Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2006.

The last 15 years have seen governments in a number of mature welfare states attempting to reintegrate people out of work for reasons of sickness and disability into employment, principally through changes to the value and conditions of incapacity benefits and the provision of active labour market programmes. Whilst the academic interest in these changes has been considerable, this thesis begins by arguing that these studies hitherto have been satisfied to categorise these emerging regimes according to a familiar Work-first v Human Capital Development activation typology (for example, Peck & Theodore, 2001), or a variation upon that, according to the presence or absence of different activation services. They largely do not apply the insights that the broader activation literature has provided in recent years, particularly those on the governance of activation. Instead, this thesis proposes that it is better to examine recent changes through the lens of institutionalisation: how well-embedded employment-related support for sick and disabled claimants has become in the structure and functioning of welfare-to-work regimes for sick and disabled benefit claimants. Though not a concept much used in academic analysis of Active Labour Market Policy (ALMP), a case is made for the value of looking at, firstly, how well activating sick and disabled claimants becomes a national government labour market policy priority and secondly, how well the organisation and governance of active labour market programmes for this group support this, in additional to analyses of the services themselves. Working from what is already known about the factors that can influence a workless benefit claimant's access to employment support, the contention of such a framework is that the successful embedding of an activation strategy for sick and disabled claimants into national Labour Market Policy (LMP) is a function of the interaction of a range of factors. Crucial here is the distinction between ALMP for these claimants, and for other activation target groups – there is good evidence to believe that the changes made to activation governance to promote active work-search for the unemployed may, however unintentionally, militate against a comprehensive system of support for 'non-employed' jobseekers considered to be further from the labour market, claimants of incapacity benefits included. Alongside this framework, a case is made for being much clearer and more precise in describing what measures apply to which parts of the incapacity benefit claimant pool. In most countries, this is a very diverse population with several distinct sub-sets with different levels of distance from the labour market, ranging from those with very severe disabilities or health conditions; others with multiple employment barriers not all stemming directly from their condition (outdated skills, for example), and those whose employability is high, their disability or health condition notwithstanding. As a small number of studies have pointed out (Evans, 2001, for example), activation regimes – defined in this study as the set of services that are provided to help nonemployed sick and disabled benefit claimants back to work; and how these are organised; delivered; targeted and financed – 'sort and select' claimants, applying different types or more or less intensive support for different categorisations of claimants. An activation regime for the claimant group can thus be very inclusive or rather narrow, depending on the extent to which these sub-pools are catered for. To demonstrate the value of this framework in reaching a more accurate understanding of the nature of these emerging regimes relative to extant approaches, a cross-national comparison of activation of sick and disabled claimants in Denmark and the United Kingdom is offered. Whilst they are considered to be very nearly diametrically opposed in a number of key ways – their approaches to activation; benefit generosity and broader welfare regime contexts – when looked at using the institutionalisation framework, they emerge as more similar than expected. Regardless of their quite different starting points, they experience many of the same challenges in creating a system in which the employment activation of the full extent of the claimant group is a priority and where a sick or disabled benefit claimant's right to back-to-work support is secure.

The thesis conducts an analysis of active labour-market policy and its support in the framework of the European Social Fund. The first section is specialized in labour policy and described documents of European Union in this framework. The second section of the paper focuses on active labour-market policy -- its development, implementation, tool kit as well as its reaction to European Union requirements and a subsequent efficiency evaluation of a number of programmes aimed to support the active labour-market policy. The next section assesses the achievability of quantitative targets of the Lisbon strategy which the Czech Republic should meet by 2010, i.e. whether we are on track to meet these targets. We aim to determine the achievability of targets using an analysis of employment. The following important section looks at labour policy expenditures in the Czech Republic, their change over time and particularly after the European Union accession in 2004, since when the Czech Republic has been able to draw financial support from the European Social Fund. The last section therefore deals with the European Social Fund, in particular with the implementation of projects, assessment of their impact on employment growth and recommendations for improvements in the efficiency of their execution.

Following diploma thesis is focused on retraining as a form of vocational adult education and on its possibilities in the struggle against unemployment. This thesis aims to describe retraing in terms of being an effective measure of active labour-market policy as well as to examine thorougly the actual contribution of retraining scheme for increasing both employment rate and employability. This effort subsequently entails the disclosure of some weaknesses in the implementation of this measure. Diploma thesis therefore contains also some recommendation for improving the existing practice. The theoretical part of the thesis starts by providing general overview of fundamentals of a theme such as labour market, unemployment or labour policy. Then it moves on theoretical description of retraining scheme itself. Empirical part of the thesis is founded on analysis of the local labour market (the territory of the capital city Prague) and on the particular means of action in the implementation of retraing scheme here.

