Benefits and Employment, Friend or Foe? Interactions between Passive and Active Social Programmes

In many countries, the share of the working-age population receiving income replacement benefits continued to increase in the 1990s, particularly as regards old-age, disability, lone-parent and social assistance benefits. In some countries, most of the people who are neither employed nor studying receive an income replacement benefit. To what extent can "activation" strategies help reduce benefit dependency? How can key elements of these strategies, such as intensive job counselling and benefit sanctions for refusal of a suitable job, be applied to groups traditionally on the margins of the labour market? And when reliance on one benefit is reduced, do people transfer to other types of benefits or do they really find jobs?