Fighting Europes Unemployment In The 1990s

Following the five books listed above on an earlier page, the Egon Sohmen-Foundation herewith submits its sixth volume. Once again, it is a collection of academic papers that were discussed at a symposium sponsored by the Foundation and subsequently revised. Readers not familiar with the Foundation may be interested to know that it was established in 1987 by Helmut Sohmen of Hong Kong in memory of his late brother, Egon Sohmen (1930-1977). Egon Soh men was an international economist highly respected in North America and in Europe, notably for his work on flexible exchange rates and on the economics of allocation and competition. Born in Linz (Austria) and educated as an economist in Vienna, Tiibingen, and Cambridge, Mass., Egon Sohmen held teaching posts in several places (M.I.T., Yale, Frankfurt, Saarbriicken, Minnesota, and Heidelberg). As an active participant in numerous international con ferences and workshops, he truly belonged to the international research community of his time and age cohort. His lasting reputation greatly helped me to convene the active participants of this symposium.

This book is the sequel to Fighting Europe's Unemployment in the 1990s, the collection of papers presented at the Salzburg Symposium of the Egon-Sohmen-Foundation in 1994. Though the problem of un employment was urgent already then, it has not found a practical solution in the meantime, and even intellectually it remains somewhat of a mystery. A clue is offered by the contrast with the United States: they have the working poor; we, on the old continent, have the welfare recipients. This brings the relationship between unemployment and the welfare state to the fore. On closer inspection, however, the matter appears to be much more complicated than the transatlantic contrast suggests. Consider only that the welfare state and what is called "social policy" have a long tradition in Europe. They obviously did not pre vent or noticeably hamper the decline in unemployment in the 1950s and the emergence of full employment in the 1960s. This leaves room for various conjectures. Does the welfare state matter only after a long time lag or after it has grown too fast or too much beyond a critical size? Is it the welfare state per se that is harmful to employment or do its harmful effects arise only under certain conditions, e. g.

This book examines the consequences and interconnections between unemployment and European unification.

Presents recent research on the recasting of European welfare states resulting from the European Forum on Welfare States held at the European University Institute in Florence during 1998-99. Offers comparative analysis of topical issues, and in-depth studies of changes in the major European countries. Analyzes the impact of retrenchment and reform, and adds to ongoing debates about policy convergence, trade-offs of innovation, cost savings, and equity. Ferrera teaches public policy and administration at the University of Pavia and directs the Center for Comparative Political Research at Bocconi University, Italy. Rhodes teaches European public policy at the European University Institute, Italy. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

The book is the first major study to examine the implications of differences in welfare regimes for the experience of unemployment in Europe. It is concerned with three central questions about the way such regimes affect the experience of unemployment. The first is how far they protect the quality of life of unemployed people with respect to living standards and the experience of financial hardship. The second is their role in mediating the impact of unemployment on the individual's longer-term position in the labour market, addressing the issue of how far they help to prevent progressive marginalization from the employment structure as a result of motivational change, skill loss or the growth of discriminatory barriers. The third is how far such regimes mediate the impact of unemployment on social integration in the community, for instance with respect to the maintenance (or rupture) of social networks and the degree of psychological distress experienced by the unemployed. The book is the product of a major cross-cultural research programme, funded by the European Union (TSER), bringing together teams from eight countries. The emphasis has been on rigorous comparison rather than the all-too-frequent separate country analyses, which usually provide data which differs in format from one country to another. In addition to a systematic comparison of national data sources, it has been able to make use of a new important data source (the European Community Household Panel) produced by Eurostat which provides directly comparable information for all EU countries. The study shows that institutional and cultural differences have vital implications for the experience of unemployment. While welfare policies affect in an important way the pervasiveness of poverty, it is above all the patterns of family structure and the culture of sociability in a society that affect vulnerability to social isolation. The book concludes by developing a new perspective for understanding the risk of social exclusion.

This book provides a novel approach to unemployment as a contested political field in Europe and examines the impact of welfare state regimes, conceived as political opportunity structures specific to this field, public debates and collective mobilizations in unemployment politics.