Employment Regimes and the Quality of Work
Employment Regimes and the Quality of Work

Author: Duncan Gallie

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0199566038

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The book makes a major new contribution to the sociology of employment by comparing the quality of working life in European societies with very different institutional systems--France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and Sweden. It focuses in particular on skills and skill development, opportunities for training, the scope for initiative in work, the difficulty of combining work and family life, and the security of employment. Drawing on a range of nationally representative surveys, it reveals striking differences in the quality of work in different European countries. It also provides for the first time rigorous comparative evidence on the experiences of different types of employee and an assessment of whether there has been a trend over time to greater polarization between a core workforce of relatively privileged employees and a peripheral workforce suffering from cumulative disadvantage. It explores the relevance of three influential theoretical perspectives, focussing respectively on the common dynamics of capitalist societies, differences in production regimes between capitalist societies, and differences in the institutional systems of employment regulation. It argues that it is the third of these--an 'employment regime' perspective--that provides the most convincing account of the factors that affect the quality of work in capitalist societies. The findings underline the importance of differences in national policies for people's experiences of work and point to the need for a renewal at European level of initiatives for improving the quality of work.

The Oxford Handbook of Job Quality
The Oxford Handbook of Job Quality

Author: Chris Warhurst

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-06-24

Total Pages: 625

ISBN-13: 0198749791

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Job quality matters; it is offered as a solution to an array of social and economic challenges, yet the terminology used to define it is varied. This handbook explores the complexity of job quality, for whom or for what job quality matters most, and the diverse range of its contributions and applications to social, economic, and political concerns.

Public Sector Employment Regimes
Public Sector Employment Regimes

Author: Karin Gottschall

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-10-29

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1137313110

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This book explores the extent to which a transformation of public employment regimes has taken place in four Western countries, and the factors influencing the pathways of reform. It demonstrates how public employment regimes have unravelled in different domains of public service, contesting the idea that the state remains a 'model' employer.

Production Regimes and the Quality of Employment in Europe
Production Regimes and the Quality of Employment in Europe

Author: Duncan Gallie

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Production regime theory has been one of the most innovative and influential recent contributions to neo-institutional debates about the varieties of capitalism. This review takes issue with its claim that there are major differences in the quality of work between the two principal regime types that are held to characterize European societies - coordinated market economies and liberal market economies - by examining the evidence for Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. Although the broad pattern of skill differences corresponds reasonably well to the arguments of the theory, the evidence does not confirm the other claims about work and employment conditions, in particular with respect to employee job control, autonomous work teams, organizational participation, and job security. Rather, it points to the distinctiveness of the Scandinavian countries and hence to the importance of factors that lie outside the explanatory framework of the thesis.

The Transformation of Employment Relations in Europe
The Transformation of Employment Relations in Europe

Author: Jim Arrowsmith

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-11

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1135010048

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Since the 1980s, the process of European economic integration, within a wider context of globalization, has accelerated employment change and placed a new premium on ‘flexible’ forms of work organization. The institutions of employment relations, specifically those concerning collective bargaining between employers and trade unions, have had to adapt accordingly. The Transformation of Employment Relations focuses not just on recent change, but charts the strategic choices that have influenced employment relations and examines these key developments in a comparative perspective. A historical and cross-national analysis of the most important and controversial ‘issues’ explores the motivation of the actors, the implementation of change, and its evolution in a diverse European context. The book highlights the policies and the role played by different institutional and social actors (employers, management, trade unions, professional associations and governments) and assesses the extent to which these policies and roles have had significant effects on outcomes. This comparative analysis of the transformation of work and employment regulation, within the context of a quarter-century timeframe, has not been undertaken in any other book. But this is no comparative handbook in which changes are largely described on a country-by-country basis, but instead, The Transformation of Employment Relations is rather focused thematically. As Europe copes with a serious economic crisis, understanding of the dynamics of work transformation has never been more important.

