From efficiency to ambivalence: How digitalisation reshapes labour market activation and the moral economy of welfare state
Demazière, D., van Gerven, M., Hansen, M. P., & Sacchi, S. (2025). From efficiency to ambivalence: How digitalisation reshapes labour market activation and the moral economy of welfare state. Journal of European Social Policy, 09589287251401707.
The growing entanglement of digitalisation with the design and delivery of social and labour market policies has become an undisputed feature of contemporary welfare governance (Van Gerven, 2022). A key area where the “digital welfare states” are emerging is the governance of labour market integration and the activation of individuals outside of the labour market (Bonoli, 2013; Clasen and Mascaro, 2022; Demazière et al., 2025). In this context, active social policy has been embodied and enacted through digital technologies that mediate access, entitlement and control with benefit and service systems. These systems also support the risk assessment and categorisation of the unemployed with the aim of promoting their reintegration into the labour market (Dwyer et al., 2019; Knotz, 2018; Watts and Fitzpatrick, 2018).