Danish Flexicurity: Not the Same Today as Yesterday

Abstract

This chapter provides a critical review of flexicurity in the context of the Danish labour market. Shortly after flexicurity became a popular concept and a key policy issue in the European Union in the late 1990s, policy makers and labour market experts ‘discovered’ Denmark as a model country regarding flexicurity. Danish flexicurity was perceived as displaying a specific combination of low job security, a high compensation rate for unemployed persons and active labour market policies that could help people to move into new jobs. While the flexibility element of the hybrid termed ‘flexicurity’ is primarily an outcome of regulation determined by employers’ associations and trade unions in the comprehensive Danish collective bargaining system, the security part is mainly rooted in and maintained by the welfare state, not least through the unemployment insurance system. However, public interventions not only secure a basic level of economic and social security but are also geared towards maintaining a supply of labour that consists of persons who are prepared to be employed and work in a flexible labour market. The chapter analyses developments central to flexicurity over the last half century and concludes that the balance between flexibility and security has changed significantly towards more flexibility and less security.