Welfare to Work in Practice

Professor Peter Saunders is the Director of the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He has published widely on topics including poverty and inequality, the economics and politics of the welfare state, social policy developments in Asia, the role of the public sector and the costs of unemployment. He is currently undertaking a multi-year project on social security and participation in Australia for the Australian Department of Family and Community services.

’This book deals with one of the great themes in modern social policy that goes under a variety of names such as workfare, welfare to work or activation. We know too little about an idea that now powerfully informs welfare reform. This book represents a stock-take of existing knowledge and then adds importantly to the pool of knowledge. It is highly recommended...The twenty-two authors draw on welfare reform experience in the USA, Britain, Australia, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Belgium, Estonia and elsewhere. The book combines country studies and broad international comparative analyses, using a variety of economic and sociological approaches and types of data.’ Professor Stein Ringen, University of Oxford, UK ’This book gives a well balanced and thought provoking insight into the most important reforms of welfare systems worldwide in recent years...If one [wishes] to learn about recent reforms of welfare systems worldwide - and future challenges for these systems - then this is the book to read.’ Niels Ploug, The Danish National Institute of Social Research, Denmark

• Contents: Welfare to work in practice: introduction and overview, Peter Saunders; Protection to activation: the apotheosis of work, Neil Gilbert; Work as welfare? Lone mothers, social security and employment, Jane Millar; Bridging the welfare to work divide: economic and social participation among income support recipients in Australia, Peter Saunders; The role of workfare in the Scandinavian model of social security: soft work incentives, skill upgrading or quality of life improvement for the disadvantaged? Lisbeth Pedersen and Jørgen Søndergaard; In-work benefits: curing unemployment among the low-skilled in Germany, Martin Werding; Financial incentives and mothers' employment: a comparative perspective, Jonathan Bradshaw, Naomi Finch and Emese Mayhew; Reforming the passive welfare state: Belgium's new income arrangements to make work pay in international perspective, Lieve De Lathouwer; Dilemmas in disability activation and how Scandinavians try to live with them, Einar Overbye; Personalised employment services for disability benefits recipients: are comparisons useful? Patricia Thornton and Anne Corden; Who becomes a disability benefit recipient in Sweden? Sisko Bergendorff, Marcela Cohen-Birman, Kristian Nyberg, Peter Skogman Thoursie, Annika Sundén and Ingemar Svensson; Returning the long-term sick-listed to work: the effects of educational measures and employer separations in Denmark, Jan Høgelund and Anders Holm; Disability benefits and unemployment patterns in Estonia, Orsolya Szirko.