Full Description
Recent years have witnessed major changes to the workplace across Europe. The speed of these changes requires constant monitoring and reappraisal. In this book, recent trends are analyzed and their consequences discussed, within a socio-historical context which also reveals underlying patterns of continuity. The trends analyzed include: � the presence of high rates of endemic unemployment and underemployment, particularly amongst the young � the growth of insecure and precarious employment � sweeping changes to the regulation of and organization of work � the diminution in the availability of manual work and the growth of white-collar service-sector jobs � the growing participation of women in paid employment � the introduction of new organizational forms and new forms of management � the accelerating use of IT � the growth in demand for educational and vocational qualifications by employers � the increasing influence of European legislation on work, retirement, health, safety, etc � the growing importance of voluntary-sector work The contributors to the volume present both primary research and a wide-ranging survey and analysis of recent major contributions in the field. Detailed empirical material is included from Belgium, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the EU more generally. Thus, the book aims to provide a current overview of the nature of work from a pan-European perspective, illuminated by up-to-the-minute field research.
Contents
Contents: Introduction: patterns of change at work; Labour market regulation after Fordism: five countries compared, Max Koch; ICT, organizations and labour in the information society, Bram Steijn; Transnational labour markets, citizenship and welfare state reforms, Roswitha Pioch; Incentive and action: work and income decisions at the intersection of the labour market and the welfare state, Georg Vobruba; Revealing the traits of workfare: the Swedish example, Lars Harrysson and Jan Petersson; Unpaid work: a case from the voluntary sector, Lesley McMillan; Women and work: new patterns and directions, Barbara Littlewood; Reconciliation of work and family life: policies and practices in Western Europe, Ingrid Jönsson; The transition from school to work in Flanders: gender inequality and the role of household formation, Heidi Belet, Ignace Glorieux and Ilse Laurijssen; Putting the garden on the market: vocationalization, commodification and privatization in education and training in Great Britain, Paul Littlewood; The state, education and the market: the case of engineering in Finland, M'hammed Sabour and Pasi Tulkki; Retirement as the future of work: an empirical analysis of early exit from the labour market in Belgium, Mark Elchardus and Joachim Cohen; Index.
