The impact of the European Youth Guarantee on active labour market policies: A convergence analysis

Abstract

The European Union’s (EU) Youth Guarantee aims to improve the labour market situation of young people. Rather than prescribing a uniform policy model, it acknowledges that supportive measures need to align with national, regional and local circumstances. It thus seeks to promote mutual policy learning through the open method of coordination. As an innovative measure, the EU has deployed funding programmes to support the domestic measures related to the Youth Guarantee. We therefore examined in this study whether this mix of recommendations and financial incentives has entailed a convergence of member state policies. Our analysis of policy outputs for the period 2007−2014 yields a mixed empirical picture. There is catching‐up convergence regarding policies’ sectoral coverage but increasing divergence concerning the number of adopted policy instruments. The first two years of financial incentives did not produce any effect on enhancing policy experimentation among less active member states. We offer an optimistic and a pessimistic interpretation of these findings.

The Value Added of Studying Work Attitudes and Values: Some Lessons to Learn

“…Their findings also suggest that in some countries the regional level is an adequate level of policymaking to account for the marked cross-regional variation, whereas in other countries, policymaking success or failure is best attributed to the national level because there is little cross-regional variation. In more concrete terms, this finding supports the implementation of multiple policies that address different levels of government, namely, the european, the national, and the regional (see Tosun, unt, and Wadensjö 2017;Tosun, Treib, and De Francesco 2019).…”

Europeanisation and the Youth Guarantee: The case of France

“…The focus on youth unemployment is not new at the European level (Lahusen, Shultz, & Graziano, 2013), although, so far, the YG has not been thoroughly studied. Tosun, Treib, and De Francesco (2019) in this Special Issue contribute to this research effort…”

“…The focus on youth unemployment is not new at the European level (Lahusen, Shultz, & Graziano, ), although, so far, the YG has not been thoroughly studied. Tosun, Treib, and De Francesco () in this Special Issue contribute to this research effort by applying a policy convergence analysis across member states implementing the YG. Following the onset of the 2008 economic crisis, in the framework of the Europe 2020 strategy, the ‘Youth on the Move’ initiative brought forward the idea of a Youth Guarantee, but mainly as a means to ensure that all young people are in a job, education or activation (European Commission, ).…”

Influence Of Gender And Place Of Residence On Education And Employment Accessibility

“…The indicated paradoxes are reflected in the youth policy of different countries. Programs are being developed and implemented around the world aimed at reducing inequality and increasing accessibility of education and work for youth (Makumbi, 2018;Speckesser, Carreras, & Sala, 2019;Tosun, Treib, & De Francesco, 2019;Vergnat, 2019).…”