Activation policies

Bringing the Jobless into Work An Introduction to Activation Policies... 

On the macro level, the effect of activation policies is largely mediated through the labour market environment, but activation strategies are designed to lower unemployment or non-employment, raise overall employment and improve the fiscal balance of the welfare state at least in the long run. Hence, increasing labour market entry and participation is the major concern of activation policies, and for this purpose options of unconditional benefit receipt for the working-age population are to be closed. 

From a comparative perspective, the combination of specific instruments and the intensity of actual application of different policy options can vary over time and across countries. Whereas integration contracts are a widely applied instrument in national activation policies, the prominence of enabling or demanding elements or the priority given to fiscal work incentives differs between countries and depends on the overall policy legacy. 

To counter this, activating policies can be designed to combine two elements that are expected to bring individual expectations in line with realistic options on the labour market. On the one hand, policies to increase job search activity and the probability of accepting a job, even a low-paid one, can be implemented. On the other hand, policies to raise individual employability and productivity can be used to make job searchers more attractive to potential employers. 

How to implement activation policies implications for the new welfare governance... 

When looking at national activation policies, we can see a clear tendency to widen the range of target groups and benefit schemes to be activated, but also a certain extent of convergence towards work first policies with less emphasis on human capital formation - even in the Scandinavian countries. Hence, looking only at unemployment insurance or social assistance would not provide a complete and comparable picture of current activation practices. 

Does activation succeed in bringing the jobless into work If so, under which conditions in terms of implementation, governance structures and labour market environment does activation work best Is there a general or context-specific pattern of viable activation strategies This volume tries to give answers to these research questions by bringing together country expertise with available empirical evidence on the outcomes of activation policies in real terms. 

The political logic of the shift towards activation and its evolution over time, in particular regarding the question whether activation policies are part of a coherent and explicit transformation of the welfare state or take place only in some policy fields... 

Activation policies in terms of changes in benefits, conditionality and enabling schemes... 

Activation Policies in Germany From Status Protection to Basic Income Support... 

Activation was reintroduced by the report of the Hartz Commission who made references to good practices at the national levels, e g. models of effective cooperation between BA and municipalities in selected Mozart projects, as well as international best practices and benchmarking of labour market performance and pohcies. Hence, the Hartz reforms focus was inspired by activating policies for the unemployed in other European countries that were perceived to be more success-fill in lowering unemployment such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands or Denmark (Bruttel and Kemmerling 2006 Eichhorst et al. 2001 Fleckenstein 2004). 

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