Between work and welfare in the Danish flexjob scheme: -exploring the changing categories for people with reduced work capability

According to Stone (1984), welfare states generally operate with two distributive systems: self-sufficient people in work and people in need who receive welfare benefits. With the establishment of the flexjob scheme in Denmark in the late 90’s, we argue that a middle category was established to describe a person midway between work and permanently dependent on welfare subsidies as a flexjob employee receives pay from the employer for the effective working hours and a cash benefit from the municipality as compensation for the lower wage income.
For citizens, the road to a flexjob can be divided into two stages. 1) the public employment system (PES) must categorize the citizen as having a reduced work ability that is ‘substantial and lasting’ making him unable to function in the ‘ordinary’ labour market. Subsequently, the PES must determine if the citizen is a part of the target group for early retirement benefits, a flexjob or other policy measures. 2) IF granted a flexjob, the citizen must be available to the labour market with the associated demands and rights belonging to an ‘ordinary’ unemployed person.
In this study, we examine the two stages in obtaining a flexjob from being granted a flexjob to searching for one and how the PES translate the legislative categories in practice. To this end, we use Stones terminology of work and need as the primary distributive systems wherein the PES determines which citizens are eligible to belong to the needs system. We report on a document analysis combined with 18 interviews in three Danish job centers (N=21) and a national survey of 80 job centers (N= 511). We find that a fundamental shift in categories towards the citizen takes place from the first to the second stage which is linked to the political categories in which the citizen is placed.
We find that the path towards being granted a flexjob is dominated by the distributive logic of needs (stage one). After being granted a flexjob (stage two), the categories shift towards the work system. Underlying the process is a continuous domination of the work system as the ideal. The categories, however, are left to both institutional/organizational interpretation and discretion by the individual street-level bureaucrat.