Regulating the Risk of Unemployment

Regulating the Risk of Unemployment offers a systematic comparative analysis of the recent adaptation of European unemployment protection systems to increasingly post-industrial labour markets. These systems were mainly designed and institutionalized in predominantly industrial economies, characterized by relatively standardized employment relationships and stable career patterns, as well as plentiful employment opportunities even for those with low skills. Over the past two to three decades they have faced the challenge of an accelerating shift to a primarily service-based economy, accompanied by demands for greater flexibility in wages and terms and conditions in low-skill segments of the labour market as well as pressures to maximise labour force participation given the more limited potential for productivity-led growth. The book develops an original framework for analysing adaptive reform in unemployment protection along three discrete dimensions of institutional change, which are termed benefit homogenization, risk re-categorization, and activation. This framework is then used to structure analysis of twenty years of unemployment protection reform in twelve European countries. In addition to mapping reforms along these dimensions, the country studies analyse the political and institutional factors that have shaped national patterns of adaptation. Complementary comparative analyses explore the effects of benefit reforms on the operation of the labour market, assess evolving patterns of working-age benefit dependency, and examine the changing role of active labour market policies in the regulation of the risk of unemployment.

Jochen Clasen gained his Diploma in Sociology at the Free University of Berlin in 1988 and a PhD at Edinburgh University in 1992 in Sociology and Social Policy. Professor Clasen is an expert in cross-national research on social security and unemployment policy, and has particular expertise in social policy comparisons between Germany and the UK. He has also published widely on methodological aspects of cross-national research. Recent books include: Clasen, J. (ed) (2011) Converging Worlds of Welfare: British and German Social Policy in the 21st Century, Oxford University Press; J. Clasen and N. A. Siegel (eds) (2007) Investigating Welfare State Change: The Dependent Variable Problem in Comparative Analysis, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, J. Clasen (2005) Reforming European Welfare States: Germany and the United Kingdom Compared, Oxford: Oxford University Press. He is Professor of Comparative Social Policy, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. Daniel Clegg gained his PhD in Social and Political Science at the European University Institute in Florence in 2005. Prior to joining the University of Edinburgh, he held research and teaching posts at the University of Stirling and the University of Oxford in the UK, and Sciences Po in Paris. His research focuses on the comparative politics of unemployment and labour market policy in developed welfare states. He is Lecturer in Social Policy, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh.