The trend towards activation has been one of the major issues in recent welfare and labour market reforms in Europe and the US. Despite considerable initial variation across national models with respect to the scope and intensity of activation, redefining the link between social protection and...

Many welfare-to-work programs in both North America and Europe are directed at making work pay for the low skilled. This paper identifies two alternative policies that are motivated by this same objective active labour market programs that involve wage subsidies together with improved job...

Analysis of the change of governance in activating labour market policy in Denmark, the UK and Germany supports the restructuring thesis advanced in the course of the debate on how to classify the change in the welfare state. New objectives, such as 'the promotion of employability', have been...

Concentrating on British welfare-to-work policy, the paper presents a critique of "employability-based" approaches to supply-side intervention in the labor market. It is argued that the likely macroeconomic impacts of the Blair Government's "New Deal" program are being exaggerated, and that a...