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Labour market activation policies aimed at those with multiple barriers to employment require inter-agency collaboration between local organizations providing social and employment services. This local collaborative context is shaped by different institutional logics (state, markets, professions and community) that are crucial for policy implementation. Using case studies of nine German, UK and Swedish cities, it is argued that different institutional logics help shape the form and operation of local collaboration between different agencies and actors and thus the concrete support for service users at the local level. Although all three countries are characterized by centralized employment policies, each city shows a prevalence, but not exclusivity, of certain institutional logics over others. These differences, partly reflecting the local context, are likely to lead to local variations in understandings of solidarity, policy implementation, inter-agency collaboration and networks of actors and national–local tensions. The paper suggests that an institutional logics approach provides a useful framework for helping to understand local variations and potential national–local policy conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to study employment effects of workfare and training programs for lone mothers receiving means-tested benefits in Germany. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical analyses are based on a large-scale administrative data set covering the entire population of unemployed means-tested benefit recipients. A timing-of-events approach is used to control for possible selectivity in program entries. Findings – Findings are that lone mothers particularly profit from participating in vocational training programs. It seems they can benefit from updating their job skills after having interrupted their employment for childcare. By contrast, workfare does not seem to be beneficial for those with young children. Workfare is especially intended to enhance participants' motivation to increase their job search efforts. The main reason lone mothers of young children have not been employed is however likely to be lack of childcare, rather than lack of motivation. Practical implications – Lone mothers of young children are perhaps not an adequate focus group for workfare, and should be assigned there less often, and instead more frequently to skill training programs. Originality/value – As of yet, very little research has investigated effects of training and workfare programs specifically for lone mothers in Germany. The findings from the present study can contribute to understanding whether lone mothers, who are strongly targeted by these programs despite facing employment obstacles on account of low levels of childcare provision, can actually profit from program participations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Various types of short training programmes exist in Germany. This article aims to evaluate short training courses for welfare recipients and to detect which programme type works best with respect to different outcome indicators. Design/methodology/approach – The author measures the impact of six short training programmes on the participants. She uses propensity score matching and large-scale administrative data to find suitable comparison groups. She compares treatment to non-participation as well as participation in different training types directly. Findings – The results demonstrate that in-firm training has large positive effects on individual employment prospects and stability. Furthermore, classroom skill training is more effective than other classroom types while application training is rather ineffective. Treating some of the application training participants with an alternative sub-programme would improve the effectiveness. Research limitations/implications – The results show which training types work best. However, the results do not imply macro or cost-benefit effects. Practical implications – Several of the short training courses, mostly occupation-specific sub-programmes, are short and relatively inexpensive options to activate welfare recipients. Originality/value – The paper analyses the effects of six short training programmes for welfare recipients that have not been analysed before. The sensitivity of the results is examined using a wide range of estimators and different outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implementation and effectiveness of an intensified activation scheme for very disadvantaged welfare recipients in Germany, used as a targeting device for a very generous wage subsidy (JobPerspective). Design/methodology/approach - Using administrative data and a difference-in-difference approach, the authors analyse the implementation of the activation scheme and its impact on various labour market outcomes. To ensure that target and comparison group are comparable over time, the authors control for various individual, household and regional characteristics. Findings - The activation of the target group of disadvantaged welfare recipients is modestly intensified directly after the scheme's introduction. This does not improve the prospects of the target group to work in regular jobs, but - as a first step - in subsidized jobs. Considering a later period, evidence was found for broader activation efforts together with some gains in the regular employment for disadvantaged welfare recipients. Overall, the results suggest that the implementation of activation for disadvantaged welfare recipients, as well as employment gains, need time. Originality/value - This study analyses whether and how a scheme of intensified activation that leaves its design to local actors, without providing additional funding, makes job centres implement such a policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current debates about activation policies focus only to a very limited degree on continental or conservative welfare states, as countries like Austria and Germany are usually assumed to exhibit a low degree of activation. However, active labour market policies have a long tradition in both countries. This paper analyses the