The heterogeneity of social policy impact and coping mechanisms in challenging times

Since the early 2000s, social policy discourse in Europe has centred around the adult worker model which focuses on labour market activation as one of the main goals of social policy. This has created new pressures for groups whose working patterns are not those of the typical male breadwinner. The thesis focuses on three such non-traditional breadwinner groups. Chapter 1 analyses the income situation of EU-migrants compared to natives in different European welfare regimes and decomposes the difference into socio-demographic versus labour market characteristics. Chapter 2 focuses on inactive ethnic minority women in the UK and studies whether an income shock in the household can be a push factor for joining the labour market. Chapter 3 analyses the individual poverty risk of women with different labour market characteristics in the EU and compares their situation to the situation of typical male workers. All three chapters focus on coping mechanisms in economically challenging times (the tax-benefit system in Chapter 1 and 3 and the added-worker-effect in Chapter 2) and emphasize the heterogeneity in the level of coping. The three empirical chapters highlight different implications of the adult worker model for labour market outsider groups. They show that being in employment is very often not sufficient and often leads to a less preferential economic situation compared to labour market insiders. The empirical contributions furthermore highlight the importance of taking the heterogeneity of life courses and circumstances into account. While the adult worker model applies one standard to all, this leads to blind spots for groups that are disadvantaged on the labour market or face social and cultural barriers to labour market participation. Thus, labour market disadvantages and barriers to employment need to be part of the policy discourse around the adult worker model.