The two overall aims of this book have been to contribute to the understanding of the interrelationship between changing labour markets, welfare policies, and citizenship, and to present a citizenship approach to this type of analysis. As to the first point, exogenous changes, in particular globalisation and technological change, increase pressures towards achieving higher inequality and labour market marginalisation. Such tendencies are not all that new, but there is little doubt that they are reinforced. What perhaps counts even more is that globalisation at the same time weakens the traditional remedies of the nation state against such inequalities and labour market marginalisation. However, the question remains: to what extent are they weakened?, or, what is the strength of such changes, and are traditional policies entirely unsustainable? Next, there is the question about alternatives: is it inevitable to deregulate and develop policies that function in conformity with the market, as suggested by OECD and others, or is it possible to develop new types of welfare policies that to a larger extent combine flexibility and security (or ‘flexicurity’) as has been suggested by the International Labour Office? Beyond this partly normative discussion, there is the question of what actually determines policies and policy change.

Addressing these questions from a citizenship perspective does not dictate a completely different type of analysis. However, it does direct more attention to other policy effects than just employment as a goal in itself. Formulating such side-effects in terms of citizenship rather than just ‘equality’, ‘distributional effects’, or ‘poverty’ gives them a clearer focus.

Turning to the dependent variables, a citizenship approach challenges the tendency to conflate labour market integration with social integration. A citizenship approach distinguishes between labour market marginalisation and marginalisation in other areas of social action. It also specifies social participation (in the broadest sense), political participation, and orientations or identities as the core dependent variables. These variables together cover the individual's status and possibilities to act as an equal (and responsible) citizen in society. This throws up the question: is employment a necessary precondition for ‘full’ citizenship, and if so, why? Is it the membership of a community at the workplace (as communitarians would have it), is it the identity that follows from having the capacity to provide for yourself (as liberals would have it), or is it rather a question of insufficient economic resources (as traditional social democrats would have it)?