ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the thesis that selective welfare policy generates an 'us-them divide', which makes it more difficult for the poor and unemployed to fulfil the identity criterio. It measures the 'us them divide' by the extent to which recipients of welfare benefits experience stigmatisation. The chapter also focuses on welfare services and benefits that cover the same social risks across the Nordic countries, but vary in terms of selectivism, there is also a link between selectivism and stigmatisation. It presents the social democratic regimes of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland in order to analyse to what extent the programmes guided by universal principles and the programmes guided by selective principles produce different degrees of stigmatisation. The chapter explores that Nordic survey data on stigmatisation support the classic thesis of selective welfare policy being associated with stigma and thereby generating an 'us-them divide', which readers believe is important when it comes to the overall judgement of deservingness.