Activation Policy in the Czech Republic: A Failing Tool to Fight Poverty and Social Exclusion

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this article is to investigate participants’ experiential knowledge about
implementation of activation policy in the context of Czech employment policy and to find out to
what extent activation policy has proved to be atool for combating poverty and social exclusion.
THEORETICAL BASE: The paper is theoretically based on street-level bureaucracy, microinstitutionalist
theory, and advanced marginality. METHODS: This article is based on qualitative
research of the implementation of activation policy in selected branches of the Labour Office of the
Czech Republic. The data include in-depth interviews with clients registered at labour offices and
interviews with clients’ social workers. OUTCOMES: It is concluded that jobseekers’ responses
to the implementation of the current work-first activation policy reflect survival strategies and are
rooted in ethnic, gender, and class-based inequalities in neoliberal societies. SOCIAL WORK
IMPLICATIONS: Long-term unemployed need comprehensive support to overcome their social
disadvantages. The activation policies must be based on social services in order to be labelled as
inclusive. This is especially true for integrating groups with complex social problems in the labour
market.