Chapter 13 Welfare to Work and the Organisation of Opportunity: European and American approaches from a British perspective
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Martin Evans
Abstract
The phrase ‘welfare to work’ describes policies that move people who claim out-ofwork social transfers into the labour market. But as use of the phrase has grown its precision has suffered. It is used cross-nationally to refer to schemes but often refers to very differently conceived and targeted programmes. The recent US influence on British policy-both in the adoption of the phrase itself and in policy design (for example, Deacon 1999, Walker 1998, Wilson et al. 1998) has been obvious but there are also European influences. The danger for policy analysis is that the term ‘welfare to work’ is used rhetorically by policy makers who can portray policy outcomes in simple headline terms, especially in the USA. This means that when their counterparts in other countries look abroad and draw conclusions about foreign policy performance they often do so without any requirement to confuse a politically simple message with complexities of fact and context.
Comparing policy design and implementation across different countries must get behind the rhetoric in order to understand what programmes apply to which target groups under what circumstances. This is often difficult because the different national policy contexts often mean that the ‘welfare’ target groups are not only different in composition but also have very different underlying entitlements to cash transfers. The word ‘welfare’ only refers to unemployed social assistance claimants in some countries while in others the term is wide enough to encompass social insurance claimants of both unemployment and invalidity benefits. This chapter uses a three-part categorisation of common elements of policy based on the phrase ‘welfare to work’ itself.
Abstract
The phrase ‘welfare to work’ describes policies that move people who claim out-ofwork social transfers into the labour market. But as use of the phrase has grown its precision has suffered. It is used cross-nationally to refer to schemes but often refers to very differently conceived and targeted programmes. The recent US influence on British policy-both in the adoption of the phrase itself and in policy design (for example, Deacon 1999, Walker 1998, Wilson et al. 1998) has been obvious but there are also European influences. The danger for policy analysis is that the term ‘welfare to work’ is used rhetorically by policy makers who can portray policy outcomes in simple headline terms, especially in the USA. This means that when their counterparts in other countries look abroad and draw conclusions about foreign policy performance they often do so without any requirement to confuse a politically simple message with complexities of fact and context.
Comparing policy design and implementation across different countries must get behind the rhetoric in order to understand what programmes apply to which target groups under what circumstances. This is often difficult because the different national policy contexts often mean that the ‘welfare’ target groups are not only different in composition but also have very different underlying entitlements to cash transfers. The word ‘welfare’ only refers to unemployed social assistance claimants in some countries while in others the term is wide enough to encompass social insurance claimants of both unemployment and invalidity benefits. This chapter uses a three-part categorisation of common elements of policy based on the phrase ‘welfare to work’ itself.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of Figures ix
- List of Tables x
- Notes on the Contributors xi
- Social Security in the New Millennium 1
-
Debates
- Rising Tides and Rusty Boats: Economic position of the poor in 1985-1995 15
- Popular Support for Social Security. A sociological perspective’ 33
- Non-Discriminating Social Policy? Policy scenarios for meeting needs without categorisation 53
- Equality, Employment, and State Social Policies: a gendered perspective 69
- Europeanisation and Decentralisation of Welfare ‘Safety Nets’ 88
-
Reforms
-
Reforms in Theoretical Perspective
- Beyond Retrenchment: four problems in current welfare state research and one suggestion how to overcome them 105
- Change without Challenge? Welfare states, social construction of challenge and dynamics of path dependency 121
-
Reforming Pension Systems
- Public Expenditure and Population Ageing: why families of nations are different 141
- Ageing and Public Pension Reforms in Western Europe and North America: patterns and politics 157
- The Redistributional Impact of a World Bank ‘Pension Regime’ 179
-
Activation Reforms
- Activating Welfare States. How social policies can promote employment 197
- Welfare to Work and the Organisation of Opportunity: European and American approaches from a British perspective 211
- Activating the Unemployed: the street-level implementation of UK policy 235
- Bibliography 251
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of Figures ix
- List of Tables x
- Notes on the Contributors xi
- Social Security in the New Millennium 1
-
Debates
- Rising Tides and Rusty Boats: Economic position of the poor in 1985-1995 15
- Popular Support for Social Security. A sociological perspective’ 33
- Non-Discriminating Social Policy? Policy scenarios for meeting needs without categorisation 53
- Equality, Employment, and State Social Policies: a gendered perspective 69
- Europeanisation and Decentralisation of Welfare ‘Safety Nets’ 88
-
Reforms
-
Reforms in Theoretical Perspective
- Beyond Retrenchment: four problems in current welfare state research and one suggestion how to overcome them 105
- Change without Challenge? Welfare states, social construction of challenge and dynamics of path dependency 121
-
Reforming Pension Systems
- Public Expenditure and Population Ageing: why families of nations are different 141
- Ageing and Public Pension Reforms in Western Europe and North America: patterns and politics 157
- The Redistributional Impact of a World Bank ‘Pension Regime’ 179
-
Activation Reforms
- Activating Welfare States. How social policies can promote employment 197
- Welfare to Work and the Organisation of Opportunity: European and American approaches from a British perspective 211
- Activating the Unemployed: the street-level implementation of UK policy 235
- Bibliography 251
