Documents Blossfeld, Hans-Peter 3 results

"This article investigates how globalization has impacted on labour market inequalities in modern, OECD-type societies. To this end, it collates findings from three cross-nationally comparative research projects that had all focused on the consequences of globalization and flexibilization for individual life courses (Globalife; TransEurope, flexcareer). Results indicate that there is a clear increase of labor market risks in the globalization process. However, this increase of risks has been not distributed equally among social groups, but has reinforced existing inequalities between as well as within birth cohorts. Particularly youth and women disproportionately find themselves ‘at the margins' of globalized labour markets. Furthermore, globalization has impacted social classes and social inequality very differently, with most detrimental effects for those with low occupational class and little educational attainment. Despite the universality of these trends across countries, it can be shown that emerging inequalities are significantly ‘filtered' by nation-specific institutions such as welfare systems and national labour markets. The article ends with a consideration of most recent trends in life course transitions and identifies open questions for further research."

"In both academia as well as public discourse, globalization has turned into a prominent reference when discussing recent changes in contemporary societies. The majority of earlier literature,however, has largely restricted itself to the broader relationship between globalization and entire national economies, although there have been smaller studies that have investigated how globalization actually 'trickles down' to the individual life course levels of modern European citizens, concentrating on single life course transitions.



Based on contributions from international experts, this volume extends this perspective by providing an up-to-date account of globalization's influences on individual life courses in nine different European societies and of political strategies to mediate this influence. The authors provide ample evidence that globalization does not lead to an equivocal 'race to the bottom' in modern welfare states but is mediated differently by nation-specific institutions. Furthermore, they show that employment insecurity is often channelled to specific disadvantaged groups, thereby amplifying existing inequality structures."

"This topical and timely analysis of late career and retirement within nine European societies and the USA examines how social inequality structures have developed in an era of globalization and aging populations.



For several decades, many European societies relied on pushing and luring older workers out of employment by using generous early retirement programs in order to relieve national labor markets in times of globalization. However, as this book argues, one of the major challenges facing European and Northern American societies today is their severe demographic aging, which in turn places pension systems under substantial pressure due to the rising imbalance between those claiming pensions and those contributing to the pension system. Indeed, it is observed herein that in the recent past, governments have tried to increase the labor market attachment of older employees by retrenching early retirement benefits. This study investigates how these developments have impacted on the situation of older workers and retirees in nine European societies and the USA. In particular, the book looks at how social inequalities in later life have developed in the light of recent pension reforms."