Introduction

Since the mid-1990s the employment and social policy agenda of the European Union has been more focused on employment promotion than on addressing Member States' systems of social protection. There has been a shift away from old concepts of welfare states towards broader social initiatives that align social and economic objectives within a coherent approach. This calls for a different framework for employment and social policy, which will permit social dialogue and political deliberation to inform and complement legislative action at all levels. The theme of this volume is to demonstrate that this framework for employment and social policy in Europe can develop from a new, different set of policy principles: a capability approach.

In a capability approach to work and welfare, what matters for public policies is what a person can do and be with the resources over which she has command. In other words, what matters is her achievement as a person (and, as a consequence, the effective freedom she has to achieve her goals), compared with what is judged normal (i.e. conventionally agreed) in a given society. For Amartya Sen, from whom we take inspiration, empirical evidence shows that, when faced with the same hazard, people are unequal in their capabilities of doing and being with the same basket of commodities or amount of money.