An Evaluation of a Proactive Social Policy Reform and Local Activation Practices in Finland

STAKES and the Rehabilitation Foundation together are evaluating a proactive social policy reform introduced in Finland in 2001. The reform aims at co-ordinating active labour market policy measures and basic income policy for long-term unemployed and unemployed youth as a joint effort of employment and social welfare authorities. It imposes new obligations both on these authorities and on the target groups of the policy reform. The evaluation covers both the outcomes of the reform and the implementation process. The evaluation is based on data collection and analysis on two levels: 1) general extensive surveys in longitudinal design with comparison groups and 2) several in-depth components. This design is used in order to be able to respond to a number of summative and formative evaluation problems, i.e. what the outcomes and impacts of the reform were in detail and through which processes they have been produced (variation of implementation). The paper describes the main outlines of the evaluation, also focusing on the functioning of the new legislation in the context of Finnish employment and welfare policy. It also presents the evaluation design and the methods applied on the two levels (1) and (2)