This article analyzes the post–Second World War Finnish discussion on
disability pension and vocational rehabilitation policies.
It argues that the principle of activation, which
has been linked to the recent neoliberal workfare turn in social policy,
has in fact remained as one of the guiding
principles of disability policy during the entire post-war period.
During the 1940s,
the Finnish disability policy was established on
the principles of compensation and activation, as the disability pension
scheme was limited to those who had participated in
working life and vocational rehabilitation to those who were evaluated
to have the potential to do so in the future. At
the turn of the 1960s, the compensation principle was overtaken by the
principle
of need as the newly adopted goal of constructing
the Finnish welfare state materialized in the demands for a universal
pension
policy and extending vocational rehabilitation to
those who had previously been labeled as unprofitable targets. However,
the traditional disability policies began to
receive criticism during the 1980s as the conception of disability
changed from
being viewed as an individual defect raising a need
for segregated services and environments to a minority status entitling
a person to supportive measures enabling him or her
to participate in the normal society. This also problematized the
traditional
divide between the need-based and work-based
systems of distribution by raising the question on disability
pensioners' entitlement
to participate in the labor market.