Nat O'Connor: The ESRI withdrew a working paper today. The Irish Times reported that this was "unprecedented". However, another ESRI report (on waste incineration) was being "re-examined" by the ESRI last year, so it is not completely unheard of.
Working in a think-tank that also publishes discussion papers that are the author's sole responsibility, I have a certain sympathy for the ESRI's position. The whole point about working papers - and the Cost of Working piece was just that, not a 'report' as The Irish Times claims - is that they are open for discussion and debate, and there is an opportunity for new information and new analysis to influence the author's thinking before a final version is produced. Taken to a logical extreme, it is always possible that working papers in the social sciences are simply wrong. The margin of error in statistical analysis always allows for a few lemons. But this is not always obvious and we need the publication of more, and more diverse, analysis in Ireland, not less.
The pity about this brief storm is that the withdrawal of the paper will focus more attention on its uncertain conclusions than if it was quietly ignored. It's worth noting a couple of things about the paper. (I found a copy here: http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0612/esri_report.pdf).
First of all, the data is from the 2004/05 Household Budget Survey, at a time when we had practically full employment in Ireland. While the 'incentives' might seem to have made moving from welfare to work unattractive, the fact was that practically everyone was actually working and many people left welfare to take up employment. This somewhat deflates the central argument of the paper.
The paper rightly points out the fact that childcare costs are extremely high and that they - and other costs - are a barrier to people entering work. There is no doubt that there is a weight of evidence that people, especially women, are put off from entering the labour market because of the costs of childcare. People parenting alone are particularly affected by this.
But the paper does not examine other costs, and factors that offset these costs. For example, housing costs are a major factor. People who gain employment will lose Rent Supplement, whereas people living in local authority social housing can maintain their lower-than-average 'differential rent' when they gain employment. (Differential rent is not a bad thing, as cheaper rent makes it possible for some people to take lower paid employment). In other words, there are lots of major variables not examined in the paper that change the incentives about working.
Moreover, are economists better placed than psychologists to explain why people go to work? During the boom period, some people went to work for marginal benefit, when costs like childcare are factored in. However, people work in order to maintain social networks, for a sense of personal independence and for lots of other reasons. Looking only at a set of short-term cash 'incentives' won't tell the whole story.
Finally, there are other important factors to be examined. NERI point out that the ratio of people unemployed to job vacancies in Ireland is the second worse in the EU. In other words, there are far more people looking for work than there are jobs, and no amount of changing incentives is going to improve that. The real focus should be on boosting demand in the economy to generate more employment opportunities.
Dr Nat O'Connor @natpolicy
Nat O’Connor is lecturer in social policy in UCD’s School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice and part-time policy specialist at Age Action Ireland. Previously Director of TASC, Nat also led the research team in Dublin’s Homeless Agency.
He has taught politics and social policy since 1999. He has a PhD in Political Science from Trinity College Dublin and a MA in Political Science and Social Policy from the University of Dundee. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK), a member of the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) and chairperson of the Irish Social Policy Association (ISPA). You can find him on LinkedIn (natoconnor) and TwitterX @natpolicy
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