Active Social Policy – Contents and Reform Challenges

Abstract

The activation concepts in social policy are frequently interpreted within the context of the social welfare reform, performed in the United States of America, during the 1990s as well as the programs of active policies on the labour market (the New Deals) introduced in Great Britain at the end of the last decade. Their assumptions, however, date back in the period of the first laws for the poor, when effectuating of their social rights was conditional upon accepting an employment. At the beginning of the XXI century, numerous European social states, facing transformations in the world of work, family and ageing patterns, identified the need to change their social policies and adapt them pursuant to different economic, political and social circumstances. These changes mostly occur in terms of introduction (or highlighting) of active measures into employment policies, as well as limiting the rights to social help, at least to a certain degree, by performing some work, i.e. participating in various training or pre-qualification programs. They also include benefits for employment, directed towards people with disabilities and families with children. Along with that, the activation principle has been expanded, so as to include the ageing policies and various programs of early retirement and active ageing in general. Overcoming the passive position of social help recipients, by giving them choices and initiatives in those situations in which it is a realistic option, enables establishing of more direct connection between work, as (economically) the most reliable way of preventing social risks (especially social exclusion) and rights in the social security system. Depending on various social determinants and factors, the contents and measures of the active social policy programs, as well as their presence in different countries, show certain national specifics. Pursuant to that, their reach and efficiency also differ.