Is in-work poverty a low-wage or an unemployment problem, and is it the same problem all across Europe? Because of the definitional ambiguity, we really do not know. In this article, we use longitudinal European Union-Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data from 22 countries and derive a set of distinct clusters of labour market trajectories (LMTs) from information about monthly labour market position from a 36-month observation window and estimate in-work poverty risk for each LMT. The results show that in-work poverty is a problem that affects the self-employed and people in a marginal labour market position, that is, those who for different reasons move in and out of employment. Hence, in-work poverty is mainly an unemployment problem, not a low-wage problem. Besides the fact that the size of LMTs varies between countries, we also expected to find systematic country differences in the effect of LMTs. The analysis did not support that assumption.

Social investment (SI) is part of a strategy to modernize the European welfare states by focusing on human resource development throughout the life‐course, while ensuring financial sustainability. Recognizing that this strategy was only partially implemented by the EU member states prior to the financial and Eurozone crises, this article investigates whether reforms and expenditure patterns in labour market policy (LMP) have moved more towards or away from SI following the 2008 financial crisis. We use quantitative and qualitative data to investigate the degree to which there have been shifts in the SI aspects of LMPs in eight countries across four welfare state regimes. We also investigate which aspects of LMPs have been strengthened and which have been weakened, enabling us to make a nuanced assessment of labour market SIs across the EU in a period of permanent austerity. We find that although the eight countries under examination have different starting points, there is little evidence of increased SI‐orientation of LMPs. Upskilling, which is at the heart of SI, did not increase from 2004–08 to 2009–13, while incentive reinforcement and employment assistance – more about labour market entry and marketing of skills – grew in importance. If this trend continues across Europe, there is a risk that SI will become lost in translation and end up as a clearer neo‐liberal version of workfarism.

The article analyses Scandinavian activation policies through the study of Swedish and Danish labour market policies since the early 1990s. Active labour market policies have been an important component in the social investment policies of the Scandinavian countries, defined as ‘an active corner’ in Europe. In this study of the trajectories of Swedish and Danish labour market policies during the last two decades, I examined official documents and analysed OECD data on public expenditures on labour market programmes. The analysis shows that institutional change of activation policies has increasingly developed towards an incentive‐strengthening, work‐first approach. The policy development, specifically in the case of Sweden, is here conceptualised as demands on ‘standby‐ability’, a specific policy configuration of stricter work incentives, contractualisation of citizenships rights, less generous unemployment benefits and less costly forms of activation.

Economic globalization and political developments within the EU have put pressure upon trade unions to engage in cross-border cooperation. The most realistic step in the foreseeable future is transnational coordination of collective bargaining, but the process is still very much in its infancy. We use a web and postal survey of a large number of European trade unions to illuminate their current practices and their preferences for the future. The most common activity is exchange of information on collective agreements, followed by collaboration in training programmes for union representatives, and such cross-border cooperation primarily involves unions in manufacturing. Support for European collective bargaining is far from overwhelming, and unions are clearly divided on the idea of statutory minimum wages: this has rather strong support in Spain and Germany, but very little in Scandinavia.