Activating the most disadvantaged youth in Switzerland: Administratively too risky, politically too costly?

Abstract

To increase the chances of integrating youth into labour markets in contemporary European knowledge societies, many policy schemes are geared towards investing in youth's human capital. Since apprenticeship systems are assumed to ease school-to-work transitions, this seems a particularly promising avenue. However, research highlights that social policies often do not reach the most disadvantaged members of society. The aim of this article is to shed light on the reasons and mechanisms causing this phenomenon, called the Matthew effect, through a single, embedded case study of a vocational education and training programme for disadvantaged youth in Switzerland. The findings highlight cream-skimming practices as a coping strategy enabling frontline workers to satisfy strict assessment criteria. A budgetary allocation driven politico-administrative logic promotes such practices as a means to generate solid results, so as to safeguard political – and thus financial – support. © 2018 International Social Security Association

Keywords

Author Keywords

employability youth apprentice Switzerland Social Policy vulnerable groups

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

Université de Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, VD, Switzerland

Funding & Acknowledgements

Seventh Framework Programme, FP7

Address for correspondence: Delia Pisoni, Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP), University of Lausanne, Rue de la Mouline 28, 1022 Chavannes-près-Renens, Switzerland; email: delia.pisoni@unil.ch. The research leading to these results received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (INSPIRES project), and from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (GOVPET Leading House). The author thanks those involved in both of these projects, as well as Giuliano Bonoli, Fabienne Liechti, Anna Wilson, Daniel Auer, Flavia Fossati, Maël Dif-Pradalier, Deborah Rice, Lara Monticelli, Vanesa Fuertes, Flemming Larsen, Giuseppe Montenero, the participants in the panel “Linking ‘doing policy’ and ‘policy delivery’: Frontline delivery of welfare-to-work policies in Europe” at the ESPAnet conference 2017, and the participants in the Ph.D. workshop at the EGPA conference 2017, for their valuable input on earlier versions of this article.

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Activating the most disadvantaged youth in Switzerland: Administratively too risky, politically too costly?

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