transitions in the south waikato labour market: an ethnographic study

3. WELFAREJust a small proportion of those interviewed received some form of welfare during thestudy period. Their experiences were predominantly in relation to the DPB, thoughone man was unemployed for six months. Being heavily involved in a sport, he hadquit his job and travelled to another region to train and compete during this time. Heseems to have been able to secure a benefit whilst doing this, but said little about thecircumstances. At the end of the season, he got full-time work with little difficulty.Two of the women who received the DPB also had some additional experiences inrelation to the UEB. One received this benefit for about six months after losing afactory job. She spent this time doing two training programmes for the unemployed(as outlined earlier in this report) before finding she was pregnant. As she becamequite ill during this time, she stopped looking for work and went to live with herpartner when the child was born. Though she, personally, stopped receiving a benefitat this point, because he was unemployed, the family continued to be supported by theUEB. Since they had separated before she was interviewed – hence her receipt of theDPB – the husband’s experiences of unemployment cannot be considered. She onlymade brief references to this time, finding it quite a struggle financially. So much sothat, despite having a new-born, she tried unsuccessfully to get work herself.I had [my son] and [my husband] wasn’t working at the time and I waswanting to have a stable income because we were on the benefit.When one of the other recipients of the DPB reconstituted a relationship, her partnerwas unemployed so this family was also supported for a time through the UEB. Inorder to cope financially, she carried on with part-time work she had been involved inwhilst a single parent. Given that these people offer the predominant and most detailedexperiences of welfare, the focus of this section now turns to the experiences of thosewho received the DPB.(i)Domestic Purposes BenefitFour women and one man received the DPB during the study period, all as the resultof the break-up of their marriages or relationships. Movement onto this benefit hadbeen quite recent for three of the women when they were interviewed. The otherwoman and the man had both moved off this benefit during the study period, the manafter just under a year, and the woman after nine and a half years (five of which predatedthe study period). She was the woman, noted above, who had reconstituted herrelationship. The man was able to stop receiving the DPB after getting work.Life on the DPB was, for this group, a difficult time. As she had also spent timereceiving the UEB, this woman felt that people’s general attitudes towardsbeneficiaries were quite poor.I think [people] need to lighten up a bit on the beneficiaries and making iteasier. It’s not easy.This sense of struggle was echoed by others. Though this woman supplemented herincome with a boarder, it was still a difficult time.20