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Active Labor Market Policy and its Impact on the Paid Experience of Women
Introduction
Over the past two decades, the active labor market policy (ALMP) notably developed in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) States, with significant national’s diversities in terms of both extension and general orientation. Regarding the socio-political opinions, an active labor market policy is tools that should be used without any typological specification, which is not limited to; employment assistance, investment of human capital, incentive reinforcement, and professionalism occupation. The ALMP consist of a various set of policies tools addressing joblessness and the governments invest degree on multiple policies as a response to the raising issues in the society such as unemployment of the women, paid women at work, gender equality in institutions among others (Bonoli,2010 pg. 435-457). The paper aims to explore the active labor market policy and how it affects the work experience of women. An overview of the system will be covered as well as the socio-political context for its establishment. Also, the strengths and weaknesses of the active market policy will be examined and the purpose of unions, groups, and activists of women in the modification of the policy. Finally, a conclusion and the recommendations of the system will be discussed.
An overview of active labor market policy impacting work experience of women
The active labor market policy as one of the market policies tend to have no specific description or cannot be defined in a particular understanding. Consequently, active labor market policy can be defined as a set of economic technique useful in the improvement of the labor marketing functioning concerned with the unemployment status in countries, mostly it put into consideration the unemployed women workers. Nevertheless, the active labor market policy customarily does not target only unemployed women. Besides, it is focused on preserving women at risk jobs along with activation of the inactive young and aging women to engage in employment opportunities. Subsequently, the policy intends to contest against structural inequities in the labor markets amongst men and women. Moreover, the policy measures tend to increase demand for work via the creation of jobs and human capital improvement, particularly women through training techniques. Active labor techniques incorporate passive measures including; benefits of unemployment and correlated welfare benefits as part of the employment policies in the countries; as a result of improving the well being of the persons in the States.
In the past, active labor market policy was usually understood as pillars of the broader system ‘activation’ framework. The activation labor force was to fight back the drawbacks of unemployment, assist women in workforce motivations through imposing a condition on searching active jobs and participation in techniques which improve employability, Crepon (2016) pg. 521-546. As far, the activation framework helped in the management of employment services, which in turn could effectively assist in the return of the persons to work. In a nutshell, according to sociologists, the active labor market policies are narrowed to two focal functions which social and economic developments.
The economic refers to the commercial concert of the labor markets consisting of job generations human resources allocation, overcoming structural gaps in the employment sector, and matching demand as well as the supply of the labor. On the other hand, society tends to mitigate the social significances of unfortunate economic and job market consequences. Besides, it pursues removing hindrances to employment through the inclusion of susceptible, socially excluded along with hard to employ women.
The socio-political context of Active labor market policy
Active labor market policy developed into its elementary form in the first in the 20th century under the influence of Keynesian unemployment theory. Later, the ALMP became implemented within the broader economic context of new Deal Policies or even much accepted and useful demand-side procedures focused on managing and fighting the negative socio-economic impacts of the Great Depression. At the same time, active labor market policy becomes developed in elementary form, as such systems mainly focused on public work structures along with the creation of direct jobs within a general segment. The current active labor market policy became established in Sweden during the 1950s and 60s as one of the principal supports of the Rehn-Meidner typical of economic modification.
In Rehn-model, active labor market policy was grounded on the improvement of the skills and requalification measures, including training of the employees, re-training among other educational programs. Rehn’s approach was focused on human capital development, aiming at the achievement of full employment, fight structural unemployment, modernize the economy of States. For instance, active labor market policies tended to play a vital role in the economic development of countries from the 1950s to the earlies 1970s. After 1972 Oil shock, the economic recession, and mass employment severely predisposed the economic policies of most western states resulting in the general design and implementation of the role ALMP in society, Hemerijck (2015 pg.242-256).
In a new socio-political framework, the attention of active labor market policies in many States changed from skills-improvement to fight the rising case of unemployment. Although pieces of training procedures retained a significant part, a divergence of active labor market policy techniques with the aim of direct creation of jobs in the public segments still happened within the countries. The significant preferred population was socially suspectable and hard to employ persons. Thus, active labor market policy targets tended to have a social dimension instead of economic measurement. The reason was that the crucial role of the ALMP became a short- term remuneration of the significances of poor financial performance worldwide. Besides, the social-political framework can be described as occupational as its main impact was to assist the labor force in a work routine and preventing the human capital decline due to the scenario of unemployment. In conclusion, the socio-economic context was termed as the second phase of active labor market policy development. And countries such as Germany, America, and France adopted such policies until the 1990s.
