Study challenges claim that welfare assistance creates dependency

[Note added 12-17-15:   Somehow this post from two months ago has been picked up by social media or some mass distribution.   I am getting hundreds and hundreds of comments in response;  99% of them are generic responses that have nothing to do with the specific content of this blog but are obvious attempts to get me to visit their own blogs to build volume, or are advertising something they promote.

Unfortunately, because of the volume of comments flooding in, I cannot respond to those rare genuine comments and have had to mark all responses to this blog as "spam."  My apologies to people who have asked my advice on blog design or some tech question.   To those who are simply soliciting responses to build up your own volume, please do not waste your time or mine.  I will not respond to mass, generic comments.]

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The original post was written by Walter Einenkel for Huffington Post:

This past March a study was released by two sociologists, both of whom analyzed survey responses from 19,000 people through 18 European countries.

Sociologists Dr Kjetil van der Wel and Dr Knut Halvorsen examined responses to the statement 'I would enjoy having a paid job even if I did not need the money' put to the interviewees for the European Social Survey in 2010.
Their findings—while may be surprising to some—are not surprising around these parts:

The researchers, of Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway, found that the more a country paid to the unemployed or sick, and invested in employment schemes, the more likely its people were to agree with the statement, whether employed or not. They found that almost 80% of people in Norway, which pays the highest benefits of the 18 countries, agreed with the statement. By contrast in Estonia, one of least generous, only around 40% did.

They also found that the more a country involved itself in the labor market (see regulations) the more likely the people of that country would want to work even if they did not need to work out of financial necessity.

"This article concludes that there are few signs that groups with traditionally weaker bonds to the labour market are less motivated to work if they live in generous and activating welfare states. "The notion that big welfare states are associated with widespread cultures of dependency, or other adverse consequences of poor short term incentives to work, receives little support.

"On the contrary, employment commitment was much higher in all the studied groups in bigger welfare states. Hence, this study's findings support the welfare resources perspective over the welfare scepticism perspective."

For every mythologized "welfare queen," there are millions of people who just need a little help.