Flexibility And Security Over The Life Course

This title presents carefully selected articles that are at the ultimate forefront of professional studies on 'transitional labour markets' and 'flexicurity'.

Flexicurity is a European policy agenda seeking to increase both flexibility and security in the labour-market. This book argues that it needs a revision: Although flexicurity is set out to change the way Europeans work and live, and even though it is being justified by workers’ needs, flexicurity lacks of a clear and democratically justified vision of society. Flexicurity is confronted here with Amartya Sen’s capability-approach, a paradigm of well-being evaluation. How is flexicurity related to a concept of employment as part of a way of life which people have reason to value? How capability-friendly are established flexicurity-indicators? It is thus shown how the capability-approach can be used in the field of labour-market and social policy.

Pathways through the life course have changed considerably in recent decades. Many of our assumptions about leaving home, starting new relationships and having children have been turned upside down. It is now almost as common to have children prior to marriage as afterwards, and certainly much more common to live together before marrying than to marry without first living together. Women are more likely to remain in the labour force after having children and many families struggle with problems of work-family balance at some stage in their lives, particularly when they have young children. But how much has really changed? Is there really more diversity in how individuals transition through these life course stages, or just variations at the margin with most people following a standard work and family life course? This volume makes use of rich longitudinal data from a unique Australian project to examine these issues. Drawing on broader theories of social change and demographic transitions in an international context, each chapter provides a detailed empirical assessment of the ways in which Australian adults negotiate their work and family lives. In doing so, the volume provides important insight into the ways in which recent demographic, social and economic changes both challenge and reproduce gender divisions.

The welfare state in all its many forms has had a profound role in many countries around the world since at least the Second World War. The Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State explores the classical issues around the welfare state, but also investigates its key concepts, along with how these can be used and analysed. This book provides expert analysis of the core issues related to the welfare state, including regional depictions of welfare states around the globe. The book combines essays on methodologies, core concepts and central policy areas to produce a comprehensive picture of what 'the welfare state' means around the world. In the midst of the credit crunch, this book addresses some of the many questions about the welfare state. This book is suitable for students and scholars throughout the social sciences, particularly in sociology, social policy, public policy, international relations, politics, and gender studies.

This comprehensive handbook provides an overview of key theoretical perspectives, concepts, and methodological approaches that, while applied to diverse phenomena, are united in their general approach to the study of lives across age phases. In surveying the wide terrain of life course studies with dual emphases on theory and empirical research, this important reference work presents probative concepts and methods and identifies promising avenues for future research.

This book examines innovative theoretical perspectives and novel labour market policy responses to Europe's changing work demands, employment careers and life courses. It presents creative ideas and recommendations for flexicurity policies at various levels and in different social and economic contexts. The driving factors determining the performance of dissimilar pathways in Europe are identified in regard to their impact on the flexibility/security nexus. Key issues in the current European policy debate are addressed, including how innovative policies are designed in the areas of working time, education, work-life balance, employment relations, retirement and migration, how they are put into practice and what determines their level of success.

In recent years, the concept of flexicurity has come to occupy a central place in political and academic debates regarding employment and social policy. It fosters a view in which the need for continuously increasing flexibility is the basic assumption, and the understanding of security increasingly moves from social protection to self-insurance or individual adaptability. Moreover, it rejects the traditional contradictions between flexibility and security, blending the two into a single notion and thus depoliticizing the relationships between capital and labour. This volume provides a critical discussion of the flexicurity concept, the theories upon which it is built and the ideas that it transmits about work, unemployment and social justice. It shows that flexicurity fosters the further individualization of social protection, an increase in precariousness and the further weakening of labour in relation to capital. The authors present a series of alternative theoretical, normative and policy approaches that provide due attention to the collective and political dimension of vulnerability and allow for the development of new societal projects based on alternative values and assumptions.

The book is without doubt a must-read reflection on the notion of full employment and a source of inspiration for the establishing of the knowledge-based economy that is such an aspiration for Europeans. Thomas Bauwens, Agence Europe Every book by Günther Schmid is an event. This one illuminates the current European policy debate on flexicurity . It gives fresh analyses of the comparative employment performances of the EU and the USA, and proposes a path-breaking framework for understanding and improving them. Pragmatic and provocative, Schmid s contribution should be a must for researchers, but also for HR managers, social partners representatives and policymakers interested in the present and future of work and employment. Bernard Gazier, University Paris 1 and a Member of the Institut Universitaire de France Transitional Labour Markets (TLM) defined as legitimate, negotiated and politically supported sets of various employment options in critical events over the life course are an essential ingredient of modern full employment strategies. After assessing the European Employment Strategy, this book offers a detailed comparative analysis of employment performance for selected European member states and the United States. It suggests that successful employment systems arise from a new paradigm of flexibility and security ( flexicurity ) the balance of which varies according to countries institutional paths. Whilst there is no best practice , TLM theory does provide normative and analytical principles that can be generalised for various institutional settings. The book also provides good practice examples for managing critical transitions over the life course from education to employment, from one job to another, from unemployment to employment, from private activities to gainful work and from employment to retirement and develops the contours for extending unemployment insurance to work life insurance. With a fresh and new approach to the question of full employment in modern society, this book will appeal to academic scholars interested in labour market and employment policies, and policy decision makers at local, regional, national and European levels.

Ce volume bilingue pose la question des effets des réformes institutionnelles et organisationnelles du marché du travail sur la cohésion sociale. Dans cet ouvrage, le Conseil de l'Europe recherche la conciliation entre ce qui est inévitablement imposé par la mondialisation, c'est-à-dire la réorganisation des paramètres de la concurrence, et la cohésion sociale. La conciliation doit prendre en compte une valeur politique essentielle, la sécurité démocratique, qui se trouve d'abord dans l'emploi : le coût social et sociétal élevé de la précarité le confirme. Néanmoins, sécurité ne signifie pas rigidité et doit se traduire plutôt par la reconnaissance sociale d'un "droit à la transition" qui appelle à la coresponsabilité de tous les acteurs sociaux. La conciliation est plus qu'un devoir politique : elle est le prix de la stabilité qui assure la durabilité sociale.