Documents RECWOWE 28 results

"Flexible specialisation, internationalisation, an ageing workforce, and the move into a service economy has placed growing pressure on trade unions and employers to strike new deals. Bargaining over ‘non-wage' issues may potentially accommodate the needs of an ageing and increasingly feminised workforce and enable unions to increase or at least maintain given levels of membership. Little empirical work has been done, however, in examining different types of ‘non-wage' issues that have arisen across countries and explaining why they arise. In this paper, we create a typology of four distinct types of ‘non-wage' issues and seek to identify the conditions under which each is expected to be observed. We propose that two conditions (one political and one economic) determine different agendas which lead to the emergence of a particular type of ‘non-wage' issue: the level of cohesion amongst unions; and the sector in which bargaining predominates (private or public). We then focus on how the bargaining over ‘non-wage' issues has developed within three European economies: Austria, Greece and Italy. Each is representative of a different variant of corporatism, and therefore we look at the ability of social partners with variable institutional capacity to negotiate and agree on ‘non-wage' issues through collective bargaining. Our initial findings suggest that union cohesion and the presence, or the lack, of a market constraint on employers helps explain the variation in the types of non-wage issues which arise in these three countries."

"In particular due to increasing female employment over the last decades employment has become more flexible in regard to the contract form and we observe more discontinuous employment careers. This paper discusses in how far retirement pension systems in Europe are suited to cover the specific risks of flexible workers. Recent reforms to these systems (e.g. the strengthening of private elements) and their outcomes on flexible workers are also scrutinised. Section 1 discusses the increasing flexibility of working lives, focussing on breaks in paid employment caused by the incompatible demands of family and working life and on atypical forms of employment, in particular part-time and fixed-term employment. Section 2 discusses the problems encountered by persons with flexible labour market histories with regard to retirement pensions, and points to good practices from several European countries. Section 3 analyses retirement pension in Germany in detail based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data which contains life course information. It looks at differences in pension coverage taking account of the full-time and part-time employment history of individuals. It puts specific emphasis on the private ‘Riester pension' plan which contains incentives for participation of specific labour market groups usually disadvantaged in third pillar private pension schemes."

"The question of what explains variation in expenditures on Active Labour Market Programs (ALMPs) has attracted significant scholarship in recent years. Significant insights have been gained with respect to the role of employers, unions and dual labour markets, openness, and partisanship. However, there remain significant disagreements with respects to key explanatory variables such the role of unions or the impact of partisanship.

Qualitative studies have shown that there are both good conceptual reasons as well as historical evidence that different ALMPs are driven by different dynamics. There is little reason to believe that vastly different programs such as training and employment subsidies are driven by similar structural, interest group or indeed partisan dynamics. The question is therefore whether different ALMPs have the same correlation with different key explanatory variables identified in the literature? Using regression analysis, this paper shows that the explanatory variables identified by the literature have different relation to distinct ALMPs. This refinement adds significant analytical value and shows that disagreements are at least partly due to a dependent variable problem of ‘over-aggregation'."

"The paper explains why across Europe very few job matches are facilitated by public employment services (PES), looking at the existence of a double-sided asymmetric information problem on the labour market. It is argued that although a PES potentially reduces search costs, both employers and employees have strong incentives not to use the PES. The reason is that employers try to avoid the ‘worst' employees, and employees try to avoid the ‘worst' employers. Therefore PES get caught in a low-end equilibrium that is almost impossible to escape. The mechanisms leading to this low-end equilibrium are illustrated by means of qualitative interviews with 40 private employers in six European countries."

"In particular due to increasing female employment over the last decades employment has become more flexible in regard to the contract form and we observe more discontinuous employment careers. This paper discusses in how far retirement pension systems in Europe are suited to cover the specific risks of flexible workers. Recent reforms to these systems (e.g. the strengthening of private elements) and their outcomes on flexible workers are also scrutinised. Section 1 discusses the increasing flexibility of working lives, focussing on breaks in paid employment caused by the incompatible demands of family and working life and on atypical forms of employment, in particular part-time and fixed-term employment. Section 2 discusses the problems encountered by persons with flexible labour market histories with regard to retirement pensions, and points to good practices from several European countries. Section 3 analyses retirement pension in Germany in detail based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data which contains life course information. It looks at differences in pension coverage taking account of the full-time and part-time employment history of individuals. It puts specific emphasis on the private ‘Riester pension' plan which contains incentives for participation of specific labour market groups usually disadvantaged in third pillar private pension schemes."

