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Recent legislation in the Netherlands takes conditional welfare to a new level. Local welfare offices can now give benefit sanctions to welfare clients that ‘obstruct employment’ by their appearance. Through a qualitative and ethnographic study of aesthetic evaluation practices in Dutch welfare offices it is argued that: (1) an everyday aesthetic labour is pivotal in post-Fordist labour markets; (2) in times of precarization, this is so for unemployed as well as formally employed populations; (3) welfare clients are expected to give an aesthetic performance of work-readiness and adaptability; and (4) case managers use aesthetics as a pedagogy to achieve this readiness and adaptability. Aesthetic labour, it is then argued, is best conceptualized as a continuous, everyday, backstage labour for labour: a daily calibration for work contexts in flux.

Conceptions of poverty are important in understanding the way social inequality is constructed, reproduced and contested. The way non-poor people perceive poverty is especially important, since they are able to influence the lives of people through political decision making processes, access to employment and sources of respect. This article examines conceptions of poverty among Human Resource Managers and social workers. The central question is whether shared conceptions of poverty can be identified and which arguments are used to substantiate them. Furthermore, the influence of experience with poverty is taken into account by comparing conceptions of HR-managers with those of social workers, as the latter group encounters poverty more often in their professional life. Using Q-methodology, six conceptions of poverty are identified. These can be divided into two categories: conceptions that emphasize solidarity and conceptions that emphasize individual responsibility. Both types of conceptions are found among HR-managers as well as social workers. Ideas about responsibility for the causes of and solutions for poverty are central in the way this phenomenon is perceived. Additionally, professional experience with poverty does not seem to be of central importance.

Conceptions of poverty are important in understanding the way social inequality is constructed, reproduced and contested. The way non-poor people perceive poverty is especially important, since they are able to influence the lives of people through political decision making processes, access to employment and sources of respect. This article examines conceptions of poverty among Human Resource Managers and social workers. The central question is whether shared conceptions of poverty can be identified and which arguments are used to substantiate them. Furthermore, the influence of experience with poverty is taken into account by comparing conceptions of HR-managers with those of social workers, as the latter group encounters poverty more often in their professional life. Using Q-methodology, six conceptions of poverty are identified. These can be divided into two categories: conceptions that emphasize solidarity and conceptions that emphasize individual responsibility. Both types of conceptions are found among HR-managers as well as social workers. Ideas about responsibility for the causes of and solutions for poverty are central in the way this phenomenon is perceived. Additionally, professional experience with poverty does not seem to be of central importance.