Benefit figures reveal stress on women workers
Women now make up almost half of those claiming incapacity benefit in an alarming sign of the growing stress on female workers, experts are warning.
Downing Street is drawing up plans for a crackdown on the sickness culture which has left almost three million Britons on long-term benefits, arguing that many have been left to languish and could be helped back to work.
Differences over tackling the sensitive issue were blamed last week for prompting the resignation of Andrew Smith, the former Work and Pensions Secretary.
Government figures show the traditional stereotype of incapacity benefit claimants - older men, invalided out of demanding manual jobs often during a recession - is out of date. While the number of men on incapacity benefit is falling, the number of women is rising: in 1995 only 32 per cent of claimants were female, but this has now risen to 40 per cent.
The figures have prompted fears that incapacity benefit is becoming a 'refuge' for women driven from the workplace by stress and intolerable pressure. A recent survey by Top Sante magazine found almost half of the working mothers questioned had taken time off for stress, and almost eight in 10 would go part-time or take a less demanding job if they could.
Katharine Rake, director of pressure group the Fawcett Society, said the figures suggested a 'pretty unhappy picture' for women, adding: 'Incapacity benefit was always in some ways a benefit of refuge that men would use when they ran out of other options, and I think it's probably becoming a refuge as well for women.'
'An awful lot of it is to do with mental ill health, reflecting stress at work.'
Claims for incapacity benefit citing stress-related illness, anxiety and depression have risen by more than a third since 1997. Women are statistically more likely than men to be diagnosed with depression, although experts are divided over whether it is genuinely more widespread among women or whether they are just more prepared than men to admit to the symptoms.
Kate Stanley, researcher for the Institute of Public Pol icy Research which is due to publish a blueprint for incapacity benefit reform in November, said the rise in working women had made more women eligible for the benefit. But she said the rising toll of stress and depression was also having an effect, and would dictate the strategy adopted to reduce benefit claims: 'It may be that women find it easier [than men] to say they are depressed: perhaps what we call what's wrong with us varies between genders.
'Women may be struggling with their work-life balance and finding it difficult [at work]. There are all kinds of possible explanations, but the thing about mental health is that it's even harder to assess than physical impairment,' she said.
The government is considering a number of options for reforming incapacity benefit, including setting a time limit on how long it can be claimed. Smith is understood to have been unhappy with such proposals, arguing instead for an expansion of pilot schemes he set up which require the long-term sick to have regular interviews with personal advisers trained to find them suitable work.
The scheme, however, is expensive and unlikely to provide a quick solution. But friends of Smith said it was the only system proven to work.
'You have got to think about whether it is wise to take benefit away from somebody after they have been on it for a certain period of time - you are cutting it at the point they really need it,' said one. 'What you want to be doing is intervening in the first year [of claiming] extensively in order to get people back on the right track.'
Chris Bryant, the Labour MP for the Rhondda, the sickness capital of the UK, where one in three people of working age are on incapacity benefit, said he supported a crackdown but would prefer to see the pilot schemes expanded, with the state intervening much earlier in a long term sickness absence.
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the rise in female claimants was likely to be down to a mix of more women coming into the workplace and a rise in single women.
Previously, women who gave up work for health reasons might be supported by their husbands, but increasingly they are sole breadwinners.
Gaby Hinsliff, chief political correspondent
Source: The Observer 12.09.04
Downing Street is drawing up plans for a crackdown on the sickness culture which has left almost three million Britons on long-term benefits, arguing that many have been left to languish and could be helped back to work.
Differences over tackling the sensitive issue were blamed last week for prompting the resignation of Andrew Smith, the former Work and Pensions Secretary.
Government figures show the traditional stereotype of incapacity benefit claimants - older men, invalided out of demanding manual jobs often during a recession - is out of date. While the number of men on incapacity benefit is falling, the number of women is rising: in 1995 only 32 per cent of claimants were female, but this has now risen to 40 per cent.
The figures have prompted fears that incapacity benefit is becoming a 'refuge' for women driven from the workplace by stress and intolerable pressure. A recent survey by Top Sante magazine found almost half of the working mothers questioned had taken time off for stress, and almost eight in 10 would go part-time or take a less demanding job if they could.
Katharine Rake, director of pressure group the Fawcett Society, said the figures suggested a 'pretty unhappy picture' for women, adding: 'Incapacity benefit was always in some ways a benefit of refuge that men would use when they ran out of other options, and I think it's probably becoming a refuge as well for women.'
'An awful lot of it is to do with mental ill health, reflecting stress at work.'
Claims for incapacity benefit citing stress-related illness, anxiety and depression have risen by more than a third since 1997. Women are statistically more likely than men to be diagnosed with depression, although experts are divided over whether it is genuinely more widespread among women or whether they are just more prepared than men to admit to the symptoms.
Kate Stanley, researcher for the Institute of Public Pol icy Research which is due to publish a blueprint for incapacity benefit reform in November, said the rise in working women had made more women eligible for the benefit. But she said the rising toll of stress and depression was also having an effect, and would dictate the strategy adopted to reduce benefit claims: 'It may be that women find it easier [than men] to say they are depressed: perhaps what we call what's wrong with us varies between genders.
'Women may be struggling with their work-life balance and finding it difficult [at work]. There are all kinds of possible explanations, but the thing about mental health is that it's even harder to assess than physical impairment,' she said.
The government is considering a number of options for reforming incapacity benefit, including setting a time limit on how long it can be claimed. Smith is understood to have been unhappy with such proposals, arguing instead for an expansion of pilot schemes he set up which require the long-term sick to have regular interviews with personal advisers trained to find them suitable work.
The scheme, however, is expensive and unlikely to provide a quick solution. But friends of Smith said it was the only system proven to work.
'You have got to think about whether it is wise to take benefit away from somebody after they have been on it for a certain period of time - you are cutting it at the point they really need it,' said one. 'What you want to be doing is intervening in the first year [of claiming] extensively in order to get people back on the right track.'
Chris Bryant, the Labour MP for the Rhondda, the sickness capital of the UK, where one in three people of working age are on incapacity benefit, said he supported a crackdown but would prefer to see the pilot schemes expanded, with the state intervening much earlier in a long term sickness absence.
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the rise in female claimants was likely to be down to a mix of more women coming into the workplace and a rise in single women.
Previously, women who gave up work for health reasons might be supported by their husbands, but increasingly they are sole breadwinners.
Gaby Hinsliff, chief political correspondent
Source: The Observer 12.09.04
posted by Carole Spiers @ Tuesday, September 14, 2004
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