Occupational Change in Europe
Occupational Change in Europe

Author: Daniel Oesch

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2013-09-19

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0191502502

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What types of jobs are growing: well-paid managerial jobs or low-paid auxiliary jobs, high-end professional jobs or bottom-end service jobs? Can occupational change transform affluent countries into enlarged middle-class societies? Or, on the contrary, are we heading towards a future of increasingly divided class societies? Do changes in the employment structure allow forthcoming generations to move towards more rewarding jobs than those held by their parents - or is downward mobility the more likely outcome? This book throws new light on these timely questions by drawing on extensive evidence of employment data on the pattern of occupational change in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland since 1990. It documents the change in the employment structure, and examines the five underlying driving forces: technology, globalization, education, migration, and institutions. The book discusses whether governments really have no other choice than either occupational upgrading with soaring unemployment or full employment with expanding low-end jobs. The book gives a clear picture of the future of work, skills, and employment in today's Europe, contributing to the debate in economic sociology and labour economics.

Labour Market Institutions and Productivity
Labour Market Institutions and Productivity

Author: Beata Woźniak-Jęchorek

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-25

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1000202410

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This book explains the role of formal labour market institutions in keeping the labour utilisation in Central and Eastern Europe above the level characteristic for Western European states. It provides an innovative and enriching take on labour utilisation at large and how various formal labour market institutions can affect the ongoing trend in labour utilisation in a way that is not covered by the extant literature. The impact of labour market institutions on labour market outcomes is analysed throughout 12 chapters, both from a cross-country perspective and in detailed case-studies, by 21 labour market experts from various CEE countries. Most chapters are based on empirical methods yet are presented in an easy-to-follow way in order to make the book also accessible for a non-scientific audience. The volume explores three key questions: How can labour utilisation be increased by labour market institutions? Which CEE countries managed to create a labour market institutional framework beneficial for labour utilisation? How should the labour market institutions in CEE countries be reformed in order to increase labour utilisation? The book argues that the legacy of transition reforms and a centrally planned past is still relevant in explaining common patterns among CEE countries and concludes that increasing the stock of skills accumulated by the employed and improving utilisation of these skills seems to be the first-best solution to increase labour utilisation. The book will be of interest to post-graduate researchers and academics in the fields of labour economics, regional economics, and macroeconomics as well as scholars interested in adopting an institutional analysis approach. Additionally, due to the broader policy implications of the topic, the book will appeal to policymakers and experts interested in labour economics.

Quality of Work in the European Union
Quality of Work in the European Union

Author: Ana M. Guillén

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9789052015774

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This collective volume on quality of work in the European Union offers a comprehensive analysis on the current situation of the tensions between work and welfare in Europe, with a special emphasis on employment-related issues. The volume tackles a crucial aspect of employment policies, namely the strengthening of the quality dimension in the decisions taken by policy-makers to foster the performance of the labour market and to combine this orientation with the demands of workers for welfare, protection and a better reconciliation of work and family life. Quality of work has been on the agenda of policy-makers, practitioners and academics for the last few years, promoting a wide debate. The book provides a contribution to this debate and takes into consideration a range of issues associated with the analysis of work quality from an innovative perspective. Relevant subtopics including a conceptual and political analysis of work quality, wage differentials and in-work poverty, gender issues or workers' direct and indirect representation in the firm and its relation with work quality are addressed.

Comparative Employment Relations
Comparative Employment Relations

Author: Susan Milner

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-09-16

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1137353694

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Comparative Employment Relations explores the interconnectedness of contemporary European economies by examining employment relations in three key European countries: France, Germany and Britain. It offers an in-depth comparative analysis of the issues that stand at the heart of employment relations: pay and working conditions and how these are determined, power relations between capital and labour, how employment should be regulated, and what role the state plays. Key benefits: - Written in an engaging and accessible style - Offers a unique systematic comparison between the three countries - Handles complex theoretical concepts in a straightforward and innovative way. This book fills the gap between single country studies of employment relations and more broad-brush multi-country approaches, making it ideal for both undergraduate and postgraduate students studying employment and industrial relations.

Welfare Regimes and the Experience of Unemployment in Europe
Welfare Regimes and the Experience of Unemployment in Europe

Author: Duncan Gallie

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2000-05-25

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 0191584762

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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.