ISSA: European Regional meeting Oslo, May 15.-16-2007 Inclusion in Working Life

1. ISSA: European Regional meetingOslo, May 15.-16-2007Inclusion in Working Life General Conclusions And some thoughts about the way forward... Kåre Hagen Norwegian School of Management

2. The need to turn long historical trends • Reconciling microeconomic and macrosocial logics • Redesigning the institutions for collective action • What is attractive work – for elderly in the future? • Welfare reform: Rebuilding the ship while sailing!

3. 1 Turning history around... • The mental map of workers, voters and citizens • FROM work before welfare (as reward: non-work, free time) • TO welfare in and at work • BUT what if people have other plans of life?... • The way we think of "health" • FROM diagnosis as a right to labour market exit (and a social wage) • TO diagnosis as a guidance to how work contracts should be rearranged • BUT How to make the medical profession part of this solution? • (Do we have) A modernized concept of social justice? • FROM the fairness of exit through earned rights, age and bad luck • TO fairness as equal right to individualized opportunities in the labour market • BUT what about the class gradient in health, skills and productivity?

4. 2 Micro-logics and social outcomes • It takes two to tango: Willingness and capacity to work does not increase employment in a market for labour unless labour costs equals productivity. • In the long run, firms cannot be expected to pay for more than they get. Should the risk of taking on a social responsibility be insured by the welfare state? • DILEMMA Public policies to promote and protect job opportunities (for low-productive workers) must address the market for labour as a whole. Companies, at best, care only for their own employees. • What are the crucial conditions for companies, to see it in their own interest, to increase the number of low-productive employees? Should the social wage be paid as a wage subsidy?

5. 3 Modernise decision making • "No single quick fix is available". Single program, top-down reform, will not be sufficient. • Legislators: Integrate income insurance and social work. All nuts and bolts in one tool-box! • Social partners: Broad participation is necessary to transform disability schemes into employment promotion. • Broaden the number of stakeholders: Professionals must be regarded not as veto-players but as part of the solution. • Norms against free-riding is needed • Firms: Competitive advantage through non-responsible behaviour • Workers: Recourse to "I’m too sick to work" • Social class: The power of upper strata behaviour!

6. 4 What makes work attractive? • Much more solid knowledge on push and pull is needed! • The relative importance of wages versus other qualities • In different occupational groups and social strata • What are the good combinations of type of work and what medical impairment within different occupations? • What do work compete with for different individuals, houshold types and generations? • Are there limits to "customized jobs": Costs and stigma?

7. 5 What are the success factors? • All are looking for the list – But we’re not there yet!! • Some common denominators seem to surface... • Economic incentives are important, but works in interaction with other factors, primarily of social and cultural nature. • The focus of public attention, policies and reforms should be on the workplace. • Policy instruments should be coordinated, and (re-)designed to mobilize the (remaining) capacities to work of the individual. • Doctors should be employed in the role more of advising individuals and employers as to what work can be done, and less of what cannot be done. • But also; critical knowledge is missing • Increased participation among elderly: Reform-effects vs. cohort-effects? • What happens to those who get off disability benefits? • What are the limits to corporate social responsibility?

8. We have never worked so little...