Ageing and welfare reform in the Nordic Countries, 1990-2010 ...

unexpectedly halved from 1994 to 1999 – allowing an escape from two decades of massunemployment. Nationally and in the EU, Danish ALMP was celebrated as a great succes.However, refined measurement (fixed effect- and survival models) soon revealed that micro-leveleffects were small, at best (Arbejdsministeriet, 2000; Det Økonomiske Råd, 2003, 2007).This supported a wave of strengthening duties (“conditionality”) which was observable in mostEuropean countries (Clasen, Kvist & van Oorschot, 2001; Clasen, 2005). In Scandinavia,conditionality has served as an alternative to lower generousity (Kohnle-Seidl & Eichhorst, 2008).Denmark moved through the entire scale from a most lenient approach by the early 1990s towards aquite demanding one after 2000 (Hasselpflug, 2005).The idea of using activation partly as a sanction or as a stress instrument has been applied in severalcountries, and there are indications that it does serve to pull people out of benefit dependency, butnot always into stable employment (Kohnle-Seidl & Eichhorst, 2008: 440). In Denmark, educationhad a revival in the 1990s, but this was gradually given less priority, and in the Danish 2002 reform,a work first approach was underlined by renaming the “individual plan of action” into a “job plan”.Most importantly, conditionality was taken more seriously after 2001. And the idea of the shortestpossible road to employment was increasingly implemented in actual practice, not least after the jobcentre reform (Goul Andersen & Pedersen, 2007; Larsen, 2009). This comes close to an instance ofincremental but transformative change that is described as conversion (Streeck & Thelen, 2005) inthe literature about policy change. Besides, access to educational leave for unemployed had beenabolished already around 2000, and shortly after the entire educational leave scheme wasterminated.In Denmark duration of uenmployment benefits was reduced in a number of labour market reformsfrom 8-9 years until 1993 to 4 years as from 1998 (although gradually implemented). This wasmore in line with the (slightly shorter) duration in the other countries, although in the Swedishsystem, re-qualification through activation could continue indefinitely. From 2000, Denmarkgradually took the lead among Nordic countries as far as strictness is concerned. In accordance withthe 2006 welfare reform (a broad political compromise), surveillance of the unemployed increasedsignificantly. This includes repeated meetings and a duty to check and update a profile on theinternet every week. Documentation of active job search was tightened (temporarily operationalizedas four applications per week), and the unemployed should be able and willing to accept a jobwithout notification the following day.It is hardly an exaggeration to claim that the largest Nordic variation is found not betweencountries, but in Denmark over time. Still, policies have also changed in Sweden. Like in Denmark,there has been a significant decline in the weight of education (Finanspolitiska Rådet 2009: 168-169) which started already in the 1990s. Besides, duration and generousity was changedconsiderably (see below). Finally, unlike in Denmark, there are “waiting days” in the other Nordiccountries – for instance, in Sweden, benefits are only received after a five-day period .As regards activation there has been a lot of debates about whether this should be interpreted as“workfare”, or whether it should be seen as an instrument to improve human resources (Larsen,2009). In fact, it can be both (Barbier, 2004; Barbier & Ludwig-Mayerhofer, 2004; Lødemel &Trickey 2000) – and it should perhaps be conceived as a continuum (Goul Andersen & Pedersen,14