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Welfare and Employment: A European Dilemma?

Author

Listed:
  • Eichhorst, Werner

    (IZA)

  • Hemerijck, Anton

    (European University Institute)

Abstract

The majority of the Member States of the European Union have undertaken remarkably comprehensive welfare and labor market reforms in the years since the 1990s. Many of these reforms, however, have not followed the conventional retrenchment and deregulation recipes, but rather took a liking to social pacts, activation, active ageing/avoidance of early retirement, part-time work, lifelong learning, parental leave, gender mainstreaming, flexicurity (balancing flexibility with security), reconciling work and family life. At first sight, these reforms seem to have resulted in relatively robust employment growth, especially for women and more recently older workers. European economic integration has fundamentally recast the boundaries of national systems of employment regulation and social protection, both by constraining the autonomy for domestic policy options but also by opening opportunities for EU-led social and employment coordination and agenda setting.

Suggested Citation

  • Eichhorst, Werner & Hemerijck, Anton, 2008. "Welfare and Employment: A European Dilemma?," IZA Discussion Papers 3870, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3870
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Stefan Domonkos & Andras Simonovits, 2016. "Pensions in transition in EU11 countries between 1990 and 2015," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1615, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    2. Gianluca Misuraca & Giulio Pasi & Fabienne Abadie & Csaba Kucsera & Marco Virginillo, 2017. "Exploring the role of ICT-Enabled Social Innovation to support the modernisation of EU Social Protection Systems: findings and insights from analysis of case studies in fourteen Member States," JRC Research Reports JRC106484, Joint Research Centre.
    3. Alber, Jens, 2010. "What - if anything - is undermining the European Social Model?," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Inequality and Social Integration SP I 2010-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. Canale, Rosaria Rita & Liotti, Giorgio & Musella, Marco, 2022. "Labour market flexibility and workers’ living conditions in Europe," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 441-450.
    5. Hemerijck, Anton & Eichhorst, Werner, 2009. "Whatever Happened to the Bismarckian Welfare State? From Labor Shedding to Employment-Friendly Reforms," IZA Discussion Papers 4085, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Eichhorst, Werner & Marx, Paul, 2010. "Whatever Works: Dualisation and the Service Economy in Bismarckian Welfare States," IZA Discussion Papers 5035, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Waltraud Schelkle & Anke Hassel, 2012. "The Policy Consensus Ruling European Political Economy: The Political Attractions of Discredited Economics," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 3, pages 16-27, December.
    8. Jeroen Horemans & Ive Marx, 2013. "In-work poverty in times of crisis: do part-timers fare worse?," ImPRovE Working Papers 13/14, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    9. Alber, Jens, 2009. "What the European and American welfare states have in common and where they differ: Facts and fiction in comparisons of the European social model and the United States," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Inequality and Social Integration SP I 2009-203, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    welfare states; European integration; labor market reforms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J58 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Public Policy

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