The book makes a major new contribution to the sociology of employment by comparing the quality of working life in European societies with very different institutional systems - France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and Sweden. It focuses in particular on skills and skill development, opportunities for training, the scope for initiative in work, the difficulty of combining work and family life, and the security of employment. Drawing on a
range of nationally representative surveys, it reveals striking differences in the quality of work in different European countries. It also provides for the first time rigorous comparative evidence on the
experiences of different types of employee and an assessment of whether there has been a trend over time to greater polarization between a core workforce of relatively privileged employees and a peripheral workforce suffering from cumulative disadvantage. It explores the relevance of three influential theoretical perspectives, focussing respectively on the common dynamics of capitalist societies, differences in production regimes between capitalist societies, and differences in the
institutional systems of employment regulation. It argues that it is the third of these - an 'employment regime' perspective - that provides the most convincing account of the factors that affect the quality of
work in capitalist societies. The findings underline the importance of differences in national policies for people's experiences of work and point to the need for a renewal at European level of initiatives for improving the quality of work.
The book makes a major new contribution to the sociology of employment by comparing the quality of working life in European societies with very different institutional systems - France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and Sweden. It focuses in particular on skills and skill development, opportunities for training, the scope for initiative in work, the difficulty of combining work and family life, and the security of employment. Drawing on a
range of nationally representative surveys, it reveals striking differences in the quality of work in different European countries. It also provides for the first time rigorous comparative evidence on the
experiences of different types of employee and an assessment of whether there has been a trend over time to greater polarization between a core workforce of relatively privileged employees and a peripheral workforce suffering from cumulative disadvantage. It explores the relevance of three influential theoretical perspectives, focussing respectively on the common dynamics of capitalist societies, differences in production regimes between capitalist societies, and differences in the
institutional systems of employment regulation. It argues that it is the third of these - an 'employment regime' perspective - that provides the most convincing account of the factors that affect the quality of
work in capitalist societies. The findings underline the importance of differences in national policies for people's experiences of work and point to the need for a renewal at European level of initiatives for improving the quality of work.
1: Duncan Gallie: Production Regimes, Employment Regimes and the
Quality of Work
2: Michael Tahlin: Skills and Wages in European Labour Markets:
Structure and Change
3: Martine Dieckhoff, Jean-Marie Jungblut and Philip J. O'Connell:
Job-Related Training in Europe: Do Institutions Matter?
4: Duncan Gallie: Task Discretion and Job Quality
5: Stefani Scherer and Nadia Steiber: Work and Family in Conflict?
The Impact of Work Demands on Family Life
6: Serge Paugam and Ying Zhou: Job Insecurity
7: Duncan Gallie: The Quality of Work Life in Comparative
Perspective
References
Index
Duncan Gallie is an Official Fellow of Nuffield College and
Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford. His research
has focussed on the changing experience of work and on the social
consequences of unemployment. He was national coordinator of the
ESRC's Social Change and Economic Life Initiative and has been
European coordinator of several EU cross-national research
programmes. He is Vice-President and Foreign Secretary of the
British Academy and was a
member of the EU's Advisory Group for the Social Sciences and
Humanities for the Sixth Framework Programme.
`Employment Regimes and the Quality of Work
represents a major breakthrough as it provides a welcomeme link
between research on job quality and research on comparative
economic organization. A pioneering contribution to our
understanding of job quality in general and across Europe in
particular.'
Patrick McGovern, Work and Occupations
`This book provides a rigorous and insightful comparative analysis
of the quality of work in five European countries including France,
Germany, Great Britain, Spain and Sweden...this is a useful book
with up-to-date data and innovative empirical studies on many of
the pressing issues for not only Europe but for many developed
countries...overall, this book is a great read, its format is easy
to read and the information easily digestible.'
Timothy Bartram, Management Research News, Vol. 31
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