Abstract
The paper by Atzmüller, Decieux, and Knecht analyzes the expansion of educational and social policy activities for preschool children and adolescents and the orientation of these activities on future employability and human capital formation as a moment of the polarization of welfare systems. It does so by focusing on recent changes in (early) childcare and the transition phase from education to vocational education and training (VET) and employment in Austria. The paper argues that these changes are linked to wider trends of capitalist social formations that are experiencing a period of crisis-ridden transformations since the 1970s which culminated in the financial crisis of 2008/2009 and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis. Drawing on Claus Offe’s conceptualization of welfare states and social policies as a form of crisis management through which societies cope with the dysfunctional and destructive effects of accumulation- and market-driven change, the question is raised whether the expansion and contextual reorientation of educational activities and social policies amount to a new form of crisis management. According to the paper, this alleged new form of crisis management is defined by strategies to adapt the subjective qualities of individuals to the crisis-ridden transformation of the economy. Thus, the subjectivation of crisis management that is central to the polarization of welfare systems focuses on activities to uphold a work ethic compatible with capitalist accumulation for those that are to be integrated in flexible and precarious segments of the labor market and human capital formation for the high skilled.
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- 1.
The analyses on (early) childcare are based on the PhD project “Demands on and in early childcare in urban areas,” conducted by Fabienne Décieux, JKU Linz, Austria, and the research seminar “Mapping domestic Work in Vienna,” led by Almut Bachinger and Fabienne Décieux (term: 03/2015-02/2016), JKU Linz, Austria.
- 2.
The analysis of the situation for adolescents in Austria was conducted for the EU-Project SOCIETY – “Social innovation – Empowering the young for the common good”(with Karin Kuchler) (Contract No.: 320136, duration: 2013–2015), which was coordinated by the University of Bielefeld.
- 3.
The latter refer to indicators such as the number of children attending a childcare facility below the age of 3 as well as at the preschool age, the reduction of early school leavers and NEET rates (Mascherini et al. 2012), the number of young adults attaining certain skill levels (OECD 2017), etc. as laid down in the European 2020 Strategy (European Commission 2010).
- 4.
From the perspectives of the 1970s, Offe (for a similar argument: Habermas 1975) focused on emerging crises of legitimation and rationality of (welfare) states. The latter basically began to undermine the ability of (welfare) states to steer accumulation dynamics, to secure social cohesion and loyalty, and to cope with its emerging crisis at the same time.
- 5.
In this context it is important to see that an analysis of the impact of neoliberal reform agendas cannot be reduced to the size and scope of welfare systems and social policies and the question whether they prove resilient or not from this perspective (Hemerijck 2011; Pierson 2011). Rather, the focus has to be put on the wide-ranging reorganizations and reconfigurations of welfare systems and social policies these reform projects have tried to implement.
- 6.
“By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description” (taken from the English translation of “Das Kapital” (Marx 1972).
- 7.
Activation policies and workfare are mainly geared toward the (long-term) unemployed and so-called contingent workers and refer to a set of strategies (cuts of transfers, sanctions, job coaching, “work first”) to reintegrate them into the flexible and precarious segments of the labor markets. Workfare and activation are defined by policy strategies which tie the access to (reduced) social transfers to a tightening sanction regime of public employment services and aim at securing the work ethic of the unemployed (Atzmüller 2014; Stelzer-Orthofer and Weidenholzer 2011).
- 8.
Social investment policies (Kohlrausch 2014; Solga and Becker 2015) aim at reconciling the activities of welfare states with productivity and competitiveness. They aim at fostering measures which contribute to economic growth such as human capital formation, research and development but also the expansion of childcare activities (Hemerijck 2013). However, they run into danger to do so at the expense of so-called unproductive policies (e.g., pension payments). As a consequence they intend to expand (early) childcare to mobilize mothers by supporting them to reconcile work and family life and to improve the educational achievements of the offspring of certain social groups – the so-called deprived of education (Bildungsferne) – as the (allegedly) best tool to prevent future poverty and crime (Esping-Andersen 2002).
- 9.
For example, in Sweden around 64% of children under the age of 3 are in formal childcare Eurostat (2018).
- 10.
Share of children in formal childcare younger than 3 years in the year 2015:
DNK
SWE
NOR
LU
BE
PT
NL
IS
FR
ES
Si
FIN
IE
UK
IT
DE
77.3
64.0
52.2
51.9
50.1
47.2
46.3
43.8
41.8
39.7
37.4
32.6
30.6
30.4
27.3
25.9
LV
AT
EE
CY
MT
HU
RS
HR
GR
LT
RO
BG
MK
PL
CZ
SK
22.8
22.2
21.5
20.8
17.9
15.3
14.0
11.8
11.4
9.7
9.4
9.0
6.1
5.4
2.9
1.1
- 11.
The Barcelona objectives envisage among others that 90% of the children between the age of 3 and under school age in formal care.
- 12.
The introduction of a second mandatory kindergarten year – debated in particular as a measure to improve the integration of migrant children – is currently being discussed.
- 13.
On the EU level, the indicator of early school leavers was established in 2000, the indicator of NEETs in 2010, on the EU level to describe the situation of young people. Early school leavers are defined as young people aged 18–24 who are no longer in school and do not have qualifications higher than ISCED Level 3c. This group is not homogeneous. The notion “early school leavers” refers to “a wide target group of young people, reaching from school leavers without any certificate to students of the grammar school, who leave school shortly before final examinations” (Steiner 2009). The NEET indicator (referring to young people, who are “not in employment, education or training”) includes holders of an apprenticeship or higher education certificate waiting for the start of the semester at high school or having recently given birth to a child. Both indicators focus on education and labor participation and employability. They regard young people as problematic and needy and this can lead to stigmatizing and individualizing social problems. Accordingly, Bacher et al. (2013) warn, “not to locate the causes of a NEET-situation within the individuals, but to look at structural causes, which include economic, social and political relations.”
- 14.
In the year 2001, the budget of labor market policy for the under 25s amounted to €168.8 million, in 2008 to €561.8 million; in 2017 the government spent €868 million on that purpose (Knecht and Atzmüller (forthcoming).
- 15.
Because of the relatively successful management of the effects of the crisis, the Austrian way of VET policy served as a prototype for the EU: In 2012 the EU implemented a Youth Employment Package reinforced by the Youth Employment Initiative in 2013. Its cornerstone is the recommendation for all member states to establish a so-called Youth Guarantee (Escudero and López Mourelo 2015).
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Atzmüller, R., Décieux, F., Knecht, A. (2019). Transforming Children and Adolescents in Human Capital. Changes of Youth Policies in Post-Crisis Austria. In: Grimm, M., Ertugrul, B., Bauer, U. (eds) Children and Adolescents in Times of Crises in Europe. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16331-0_7
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