand training services (community based) 9 yearsSocieties 2020, 10, 65 6 of 22Table 1. Cont.Context Phase Alias Organization Type Length of Experience inArena at Time of InterviewUnitedStates II MarieNon-profit employment services for domesticviolence survivors 5 yearsUnitedStates II TomNon-profit employment services for peoplewith disabilities 10 monthsUnitedStates II BreeNon-profit employment services for culturalgroups 26 yearsUnitedStates II ErinNon-profit employment services forimmigrants 1 yearUnitedStates II LizMunicipal/State employment services forwelfare recipients 12 yearsUnitedStates II TaylorNon-profit employment services forimmigrants 3 monthsUnitedStates II JohnNon-profit employment services forcommunity welfare recipients 5 monthsTable 2. Phase III participant information.Context Alias Age Gender PartnershipStatusLength ofUnemploy-MentPrior WorkSectorsData CollectionCompletedCanada George 40s Male Single 7 years ICT servicesNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Time Diaries,Occupational MappingCanada Darcy 50s Female Single 12 years Admin. MBA Narrative Interview,Semi-Structured InterviewCanada Helene 50s Female Partnered 5 years Admin.Narrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Time Diaries,Occupational MappingCanada Audrey 28–30 Female Partnered 5 years Social ServicesNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Participant ObservationCanada Trevor 38 Male Single 4 years Chef servicesNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Time DiariesCanada Peggy 50s Female Single 5 years RetailNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Time Diaries,Occupational MappingCanada Jesse 30s Male Partnered 3 years Labor/machineryOilsandsNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Time Diaries,Occupational MappingCanada Mark 58 Male Single 5 years ManufacturingNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Time Diaries,Occupational MappingCanada Jennifer 30s Female Partnered 4 years Admin.Narrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Time Diaries, ParticipantObservationCanada Colin 30s Male Single 6 years Services(cook/dishwashing)Narrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Participant Observation,Time DiariesSocieties 2020, 10, 65 7 of 22Table 2. Cont.Context Alias Age Gender PartnershipStatusLength ofUnemploy-MentPrior WorkSectorsData CollectionCompletedCanada Pam 50s Female Single 5 years + Artist/graphicdesigner/researchNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Time Diaries,Occupational MappingCanada Paul 26 Male Partnered 5 yearsService(restaurants; waitstaff/dishwashing)Narrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Time DiariesUnitedStates Cole 30s Female Single 6 monthsMortgageLending, OfficeAdmin.Narrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Time DiariesUnitedStates John 30s Male Single 4.5 yearsAutomotiveRepair, IllicitEconomyNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Time DiariesUnitedStates Dori 40s Female Married 5 yearsService Economy(Gas Station/DeliAttendant, ExoticDancing)Narrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Time DiariesUnitedStates Skip 50s Male Single 10 yearsLandscaping,Horse Training,RestaurantNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Participant ObservationUnitedStates Julia 50s Female Single 1 year CommunicationsNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Time DiariesUnitedStates Bella 50s Female Single 2 yearsSoftwareDevelopment andTeachingNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Time DiariesUnitedStates Scott 50s Male Married 1 year Business LendingNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Participant Observation,Time DiariesUnitedStates Lucy 50s Female Single 6 months Event LogisticsNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Participant ObservationUnitedStates Maria 40s Female Single 3 years EngineeringNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Time DiariesUnitedStates Cynthia 50s Female Married 7 months Human ResourcesNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Participant Observation,Time DiariesUnitedStates Debra 30s Female Single 5 years CleaningNarrative Interview,Semi-Structured Interview,Occupational Mapping,Time Diaries2.4. Description of MethodsWithin this article, we draw on selected data to elucidate how various types of participantsunderstood and defined long-term unemployment, as well as how elements of those definitions werereflected in Phase III participants’ lived experiences of unemployment. Consequently, the followingdescriptions highlight individual and focus group interview and occupational mapping methodsSocieties 2020, 10, 65 8 of 22without detailing other study methods (e.g., critical discourse analysis of policy documents, participantobservation, and time diaries) that were less germane to this article’s purpose.Phase I. We conducted semi-structured interviews with stakeholders who were involved inestablishing and delivering employment support services in each context. These interviews helpedbuild a baseline for understanding how employment support services were organized in each studycontext, how service organizations had been shaped by policy changes since the 2008 recession,and how stakeholders defined long-term unemployment [44].Phase II. We conducted semi-structured and focus group interviews with people who providedfront-line services at support organizations. These interviews aimed to illuminate how participantsunderstood their professional role in relation to the problem of and solutions for long-termunemployment. In particular, we explored how service providers understood and defined long-termunemployment; what types of clients they perceived as ‘at risk’ for long-term unemployment; and whatfactors placed such clients ‘at risk’. Two focus group conversations–one among service providerswithin each study context and one that connected service providers across contexts–also provided anopportunity to discuss our emerging understandings and refine them based on Phase II participants’reflections and input.Phase III. Informed by what we learned in Phases I and II, we conducted individual narrative andsemi-structured interviews with people who received employment support services and self-identifiedas long-term unemployed. In addition to interviews, we asked Phase III participants to choose twodata collection methods from a list of possibilities, including participant observation, time diaries,and occupational mapping, to help us more fully understand the complexity of their lived experiences.This choice of methods reflected our commitment to the power-sharing intentions underlyingcollaborative ethnography [41], as well as our recognition that participants would have differentpreferences for representing their experiences. One of these methodological options, the occupationalmapping method [43] involved having participants visually represent the places they went in theirdaily lives. While drawing on a piece of paper, participants verbally described where they went,how they got there, why they went there, and what they did at each place. We audio-recorded thosedescriptions and transcribed them for later review alongside the participant-generated maps.See Appendix A for a list of Phase I, II, and III interview questions designed to elicit participants’definitions