The socio-political and economic scenario forced the active labor market policy to enter into the third phase of development known as ‘activation turn.’ The activation turn type of the ALMP has been in exitance from the 1990s up to today. It is an emphasis on the employment stimulation and improves the opportunities of employment for job seekers. The technique was developed as a part of Danish employment policies during later o1990s resulting from activation becoming one of the essential elements of the Danish flexicurity version. Further, during the same period, the approach became promoted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union, thus becoming a part of the European Employment Strategy. The preliminary ideology behind the ‘Activation turn’ method was to shift policies from passive to active labor market approaches, grounded on the fact that a significant cause of labor market inequalities lies in the side of supply of the job opportunities. In other words, the activation of the second phase of the ALMPs, the unemployment benefits, and correlated passive employment approaches tended to discourage the active seeking of jobs.
To shed light on the socio-economic as well as the socio-political development of the active labor market policy depends on the criteria chosen to obligate different countries in such procedures. Therefore, the time-frame for mandatory participation in the dynamic labor market policy approach and correlated issues tend to vary among States depending on the overall institutional system of labor market policy along with goals set for employment resolution. In the last two decades, for instance, the active labor market policy constituting the activation policy has become a fundamental part European Union of social systems. The ideology of the dynamic social strategies in the European countries entered into functionality in the late 1990s response to the grown socio-economic challenges. Such contests were merging of the European social, political and economic scenarios, aging population, increased mobility amongst European countries, pressure on the financial sustainability of welfare programs, changing nature of the labor market, and much flexibility of working conditions. During the 2000s, the effort in establishing the principles of an ‘active welfare States’ in the European Union tended to continue, thus influencing positively the socio-economical along with socio-political cases in the European countries.
Active labor market policy, in general, is documented as a vital pillar of ‘active inclusion’ policy aiming in fighting global poverty, individuals’ social benefits, and elimination of unemployment through social approaches setup. The active labor market policy plays a vital role in the achievement of some of the sustainable development goals such as zero poverty, gender equality by empowering women and related equality in the society, as emphasized in ISO 2600.
Strength and Weakness of the Active Labor Market Policy
Training being the cornerstone program of ALMP, it has potentially improved the surrounding expectation in job creation and employment. According to Ingold and Mark Stuart’s study on the demand-side of active labor market policy, ” Journal of Social Policy (2015 pg. 443-462), ALMP has made it possible for training to give employment accessibility as well as leading to vast better-quality jobs. Active labor market policy has strongly embraced different types of training programs to improve personnel skills, thus placing such individuals in the job market. Training plans lay the foundation for acquiring general knowledge to have skills. The training moreover differences between hard and soft skills, learning skills through different types of apprenticeship either in the classroom or in a job setting, Besides, the ALMP have the strength the training through the investment of finances and time, whereby the policy emphases on either short training period or long-term period. According to research, the practice has a positive impact on the society where it has empowered enormous women who have engaged in the training, thus securing employment opportunities. Generally, the main strength of the ALMP has to invest in the training programs, thus contributing to the skilled personnel in the employment opportunities.
On the other hand, the ALMP have some of the weakness. In term of the effectiveness of the relationship between job vacancies and unemployment tend to be inverse in absolute professionalism or skilled personnel. To shed light, active labor market policies as a system of government intervention into market techniques and procedures tend to lead to various short run as well as long-run labor market deviations. The adverse effects, at some point, are outweighing the positive impact in the employment measurement, including deadweight force, displacement, cream-skimming effects, and substitution effect, McKenzie (2017 pg.127-154). Deadweight effects happen when an individual employed through employment subventions. The outcome should be eliminated through better employment targeting. Substitution effects occur when employers choose to substitute highly-skilled employees with lower-skilled employees due to the lower labor costs.
Women Groups and Grassroots Community’s Empowerment in Modifying the ALMP Policy
Over the decades, the discrimination of women in the labor market has often happed worldwide. Due to gender-based equality in the society, the women were described to be general caretakers in respective grassroots communities. In regard, women became socio-economically disadvantaged compared to men. Women had less access to education, skills development, productive resources, labor market opportunities, among others. Through women groups and change of beliefs and norms within grassroots communities, the work labor force policy has changed, thus placing women in the responsibility of breadwinning in the society (Armstrong, pg.15-76).
