The End of Social Security as we know it – The Erosion of Status Protection in German Labour Market Policy

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
SILKE BOTHFELD ◽  
PEER ROSENTHAL
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Working Age ◽  
Supporting Pillar

AbstractThe German labour market policy regime constitutes a reliable supporting pillar of the highly productive German employment system. Due to the most recent reforms, its core principle of status protection – a basic norm of the German middle-class-related model of social protection for the population of working age – is losing its formative character. Our analysis focuses on three separate policy principles that form the guiding logic of status centredness, namely the equivalence in security provision, the mechanisms that protect the socio-economic status in the event of unemployment, and the tripartite mode of funding. We argue that the ‘Hartz Reforms’ have reinforced the logic of the legal modifications since the mid-1990s, cumulating now in a shift away from the middle-class-oriented status-centred approach of social security provision.

No longer ‘fit for purpose’? Consolidation and catch-up in Irish labour market policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Dukelow
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Recent Change ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
Employment Services ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Benefit System

This chapter discusses recent change to Irish labour market policy which, it argues, has been guided by the idea that Ireland’s policy regime prior to the 2008 crisis was no longer ‘fit for purpose’ being overly focused on a passive benefit system and a similarly passive approach to activation. The chapter maps three key changes related to consolidation and catch-up. First, retrenchment is further eroding the already weak social insurance underpinnings of the system. Second, existing activation programmes which focused heavily on direct job creation have been somewhat curtailed; new more market oriented programmes have been introduced and compulsion has been stregthened. Third, major institutional re-design is leading to greater integration of the benefit system with employment services and a turn towards privatisation and marketisation. By assessing these changes against recent labour market dynamics the chapter also considers how they are contributing to a more precarious labour market regime post-crisis.

The Dutch model: An Obvious Candidate for the ‘Third Way’?

1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Hemerijck ◽  
Jelle Visser
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Tightly Coupled

While the progressive European politicians are on the lookout for a new model of ‘third way’ capitalism with a human face, after the (temporary?) defeat of the Swedish, Dutch welfare state reform occupies a prominent place in many commentaries.Although it attracted only international attention in the mid- 1990s, the ‘Dutch miracle’ has its basis in policy changes in the early 1980s. For a full explanation of the Dutch experience we must go back at least fifteen years, and study the combination of problem loads, power shifts, institutions, politics and ideas, in three ‘tightly coupled’ policy domains of the Dutch welfare state: industrial relations, social security, and labour market policy. The return to wage moderation took place in the early followed by a series of reforms in the systems of social security in the late 1980s and early 1990s. From the mid-1990s, finally, the adoption of an active labour market policy stance, in order to enhance overall efficiency and create a new domestic balance between wages and social benefits, gained political currency. In this article we present a stylised narrative of these policy changes—what happened, how it happened and what it meant. We demonstrate that these three policy shifts, although embedded in different corporate actors, were interrelated; they created the conditions and the demand for one another, and neither of these policies could have been successful on its own.

Opportunities and challenges for flexicurity - The Danish example

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bredgaard ◽  
Flemming Larsen ◽  
Per Kongshøj Madsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Unemployment Benefits ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Labour Market Flexibility ◽  
Active Labour

The contraction of two previously opposed concepts, ‘flexibility’ and ‘security’, into that of flexicurity has become one of the most popular labour market concepts in recent years, and one that seems to cross European borders relatively easily. Seen in an international perspective, Denmark is characterised by a relatively flexible labour market and an extensive social security system. It is widely assumed that these favourable results are due to the special Danish combination of flexible employment regulations, an active labour market policy including rights and duties of education and placement, and relatively high unemployment benefits. In recent years the concept flexicurity has come to be used to describe the particular Danish mix of labour market flexibility and social security. Against this background, this article outlines the economic and political characteristics of the Danish ‘flexicurity model’, and the current challenges facing this model. Finally, the lessons that other European countries can learn from this Danish model will be presented.

Die Arbeitsverwaltung als Versicherungskonzern?

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (148) ◽  
pp. 351-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Hielscher
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Service Quality ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Active Labour

One of the main pillars of the German social security system, the Federal Labour Agency has undergone the most extensive reorganization of a public sector organisation in Germany in recent years. The contribution describes the main principles of this management-driven reform process and its conseguences for the service quality in the local job centres. It leads to the conclusion that a gain of efficiency in labour administration faces problems of exclusion for specific groups of job seekers from measures of active labour market policy.

scholarly journals Economic strength of Slovakia’s regions

2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (No. 4) ◽  
pp. 139-144
Author(s):  
S. Buchta
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Regional Impacts ◽  
The Rich

The article deals with the identification and categorisation of economic power of Slovak regions on the base of collecting of unemployment support payment from the employers, employees, and natural persons entrepreneurs into the employment fund. The analysis shows that during the last years, the number of rich regions has decreased and there rises the number of counties which have to be supported by the division of means from the rich counties. The article consequently categorises the development of economically strong and weak counties of Slovakia in the years 1999–2002 and marks the causes of regional polarisation of Slovakia, lying in its economic and structural difficulties. Alongside increasing the regional polarisation in the rate of unemployment, there continues to rise the re-distribution of funds for labour-market policy from the economically stronger regions to the economically weaker regions, which are reliant on socio-spatial solidarity. The course of economic transformation up to date has had significantly different regional impacts and creates unequal chances for people as well as businesses in the afflicted areas.

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