of long-term unemployment.2.5. Analytic ApproachesFor interview and focus group data, our recursive analytic process combined governmentalitytheory-informed critical discourse analysis with inductive approaches [45] to identify main linesof meaning expressed in relation to the definition and negotiation of long-term unemployment.We used Quirkos qualitative analysis software to systematically code interview and focus groupdata via descriptive, in vivo, and theoretically informed coding approaches. We generated initialdescriptive codes using themes from previous pilot research [30,39] and derived theoretical codesfrom our theoretical lens. We expanded and collapsed codes through the iterative coding process.For occupational mapping data, we identified a list of places and occupations that participantsrepresented on the maps and developed a series of open-ended analytic questions informed by ourtheoretical lens to facilitate reflexive and interpretive analysis of maps and corresponding transcripts(see [46] for further details). Our analysis began with a pre-defined list of 12 types of places and nineoccupational categories based on understandings developed through previous pilot research [30,39]and information obtained in narrative and semi-structured interviews with each participant. As ouriterative analysis of the 17 maps progressed, our list expanded to include 32 categories of places and 21categories of occupation. Once we coded the visual data, each researcher used the reflexive guide toidentify key elements of each map, which facilitated later comparisons across participants and studycontexts. In this paper, we integrate four participants’ maps to illustrate the heterogeneity of everydayexperiences across similar durations of unemployment in the United States and Canada. We highlightSocieties 2020, 10, 65 9 of 22two female participants from each study context, all of whom reported being unemployed for fiveyears. This duration of unemployment was most frequently reported across participants (n = 8).2.6. Ethical PermissionsAll study elements (design, methods, and analytic approaches) were granted university ethicsboard approval in the respective study contexts. We utilize aliases throughout the presentation of thefindings below.3. FindingsWe begin by sharing findings from semi-structured individual and focus group interviews inwhich we asked participants about their definitions of long-term unemployment. In responding toour questions, participants across Phases I, II, and III provided definitions that highlighted temporal,labor force, financial, and emotional aspects of long-term unemployment. Some program managersand service providers also suggested that people who experience long-term unemployment should bethe ones defining the phenomenon, recognizing that it is situated in the complex interaction of theaforementioned aspects. These data disrupt dominant approaches to defining long-term unemployment,pointing instead to the need for definitions that account for a variety of complex relationships.After illustrating aspects of participants’ definitions, we present other semi-structured individualand focus group interview data that address how front-line service providers incorporated varieddefinitions of long-term unemployment into their work. These findings address how service providersnegotiated differences between the official definitions of long-term unemployment that shaped theirprofessional work and the grounded and material aspects that defined their clients’ lives. These findingsillustrate the limited utility of temporally based definitions for the day-to-day work of front-line serviceprovision, as well as the restrictions that such definitions can place on clients’ broader service eligibility.Finally, we present selected occupational mapping data to illustrate the shape of everyday lifefor participants who identified as long-term unemployed. The occupational mapping data showhow dimensions of precarity and emotional changes intersected in participants’ lives. The visualrepresentations of this intersection via the occupational maps provide a way to understand how similardurations of long-term unemployment can be heterogeneous in important ways. These findingsreinforce the complexity and variability that participants’ on-the-ground definitions of long-termunemployment aimed to illuminate.3.1. Aspects of Participant Definitions3.1.1. Duration of UnemploymentDuration of time outside paid work is the primary feature of official unemployment definitions,and many participants across study phases used temporal markers in their own definitions of long-termunemployment. However, participants framed these temporal markers as variable and as needing tobe considered in light of other contextual aspects through which the absence of employment occurred.Among program managers and service providers, stated temporal markers ranged from twoweeks to several years, indicating that what makes a particular unemployment experience ‘long-term’ ismuch more variable than what official definitions stipulate. For example, Charlie, a program managerin the United States, said,I think that when we deal with the state on some of our programs, when they talk about long-termunemployment they talk about people who have exhausted their 26 weeks of eligibility of unemploymentcompensation which is now going down to 21 weeks or something... But I think that when we talkabout long-term unemployed just around here, when you talk about it, not in the context of specificeligibility requirements of a specific program, I think we’re talking about folks that were never morethan marginally attached to the labor force . . . So there’s sort of a technical definition, which we haveto adhere to in many cases, and then there’s the longer.Societies 2020, 10, 65 10 of 22Similarly, Steve, a program manager in the United States stated, “the definition from myunderstanding in [this state] is anything over 20 weeks. Federal government is 27 weeks . . . if you’relooking at providers, they’re talking about that cyclical job after job after job over a period of just likeyou said, multiple years.” Kevin, a Canadian service provider, added a more action-based element tohis temporal definition, describing clients as long-term unemployed when they “are doing everythingright. They are sending their resumes and interviews . . . [for] 6 months to a year.”Rather than referring directly to official temporal markers and seeking to redefine or expand them,participants who self-identified as being long-term unemployed referenced both the duration of theirjob-seeking activities and the impact of that duration on their sense of possibility for employmentand broader life. Skip, who had a varied work history in restaurant and landscaping industries inthe United States, said, “ . . . when a couple of months go by, then it’s pretty well given that there’snot, you know, going to be much happening.” Trevor, a former employee in the Canadian foodserviceindustry, said, “my idea of long-term unemployment was like a month, certainly not a year, and a–well,we’re going on almost three, almost four years now.” He defined long-term unemployment as occurring“when your employment situation starts negatively affecting your life. Not necessarily the lifestyle—Idon’t need a whole lot of stuff, but when it affects