Monitoring Profile Shifts and Differences among Work Integration Social Enterprises in Flanders

The sector of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) has grown considerably all across Europe during the last few decades. While WISEs focusing at sheltered employment for people with disabilities exist for a long time already, many governments embraced WISEs as an active labour market policy tool to address an expanding scope of disadvantaged workers. Measurement of the effectiveness of these policies remains scarce, however. Even worse, many governments do not even have a clear sight on the profile of WISEs they are supporting. In this paper, we utilize data from a newly designed monitoring instrument to capture the profile of WISEs in Flanders (Belgium). We discuss some methodological issues in using administrative data to monitor this sector, and present a profile at the enterprise level and at the worker level. More specifically, we analyse both profile differences between and profile shifts within WISE work forms that have been defined by the government. This allows us to compare the profile of early stage WISEs with that of their mature counterparts. Moreover, it invites us to evaluate whether these profile shifts and differences are in accordance with policy choices made.