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Education, Work, and Life ChancesLabor Market Policy and Employment

Education, Work, and Life Chances

Research Unit: Labor Market Policy and Employment





Project Working-time Policy, Households and the Welfare State


 
 
v Working-time regimes and households
v Perspectives on part-time employment
v A new gender contract: changing work and welfare
v Family phases and labour force participation
v Working-time policy and labour supply
v Cognitive determinants of policy choice
Full employment was traditionally based on a "gender contract", whereby men were assigned the role of "provider" (and thus the earner in a market economy) and women the role of „housewife" (and thus at best second earner). This gender contract was accompanied by a "generation contract", whereby the active (male) labour force of the time provided for the younger and older generations (contribution system). Although the social debate about a new model of full employment" is not yet over and is certainly controversial, two trends are becoming apparent. On the one hand, the one-sided determination of gender roles is disappearing while, on the other, discontinuous employment careers and variable forms of employment are becoming more common. Both trends require a readjustment of the interfaces between the institutions of the welfare state and the labour market. These interfaces are the subject of the following projects being carried out in our department.


 
Working-time regimes and households
(coordinator: Jacqueline O'Reilly; contributor: Silke Bothfeld)

This module of the TSER project examined institutional working-time arrangements with respect to their suitability for facilitating transitions between paid employment and other non-employment activities. Three different types of transition were identified: flexibility on the basis of previous negotiation, flexibility supported by legislation, and voluntary flexibility limited only by external framework conditions. Individual labour market transitions were analysed on the basis of household panel and labour market data. In addition, case studies looked at how changes in work organisation created new possibilities or removed existing possibilities for labour market transitions.

One result of the studies carried out in different sectors and countries was the possibility of classifying transitions as either integrative, maintenance or exclusionary transitions. Integrative transitions were found primarily among employees who had not previously been in employment. The unemployed were largely in search of full-time employment in order to stabilise their working careers. As a rule, only so-called second earners were able to afford part-time employment. Transitions that led to exclusionary processes were found among the low skilled and among employees with caring or child-rearing obligations.
 
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  Perspectives on part-time employment
(Jacqueline O'Reilly)

"Part-time Prospects: International Comparisons of Part-time Work in Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim", a volume edited by Jacqueline O'Reilly and Colette Fagan (University of Manchester), presents contributions to a conceptual debate about part-time employment trends from a comparative empirical perspective. The growth of part-time employment in the industrialised economies over the last 40 years has been a particularly conspicuous development. This publication presents different explanations for this trend in one volume. The main questions are the motives for part-time employment and the conditions under which it develops. The focus of the analyses is the question as to whether part-time employment will become an increasingly normal part of working life for most people or whether it will remain a ghetto for women, where low pay, low pension entitlements and low-skilled work are the norm.		  
 
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  A new gender contract: changing work and welfare
(Jacqueline O'Reilly)

Jacqueline O'Reilly began the project „The Gender Contract: Changing Work and Welfare in Europe" in 1999. The point of departure for the international comparison (Germany, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands) is the fact that the demise of the „male-breadwinner model" is causing difficulties for the maintenance of the welfare regime that developed after World War II. Proceeding from the theoretical debates on the categories of „contract" and „status", the project analyses the current debates on international comparisons of work and welfare. The interplay between changing working-time structures and income, and the welfare rights derived from the employment career are the most important levels of analysis.		  
 
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  Family phases and labour force participation
(Dietmar Dathe)

This project investigates the relationship between phases of family life and labour force participation on the basis of data from the 1995 German microcensus (Scientific Use File). Labour force participation on the part of married mothers is characterised by considerable variation in family earning patterns across the different phases of family life. The observed variation is intensified by processes of divergence and correspondence between family earning patterns in eastern and western Germany: western German family biographies are shaped more by the traditional gender-specific division of labour, where the amount of labour supplied by the female partner is determined by the amount of care given to the children living in the household, which in turn is determined by the children's ages. The occasional question as to what extent the labour market could be relieved if the earning behaviour of eastern German mothers were to adjust to western German earning patterns can only be answered „positively" for the first phase of family life.

The study shows that this difference is less the result of supply behaviour than it is enforced by demand conditions on the eastern German labour market. The fragility of the (male) breadwinner model in eastern Germany is clearly illustrated by the fact that it entails a high risk of poverty. The wage-compensation and pension entitlements acquired by the wife through employment are the most effective barrier against increased precariousness. In this study it was possible to illustrate the need for more consideration to be given to family phases in research into modern institutional arrangements.		  
 
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  Working-time policy and labour supply
(Dietmar Dathe)

Quite unlike in the 1980s, there are now many objections to and negative assessments of the idea of labour redistribution by means of working- time reductions. By contrast, the concept of TLMs is based on a recognition of the need and possibilities for a redistribution of labour (especially with a view to equal opportunities for the sexes) which is both effective from the point of view of labour market policy and at the same time productive. In this project it was possible to show, on the basis of a secondary evaluation of national and international statistical sources, that the „working-time reduction" option still meets with approval amongst the majority of dependent employees. At the same time, it became clear that discrepancies between the working-time preferences expressed and actual conditions point to material, gender-specific and demographic pressures that can both be influenced and created by policies. This conclusion is supported by the situation in Denmark and the Netherlands. In these two countries, especially, the high acceptance of labour redistribution through working-time reductions can be traced back to the active support given to labour redistribution by employment policy. Conflicts between time preferences and financial preferences stem mainly from the fact that - depending on the current family phase - it is often impossible to reconcile required household expenditure with available income opportunities.		  
 
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   Cognitive determinants of policy choice
(Silke Bothfeld)

Risky transitions between different forms of employment status are a phenomenon that are increasingly characterising employment careers. Women, in particular, given their primary responsibility for care work, still face the risk of dequalification or displacement from the labour market. Institutional solutions, such as a reform of parental leave, can be derived from the concept of TLMs, which reduce these risks and improve the integration of women in the employment system. This doctoral thesis project looks at the possibilities for implementing an egalitarian regulation on parental leave, with the analysis focusing on the aspects of problem definition and policy formulation. In two comparative case studies (Germany and France) Silke Bothfeld is investigating the extent to which „cognitive barriers" among political actors can be identified as determinants of a policy choice. Here, a decisive role can be played by ideas about justice and equality as well as assumptions about causal relations.


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