development of active labour market policy in Germany and Austria during the last two decades with special emphasis on recent reform attempts. Against this background, the potential outcome of the central reforms is discussed. In spite of claims to 'modernise' the welfare system and labour market policies, current developments work mainly in the direction of curtailing benefits and rights of the unemployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the central Atlas of Tunisia, numerous outcrops of the upper Eocene provide smectitic clays. A representative sample (A) which was collected from the El Gnater region round El Ala underwent mineralogical and physicochemical analyses (granulometry, DRX, BET, FT‐IR, etc.). This clay showing percentage of the order of 80% in smectite were activated with hydrochloric acid to improve its physicochemical properties, and consequently to increase their decolorization power for soybean oils. The best results were obtained using clay, activated with 3 N hydrochloric acid for 3 h at 75°C (AA2). Indeed, the specific surface area increased from 44 to 119 m2/g. The characterization of physicochemical properties was carried out on the samples (A: raw, AA: activated at different acid concentrations 1.5, 3 and 4.5 N at 75°C during 3 h). Under optimal conditions, the decolorization power of AA2 clay (60.15%) was found to be better than that obtained by a bleaching earth imported from Germany (57.27%). These encouraging results allow the reduction or permanently stopping of these materials imports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measures to activate sick‐listed workers and to combine work with sickness benefits are a growing but little‐studied policy field. This article investigates graded sick leave benefits in Sweden, Finland and Germany. The analysis reveals some commonalities between countries, as well as substantial differences in terms of institutional background, benefit design and governance. The schemes range from models in which grading has become an integral component of the regular sickness certification process, to models in which the graded‐work option is targeted at a much smaller category of workers and has a stronger therapeutic character. The variation in design and governance of the models is reflected in large differences in terms of their diffusion. All schemes face a common set of obstacles and challenges. They relate in particular to the distribution of stakeholders' roles and responsibilities, the involvement of employers and the assessment of residual work ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Evaluation of systematic punching tests on shear-reinforced flat slabs with closed stirrups. • Constant concrete contribution independent of the shear reinforcement ratio according to EC2. • Presentation of two methods to determine the shear reinforcement contribution in flat slabs. • Evaluation of experimental results reveals a high degree of activation of the shear reinforcement. • Continuous decrease of concrete contribution with increasing shear reinforcement ratios. • Suggestion of a design approach based on a suspension strut-and-tie model. The punching strength of flat slabs and footings without and with high amounts of shear reinforcement on the level of maximum punching shear capacity has been investigated extensively by various researchers over the last decades. The existing investigations suggest that the punching strength of RC slabs with shear reinforcement can be described by means of a contribution of concrete and a contribution of the shear reinforcement (steel contribution). However, a systematic evaluation of concrete and steel contribution depending on the amount of shear reinforcement has not yet been adequately possible since only few test series with low and medium amounts of shear reinforcement and a failure within the shear-reinforced zone have been available. This lack of experimental data has been partly filled with eleven systematic punching tests on flat slabs and eleven further tests on footings conducted at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. In this paper, the development of the concrete and steel contributions in shear-reinforced flat slabs is investigated in detail and a method for calculating and analyzing both contributions is presented. The development of concrete and steel contribution depending on the amount of shear reinforcement is discussed and compared to the design provisions according to Eurocode 2, Model Code 2010 and the draft (of April 2018) of the next generation of Eurocode 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Michael Lipsky's well‐known argument that policy is made in the daily encounters between street‐level bureaucracy and citizens, a growing body of research emphasizes that actors and organizations delivering social and labor‐market policy play a crucial role in welfare‐state politics. Using qualitative data collected at three local employment agencies in Germany, this article explores worker‐client relations as a crucial mechanism through which activation policies are translated into practice. The analysis investigates how caseworkers define their role and their relationships with clients. The findings show that it is essential for caseworkers to achieve client compliance. In such a context, building relationships of trust is a strategic instrument in overcoming possible barriers to co‐operation in the caseworker‐client interaction. Caseworkers develop strategies to create the impression of trustworthiness and to motivate both unemployed clients and employers to become trust‐givers in the caseworker‐client relation. While research has often stressed the dichotomy between disciplining and enabling elements of activation policies, our explorative study shows that persuasion and trust‐building are a further important dimension of the frontline delivery of activation policies. These strategies reflect the importance of emotional aspects of frontline work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of welfare targeting is back on the political agenda in European welfare states. Benefit recipients are subject to different rules, depending on age, family status and work. For instance, strict