ESRC-funded Seminar Series, 2003–2004

Seminar 3 Learning from Employment and Welfare Policies in Europe

ABSTRACTS AND PROFILES

Comparative Analysis of ‘Employment Precariousness’ in Europe

Jean-Claude BARBIER

Few English speakers understand what is meant by ‘precariousness of employment’ or what is sometimes referred to as ‘precarity’. By contrast, the equivalent terms in French, Italian and Spanish convey an unequivocal meaning. However, even those languages lack an analytical definition or tool, with which to measure the phenomenon. The explanation is that the term belongs to political discourse and is difficult to translate into a rigorous concept or a precise statistical indicator. The concept has rarely been used in Germany, except in limited academic circles. It has begun to appear in Eurospeak in English translations, and the erroneous term, ‘precarity’, has also gained currency in some EU circles. The European Study On Precarious Employment (ESOPE, 2001–03), a research project funded by DG Research, has explored not only whether the concept has a future in European social policy and labour market research at cross-European level, but also whether the phenomena to which precariousness refers in the Latin countries are present in the other large EU member states (the UK and Germany). Inspired by previous research by Gerry and Janine Rodgers for the ILO in 1989, four dimensions were selected for analysis: stability and continuity of the employment relationship; stability of income; quality of working conditions; and access provided to social protection through the employment relationship. The statistical identification of such dimensions has remained patchy, and some of the existing indicators are misleading. Despite many attempts to circumscribe the relevant dimensions of what might constitute a cross-national equivalent of ‘employment precariousness’ in the five ESOPE countries, one of the findings from our research was that no satisfactory aggregated concept has yet been found. However, the research also showed clearly that, in the five countries, the risks of being exposed to job insecurity, poor quality working conditions, low social protection and irregular income are concentrated in certain groups. In recent years, only a few countries have implemented explicit policies to counter the effects of ‘employment precariousness’, and their outcomes are ambiguous. Because of the reluctance to use the term ‘employment precariousness’ across the five countries selected, the adoption of concepts such as ‘quality in work’ or ‘quality of jobs’ might offer an alternative. Yet, these concepts have only recently been coined at EU level and need further investigation.

Jean-Claude BARBIER is Director of Research, CNRS, at the Centre d’études de l’emploi, Paris. His research interests are in comparative social policy, European social policy and the theory of cross-national comparison, using qualitative research. His main publications in this area include: Les politiques de l’emploi en Europe et aux Etats Unis (ed. with J. Gautié, PUF, 1998); ‘Welfare to work or work to welfare, the French case’, in N. Gilbert and R. Van Voorhis (eds), Activating the Unemployed : a comparative appraisal of work-oriented policies (with B. Théret, Transaction Publishers, 2001); Globalization and the World of Work (ed. with E. Van Zyl, L’Harmattan, 2002).

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Comparing Labour Market Dynamics and Service Sector Employment Growth in Germany and the UK Using Household Panel Data

Jacqueline O’REILLY

The project described in this paper set out to examine the development of service sector employment in Germany and the UK. Given the poor jobs record in Germany in recent years, much political interest has been shown in the potential for job creation in the service sector. However, service sector jobs raise a number of controversial issues associated with the encouragement of low-skill, low-wage jobs in a country traditionally classified as having a high-skill, high-wage equilibrium. The project was designed to compare the characteristics of service employment, using data from the British Household Panel Survey and the German Socio-Economic Panel. The analysis covered the different patterns of growth in service occupations and industries in the two countries. It sought to identify the characteristics of workers in the sector in terms of age, qualifications, sex and household composition, raising issues of comparability of concepts and data, particularly regarding definitions of service occupations and equivalence of qualifications. We were especially interested in tracking the previous employment status of workers – from the traditional sector or non-employed – with a view to identifying who is most likely to take up service sector jobs. Transition patterns between occupations and employment and non-employment were also examined comparatively to see how precarious service employment is in each of the countries, and for whom. In conclusion, the empirical analysis was set within national debates in economics, concerning the role of macro-economic policy impacts on the domestic demand for services. The findings were also located in relation to the sociological literature on self-serving households and the impact of strong male breadwinner households, which dampen demand for service jobs.

Jacqueline O’REILLY is Senior Research Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin in the research group on Labour Market Policy and Evaluation. Her research interests are in the changing organisation of work and welfare from a comparative cross-national perspective, with particular reference to the gendered impact of these changes. She has used a combination of different methodological approaches, ranging from qualitative company case studies to event history analysis based on household panel data. Her book-length publications in this area include: Regulating Working Time Transitions in Europe (ed., Edward Elgar, 2003); Part-time Prospects: international comparisons of part-time work in Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim (with C. Fagan, Routledge, 1998); International Handbook on Labour Market Policy and Evaluation (ed. with G. Schmid and K. Schömann, Edward Elgar, 1996).