my ability to provide for my kids, provide basicneeds for myself.” Helene, who had a professional background as a case manager in Canada, said thatlong-term unemployment occurred between six months and one year in duration when “it’s gettingpretty desperate” and “it was just sort of constant not getting calls for interviews . . . it was a process.”Mark, who had a history of working in the Canadian manufacturing sector, simply said that “anyperiod of time where you get used to being unemployed” constitutes a ‘long-term’ situation.3.1.2. Patterns of Labor Force ParticipationBuilding on the above examples, participants often referenced cyclic unemployment,underemployment, precarious employment, and chronic unemployment in response to questionsabout how they defined and experienced long-term unemployment. These responses reflected anon-the-ground blurring of labor market distinctions, challenging characterizations that long-termunemployment ends whenever employment of any quality or sustainability is obtained.Sarah, an employment counselor from Canada, gave the following example: “I have one individualclient, this year alone I have closed and opened [their file] four separate times... even though they’reworking, that’s being unemployed. There’s no gainful employment. There’s no change to theircircumstance.” Similarly, Marie, a service provider in the United States, described “this chronic patternof getting positions and losing them . . . . even if they get a job and keep it for a few weeks or a couplemonths... it’s not sustaining them, their livelihood long-term.” Participants who identified as long-termunemployed noted a similar blurring between full-time sustaining work and movements in and out ofthe labor force. Bella, a former teacher in the United States, described her long-term unemployment asthe result of multiple firings and hirings: “when I first was unemployed—I actually got employeda couple months after that, but—you know, I kept getting laid off.” Likewise, George, a formerinformation technology worker in Canada, challenged the notion that any engagement in paid workresolved long-term unemployment, stating that “working four hours in a two-week period is definitelynot working-it’s just doing something during that time.”3.1.3. Financial PrecarityAcross study phases, participants touched on financial precarity as a defining element of long-termunemployment. Specifically, participants highlighted issues of access to, type, and adequacy of financialassistance and resources as determinants of unemployment being experienced as ‘long-term’.In Canada, Michael, a workforce program director, said, “long-term unemployment comes ata point where you have no form of . . . financial assistance” such as severance pay, unemploymentinsurance, or other income replacements. Jesse, who came from an industrial job background inCanada, defined his long-term unemployment as happening when he had no choice but to applySocieties 2020, 10, 65 11 of 22“for [welfare], which I never thought I’d have to in my life, that’s when I knew.” Moving away from afocus on government-funded financial assistance, Diane, a program manager from the United States,spoke more broadly about individual financial resources, stating:I know what we say long-term unemployed is but to the job seeker it would be anytime you can’t payyour bills, when you start losing your home and your cars, can’t put food on your table, can’t payyour utility bills. So that could be anywhere from three weeks or six weeks for some people.Dwight, an employment counselor in Canada, used a metaphor to describe the financial precaritythat often accompanies long-term unemployment: “...it’s walking the edge of the cliff for severalmonths at a time. You simply don’t have an ability to create a platform to stand on, so you’re rushingto the next small piece.” Likewise, Bree, a service provider in the United States, said that[Long-term unemployment] depends really upon the situation of the individual client, especially uponthat client’s financial situation. For some people, missing one or two paychecks can be catastrophic.For others, they’re content to wait until ‘the ideal job’ comes along.Dori, who had previously held a range of service economy jobs in the United States, shared similarideas based on her current unemployment experience:Long-term unemployment to me would be anything over a month. I look at it as anything that canput you in a position to where you’re possibly not going to be able to dig yourself out. You’re gonnahave to go through some super hard times before you can get back to where you were. I would say amonth, month and a half because that gives you enough time if you live paycheck to paycheck to kindof go, ‘Okay, well, now I haven’t been able to pay this bill.’Maria, who had been an engineer in the United States, described long-term unemployment as“digging into your savings, running low. And then you start digging into 401 K [retirement planholdings] and just . . . you’re getting lower and lower.”Interestingly, even participants who were not currently experiencing financial precarityacknowledged it as a salient element of long-term unemployment. Lucy, who had previouslyworked in student development in the United States, said,I would think being out of work with your resources becoming a concern, with your energy-I don’t knowif that’s the right word-I’m just looking at my colleagues and some of them are getting discouragedand things like that. I’m not at that point.Lucy’s definition of long-term unemployment was thus based not only on her own situation–whichshe described as momentarily stable due to her “frugal” nature–but also on the potential of what hersituation could become, in part based on what she saw happening in other people’s lives. Scott, a formerexecutive in the United States agricultural sector, was not in a financially precarious situation, but hewas beginning to see a future in which he would have to make difficult financial choices if he wasunable to find employment:I had saved a decent amount of money so we’re lucky enough to have that to fall back on, but again,as someone who saved a lot of money with the anticipation of using it for retirement, it’s not somethingI want to do.Thus, even for participants with more financial resources, the potential for eventual financialprecarity shaped their definitions of long-term unemployment. Several of these participants alsodescribed how their decisions to ensure their current stability–often by relying on savings orwithdrawing pension or retirement funds early–risked creating a more precarious future if theywere unable to recoup those financial losses through future employment.Societies 2020, 10, 65 12 of 223.1.4. Emotional ChangesMany participants spoke about emotional changes as a marker of a transition from beingunemployed to considering oneself long-term unemployed. Dwight, a Canadian employmentcounselor, described seeing “this cycle of precarious long-term unemployment where the client beginsto feel somewhat dejected. They turn into a little bit of Eeyore [a pessimistic character from thechildren’s book series Winnie the Pooh], ‘Oh, well, here we go again, got to job seek again.’ And itbecomes very routine.” This description mirrored Cole’s experience as a job seeker in the United Statesafter “six months into being unemployed, you kind of lose the momentum that you gain for lookingfor jobs or even just other opportunities.” Similarly, Audrey, who was hoping to find employment as acaseworker in Canada, defined long-term unemployment asSomeone who’s struggling . . . like you get so discouraged that you’re just at a point where, whyshould I try, you know? Like it’s, why am I going to keep sending our resumes, for what, to wastepaper? Like, I’m costing myself more money than anything. Like I’m at a point where I’m better off tosit at home on welfare now than to do anything which is sad.These sentiments reflected situations wherein people continued to seek employment despitefeelings of discouragement, thus maintaining their distinction from alternative measures of laborunderutilization that are commonly used to capture this phenomenon, such as the category of‘discouraged’ workers.Several participants also directly referenced emotional changes associated with the combinationof job search failures and financial precarity, such as Maria’s comment from the United States that“the definition of [long-term unemployment] is you becoming depressed. You becoming—you feelhelpless. It’s just the whole consuming-and plus there is fear for future [and] for the present, if youhave a family to feed and all these things.” John, a service provider in the United States, grouped all ofthe above elements together in his definition, describing as long-term unemployedPeople that fell out of the job market that has pretty much exhausted a lot of their resources, possiblypeople that have not redefined themselves or retooled themselves, or people that probably, I would say,just gave up on employment for a while, and probably hoping that the market gets better.3.1.5. Up to the IndividualFor some program managers and service providers, there were no fixed markers of long-termunemployment; the amalgamation of the above elements prompted people like Kim, a programmanager in Canada, to state, “I don’t have a definition for that, but . . . I just know it when I see it.”Jenna, another program manager in Canada, more bluntly stated, “Wow. Long-term unemployment isdefined by the individual’s perspective, not mine. I know that’s a loosey-goosey answer but that’s agood career practitioner’s answer.” Catherine, a program manager in the United States, pointed herdefinition to the variable ways in which unemployment impacts people, stating: “for instance, if I wasunemployed, two weeks would be long-term unemployed for me because I would be at the panic stageat two weeks . . . so it’s very individualized but I really think it’s the need of the job seeker that definesthe long-term unemployment.” Similarly, Ria, another program manager in Canada, stated, “if there’sa certain amount of time, I would say that would be self-defined . . . I have no idea how long is toolong to be unemployed . . . I suspect when a person says, ‘Enough is enough’ that’s probably the cutoffpoint.” Tom, a service provider in the United States, agreed, saying,It depends on each individual client . . . Long-term is kind of up to the individual, but I think it dependson their background, and their values, and their experience–what they consider long-term, versus us.For me, it might be 6 months, but I’ve had several clients who have had years of unemployment.Dwight, a service provider in Canada, elaborated on this idea, stating,Societies 2020, 10, 65 13 of 22The effects of long-term unemployment in terms of an economic or social status or in terms of justfeeling like a person, they vary from individual to individual. So it’s hard to define. It’s hard to havean empirical answer or a static answer to that because it’s so fluid.3.2. Definitional Variations and Service ProvisionThe above findings illustrate the multifaceted, situated, and dynamic nature of long-termunemployment as experienced by people who are jobless as well as professionals who provideemployment support services. The next set of findings, based on interview and focus group datafrom Phases I and II of the study, illustrate how both front-line service providers and stakeholdersnegotiated various definitions in their work. Overall, front-line service providers and stakeholdersexpressed varied perspectives about the impact of official unemployment definitions on their work.Their comments suggested that official definitions based solely on temporal markers did not fullydefine the scope of their work, however, their acknowledgment of official definitions demonstratesthat their work required negotiation of temporally based framings. Many comments from front-lineservice providers and stakeholders highlighted the contrast of temporally based framings with themore dynamic, fluid, and multifaceted nature of their clients’ experiences.Program managers and front-line service providers expressed varied views about the significanceof official definitions of long-term unemployment for their work. For example, Brian, an organizationalstakeholder in the United States described how different “funding buckets”—both governmentaland non-governmental—restricted service eligibility to clients who matched official definitions:“The funding bucket dictates, well, you got to be out 20 something weeks . . . you could . . . be fiveweeks and you walk in the door . . . we have to operate. We know what reality is but the policy putsus in a bucket.” The diversity of organizational affiliations for Phase I and II participants meant thatservice provision processes operated with more or less flexibility in relation to funding eligibilityrequirements. However, the notion that service provision operated in relation to official definitionswas something expressed by most stakeholders and service providers. For example, Charlie, anotherprogram manager in the United States, further noted the challenge of fitting clients’ situations andneeds to the official definitions that were used to determine service eligibility:To me, the most confusing part of this is how to differentiate between long-term unemployed, as inthose folks who were at some point in time had a strong attachment to the labor market and then lostthat attachment, versus those people that never had it . . . the folks that lack any kind of economicalopportunity . . . not all of those meet the eligibility definitions of the Department of Labor or some ofthe other funding agencies for that matter.In contrast, other Phase I and II participants stated that official definitions were part of the serviceprovision landscape but did not limit their service provision. Katie, a program manager in the UnitedStates said, “we meet folks where they are . . . we assess them and then we help them plan out howthey want to get where they want to go. So it doesn’t matter that you have been out 20 weeks, been outfor a day.” Likewise, Nicole, a manager in Canada, said[We] have a very client-centric model whereby the individual is in the driver’s seat, and we’recoaches and facilitators in helping them to document and then initiate their plan. So how long-termunemployment is defined, I don’t think it [impacts] service delivery because every single person is aunique employment action plan depending on a myriad of factors.Tom, a service provider in the United States, agreed that “whether the definition is consideredlong-term or short-term is irrelevant. I’m still going to provide the same services, probably about thesame level of services, and treat them the same because the objective is to become employed.” Marie,also a service provider in the United States, explained thatSocieties 2020, 10, 65 14 of 22A lot of service programs don’t advertise ‘This is for . . . long-term unemployed individuals.’ So ifsomeone needs help with a job, they’re just going to that agency or being referred in. So I don’t thinkit makes that big of a difference in terms of the service delivery portion of it.A reliance on client centeredness as a way to resolve the definitional conflict was evidentacross Phase I and II participants. Both Katie and Nicole framed their work in relation to clients’needs and complex circumstances regardless of the duration of unemployment. Likewise, Tom andMarie’s comments suggested that temporally based definitions had little actual utility for the workthey did when interacting with clients, even though such definitions impacted which clients mightbe directed to them in the first place. As street-level bureaucrats [37], these participants used theirdiscretion to determine how–or whether–they took up official temporally based definitions of long-termunemployment to guide their work with clients.Beyond their use of discretion, however, front-line service providers were also subject toperformance management pressures that relied on a dichotomous definition of clients as eitherbeing unemployed or in education, training, or work [44,47]. These pressures were expressed primarilyby Phase II participants from Canada, who spoke about tensions they experienced between doingwhat they thought was best for their clients and needing to “tick the box” for a positive client outcomewithin a specified time frame. This pressure to “make the numbers work” was based on a dichotomousview of clients as either ‘employed’ or ‘unemployed’, ignoring the variations and complexities thatdifferentially shaped clients’ experiences.3.3. Understanding Definitions Vis-À-Vis the Intersecting Factors that Shape Everyday Life duringLong-Term UnemploymentSince service providers recognized the importance of clients’ definitions and experiences oflong-term unemployment, we end with findings from one additional data source—occupationalmaps—to illustrate participants’ lived experiences of long-term unemployment. We present themaps as drawn by each participant, with particular location names redacted as needed to maintainconfidentiality. We present written descriptions along with the maps to describe the everyday situationsthat each participant navigated; these descriptions reflect information obtained through narrative,semi-structured, and mapping interviews in Phase III of the study.An initial analysis of four other participants’ occupational maps highlighted the intersectionof precarity and mobility in lived experiences of long-term unemployment [46]. Specifically, thisinitial analysis illustrated the salience of participants’ experience of financial precarity, which shapedparticipants’ mobilities in their communities and provided a window into the impacts of long-termunemployment on their daily lives. This initial analysis pushed us to analyze the current set of mapsin relation to the definitions that participants’ generated through the study’s interview methods.Thus, this section of findings links back to participants’ self-generated definitions and descriptionsof long-term unemployment, highlighting that the impact of unemployment on everyday life—notnecessarily the duration of unemployment or labor force participation alone–was what participantsframed as most relevant for considering what made their unemployment ‘long-term.’ Collectively,these examples illustrate that grouping people together based on duration of unemployment alonewould mask important variations in their respective experiences.Occupational MapsIn Canada, Audrey, who was in her late 20s and lived with her two young children, knew she wasfacing long-term unemployment when she “sent out 557 resumes and didn’t get one phone call . . .like that was my point of when my hope got sucked out of me.” Audrey was struggling to emergefrom the cycle of poverty in which she had spent much of her life, and her partner faced his ownstruggles with unemployment and work-related disability. This idea of struggling–both financially andemotionally–was central to Audrey’s definition and experience of long-term unemployment becauseher successful completion of a caseworker diploma program and countless skill-building workshopsSocieties 2020, 10, 65 15 of 22had so far failed to help her obtain sustainable employment. Audrey had moved to a more rural areawith the expectation that it would lower her family’s cost of living; however, because she resided rurally,Audrey received less welfare assistance than people who lived in the nearby city, and she was forcedto rely on her personal vehicle for transportation to meet her family’s needs. Audrey spent lots of timetraveling around the region to access needed services (see Figure 2 for details). Her map included fivedifferent cities and towns that she interconnected through a series of color-coded arrows, indicating herdaily travels (red lines) and job search activities (blue lines). In fact, rather than identifying activitieswithin the town in which she lived, Audrey simply drew a box to represent her home town, reflectingher description of the town as lacking in many basic resources, such as grocery stores. In addition totraveling twice a day to the nearby city to bring her children to and from school, Audrey also traveledto the city to do grocery shopping, participate in a support group for people living in poverty, meetwith a welfare program financial worker, and attend medical and dentist appointments as needed.Beyond this near-daily commute to and from the city, Audrey regularly visited three other townsto attend various appointments related to employment counseling and welfare benefits. Her mapwas dominated by those appointments, and it also had a strong focus on her travel to and from herchildren’s school, as well as the library and splash pad. Despite traveling to a number of differentmunicipalities, Audrey reported doing very few things in any given location. Her map essentiallyrevolved around places related to job seeking, obtaining welfare benefits, grocery shopping, medicalappointments, and parenting.Societies 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 15 of 22 Figure 2. Audrey’s map. In the United States, Debra, who was in her late 30s and resided alone, defined her unemployment as long-term because of the repeated health-related challenges she had faced in retaining a job. She stated, “I’ve been a diabetic for 19 years so I felt like, at one point I believed that maybe I’m not going to be able to take on a full-time job because of my health issues and I’ve tried before and I failed.” Although she had been working fairly consistently since graduating from high school, she reported that her health conditions “were always getting in the way” of her ability to remain employed for more than a year at a time. Debra did not “have any skills to work in an office or anything like that”, so she found it challenging to present herself as a viable candidate for jobs that met her physical needs in light of her health conditions. Debra noted that “It’s depressing and I don’t want to live my life that way and I believe God, that a higher power in me is wanting me to do better. I got to do better. I cannot allow my illness to keep holding me down. That’s not an excuse.” Like Audrey, Debra had been living in a cycle of poverty since childhood, and she had experienced homelessness before moving into transitional housing with the help of a local organization. Debra resided in a city and primarily utilized the bus for transportation. As shown in her map (see Figure 3 for details), Debra spent much of her time seeking resources and searching for employment. She commented, “I [am] searching. I walk the streets of downtown going to the library. I look for advertisements at [the grocery store]. I [will] be looking for job openings. I go to the library and check the Internet, Craigslist, all that kind of stuff. So yeah I [am] busy trying to seek and then if I’m not seeking that I’m looking for work and I get me some groceries, some canned goods, clothing, and if [not] that I go to [a non-profit organization], I attend their meditation classes and stuff that they have.” Her map included no locations for leisure activities and the only retail locations related to securing basic necessities such as food and medications. Figure 2. Audrey’s map.In the United States, Debra, who was in her late 30s and resided lone, defined her unemploymentas long-ter bec use of the repe ted health-related challenges she had faced in retaining a job.She stated, “I’ve been diabetic for 19 years so I felt like, t one point I believed that maybe I’m notgoing to be able to take n a full-time job because of y health issues and I’ve tried before and I failed.”Although she had been working fairly consistently since graduati g from high school, she reported thather health conditions “were always getting in the way” of her ability to remain employed for more thana year at a time. Debra did not “have any skills to work in an office or anything like that”, so she foundit challenging to present herself as a viable ca didate for jobs t at met her physical ee s in light of herSocieties 2020, 10, 65 16 of 22health conditions. Debra noted that “It’s depressing and I don’t want to live my life that way and Ibelieve God, that a higher power in me is wanting me to do better. I got to do better. I cannot allow myillness to keep holding me down. That’s not an excuse.” Like Audrey, Debra had been living in a cycleof poverty since childhood, and she had experienced homelessness before moving into transitionalhousing with the help of a local organization. Debra resided in a city and primarily utilized the bus fortransportation. As shown in her map (see Figure 3 for details), Debra spent much of her time seekingresources and searching for employment. She commented, “I [am] searching. I walk the streets ofdowntown going to the library. I look for advertisements at [the grocery store]. I [will] be lookingfor job openings. I go to the library and check the Internet, Craigslist, all that kind of stuff. So yeahI [am] busy trying to seek and then if I’m not seeking that I’m looking for work and I get me somegroceries, some canned goods, clothing, and if [not] that I go to [a non-profit organization], I attendtheir meditation classes and stuff that they have.” Her map included no locations for leisure activitiesand the only retail locations related to securing basic necessities such as food and medications.Societies 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 16 of 22 Figure 3. Debra’s map. Dori, who was in her 40s and lived with her husband and teenage son in the United States, came to see herself as long-term unemployed after three months of “serious looking” and “watching people around me get the employment that I thought that I would get.” Dori’s family was facing imminent eviction because she and her husband, who had also been unemployed for the past three months, owed thousands of dollars in back rent. This personal experience likely shaped Dori’s definition of long-term unemployment as “anything over a month. I look at it as anything that can put you in a position to where you’re possibly not going to be able to dig yourself out.” Dori described herself as “always the kind that worked 2–3 jobs” and she had also spent a number of years as a caretaker for family members, resulting in substantial gaps in her formal employment history. She also described having been “on and off” food stamps for most of her life and she was awaiting notification regarding her application for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. As she explained while drawing her map (see Figure 4), Dori tried to wade through feelings of hopelessness by sticking to a regular daily routine: “I take [my son to school]…and then I kinda clean the house up a little bit, jump in the shower, go over jobs on Craigslist, and then on Facebook-they’ve got some really good ones that they, anybody that sees a job, they put it on there—and if there’s any that fit for me then I’ll fill those out. And then we just go chase in the food pantries like, ‘Oh, who’s for today? Who’s for this?’ And then usually, I’m done with all that by like 2:00 and just hope and wait for callbacks…It’s just constantly stressing and looking and hustling trying to find a job and things to figure out what we’re gonna do to be able to eat and put food on the table for our kid and it’s exhausting.” Her map foregrounded her roles as a mother and household caretaker, highlighting destinations she took her son and the various neighborhood resources she accessed to keep her family afloat. Dori did not travel more than a few blocks in any direction from her home, with her furthest destinations located about a mile away; she described this travel radius as an intentional decision to conserve her family’s fuel resources. Figure 3. Debra’s map.Dori, who was in her 40s and lived with her husband and teenage son in the United States, came tosee herself as long-term unemployed after three months of “serious looking” and “watching peoplearound me get the employment that I thought that I would get.” Dori’s family was facing imminenteviction because she and her husband, who had also been unemployed for the past three months,owed thousands of dollars in back rent. This personal experience likely shaped Dori’s definition oflong-term unemployment as “anything over a month. I look at it as anything that can put you in aposition to where you’re possibly not going to be able to dig yourself out.” Dori described herself as“always the kind that worked 2–3 jobs” and she had also spent a number of years as a caretaker forfamily members, resulting in substantial gaps in her formal employment history. She also describedhaving been “on and off” food stamps for most of her life and she was awaiting notification regardingher application for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. As she explained while drawing hermap (see Figure 4), Dori tried to wade through feelings of hopelessness by sticking to a regular dailyroutine: “I take [my son to school] . . . and then I kinda clean the house up a little bit, jump in theSocieties 2020, 10, 65 17 of 22shower, go over jobs on Craigslist, and then on Facebook-they’ve got some really good ones that they,anybody that sees a job, they put it on there—and if there’s any that fit for me then I’ll fill those out.And then we just go chase in the food pantries like, ‘Oh, who’s for today? Who’s for this?’ And thenusually, I’m done with all that by like 2:00 and just hope and wait for callbacks . . . It’s just constantlystressing and looking and hustling trying to find a job and things to figure out what we’re gonna doto be able to eat and put food on the table for our kid and it’s exhausting.” Her map foregroundedher roles as a mother and household caretaker, highlighting destinations she took her son and thevarious neighborhood resources she accessed to keep her family afloat. Dori did not travel more than afew blocks in any direction from her home, with her furthest destinations located about a mile away;she described this travel radius as an intentional decision to conserve her family’s fuel resources.Societies 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 17 of 22 Figure 4. Dori’s map. Finally, Helene, who was in her late 50s and lived with her partner in Canada, reported that she came to see herself as long-term unemployed sometime between six months and one year into her unemployment, after “realizing this is a long process and not short-term because all my life up until then it was always pretty easy to get a job.” She received welfare assistance and her partner received an old-age pension, but they still struggled to make ends meet. She kept busy with volunteering and regularly babysitting her three grandchildren. Although Helene generally displayed good humor during her study interviews, she also conveyed marked frustration and described living with constant anxiety and disappointment due to her situation. She spoke at length about the impact of her age and visible physical frailty on her attempts to obtain employment. As her map illustrates (see Figure 5 for details), Helene relied on public transit and this reliance limited where she could seek work and attend various training. Most of her descriptions of her daily occupations centered on the limitations she experienced in relation to them, such as the time it took to travel via public transit, the lack of accessibility on public transit and at certain community destinations, and her lack of discretionary funds to do things with her grandchildren. Although her map did not list as many resource seeking sites as Dori and Debra’s maps, Helene’s overall descriptions of her activities and planning trips by geographical location indicated her persistent need to conserve her minimal resources. Figure 4. Dori’s map.Finally, Helene, who was in her late 50s and lived with her partner in Canada, reported that shecame to see herself as long-term unemployed sometime between six months and one year into herunemployment, after “realizing this is a long process and not short-term because all my life up untilthen it was always pretty easy to get a job.” She received welfare assistance and her partner receivedan old-age pension, but they still struggled to make ends meet. She kept busy with volunteering andregularly babysitting her three grandchildren. Although Helene generally displayed good humorduring her study interviews, she also conveyed marked frustration and described living with constantanxiety and disappointment due to her situation. She spoke at length about the impact of her age andvisible physical frailty on her attempts to obtain employment. As her map illustrates (see Figure 5for details), Helene relied on public transit and this reliance limited where she could seek work andattend various training. Most of her descriptions of her daily occupations centered on the limitationsshe experienced in relation to them, such as the time it took to travel via public transit, the lack ofaccessibility on public transit and at certain community destinations, and her lack of discretionaryfunds to do things with her grandchildren. Although her map did not list as many resource seekingSocieties 2020, 10, 65 18 of 22sites as Dori and Debra’s maps, Helene’s overall descriptions of her activities and planning trips bygeographical location indicated her persistent need to conserve her minimal resources.Societies 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 18 of 22 Figure 5. Helene’s map. 4. Discussion and Conclusions Taken together, these interview and mapping findings illustrate the complexity of long-term unemployment, both as it is experienced by people who are out of work and as it is framed and approached by people who provide supportive services to jobless individuals. The definitions and illustrations of daily life generated through this study show that similar durations of unemployment can be markedly diverse, even given shared concerns about financial precarity and associated emotional changes. Countering the neoliberal individualizing of unemployment, our findings illustrate that intersecting contextual and personal conditions, such as age, being a parent, transportation options, health of self and loved ones, social benefits, and other factors, shape how individuals experience and understand their situation as one of long-term unemployment. Although demarcating ‘unemployment’ from ‘long-term unemployment’ implies a temporal element, based on these findings, we question the salience of temporal duration as the sole marker of long-term unemployment because it unduly limits what and who ‘counts’ and is addressed within services, policies, and inquiries. Any one-size-fits-all approach that sets boundaries on long-term unemployment based on temporal duration alone excludes the varied aspects that constitute lived experiences, thus inevitably failing to support diverse needs for many people. In a neoliberal landscape, a key function of official definitions is to narrow the number of people eligible for services and supports to align with broader austerity goals [5,36,48]. Neoliberal framings of long-term unemployment that use temporal definitions to determine who is included and excluded from statistics and supportive services gloss over complexity and variation in an attempt to homogenize and individualize the problem. We intentionally designed our study so that it would build on participants’ own definitions of long-term unemployment and center the complexity of their experiences as conveyed through a focus on their occupations. Our analysis aimed to contextualize participants’ definitions within actual lived experiences and wider national and sociopolitical contexts. In making choices to privilege the complexity and nuance of long-term unemployment, we were able to illuminate understandings about the shaping of everyday life that might have remained invisible if we assumed that long-term unemployment was demarcated by temporal duration alone. In particular, our findings show how individualized activation approaches rooted in the notion of Figure 5. Helene’s map.4. Discussion and ConclusionsTaken together, these interview and mapping findings illustrate the co plexity of long-terune ploy ent, both as it is experienced by people who are out of work and as it is fra ed andapproached by people who provide supportive services to jobless individuals. The definitions andillustrations of daily life generated through this study show that si ilar durations of une ploy entcan be markedly diverse, even given shared concerns about financial precarity and