For the past decade the European Commission has urged EU member states to pursue ‘flexicurity’ policies aimed at achieving employment growth and social inclusion. However, the economic crisis and ...turn to austerity across the EU has presented the flexicurity model with a substantial challenge. This article argues that since 2008 labour policies across the EU have exhibited shared tendencies, but support for measures that might contribute to the achievement of the security aspects of flexicurity has been substantially weakened. In developing this argument, the article presents findings from a cluster analysis and detailed investigations of labour policies in EU member countries. The article also discusses the implications of the findings for comparative institutional analysis. It highlights differences in the approaches of countries that are commonly treated as members of the same institutional family, as well as similarities in the policies adopted by countries commonly associated with different ‘varieties’ of capitalism.
Labor market segmentation refers to a salient divide between secure and insecure jobs and is related to problems in important areas, including macro-economic efficiency, workers' well-being and ...repercussions for social cohesion. EU-28 countries have started a new wave of labor market reforms in the aftermath of the 2008/2009 crisis to tackle a number of issues, including labor market segmentation. This particularly concerns reforms in: (1) employment protection, i.e. dismissal protection and restrictions on fixed-term contracts; (2) unemployment benefit generosity and coverage; and (3) the intensity of active labor market policies. The paper provides an overview of reform patterns and tries to assess whether and to what extent these reforms have led to less dualized, more 'flexicure' labor markets in terms of dismissal protection, the provision of unemployment benefits and access to ALMPs. In particular, we will provide some evidence on potential changes in hirings on temporary contracts.
Labor market reforms in the direction of “flexicurity” have been widely endorsed as a means to increase an economy's ability to adjust to negative shocks while offering adequate social safety nets. ...This paper empirically examines how such reforms influence employment's responsiveness to output fluctuations (employment–output elasticity). To address this question, we employ a single equation error correction model with policy interactions on a panel of OECD countries, which also incorporates the period of the Great Recession, and distinguish between passive and active labor market policy types. Flexicurity is represented by three policy measures: unemployment benefit generosity, the flexibility of hiring and firing rules, and spending on active labor market policies. We find that the effects of any single policy change are shaped by the broader existing policy mix within which it takes place. A hypothetical flexicurity reform towards the policy mix of Denmark, a well‐known example of the flexicurity regime, is found to increase or leave unchanged countries' short‐run employment–output elasticities, depending on the initial policy mix. These results are robust to accounting for a large set of additional labor market institutions.
This article explores differences among EU and non-EU migrants in accommodating to the Danish flexicurity labour and welfare regime during times of economic crisis. We build our findings on a ...quantitative survey followed by semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with EU and non-EU migrants who moved to Denmark during the recession period (2008-2013). We argue that the lack of multicultural policies triggers individualised strategies of accommodation rather than ethnic or national group base integration, favouring a more homogenous group of high-skilled and educated group of workers and students of postgraduate/higher education, whom we describe as a 'flexicurity diversity group'. Through patterns of conviviality, individual socialisation is based here on common interests, needs and lifestyles and not on pre-defined ethnic and/or cultural traits. The transition from diversity to conviviality that is initiated by this group remains however incomplete in light of the unequal opportunities and the differentiated scheme of rights that apply to EU and non-EU immigrants. Danish flexicurity has thus not had the desired inclusive effects but discriminates in terms of facilitating easy access to the labour market for all, and 'securing' social benefits and offering rights and protection only to the privileged group of EU migrants.
We examine the relationship between ‘flexicurity’ systems, unemployment and well-being outcomes for young people in Europe. A key tenet of the flexicurity approach is that greater flexibility of ...labour supply supports transitions into employment, trading longer-term employment stability for short-term job instability. However, there is a risk that young people experience greater job insecurity, both objective and subjective, with less stable contracts and more frequent unemployment spells. Our research draws on data from the European Social Survey and uses multi-level models to explore whether and how flexibility-security arrangements moderate the effect of past and present unemployment on the well-being of young people. We distinguish between flexibility-security institutions that foster improved job prospects and those that provide financial security.
The disruptions of the recent global financial crisis intensified a number of industrial and economic challenges and brought forward a set of often contradictory solutions. Here, we focus on two ...alternative views on how to (re)establish economic competitiveness and enable growth – flexicurity and austerity. There is much to be learned about the future of these conflicting recipes across changing political economies, particularly considering the importance of the social partners in the development of flexicurity, and their differential ability to influence welfare state outcomes more broadly. Two questions emerge. Attentive to the role and capacity of the social partners, what can we learn about the dynamics of the ongoing welfare state adjustments? How do we make sense of labour market politics in this paradoxical environment? In order to help answer these, we visit the United Kingdom and Denmark – one state offering modest social and employment security, the other a paragon of flexicurity – and find their divergent philosophies, institutional development, and organisational interactions explain not only their respective choices in the aftermath of the crisis, but also their prospects for socially oriented labour policies.
While atypical employment contracts offer flexibility in the labor market, these kinds of contracts are inherently insecure and may generate stress among affected workers. This study examines the ...impact of atypical forms of employment (specifically seasonal or temporary jobs or a fixed time contracts) on workers' health. Survival analysis shows that, other things equal, the longer percent of time spent in flexible employment contracts increases the odds of falling into ill health for a variety of health conditions. The results are robust to controlling for the endogeneity in the relationship.
The concept of 'flexicurity' has become ubiquitous in the labour market policy recommendations of the European Commission. EU member states have been encouraged to increase labour market flexibility ...while maintaining security through the promotion of 'employability' and an 'adequate' floor of unemployment benefits. The economic crisis that erupted in 2008 has, however, provided flexicurity measures with a strenuous test. As this article demonstrates, those countries that have maintained relatively strong employment protections have tended to experience fewer labour market disruptions than countries with weaker employment protections. The article also suggests that while there has been some convergence in employment and social protection policy across Europe, the trend has been towards less security rather than 'flexicurity'.
PURPOSE For the purpose of enforcing flexicurity, deregulation of national labor standards is necessary. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the basic components of flexicurity as well as its ...secondary components (demographic, social and industrial relations) for a better understanding of the representation of basic flexicurity components in the Republic of Croatia compared to the selected EU states. METHODOLOGY The paper is illustrated in order to provide a methodology that allows for how many components of flexicurity are represented in the Croatian labor market in relation to selected European countries which grouped together by in groups according to common characteristics with respect to flexicurity. RESULTS The research results show an unfavorable position of the Republic of Croatia in terms of flexicurity components compared to other researched countries. We have to point out that certain components show a minimal advancement. Therefore, Croatia would profit from a stronger social dialogue in order to balance the stated components. Croatia could implement flexicurity only under the condition of developing new solidary interest relations that will reflect not only the changed needs of the workers and employers as collective partners but also that of the unemployed. CONTRIBUTION The paper deals with issues that are discussed not only at national level but also at EU level. The scientific contribution of the work derives from the extensive empirical (qualitative and quantitative) research. The paper contains a detailed analysis, appropriate scientific research methods and numerous current and secondary sources of foreign and domestic scientific literature. Work is important for the academic community, policy makers, experts, students of economics and management, as well as for the wider public interested in the labor market. It also provides important insight into further design and development of labor market policies in Croatia. LIMITATIONS Limitations in the research were for some countries (such as for Croatia becoming a member of the European Union in 2013) because there was no uniform data for all the years of research needed. EDITORIAL NOTICE: This paper is withdrawn.
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