Introduction

In their introduction to this volume, Jepsen and Serrano Pascual posit that the concept of the European Social Model (ESM) can be understood as a political project to legitimise European institutions. The goal of this political project is to build a common European identity, which is based more on creating common social policy solutions than on identifying institutions and values shared by Western European nations. One of the most widely accepted policy ideas throughout Western Europe is that welfare programmes for the working-age poor need to be changed from passive to active. Activation was needed, according to the central banks, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), employers’ associations, and some think-tanks, because the existing welfare state discouraged job expansion by encouraging people to stay on benefits instead of working. Furthermore, these changes would not only help the economy but would help the social assistance recipients to re-enter society as citizens. Thus, active labour policies, otherwise called workfare, were justified as a means to promote, simultaneously, both economic growth and social cohesion. These same goals are used to describe the ESM. Although workfare programmes have been adopted by most Western European nations, it is important to note that not all of the countries adopted workfare programmes for the same reasons. While some countries have adopted workfare programmes in response to a perceived welfare crisis, other countries without welfare crises, including Denmark and Norway, have also started implementing the programmes.

Is there a common European policy of activation? Barbier (this volume) posits that there is not, as the concept cannot be defined when compared with the United States (US) model. To make his argument, he compares the activation policies in the United Kingdom (UK) with those in the US. This chapter will address the question using a different approach. It will concentrate its analysis on welfare programmes targeting the socially excluded – the long-term unemployed, youth unemployed, lone parents, immigrants, and some other groups – in Western Europe and on single mothers with children in the US. The discussion is limited not in order to divert attention from other important welfare policies, but because focusing on this one set of programmes allows a clear comparison between the US and Western Europe. It is true that each country in Western Europe has its own version of a workfare programme.