The paper argues that a comprehensive activation strategy is called for – in both unemployment and disability insurance – to minimize the conflict between income insurance and work incentives and to prevent the economic crisis from causing a long-lasting decline in labor force participation....

The institutional structures of the various types of European welfare state were established around extra revenues called the "demographic dividend" that used to be easily available throughout the decades of the 20st century. They, however, ceased to be available at the end of that century. The...