Download Panel session 3: Liberalisation, dualisation or integration?

RECONCILING WORK
AND WELFARE IN
EUROPE
Panel session 3:
Liberalisation, dualization or integration?
Activation and Labour Market
Reforms in Europe –
Challenges to Social Citizenship
Sigrid Betzelt, Silke Bothfeld
1
What is meant by activation?
Activation strategies include reforms in at
least 3 policy fields:
1. Unemployment protection systems: new
conditionality, lower benefits (shorter
durations)
2. Labour law: flexibilisation, deregulation
3. Active labour market policies: targeting
measures, work test or tailor-made
support?
What is social citizenship (or better:
a social citizenship regime)?
• A bundle of normative ideas about the citizens’
(social) rights & obligations and the State’s
responsibility
• Normative and institutional constructions of
membership (in individual, social and political
terms)
• (Institutional) modes which govern the substance
of State’s social security provision and
membership
Why focusing on social citizenship?
Our hypotheses
A. Ongoing change is more fundamental than
pure institutional analyses suggest
B. We assume that basic notions of the
“European” Social Citizenship regime change:
• the degree of the citizens’ individual autonomy which is
(or shall be) protected by labour law & social rights
• the relative position of citizens, i.e. social status order
(membership)
• governance modes and power relations on the micro &
macro level
The Social Citizenship Regime:
Substance & Governance
AUTONOMY
Individual dimension
Social dimension
Political dimension
The
individual’s
disposition
Identity/ Affiliation
(‘sense of belonging’)
Mutuality/ Reflexivity
Commitment and
Participation
Objective of
public
intervention
Protection from humiliation/
oppression/ poverty
Protection from nonrespect, unfair treatment
Protection from
marginalization
(justice)
(equality)
(social cohesion)
Policy criteria
Shaping the QUALITY of
benefits and services
Regulating ACCESS and
social STATUS
Encouraging
PARTICIPATION and
COMMITMENT
Mechanisms
and tools
(selected
examples)
Providing ‘generous’/poor
social security benefits and
services
promoting high/low quality of
labour market integration
Opening/constraining
Enforcement, hierarchical
access to universal benefits
attribution
and services
contracts
Differentiating groups
guarantee of transparency
according to criteria which
comprehensibility
are difficult to meet
co-determination
Analytical framework (& examples)
Policy
Fields/
CRITERIA
Labour market
regulation
Active labour
market policies
Unemployment
protection system
QUALITY
Growth of atypical
work (-)
ALMP measures as
work tests (-)
Cuts in benefits (-)
Minimum standards
(+)
Tailor-made
programmes (+)
Provision of
adequate benefits (+)
Atypical work as a
trap (-)
Enforced
participation (-)
Constrained access
(-)
… as a stepping
stone (+)
Universalised
access to almp
measures (+)
Universalisation of
benefit scheme (+)
Direct & indirect
deregulation (-)
Client segmentation
(-)
Uncontrollable
discretion (-)
„Negotiated“
flexibility (+)
One-stop-agencies
(+)
Reliability and
transparency of
conditions (+)
ACCESS /
STATUS
PARTICIPATION &
COMMITMENT
An explorative approach
What is the impact of activation strategies
in terms of quality, access/ status and
participation and commitment?
Case studies identify and analyse instruments
and policies which represent typical features of
the respective countries’ activation strategy.
They illustrate institutional change (output) as well
as impact on the citizens’ life situation
(outcome).
e.g. UK lone parents, DK immigrants, D: all employees and
unemployed, NL: social assistance recipients etc.
Results
negative
Labour market
regulation
Active labour
market policies
Unemployment
protection system
D, ES, F, IT
D, DK
D, DK, ES, IT
D, ES, IT
D, DK, UK
D, DK, UK
D?
D?, DK?, UK?
F
D, ES, F
D, DK, F, NL, N
D, NL
N?
N?
positive
QUALITY
ACCESS /
STATUS
PARTICIPATION
ES, F, UK
Observations for Germany
negative
Labour market
regulation
Active labour
market policies
Unemployment
protection system
Rise of atypical
and precarious
employment
Cuts of ALMP
Increased use of
work tests
Cuts in benefits
Low wage
employment and
mini-jobs as a trap
Enforced
participation
Status segmentation
(UB I & II)
Stricter family
subsidiarity
Targeting
(young, elderly)
Universal UB II
benefit
Client
segmentation
Lack of transparency
and reliability
positive
QUALITY
ACCESS /
STATUS
PARTICIPATION
Redefinition of
acceptable jobs
Liberalisation, dualisation or integration?
How to interpret changes in labour market
and social policies over the last decades?
• no liberalisation, but deregulation of LM, combined with
stronger role of the state in controlling & standardising
individual behaviour
• dualisation on the one hand, but simultaneously erosion
of core employment status –
changes do not only affect periphery!
• integration: employment as major integration
mechanism, but without granted level of social rights
(segmentation)
 rising tensions in several dimensions of employment
societies: Erosion of social status order
Outcome: Rising Tensions
1. Equality – Diversity: Universal Adult Worker
Norm affects individual self-determination &
respect
migrants in DK, lone mothers in UK, women generally
2. Core – Periphery: Erosion of employment status
blurring boundaries (D, F) or re-enforced ‘old’ dividing lines (IT, ES)
3. Standardisation – Individualisation: new
instruments & governance of social citizenship
decentralisation, contractualisation affect citizen’s participation,
choice & voice