Print Print

Peer Hull Kristensen publishes with Charles Sabel, AnnaLee Saxenian, Reijo Miettinen, and Jarkko Hautamäki:

04.11.2011

Individualized Service Provision in the New Welfare State

Individualized Service Provision

The welfare state is in transition. Schooling in the broadest sense is increasingly a necessary condition for employability and, with it, active and honorable membership in society.Redistribution from market ”winners” to market ”losers”— the key insurance mechanism in the traditional welfare state—is diminishing in relative importance as a guarantor of decent social inclusion.
Underlying the widespread realization of the requirement for life-long learning, and the increasing emphasis on skill development in ”active” labor market policies for different groups at risk of exclusion, is the recognition that a welfare state must today provide effective enabling or capacitating services, tailored to particular needs, to equip individuals and families to mitigate risks against which they cannot be reliably insured.
The shift away from insurance and towards skill-based risk mitigation, moreover, can increase the productivity of the economy as well as its capacity for innovation: the increased availability of skills makes firms more flexible, allowing them to undertake novel projects that would have previously overtaxed their ability to respond to unfamiliar situations.To the extent that increases in individual skill levels reshape the labor market and the reshaped labor market influence the organization and strategy of firms, the shift towards a welfare state based on capacitating servicers of each can contribute to the prosperity of all.
 
Report Prepared for SITRA and Ministry of Employment and the Economy, Helsinki October 2011
 
Charles Sabel, AnnaLee Saxenian, Reijo Miettinen, Peer Hull Kristensen, and Jarkko Hautamäki: Individualized Service Provision in the New Welfare State , Report Prepared for SITRA and Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 70p, ISBN 978-951-563-824-3, Helsinki October 2011. Download.





Last updated by Mette Grue Nielsen 04/11/2011