"This paper is a detailed analysis about the literature on the Social OMC from 2006-2010, focusing on how OMC research has been carried out. It specifically points to which theoretical framework/concepts are used, and how change is conceptualised and measured. It is organised in five sections. The first concerns visibility and awareness about the OMC; the second analyses research on the EU level coordination process; the third scrutinizes how features of the OMC have been analysed. The fourth and fifth sections, addressing how national integration of the OMC has been researched, respectively address substantive policy change as well as national policy-making. Strikingly, virtually all OMC research adopts theoretical frameworks derived from literature on Europeanisation and/or institutionalisation. Also, as the OMC is voluntary and sanction-free, it depends heavily on how and the the extent to which actors use it (agenda-setting, conflict resolution, maintaining focus on a policy issue, developing a policy dialogue, etc). OMC research has become nuanced and does highlight how, for which purpose and with which outcome actors engage with the OMC. Another finding is that there is data on policy issues addressed through the OMC, learning does take place and there is knowledge about domestic policy problems. However, the linkage between knowledge of an issue and direct use of the OMC for policy change in social policy is weak, but that may change with EU2020, where social policy has received a higher profile. Most research covers the EU-15, much more research needs to be undertaken in newer EU member states."

"There is still some lack of clarity regarding the question of what the Capability Approach actually is, how it should be interpreted and operationalised, and not least whether it is an adequate and useful concept for the analysis of social policy in Europe. Against the backdrop of these questions, this paper looks at recent contributions which use the Capability Approach (CA) for analysing social policy. This leads me to argue that the most interesting applications of the CA may not lie in policy evaluation in the classical sense, but rather in an analysis of policy outputs through the lens of concepts such as individualisation and diversity. In this sense, the CA may serve as normative foundation for addressing the dependent variable problem in comparative welfare regime research. In order to play this role, however, CA-applications will need to clearly differentiate between the potential and implications of the CA itself, and various external normative reference points which should not be identified with the CA. "

"This paper deals with the recruitment strategies of employers in the low-skilled segment of the labour market. We focus on low-skilled workers because they are overrepresented among jobless people and constitute the bulk of the clientele included in various activation and labour market programmes. A better understanding of the constraints and opportunities of interventions in this labour market segment may help improve their quality and effectiveness. On the basis of qualitative interviews with 41 employers in six European countries, we find that the traditional signals known to be used as statistical discrimination devices (old age, immigrant status and unemployment) play a somewhat reduced role, since these profiles are overrepresented among applicants for low skill positions. On the other hand, we find that other signals, mostly considered to be indicators of motivation, have a bigger impact in the selection process. These tend to concern the channel through which the contact with a prospective candidate is made. Unsolicited applications and recommendations from already employed workersemit a positive signal, whereas the fact of being referred by the public employment office is associated with the likelihood of lower motivation."

"European policies regarding the reconciliation of paid work and private life have undergone substantial changes since the 1950s. This paper analyses how European resources related to reconciliation policies have been incrementally developed through layering and conversion processes. Three phases can be distinguished. Beginning with early initiatives at the Community level, reconciliation policies transformed into an instrument of equality policy and finally an instrument of employment policy. Beyond tracing these historical developments, the paper addresses the various definitions of reconciliation and their different functions as cognitive and legitimising resources. It suggests a larger and encompassing definition of reconciliation in order to acknowledge the potentially diverse and numerous usages of Europe by domestic actors."

"Different aspects of decisions regarding parenthood are analysed. From an institutional perspective, reconciliation policies and features of the female labour market are studied, as well as the values and life views that may affect the decision to become a parent. From a micro-perspective, a multivariate model of proportional hazards is created from the 2004-2007 Spanish EU-SILC, where likelihood of pregnancy is analysed according to specific employment, personal, and family situations. Results are not conclusive, because the Hypothesis of Fertility Positive Turn was not confirmed directly for cases with a steadier work status. However, educational level does have a continuous effect, that is, women with university degrees, and especially employed ones, are more likely to become parents."