The women groups have profoundly contributed to the general change in the women’s labor market behavior, which includes: cultural attitudes towards socio-economic work opportunities, educational choices to enhance gender -equality in the labor market. Moreover, through the women group forum, the fertility decisions came into exitance to determine the number of children along with the age of having first childbirth. The overall reforms in women help the active labor market policy to consider gender equality in the implementation of unemployment scenarios in the labor market. Subsequently, communities have embraced to empower women by eliminating some of the beliefs and norms discriminating women from participating in socio-economic development.
Trade Unions and Activists in Shaping ALMP
Political-economic scrutinizes of trade unions in post-industrial societies have changed from typical traditional class- analytic techniques, thus embracing outsider or insider and producer partnership arguments. About Woodhall, and Belinda Leach in “Who Will Fight for our journal? (2010, pg. 44-58) Records, in any partnership, the trade unions are based on the assumption that unions tend to hold on to the guard of personal cores constituencies in the aspect of labor market deregulation and dualization. The trade unions lie reforms in the active labor market policy by embracing the “solidarity for all” slogan. The slogan places employers in the right relationship with workers, along with some of the workers’ benefits in the work industry. Besides, the unions tend to help the ALMP in response to the arising socio-economic crisis in the labor market, including unemployed women and young people in societies.
On the other hand, the rise of social activism plays a vital role in active labor market policy functionality. The activism often assisted the young people, women’s sensitivity to be firm in society, particularly in the labor market. The activist groups often see an opportunity of helping the governments developing relevant active labor market policies, thus placing the unemployed individuals in the job market. Moreover, the activist helps the employers in interpreting and implementing the regulations and new systems that emerge related to the workforce and employment opportunities.
Conclusion
The access of women into the work has been one of the most significant substantial developments of the 21st century. However, while in the past decades have seen significant developments in women’s worker market status, women tend to continue confronting hindrances to equality with men in the labor market. The introduction of the active labor market policy to equalize women’s workforce opportunities and consequences has been an aspect of public policy in all the countries around the world. The intense labor market policy has partially succeeded in the improvement of the women’s workforce market. Thus, research has to be done for the further understanding of the development of active labor market policy or even the invention of other strategies which will aid to combat the inequality of women in the workforce.
Recommendations
Regardless of the governments investing in the unemployment issues of women inequality, the labor market weaknesses still reflect risks of unemployment across the world, particularly in women. Therefore, to solve such problems in women’s gender equality in the workforce, countries should find techniques in the improvement of the active labor market policy. Some of the standards recommended steps to improve ALMP include: Improving institutional capacities in the employment sector as well as financing ALMP programs relating to human resources. In other words, public expenditure on redesigning active labor market policies programs should be increased, thus enhancing better prediction of the unemployment cases in the countries. The improvement of the ALMP measures through training should be considered as a result of reaching the most suspectable and hard-to-employee group in the labor market. Besides, the improved standards tend to tackle economic challenges such as low rates of women participating in the labor market, youth unemployment, among others.
Work Cited
Armstrong & Armstrong, Chapter 2, pp.15-76.
Bonoli, Giuliano. “The political economy of active labor-market policy.” Politics & Society 38.4
(2010): 435-457.
Crépon, Bruno, and Gerard J. Van Den Berg. “Active labor market policies.” Annual Review of
Economics 8 (2016): 521-546.
Hemerijck, Anton. “The quiet paradigm revolution of social investment.” Social Politics:
International Studies in Gender, State & Society 22.2 (2015): 242-256.
Ingold, Jo, and Mark Stuart. “The demand-side of active labor market policies: a regional study
of employer engagement in the Work Programme.” Journal of Social Policy 44.3 (2015):
443-462.
McKenzie, D. (2017). How effective are active labor market policies in developing countries? A
critical review of recent evidence. The World Bank Research Observer, 32(2), 127-154.
Woodhall, Julia R., and Belinda Leach. “Who Will Fight for Us? Union Designated Women’s
Advocates in Auto Manufacturing Workplaces.” Just Labour, Volume 16, Spring 2010,
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