This Diploma thesis is a proposal of project for supporting employment of school leavers, which propose to financial support from structural fund of European Union. The objective of project is more efficient of active policy of employment – socially serviceable working station.

The Covid-19 pandemic has generated a serious stress test for welfare states and welfare state institutions. This challenge has been met by unprecedented responses from governments, most notably countrywide shutdowns of substantial sections of economies to facilitate social distancing. Consequently, the health crisis was followed closely by an economic crisis. This situation has created a possibility study a process that predates the pandemic, namely liberalization. The thesis applies the theories of Thelen (2014), who claims that while there is an ongoing liberalization in welfare states, there are varieties of liberalization. She refers to the three trajectories of change deregulatory liberalization, dualizing liberalization and embedded flexibilization. The aim of the thesis is to enhance our understanding of how these varieties of liberalization are affected when countries are faced by massive external change. In pursuing this goal, I construct an analytical framework that illustrates the expected labour market policy responses for two of the three trajectory of change. I then conduct a comparative case study of labour market policy responses in Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. I compare the expected responses with the actual labour market policy responses to the crisis to detect how their responses relate to the trajectories of change towards liberalization. The findings suggest that while the countries have implemented rather similar responses to the crises, some countries’ path towards liberalization has been strengthened by their labour market policy responses, while other countries have diverted from their path towards liberalization during the Covid-19 crisis. The bigger take-aways from these findings are that the process of liberalization will be affected differently due to countries differing paths towards liberalization, as well as their inherent institutional structures. The findings thus highlight the significance of both path dependence and differing trajectories of change concerning the effects of the Covid-19 crisis on the process of liberalization.

Efforts for promotion of women&rsquo / s entrepreneurship in Turkey have growing ever-more noteworthy in Turkey, in parallel to the other countries&rsquo / experiences. These efforts are ranging from creation of shared workshops by civil society organizations, entrepreneurship trainings, shared sales places to establishment of business incubators. Correspondingly, the actors involved in these activities are getting diverse. Women&rsquo / s organizations, state organizations, private enterprises, chambers and national-international development foundations are developing their own models and strategies for supporting women&rsquo / s entrepreneurship. These efforts are all can be categorized within the framework of development practice and be considered as a new strategy. As a development policy strategy women-focused entrepreneurship support activities are significant when compared with other employment generation aimed development programmes in terms of the number of project and programmes implemented and the multiplicity of the objectives they are acknowledged to serve. These programme and project based efforts targeting development of women&rsquo / s entrepreneurship are stated to have objectives of increasing women&rsquo / s employment and developing their productivity, alleviating women&rsquo / s poverty and contributing to women&rsquo / s social empowerment. In this work, it is argued that according to the objective prioritized over others, it is possible to diagnose three different paradigms guiding the practice of different actors. In this vein, economic efficiency oriented, poverty alleviation oriented and empowerment oriented approaches to women&rsquo / s entrepreneurship support. A similar conceptualization is also offered by Mayoux (2001b). This work explores different approaches to women&rsquo / s entrepreneurship support issue in Turkey using above described categorization and discusses their assumptions and implementation-process-consequences comparatively. The analysis is substantiated upon the data of 17 semi-structured interviews held with the representatives of the organizations widely involved in the area, published and unpublished reports reached and the archival data on the practices of the primary actors in the area.

The Diploma thesis is focused on regional labour market development in Highlands during the economic crisis that brought negative impacts, especially into an area of industrial production. The main objective of thesis is to evaluate this labour market development, to analyse the impacts of economic crisis in selected economic entities that are significant regional employers and to research of practical solutions of negative consequences for elimination of this negative impacts needs. Integral part of thesis is also presentation of instruments that were implemented by regional institutions as part of employment policy.

The goal of the thesis "The proposal of the Employment Support with Utilization of Active Labour Market Policy" is the summary of how to use Active labour market policy with a focus on welfare service, following the proposal of the efficient use of the welfare services using funding from the European social fund.

In my graduation theses I was trying to clear up the role of separate instruments of active employment rate politics in fights against unemployment and sum up, if the application of these instruments in use leads to reducing of unemployment. At first, I described particular instruments of active employment rate politics in general, including their legal regulations and in the second part I made an analysis of the instruments APZ in area of České Budějovice. There is several ways how to reduce unemployment. In my opinion the most important is targeted and consequential pursuance of active employment rate politics, whose part is consultancy, prevention and checking. Further, to make more attractive required study fields and creation special programmes for risk groups.