European Graduate School for Social Sciences (EUSOC) 19th International Doctoral Seminar in Social Sciences - "Targeting Benefits and Unemployed: Eligibility Criteria in Social Assistance Benefits for Work Promotion"
Abstract
With the scale of the current fiscal challenges, policymakers are targeting benefits that withdraw benefits as income rises. No studies have compared CEE and other EU countries eligibility criteria under targeting benefits to understand young third-country immigrants' transition to work in Austria, Finland, and Czechia.
The key hypothesis is: Is eligibility criteria implication to enable young third-country immigrants' transition to work? Based on documents analyses, this paper concludes that age adjustment, behaviour legal requirements, and functional impairment regulatory devices with lack of transparency and solidarity steer young third-country immigrants' transition to work. However, the comparative entities are dissimilar in their institutional setting.
The outcome pointed to new paternalistic means-tested austerity neo liberal governance. This reflects a pivotal shift from generous welfare state to stingy enabling state governance that may infringe transparency, equity, and public accountability, penalize belongings, and jeopardize democratic values