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Comparing the Relationship between Flexibility and Control of Work in Eight European Countries

Claire WALLACE and Barbara HAAS

Flexibility is seen both as an opportunity to organise working life more freely and as a threat. In some countries, policies introduced since the 1980s have aimed to increase the power of employers to promote flexibility, but in others an explicit attempt has been made to promote the power of employees in encouraging flexibility through individually tailored and à la carte contracts. The paper sets out to compare how flexibility is conceptualised in different national contexts and to assess these divergent trends by considering whether flexibility leads to greater work satisfaction, and whether the control of flexibility by the individual is an important contributing factor. The data draw upon findings from a survey carried out in 2001 for a Framework Programme 5 project, entitled ‘Households, Work and Flexibility’ (HPSCE-1999-00030), in eight countries chosen to represent both eastern and western Europe, as well as different approaches to flexibility: Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, UK, Sweden and the Netherlands (N=10123). The survey relied on quantitative measures of control, flexibility and satisfaction. While the method can provide a powerful tool for cross-national analysis, the value of the findings is limited due to the constraints imposed by the questionnaire design and the way in which the questions were framed. The paper uses multivariate analysis to look at the influence of different contextual variables, such as age, economic situation, region and education, on flexibility, work satisfaction and control of flexibility with a view to understanding their relative explanatory power. The paper considers the issues arising in cross-national comparisons of flexibility regimes and the impact these different regimes can have on the relationship between flexibility, control and work satisfaction. The paper identifies various dimensions of flexibility – of time, place and conditions – and different kinds of control over them. The guiding hypothesis is that flexibility on its own does not necessarily lead to greater work satisfaction because it is usually outside the control of the employee. However, the ability to control flexibility is an important factor leading to work satisfaction. The extent of variation between nations can give us an idea as to how the different policies aimed to promote flexibility can have positive or negative effects for individual workers, but does not necessarily tell us decisively which policies are most important in achieving their objectives.

Claire WALLACE is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna. Since the late 1970s, she has been interested in households, work and flexibility. Her current research covers: the closure of coal mines in Romania, East­–West migration and the situation of youth in Europe. Her most recent publications include: Patterns of Migration in Central Europe (co-edited with D. Stola, Palgrave, 2001); and Youth in Society: the construction and deconstruction of youth in East and West Europe (with S. Kovatcheva, Palgrave, 1998).

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Barbara HAAS is a social science researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna. Her research interests are in gender studies and social inequality, and the flexibilisation of the Austrian labour market compared with other EU member states, with particular reference to the relationship between home and work. She has carried out literature reviews and secondary analysis of these topics for projects funded by the Austrian National Bank in Vienna on ‘Opportunities and Risks of Flexible Labour in Austria from an International Comparative Perspective’ (2000) and ‘Home–work Balance in the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria (2002)’.

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Analysing the Changing Relationship between Work and Welfare in Europe

Nathalie MONCEL

Key developments in European labour markets have been widely documented in recent years. Similarly, major changes in welfare systems have been closely scrutinized. However, from an analytical point of view, accounts of institutional diversity and the dynamics of the relationship between employment and social protection systems have been restrained by dominant functionalist perspectives: social protection is analysed according to its impact on the labour supply and demand; and the functioning of labour markets is seen as independent from social protection, except in terms of the tax burden on labour costs. The paper begins by presenting a comparative overview of the relationship between employment and social protection as a resource regime, using an analytical framework developed by the European Network on the Social Construction of Employment. An attempt is made to reconceptualise comparatively the components of the work–welfare nexus. The paper focuses on the centrality of wages and resources in the construction of the modern wage relationship and welfare systems. Core issues are the constitution of rights in relation to resources and the processes of change in institutional forms of resource flows. The approach is applied in the analysis of the contribution active labour market policies make to changes in the relationship between employment and social protection, with reference to their impact on resource regimes. Comparative data on employment are used to capture such changes. The paper goes on to examine the value and the limitations of the approach.

Nathalie MONCEL is research fellow at the Centre d’Études de l’Emploi, Paris, where she is responsible for developing European research links. Her research interests are in the comparative study of labour markets and employment relations, ranging from youth integration and active labour market policies to the structuring of labour costs and employees’ income. She has been co-ordinating the European Network on the Social Construction of Employment since 1998, and is now engaged in an FP5 research project entitled ‘Employee’s Resources and Social Rights in Europe (RESORE). She co-edited Wage and Welfare: new perspectives on employment and social rights in Europe (PIE Peter Lang, 2004).

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