1. Public policy and European society University of Castellanza
Session #2(c)
Employment and welfare
8 March 2017

2. Outline Four (not three) worlds
Giddens: Blocked societies (France, Germany, Italy)
Low employment, inflexible labour markets, weak education, low birth rates
BUTadvantages of inflexibility
Scandinavian success
High employment, flexible labour markets, good education, moderate birth rate and high social welfare!
Unblocked Europe?
German growth
Continued demographic crisis

3. Lisbon Declaration Lisbon targets Why work? 70% overall employment
60% women
50% older workers
Why work?
Avoids poverty and dependence on state
Contribution to wealth of society
Social participation
Economic citizenship thus itself a justification for employment
Notice that `different‘ worlds of welfare’ have different understandings of work!

4. Three (or four) worlds of welfare – and ‘defamiliasation’
Liberal regime
Market solutions
Deregulated labour market-
Immigrant caring labour
Part-time and temporary work for women
Social democratic
Extensive care services:
Good low skill employment
Enable women to leave home
Conservative/ corporatist
Subsidiarity so family important
Insurance based benefits
Priority of full-time work
Mediterranean (?)
As conservative but incomplete coverage
Which countries?
UK and Ireland
Scandinavia
France and Germany
Italy, Spain, Greece…
New member states?
Changes?

6. Low employment low poverty NORDIC High employment low poverty
CONTINENTAL
Low employment low poverty
NORDIC
High employment
low poverty
ANGLO
High employment high poverty
MEDITERRANEAN
Low employment high poverty

7. High employment protection is linked to low benefit coverage
Weak welfare states mean greater suffering in the crisis – Greek ‘humanitarian disaster
High employment protection is linked to low benefit coverage
Employment Protection Legislation – laws that make it difficult and/or expensive for employers to dismiss employees

8. Blocked societies Insider/outsider labour markets
Low employment rates
High unemployment
High youth unemployment
Ineffective third level education
Disconnection from labour market (low returns to education)
Long duration of degree
Low research (few high ranked universities)
Low birth rates
Germany and especially Italy; not France
Despite traditional pro-family policy
And in Italy:
Low female employment
Corruption

9. Benefits of inflexibility
German vocational training system
High quality apprenticeship for most school leavers ensures qualification ‘Lehre’ which recognised and valued
National ‘Berufsbilder’ define qualification
Dual system of employers and state
Organised by employers with trade union input
Trade off
Employers cannot easily dismiss employees (Numerical flexibility)
Employers have incentive to use employees flexibly (Functional flexibility)
So ‘beneficial constraints’ (Streeck) of inflexibility

10. Good and bad flexibility?
Both UK and Denmark appear highly flexible and have high employment – but in different ways
In the UK:
Flexibility on employers’ terms
Bad jobs and/or poverty?
In Denmark (also to some extent Sweden)
‘Flexicurity’
Flexibility also for employees
Easy dismissal but high social protection
High spending on training and ‘activation’ (counselling etc)
‘Protect the worker not the job’

11. Scandinavian flexicurity
Activation
Retraining and life-long learning
Protect the worker, not the job
Low Employment Protection
Results
High employment rate
High job mobility (‘flexibility’) and effective job search
Firms can innovate without employment problems
BUT needs high trust and is expensive!

12. Scandinavian successes
Family and social services
Extensive good quality services (especially childcare) enable women to participate in employment by moving ‘women’s jobs’ outside the home
Social services provide good quality caring jobs (largely for women)
Contributes to relatively high birth rate and egalitarian household division of labour
BUT public sector/private sector gender divide
High and continuing education
High overall levels of education (no US or UK ‘tail’)
The basis for innovative enterprises through links to commercial R&D
Creates flexible workforce

13. Women’s core age employment:
Sources:
Derived from European Commission (2004); European Commission (2014).

14. Old Europe? Total fertility rates 1975-1992
New causes of low fertility:
Low labour market participation
Strong influence of traditional ideology
Total fertility rates
New causes of high fertility
High labour market participation
Childcare (state or market)
Flexible labour markets

15. Formal Childcare Source: European Commission (2013) Table 2.2.2. Note:
Figures for Poland ‘are based on small samples and therefore not considered statistically reliable’

16. But fertility gap stays