associated emotionalchanges. Countering the neoliberal individualizing of unemployment, our findings illustrate thatintersecting contextual and personal conditions, such as age, being a parent, transportation options,health of self and loved ones, social benefits, and other factors, shape how individuals experience andunderstand their situation as one of long-term unemployment. Although demarcating ‘unemployment’from ‘long-term unemployment’ implies a temporal element, based on these findings, we question thesalience of temporal duration as the sole marker of long-term unemployment because it unduly limitswhat and who ‘counts’ and is addressed within services, policies, and inquiries. Any one-size-fits-allapproach that sets boundaries on long-term unemployment based on temporal duration alone excludesthe varied aspects that constitute lived experiences, thus inevitably failing to support diverse needs formany people.In a neoliberal landscape, a key function of official definitions is to narrow the number ofpeople eligible for services and supports to align with broader austerity goals [5,36,48]. Neoliberalframings of long-term unemployment that use temporal definitions to determine who is included andexcluded from statistics and supportive services gloss over complexity and variation in an attempt tohomogenize and individualize the problem. e intentionally designed our study so that it wouldbuild on participants’ own definitions of long-term unemployment and center the complexity of theirSocieties 2020, 10, 65 19 of 22experiences as conveyed through a focus on their occupations. Our analysis aimed to contextualizeparticipants’ definitions within actual lived experiences and wider national and sociopolitical contexts.In making choices to privilege the complexity and nuance of long-term unemployment, we wereable to illuminate understandings about the shaping of everyday life that might have remainedinvisible if we assumed that long-term unemployment was demarcated by temporal duration alone.In particular, our findings show how individualized activation approaches rooted in the notion ofpeople as entrepreneurial beings are limited in their ability to resolve long-term unemployment,given the varying intersections of personal and contextual influences that shape this phenomenon.One advantage of using a critical occupational perspective is that it linked participants’ currentdoing to their future becoming as occupational beings [49,50]. This perspective helped reveal thatlong-term unemployment is not just about the ‘now’ that is reflected in temporally based definitions,but also about the future, particularly in relation to precarity that might be both increasing andunending. We see this effort to center the complexity of long-term unemployment through multiple anddiverse occupation-focused methodological approaches as essential to charting future policy directions.As our findings show, temporally based definitions of long-term unemployment are abstracted fromthe conditions of everyday life and hold limited utility for people who are directly implicated in thearena of unemployment. These findings demonstrate the need for broader system changes, such as thecreation of more nuanced definitions that facilitate more flexible eligibility criteria, greater access tosupportive services, and income support systems that create a stable base for shifting beyond persistentprecarity. Future attempts to refine the definition of long-term unemployment will be best served bystarting from the lived experiences that related social policies aim to support.In making this assertion, we recognize the limitations that accompany our study. In basing ourrecruitment on participant-generated definitions of long-term unemployment and Phase III participants’own self-identification as ‘long-term unemployed’, we limited our abilities to make comparisons basedon shared demographic characteristics. In our effort to support Phase III study participants’ choice ofmethods, we also limited our collection of uniform data across participants. Likewise, the flexibilityof the mapping method we used in Phase III yielded participant maps that did not always elicit thesame kinds of data, making direct comparisons challenging. Despite the limitations that accompanythese study design and methodological choices, we believe they are far outweighed by the study’sability to be faithful to its collaborative ethnographic intent, which calls for researchers to continuallyinvite participants (as consultants) to share their expertise in ways that shape research questionsand processes.In summary, our findings illustrate that temporal markers do not fully encapsulate the experience oflong-term unemployment or provide useful guidance for how the problem of long-term unemploymentmight be resolved. Rather than focusing on the duration of unemployment, people’s patterns of laborforce participation, or broader dichotomous notions of people being ‘in’ or ‘out’ of work, solutions basedon people’s abilities to make ends meet, engage in everyday life, and generate a sense of possibility forthe future provide more fruitful grounds for ameliorating the impacts of long-term unemployment.Author Contributions: Conceptualization, R.M.A. and D.L.R.; methodology and analysis, R.M.A., D.L.R. andS.H.; investigation, R.M.A. and D.L.R.; project administration: D.L.R. and R.M.A.; data curation, R.M.A. and N.E.P.;writing–original draft preparation, R.M.A.; writing–review & editing, R.M.A., D.L.R., N.E.P. and S.H.; fundingacquisition, D.L.R., R.M.A. and S.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.Funding: This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Insight Grantnumber 435-2014-0847.Acknowledgments: We appreciate the contributions of participants across all phases of this study, as well as themany team members (co-investigators, post-doctoral fellows, trainees, and research assistants) who participatedin various stages of this project. We are grateful to Kasey Wagstaffe for her assistance with an earlier version ofthis manuscript.Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funder had no role in the design of the study;in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publishthe results.Societies 2020, 10, 65 20 of 22Appendix ATable A1. Interview Questions for Eliciting Definitions of Long-term Unemployment.Phase Participant Type Interview Question(s)I Organizational stakeholders From your perspective, how do you define long-term unemployment?II Front-line service providerBased on your experiences, how do you definelong-term unemployment?Reflecting on your experiences, what are the factors that seem to leadparticular clients to experience long-term unemployment?When in the process of working with a client, do you tend to identifyor know that the person is likely going to be facinglong-term unemployment?III Long-term unemployed peopleAt what point did you come to see yourself as experiencinglong-term unemployment?Was there a particular event or experience that made you think ofyour unemployment as long-term?How do you define long-term unemployment?References1. Burtless, G. 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Centering the Complexity of Long-Term Unemployment: Lessons Learned from a Critical Occupational Science Inquiry
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