Summary

The first part consists of a conceptual discussion and demarcation of the concept of workfare in relation to other activation policies as active labour market policy and welfare to work programmes. Secondly, the overall institutional pattern of the Scandinavian welfare states is presented along with an empirical overview of the policy-trends and their workfare elements, and lastly, the workfare-tendencies is evaluated normatively in relation to some basic ideas of democratic, decent societies, and in relation to the Scandinavian universalistic welfare model.