Creating or destroying value for users? Lessons about activation from qualitative studies in Norway and Denmark

Figures & data

Table 1. Research on user's experience of activation services used in this study.

Author	Title	Year	Aim	Method	Informants	country	publication
Danneris S.	Ready to work (yet)? Unemployment trajectories among vulnerable welfare recipients	2018	Analysing individual unemployment stories through time identifying changes in the trajectories	A qualitative longitudinal study of the unemployment trajectories of vulnerable welfare recipients in Denmark. The data were collected in four to five irregular empirical waves over four years.	25 vulnerable jobseekers categorized as ‘activity ready’. 30 to 59 years old. 12 male 13 female. The informants were recruited through their activation worker.	D	Qualitative Social Work
Danneris, S., & Caswell, D.	Exploring the ingredients of success: studying trajectories of the vulnerable unemployed who have entered work or education in Denmark	2019	What can we learn from the limited number of clients who have been categorized as vulnerable but who have succeeded in stopping cash benefits and entering employment or education?	Interviews conducted as short, retrospective narratives	12 former recipients of benefits who had been categorized as vulnerable and found and held on to employment for at least three months. 27 to 53 years old. 6 female, 6 male.	D	Social Policy and Society
Danneris, S., & Herup Nielsen, M	Bringing the client back in: a comparison between political rationality and the experiences of the unemployed	2018	What aspects of life do the current political rationality of welfare-to-work fail to address?	A qualitative longitudinal study of the unemployment trajectories of vulnerable welfare recipients in Denmark. The data were collected over two years.	25 vulnerable jobseekers categorized as ‘activity ready’. 30 to 59 years old. 12 male 13 female. The informants were recruited through their activation worker.	D	Social Policy & Administration
Fugletveit & Lofthus	From the desk to the cyborg’s faceless interaction in The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration	2021	How do NAV service users with mental health challenges and co-occurring disorders experience the digitalization of NAV’s services?	Individual interviews and focus group interviews with 3–5 participants per focus group	25 persons with mental health challenges and persons with both mental health and drug challenges. 19 to 65 years old. 14 male and 11 female. The informants were recruited through various services.	N	Nordisk välfärdsforskning
Gubrium, E	Participant meaning-making along the work trajectory of a labour activation programme.	2013	Understanding construction of clientification and jobseekers meaning-making over time	In-depth semi-structured interviews, one to two hour long	14 vulnerable jobseekers who were or had recently been engaged in activation measures. 30 to 58 years old. Recruited through program caseworkers	N	J. F. Gubrium & M. Järvinen (Eds.), Turning troubles into problems Clientization in human services
Gubrium, E., & Leirvik, M. S	Taking time seriously: Biographical circumstance and immigrant labour integration experience.	2022	How do immigrants make meaning of labour integration processes, with reference to changing personal histories and encounters within Norway’s activation and integration systems over time?	In-depth semi-structured interviews, one to two hour long	14 vulnerable jobseekers who were or had recently been engaged in activation measures. 30 to 58 years old. Recruited through program caseworkers	N	Journal of International Migration and Integration,
Hansen, H. T., Lundberg, K., & Syltevik, L. J.	Digitalization, street‐level bureaucracy and welfare users’ experiences	2018	How is the new technology implemented on the frontline of the organization? To what extent and for what purposes do welfare beneficiaries use the ICT provided by NAV? Does new technology replace traditional faceto-face encounters, and does the use of new technology depend on individual resources, i.e. is there a tendency towards a digital divide?	Interviews with benefit recipients, observation in job centres and user satisfaction surveys	38 users between 22 and 66 years old. Recruited by the researchers from observed offices.	N	Social Policy & Administration
Hansen, H. C., & Gubrium	Activating the person in the changing situation: A dynamic analytical approach to labour activation.	2021	How do participants in an activation programme experience and make meaning of labour activation processes, with reference to changing personal histories and their changing positions within relevant institutions over time?	Individual semi-structured interviews lasting from one to two hours with 16 service users and observation of 34 meetings between social workers and service users	34 vulnerable jobseekers ranged in age from 18 to 58 years old, including 21 women and 13 men, 22 with an immigrant background. The informants were recruited through their activation worker.	N	Journal of Comparative Social Work
Hansen, H. C., & Gubrium	Moving forward, waiting or standing still? Service users’ experiences from a Norwegian labour activation programme	2022	how service users variably and situationally understand what objectively appears to be ‘waiting’ in their personal labour activation trajectories	Individual semi-structured interviews lasting from one to two hours with service users from two separate fieldwork studies	62 vulnerable jobseekers 34 women and 26 men with varying levels of education, professional backgroud and civil status	N	Nordic Social Work Research
