Making the Poor Work: Social Assistance and Activation Programs in Sweden

Poverty policy and work demands have beencontroversial questions in social policy; during theworkhouse era of the nineteenth century as well as incurrent discussions. The concepts of poverty, marginalisation, and social exclusion are analysed inthe first part of the book. The later parts describe the present conditionsregarding poverty, social assistance andwelfare-to-work programs in Sweden. Social assistancedeveloped in the 1980s in the direction of an incomeguarantee. During the 1990s, policies changed towardsactivation and control when the Swedish welfare statewas burdened by a severe recession. Time-series andlongitudinal datasets are used for analysis of therelation between unemployment and receipt of socialassistance. Malmö, a traditionally industrial city, was severelyhit by the recession with increasing marginalisationand long-term receipt of social assistance. Activation programs are often proposed as a solutionand had a central role in municipal policy. According to available evidence from evaluationresearch, such programs have quite modest effects onwork and income and the result was similar in theimpact evaluation of the local program.