Public policy and European society University of Castellanza

1
Public policy and European societyUniversity of
Castellanza

• Session 2(b)
• Blocked Societies?
• The crisis of continental corporatism the
  success of the Scandinavian model the revival of
  Germany
• 27 March 2014

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Outline

• Euroscelorosis?
• Europe has less people at work than the USA
  lower employment
• Giddens Blocked societies (France, Germany,
  Italy)
• Low employment, inflexible labour markets, weak
  education, low birth rates
• Scandinavian success
• High employment, flexible labour markets, good
  education, moderate birth rate and high social
  welfare!
• German revival a model for Europe?

3
Lisbon Declaration

• Lisbon targets
• 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!

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Three 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?
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(No Transcript)
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CONTINENTAL Low employment low poverty
NORDIC High employment low poverty
ANGLO High employment high poverty
MEDITERRANEAN Low employment high poverty
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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
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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

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Old Europe?

• New causes of low fertility
• Low labour market participation
• Strong influence of traditional ideology

Total fertility rates 1975-1992

• New causes of high fertility
• High labour market participation
• Childcare (state or market)
• Flexible labour markets

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Scandinavian flexicurity

• 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!

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Scandinavian successes

• Family and social services
• Extensive good quality services (especially
  childcare) enable women to participate in
  employment by moving womens 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 RD
• Creates flexible workforce

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A continental solution?
New strength of Continental conservative
regimes Extensive automatic stabilisers
(welfare) Acceptance of state regulation and
intervention
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French stagnation, German revival
German female employment rate now gt French total
employment rate!
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But fertility gap stays