conditions and harsh sanctions apply, in particular, to young unemployed people. This article investigates public opinion towards welfare targeting in three policy areas – unemployment benefits, conditionality of benefits and sanctions – and utilizes a factorial vignette experiment presented within a representative German survey. The results suggest strong support for welfare targeting. Respondents are more likely to offer generous benefits and fewer obligations and sanctions to unemployed people who are elderly, have caring responsibilities, are of German ethnicity and have high job-seeking ambitions. The negative effect of foreign ethnicity is moderated by the ideological standpoint of the respondent, highlighting the mechanisms underlying welfare chauvinism. Accordingly, policy support strongly depends on the individual circumstances of the affected target group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examined the long-term effects of supporting welfare recipients by means of a subsidy to start their own business. We used administrative data and propensity score matching to estimate the impact of the subsidy on the probability of receiving welfare benefits and on unemployment status up to 72 months after programme start. We supplemented our estimation results with the results of a qualitative survey which provided insights into the diversity of entrepreneurial activities and the recipients' motivation for starting a business. Our results are encouraging. We found a stable positive effect on the outcomes of interest. We further found that foreign nationals and the long-term unemployed benefit the most. We conclude that the subsidy allows some people to successfully start a business who would not have otherwise done so and who would have been less successful by choosing the alternative of continued job search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical evidence reveals that German welfare recipients often participate in multiple active labour market programmes (ALMPs). However, evidence on the effectiveness of ALMPs exists mostly for single ALMP participations so far. This article evaluates the sequential participation in ALMPs for welfare recipients in Germany based on comprehensive administrative data to control for dynamic selection that arises in the evaluation of sequences. Using a dynamic causal model and an inflow sample of welfare recipients, the article analyses the effects of sequences of a public employment programme called One-Euro-Jobs on labour market outcomes. For female participants in One-Euro-Jobs in the first period, especially in West Germany, the results imply that participating in two consecutive One-Euro-Jobs compared with receiving only welfare benefits for two consecutive periods better facilitates integration into regular employment. Moreover, taking part in a One-Euro-Job directly after entry into welfare receipt is also more effective for participants in One-Euro-Jobs in the first period than taking part in a One-Euro-Job in a later period, especially for East German men (although not for West German women). However, I also find evidence of so-called programme careers and stepwise integration into regular employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of the European countries experienced a turn towards activation policies during the last decades. The aim of increasing employment rates of groups formerly excluded from the labour market has required closer links with training, family or social policies with employment policy. As a result of this, we can observe modifications also in regard to policy governance, particularly emphasizing the role of the local level in implementing integrated activation policies. This article aims at testing the hypothesis of whether higher levels of stakeholder participation in the policy process lead to greater policy integration. In an explorative manner, the research hypothesis will be tested with reference to two very different cases of local activation policy. Driving factors for the differential impact of participation on policy integration will be identified through the analysis of two in-depth case studies. A qualitative process-tracing method is used in order to conduct our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of the European countries have experienced a turn towards activation policies during the last two decades ( Serrano Pascual and Magnusson 2007; van Berkel and Borghi 2008; Bonoli 2010; Aurich 2011; Graziano 2009 and 2012). The interlinked aim to increase employment rates by integrating formerly excluded groups into the labour market requires new forms of governance and new structures of policy implementation. One of these policy changes concerns the marketization of employment and social services ( Considine 2001; Newman 2001), an important part of policy delivery in most welfare states although in very different forms and extents. Since the local level plays a crucial role in delivering policies ( Künzel 2012; Green and Orton 2012), an important element, and the main focus of the article, is the level of discretion of local actors and their relation to activation interventions. This article draws on the findings of three qualitative case studies on the organization of activation policies in three most different countries regarding worlds of welfare: Germany, Italy and the UK. It develops a theoretical framework of regulating marketization in regard to activation, and analyses the three empirical cases according to it. The findings show a link between the regulation of market-based interventions (i.e. type of marketization, outsourcing decisions and purchaser-provider split) and the level of discretion for local actors with regard to these measures. Local contexts of policy-making and their suitability and willingness to become marketized will affect the usage of local discretion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent German labour market reforms introduced a large scale workfare programme called One-Euro-Jobs to activate welfare recipients and improve their employment prospects. In programme design leeway is left to regional actors. Using administrative data and Propensity Score (PS) matching, this article