Welfare regimes and labour market integration policies in Europe

Abstract

This chapter discusses migrant labour market integration policies and services in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and thus we present a wide variety of different national contexts. In addition, it also details EU-specific policies and programmes.

The empirical work underpinning this chapter emanates from two main research tasks: policy discourse analysis; and assessment of existing policies and their outcomes. A policy discourse analysis was conducted across the selected countries to identify and analyse how issues of labour market integration are discussed by policymakers and policy actors. By analysing the findings of the discourse analysis together with the assessment of policies, which forms the second part of chapter, the consistency between policy rhetoric and policy goals is evaluated. The second part of the chapter consists of a policy assessment in which the barriers to labour market integration and existing policies to remedy them are identified, categorised and evaluated. This was performed using a meta-analysis of the existing national literatures, and interviews with policy experts, implementers and beneficiaries of labour market integration policies.