Social protection and labour market policies for vulnerable groups from a social investment perspective. The case of people with a migration background in Belgium/Flanders (RE-InVEST working paper series D5.1)

The European project RE-InVEST re-assesses the role of active labour market and social protection policy for integrating vulnerable groups from a social investment perspective that the EU endorsed as a response to the financial crisis. This Belgian national case study of RE-InVEST used peer research to investigate the nature and effect of relevant policies concerning unemployed persons with a migratory background. This report analyses the counselling services in Flanders, where two services have the task to reintegrate unem­ployed people. The main research question is the quality of the counse... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Debuyne, M.
Put, S.
Dokumenttyp: workingPaper
Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
Schlagwörter: social protection / labour market policy / social inclusion / social investment / capabilities / social policy
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27087558
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://zenodo.org/record/3258287

The European project RE-InVEST re-assesses the role of active labour market and social protection policy for integrating vulnerable groups from a social investment perspective that the EU endorsed as a response to the financial crisis. This Belgian national case study of RE-InVEST used peer research to investigate the nature and effect of relevant policies concerning unemployed persons with a migratory background. This report analyses the counselling services in Flanders, where two services have the task to reintegrate unem­ployed people. The main research question is the quality of the counselling and the possible differences between the counselling services. Lessons can be learned from these analyses. The qualitative research addresses the question if the counselling comply with the social investment perspective from a human rights and capability approach. We detected that the counselling has negative consequences for the clients, espe­cially for people with a migratory background. It increases fatalism among people with a migratory back­ground. Those people tend to lose every hope for an opportunity to develop their talents or any hope for a life they have reason to value. The unilateral focus on the demand side and a lack of insight in the supply side has negative consequences on participation, agency and choice. Though activation is a goal, counselling is not guided by social investment in general.