Projects / Programmes
ACTIVATION OF THE UNEMPLOYED PERSONS - A MECHANISM FOR OVERCOMING THE TRADE-OFF BETWEEN SECURITY AND FLEXIBILITY
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.03.00 |
Social sciences |
Sociology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S215 |
Social sciences |
Social problems and welfare, national insurance |
activation, quality of activation, empowernment, active welfare state, social security, unemployed persons, European employment policy, policy implementation
Researchers (2)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
19071 |
PhD Anja Kopač Mrak |
Sociology |
Researcher |
2005 - 2008 |
115 |
| 2. |
06829 |
PhD Miroslav Stanojević |
Sociology |
Head |
2005 - 2009 |
336 |
Organisations (1)
Abstract
Nowadays 'Risk Societies' (Beck, 2000) are facing different challenges compared to the modern ones. Social policy of post-modern welfare states needs to develop new mechanisms for guarantying social protection, which will enable individuals to actively confront with new risks (especially those related to the functioning of the labour market) and to overcome the existing trade-off between (social) security and (economic) efficiency. Activation, introduced in the 1990s, is such a mechanism.
The activation stresses the role of work (i.e., the participation in the labour market) as the main mechanism for assuring the individuals' (active) participation within the society and achieving their full citizenship. The role of welfare state has changed (from Keynesian Welfare State towards Schumpeterian Workfare State), moving away from ‘unconditional’ welfare towards 'workfare' or 'learnfare' and leading towards less regulated labour markets. The quality of introduced activation is the most important element defining the individuals’ labour market position and the possibilities for achieving economic growth and social cohesion.
The quality of activation introduced within the Slovene unemployment social protection system and its implementation in practice is in the centre of the proposed research project. The key hypothesis is the following:
"The Slovene unemployment protection system needs to be reformed, especially regarding the level of its responsiveness to the individual needs and its empowerment potential. The gap between stated and actually implemented activation measures, above all those changing legal and socio-economic position of the unemployed persons, is expected to be present and having an important impact on the actual quality of activation”.
The key result of the proposed research project will be the comprehensive and comparative (including EU dimension) analysis of the Slovene unemployment social security system, especially from the point of view of ensuring individuals necessary means to overcome new labour market challenges and to ensure effective functioning of the labour market.
