Activation Policies in Sweden: “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue”

Two sides of the coin – Domestic violence survivors’ expectations of financial support and social workers’ expectations of survivors within the social assistance system

“…Social workers work within a system that stigmatizes the most marginalized people in Swedish society (Köhler, Thorén, and Ulmestig 2008;Van Aerschot 2011). Social workers have great discretionary powers but also scarce resources and high workloads (Thorén 2008;Van Aerschot 2011).…”

“…Thus social assistance in Sweden functions as a final safety net for the most marginalized in society, which increases stigmatization in comparison to countries where all citizens share the same duties and rights within a single system for all citizens Researchers have highlighted how an old 'poor-law' discourse still influences the social assistance system in Sweden, categorizing people as either 'deserving' or 'undeserving' (e.g. Panican and Ulmestig 2016; Köhler, Thorén, and Ulmestig 2008;Thorén 2008). However, Sweden is a country with high legitimacy for welfare and the universal welfare system also ensures that all citizens are offered, for example, free child care and schooling.…”

“…Therefore, both the social workers processing applications and the welfare office exercise considerable discretionary powers with regard to legislation. There are significant variations between municipalities in all aspects of how legislation is interpreted (Köhler, Thorén, and Ulmestig 2008;Thorén 2008) and also, to some degree, between different social workers in the same municipality (Byberg 2002;Stranz 2007). Social assistance applications are processed by social workers with a university degree, predominately in social work.…”

Youth Unemployment, Ageing and Regional Welfare: The Regional Labour Market Policy Response to Ageing in Sweden

“…The Lisbon Strategy aimed at full employment and the strengthening of social cohesion by 2010 (european Commission 2004a, b)� Since then, specific targets have been defined on overall employment rates (70%), employment rates of women (60%) and employment rates of older workers (50%) (european Commission 2005)� inevitably the Lisbon Strategy failed to reach its ambiguous targets because it did not have any clear instruments to reach the targets (Cantillon, 2010)� its successor, the Europe 2020 Strategy, targets to achieve an employment rate of 75% by 2020 (european Commission, 2010a)� in order to meet these challenges, the eu has to raise employment rates especially for women, young and older workers by focusing on four key priorities (european Commission, 2010b)� Some of the prioritised issues are to avoid early exits from the labour market and promote older labour to learn new skills� The nordic Cooperation Programme on Labour Market andWorking Environment 2005-2008 aimed at increasing female and older people's employment rates in order to reduce the outflow from labour markets (nordisk Ministerråd, 2005)� The programme did not reach its goals� despite this programme, the nordic countries have not included matching instruments or approaches in respect of current and future challenges in the labour market (rauhut and Kahila, 2008)� The present programme, Nordic Cooperation on Working Life 2009-2012, focuses on advancing employment, labour market policy, the working environment and labour law to favour women and older persons (nordisk Ministerråd, 2008)� The present order should be protected in this programme instead of promoting adjustment (Kahila and rauhut, 2009)� Sweden has a long tradition of active labour market policies which have been implemented side by side with the development of the welfare state (junestav, 2007)� it however lacks a comprehensive strategy to advance the labour market situation of ageing people, and the policies have thus far developed almost solely in relation to the different incentives related to welfare services (Kangas et al�, 2010)� The policies have targeted the general development of the labour market and upgrading skills across the labour force in order to achieve full employment in the country� a number of important steps have been taken in relation to improving the labour market participation of older workers (Finansdepartementet, 2007)� These incentives should however be reinforced and targeted on the demand side in the labour market (oeCd, 2003b)� Several reforms have taken place over the last ten years in the Swedish labour market� reforms have abandoned vocational training and subsidised programmes so that unemployed will have more personal responsibility in terms of finding a new job� also, they now have to face a number of new 'activation requirements' in return for receiving income support from the state (Köhler et al�, 2008)� The present labour market policy targets two specific groups: (1) long-term sick who have been transferred from the sickness insurance and are denied further benefits from the sickness insurance and (2) newly arrived immigrants who need to be introduced at the Swedish labour market; unemployed young adults are not prioritised� The only programme for them is 'jobbgrantin'� 3 Furthermore, the programmes to improve employability are either national or local (arbetsförmedlingen, 2011)� The programmes to improve employability f...…”

The Politics of Labour Market Activation: Employability, Exclusion and Active Citizenship

“…Studying policy changes in Sweden is particularly interesting, considering the strong social democratic legacy of the Swedish welfare model, which formerly enabled scholars to typify Sweden as an exemplary egalitarian and inclusive welfare state. Yet, what was previously a politically embedded "right to work" that was societally guaranteed -and underpinned by generous welfare provisions in circumstances when that right was societally withheld or not delivered upon -has become a duty over the last decades in which the burden of obligation has been progressively shifted from the wider society to the individual, as the Swedish welfare model has been redefined towards a more liberal model emphasising individual autonomy, initiative and freedom of choice (Jacobsson, 2004;Hörnqvist, 2007;Köhler, Thorén and Ulmestig, 2008;Bonoli and Natali, 2011).…”