Twelve Precarious employment and EU employment regulation
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Julia S. O’Connor
Abstract
One of the differences between the unemployment in the recessions of the 1980s and now is that there was a much clearer distinction then between being ‘in’ and ‘out’ of work. Julia S. O’Connor’s chapter is concerned with the space between these two points, occupied by the flexible and insecure forms of employment that have emerged in deindustrialising economies and become a component of the European growth strategy. Having explored the forms of precarious employment, and further dimensions to precarity, the chapter assesses the extent to which the existing regulation of non-standard employment at the EU level provides any security for those involved in precarious work. The conclusions are not encouraging for the protection of precarious workers and a clear association between precarity in employment and existing lack of power in the labour market is identified. Thus, women, young people and migrant workers are all disproportionately represented in the most precarious forms of employment, patterns of social division that are present in the concerns of all the chapters in this section.
Abstract
One of the differences between the unemployment in the recessions of the 1980s and now is that there was a much clearer distinction then between being ‘in’ and ‘out’ of work. Julia S. O’Connor’s chapter is concerned with the space between these two points, occupied by the flexible and insecure forms of employment that have emerged in deindustrialising economies and become a component of the European growth strategy. Having explored the forms of precarious employment, and further dimensions to precarity, the chapter assesses the extent to which the existing regulation of non-standard employment at the EU level provides any security for those involved in precarious work. The conclusions are not encouraging for the protection of precarious workers and a clear association between precarity in employment and existing lack of power in the labour market is identified. Thus, women, young people and migrant workers are all disproportionately represented in the most precarious forms of employment, patterns of social division that are present in the concerns of all the chapters in this section.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Notes on contributors v
- Introduction xi
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Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
- Introducing Universal Credit 3
- Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
- Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
- Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
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Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
- It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
- Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
- Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
- The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
- Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
- Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
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Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
- ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
- Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
- How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
- Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
- Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
- Index 315
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Notes on contributors v
- Introduction xi
-
Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
- Introducing Universal Credit 3
- Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
- Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
- Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
-
Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
- It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
- Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
- Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
- The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
- Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
- Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
-
Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
- ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
- Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
- How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
- Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
- Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
- Index 315
