Consequences of activation policy targeting young adults with health-related problems in Sweden and Denmark

Hultqvist, Sara; Nørup, Iben

doi:10.1332/175982717x14940647262909

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…From the clients' perspective, an overly narrow focus on employability seems to negatively impact service users' feelings of dignity (Ohls, 2020). Hultqvist and Nørup (2015, 2017) showed that activation policies that only focus on work have negative consequences for people with health problems and can increase stigmatisation and exclusion. Previous studies on the effectiveness of ALMPs indicate that certain ALMPs work better for specific target groups.…”

Section: Social Work and The Activation Of Disadvantaged Target Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining generalist and specialist social work in activation policies: A participatory action research

Dingenen

Raeymaeckers

2022

Int J Soc Welfare

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In the last decades, activation policies and practices aimed at getting people off benefits and into work have been at the forefront of social policy. One of the challenges of activation practices is that social services with a narrow specialist focus fall short in supporting vulnerable target groups. A growing body of social work literature recognises that both generalist and specialist social works play an important role in supporting vulnerable target groups that face wicked problems. We conducted a participatory action research on how specialist social workers may adopt the principles of generalist social work in counselling and guiding people with multiple and complex needs towards the labour market.

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Section: Social Work and The Activation Of Disadvantaged Target Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining generalist and specialist social work in activation policies: A participatory action research

Dingenen

Raeymaeckers

2022

Int J Soc Welfare

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“…In the 1980s and 1990s activation was targeted at those citizens with no serious problems besides unemployment. Since then the ideas of activation have extended to the sphere of social and welfare policies and practices (Karjalainen & Saikku, 2011;Heidenreich & Graziano, 2014, p. 1;Hultqvist & Nørup, 2017). For that reason employment, social and welfare policies have increasingly been intertwined and focused on activating various social groups such as the long-term unemployed, women, younger and older people, migrants, young mothers, the unskilled and the disabled (Heidenreich & Graziano, 2014;Lantz & Marston 2012).…”

Section: Extending Sphere Of Activation and Responsibilisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responsibilisation, social work and inclusive social security in Finland

Raitakari

Juhila

Räsänen

2018

European Journal of Social Work

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In this article responsibilisation is studied in social work by analysing two Finnish state-level policy documents (called final report and research report) which concern a current activation initiative called inclusive social security (ISS). It is asked how social workers and clients are constructed as responsible subjects in these documents. Responsibilisation refers to the advanced liberal mode of governmentality, which aims to strengthen citizens' abilities to selfgovernance through various techniques that include the intertwined elements of surveillance and empowerment. It is demonstrated that the policy documents construct the social workers' and the clients' responsibilities partly in different ways. The final report leads activation to be based on shared responsibility and social work to be more community-based, whereas the research report strengthens more individual-based responsibility of clients and social workers. For the clients the interpretation of ISS based on shared responsibility would probably be less stigmatising and paternalistic than the one based on individual responsibilities, i.e. approaching long-term unemployed citizens as being personally 'at risk' and thus a justified target group of individualised techniques for activation. For social workers and clients future activation appears to be a wide mix of different techniques, moral expectations and possible ways of being a responsible subject.

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“…Hence, labour-market exclusion is identified as a crucial pathway when individuals with chronic illnesses become marginalized. At the policy level, labour-market inclusion is therefore often viewed as the success criterion for societal inclusion as well as the solution to various social and (mental) health problems (Hultqvist and Nørup, 2017; Nørup, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet the evidence supporting the theoretical assumption for individuals with chronic illnesses and in the context of advanced welfare is very limited. This is also the case in examining the evidence for the effectiveness of activation policies targeting persons with pre-existing chronic illnesses (Hultqvist and Nørup, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social marginalization and chronic illness: A critical analysis of the role of labour-market exclusion

Nørup

2019

Acta Sociologica

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Since the 1990s, most European countries have implemented activation policies targeting the unemployed. During the past decade, the target group for activation policies expanded and currently also includes persons with limitations in their ability to work due to long-term or chronic illness and disabilities. The argument underlying these policies is that labour-market exclusion is the main cause for social marginalization because participation in paid work provides important social and psychological functions that cannot be found elsewhere. Based on an extensive set of quantitative data that combines register data and survey data, and using structural equation modelling, this paper analyses the relationship between chronic illness and social marginalization, and in particular which role labour-market exclusion plays in this relationship. Is labour-market exclusion a crucial factor in explaining why individuals with chronic illnesses face a higher risk of social marginalization if factors such as income and education are also taken into account? From the statistical results, the paper states that individuals with chronic illnesses face a far higher risk of social marginalization, but that this risk is caused by their health limitations and not by their lack of labour-market participation. Contrary to the policies’ logic and the theoretical argument of psycho-social theories originating from the deprivation perspective, no direct, indirect or mediating effects of labour-market exclusion on social marginalization were identified.

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Consequences of activation policy targeting young adults with health-related problems in Sweden and Denmark

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Combining generalist and specialist social work in activation policies: A participatory action research

Combining generalist and specialist social work in activation policies: A participatory action research

Responsibilisation, social work and inclusive social security in Finland

Social marginalization and chronic illness: A critical analysis of the role of labour-market exclusion

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