investigates the association between programme design and effectiveness, so as to provide insight on how to increase programme effectiveness. First, effects of different types of One-Euro-Jobs according to planned duration and weekly working hours compared to ‘waiting’ are estimated. Second, programme types are compared directly to disentangle selection and programme effects. As expected lock-in effects are larger for participations with a longer planned duration, but not for those with longer weekly working hours. One-Euro-Jobs do not generally increase the employment prospects for East German men beyond 2 years after programme start and longer and more intensive participations even decrease employment prospects. In West Germany, One-Euro-Jobs generally increase the employment chances and longer participations lead to slightly greater employment opportunities roughly 2 years after programme start. The initial advantages of short participations decrease over time. Following these results, a reallocation of participants might improve programme effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Direct job creation has long been a classic instrument of labour market policy, pursuing a number of potential goals. Recently in Germany, policies of this type have come under growing pressure. This is partly due to the increasingly scarce resources available for job creation measures. Taken together with the continual policy reforms of the past few years and the growing pressure on public employment agencies to promote measures of non-subsidized labour market inclusion, this means that the area of direct job creation has come under close scrutiny and forced to justify its approach. In this article, we present our arguments for a further development of local authority concepts with a programmatic segmentation under the headings of ‘structurally effective direct job creation’ and ‘socially inclusive direct job creation’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European Employment Strategy (EES) has opened up new dynamics of Europeanization in the area of social policy. This article proposes to pay more attention to national core executives and their strategic use of the EES when considering its impact. Through core executives, the EES may not only affect domestic policy agendas, but also decision-making on reform. A comparative case study of activating employment policy reforms in the Netherlands and Germany evaluates expectations about how these agents upload and download ideas to and from the EU level. The findings indicate that uploading is facilitated by holding the EU presidency and a good fit with EES prescriptions, while downloading does not seem to depend on prior uploading and degree of fit but on other domestic factors. True strategic use of the EES by core executives following a sequence of uploading and downloading appears to be contingent on several contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hohmeyer K, Wolff J. A fistful of euros: is the German one-euro job workfare scheme effective for participants? Welfare reforms have constituted a major policy issue in many OECD countries in recent decades. In Germany, a major reform in 2005 emphasised the activation of welfare recipients and introduced a workfare programme -'One-Euro Jobs'- on a large scale. In the present study, the impact of one-euro jobs on the employment prospects of different groups of participants was estimated. The analysis was conducted on a large sample of welfare recipients using propensity score matching. The sample of one-euro job participants and other welfare recipients was drawn from administrative records comprising all those who started their participation in the programme in early 2005. Our results showed that participation slightly improved the medium-term employment prospects for women but not for men. Participation reduced the employment rate of participants younger than 25 years but raised it for some of the older participant groups. In conclusion, one-euro jobs are effective for participants who have been jobless for several years but ineffective for participants who were recently employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demographic change and the call for active ageing impose new demands on older individuals. Using data on German adults aged 56 to 75 (N = 1,468), the authors investigated perceived level of activation demands (e.g., increased expectations that the young-old will contribute to the public good) and appraisal of them as threatening or challenging by individuals with different health status and socioeconomic backgrounds. Overall, perceived level of demands was moderately high, and they were seen rather as a challenge. East Germans, those with better subjective health, and those unemployed reported a higher level of activation demands, whereas retired and widowed individuals reported a lower level. Moreover, East Germans, individuals with lower educational attainment, and those reporting health problems (but not physically handicapped individuals) experienced these demands more as a threat and less as a challenge. The authors argue that more targeted policy strategies are needed to promote active ageing in disadvantaged groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An 'activism index', combining data on membership of civil associations and societies and the level of activism suggests that, notwithstanding cultural differences, civil activism in European countries could be a great deal higher than its current level. If higher civic participation is to be achieved, each stakeholder group within local governance can play an 'activation' role in relation to citizens, both as individuals and in relation to the voluntary organizations which represent citizens in their collective activities. In practice, different stakeholder groups play this role in widely differing ways in the contexts of Germany, Spain and the UK. In the future, we can expect the lead role in activating civil society in each country to be taken by different stakeholders, depending on the trust currently placed in them by other stakeholders in the community and by the resources which they command. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]