Hansen H.C.	From problems to-barriers A bottom up-perspective on the institutional framing of a labour activation programme	2020	To investigate how service users activation process take place within a broader context that includes measures, social workers, as well as employers and work-placement contacts, policy papers, legislations, municipal finances, and local labour markets	Individual semi-structured interviews lasting from one to two hours with service users and observation of 34 meetings between social workers and service users	34 participants in age from 18 to 58 years old, 21 women and 13 men,	N	Social Policy & Society
Hansen, H. C	Recognition and gendered identity constructions in labour activation: Gendered identity constructions	2018	How gender may affect labour activation recipients’ identity construction and sense of social value	Individual semi-structured interviews lasting from one to two hours with service users and observation of meetings between social workers and service users	16 articipants ranged in age from 18 to 58 years old, including 21 women and 13 men,	N	International Journal of Social Welfare
Hansen L.S. & Nielsen M.H.	Working Less, Not More in a Workfare Programme: Group Solidarity, Informal Norms and Alternative Value Systems Amongst Activated Participants	2021	To explore the lived reality of a Danish workfare programme	Ethnographic data from a Utility Jobs activation site gathered over a period of 12 months combine with 42 in-depth interviews with participants activated at the site	The interview group consisted of 22 men and 12 women. The participants have varying educational background and previous time on benefits.	D	Journal of social policy
Lundberg, K.	The Welfare Subject in the ‘One-stop Shop’: Agency in Troublesome Welfare Encounters.	2018	Coordination issues and accountability in NAV from the standpoint of service users and the production of situated agency.	Interviews aimed at exploring the subjects’ experiences whith and points of view on the job centre	29 people who had wide-ranging backgrounds with regard to former employment, as well as social and medical history, 22 to 66 years old. The informants were recruited with assistance from two job centres	N	Journal of sociology and social welfare
Natland et al.	Jeg fikk blankpusset håpet om at jeg hadde en fremtid		Present a user perspective on what characterizes good experiences in the meeting between users and service provider, and why they perceive this as good	User-led dialogue seminars within the framework of user-involved research	Long-term recipients of health and welfare services	N	Fontene
Nielsen et al	Waiting and temporal control: The temporal experience of long-term unemployment	2021	Analyse how long-term unemployed persons experience time during their unemployment trajectories	Interviews with open questions about what happened during the unemployment trajectory and a drawing exercise	12 former recipients of benefits who had between 3 and 10 years of user experience. 26 to 53 years old, nine female, three male. Informants recruited by the aid of activation workers.	D	Time & society
Ohls	Dignity‐based practices in Norwegian activation work	2020	To identify dignity-based practices in activation programs	Semi-structured individual qualitative interviews	Useres having taken part in activation program for vulnerable jobsekers. 13 woman, 7 men, 30–55 years old, large variation in working experience and formal qualifiqations	N	International Journal of Social Welfare
Olesen, S. P., & Eskelinen, L	Short narratives as a qualitative approach to effects of social work interventions.	2011	Analyse how cash benefit recipients experienced the employment efforts in which they participated, and whether the efforts made a difference to their working life perspective and their relationship to the labour market.	Observation in an activation program over a one yerar period and semi-structured narrative interviews aimed at a selected periods of time and topic: work, employment efforts, work identity and self-sufficiency	Utlising one informants narrative	D	Nordic Social Work Research
Solheim et al.	The importance of relationships in the encounter between NAV staff and young, vulnerable users.	2021	How to help vulnerable young users towards employment, education or training	Research circle extended over 14 months, encompassing 12 half-day sessions and 3 full-day seminars	Young adults who have comprehensive problems, not participating inactivation programmes, and long-standing contact with NAV.	N	European Journal of Social Work
Wik, S	Unge med funksjonsnedsettelser i lange forløp på NAV	2019	How is time used in the activation system and what consequences does this have for the young people’s belief in getting into work?	Two semi-structured interviews with each informant, one year appart.	12 young adults with functional impairments who have been users of activation services for more than three years	N	Søkelys på arbeidslivet
Åsheim, H	Den institusjonelle utholdenheten	2018	How is it experienced to be in the clarification process for young people with mental disorders? What significance does Nav’s clarification process have for the young people’s experience of coping?	Semi-structured interviews	Six young adult with mental illness, three woman and three men. In addition were twelve activation workers not knowing the users interviewed.	N	Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning,
Åsheim, H	«Du vil ha behov for ytterligere arbeidstrening». En studie av begrunnelser i arbeidsavklarings prosess	2019	How can use of activation programs and transitions between benefits be justified in work clarification processes?	Two interviews, ten phone calls, the informants files, observation of follow up meetings, interview with activation worker	One of the users in the research project above	N	Norsk sosiologisk tidsskrift