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This paper looks at the breakdown of the normative model of employment that underpinned the mid-twentieth-century welfare state. The focus of the chapter is the slow, but continuous, dismantling of labor protections that happened in the last decades which has played a crucial role in facilitating the rise of digital platforms. Thus, while on one hand this can be related to the limits that the traditional labor protections had, especially in including women, migrants, and other usually considered more “marginal” workers; on the other it is a product of the new global division of labor and of the way in which technologies have been used to outsource and manage remote working. These developments are being expanded by the increasing “platformization” of the economy that is spreading across sectors digital management and new forms of task-based work directly controlled by algorithms. Despite the birth of new union forms, capable of intercepting the demands and defending the interests of gig workers, the paper concludes by highlighting how these achievements, despite their relevance, are not a definitive solution, but it is necessary to aim for a new set of universal workers’ rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France has often been understood along with Germany as a paradigmatic case of dualisation, with competitiveness oriented producer group politics driving the stepwise restriction of social and employment protections to core workers, and encouraging the tacit acceptance of more precarious employment conditions and worse social protection for a growing "outsider" fringe of the workforce. This paper assesses this interpretation in the light of developments in French labour law and social policy since the start of the 21st century. In this period segmentation has remained a serious problem on the French labour market. Though the growth in the share of atypical employment has slowed in the new millennium, temporary work has on a number of indicators become more unstable and precarious, and transition rates between fixedterm and open-ended contracts have remained extremely low. This paper nonetheless argues that across the period neither institutional changes in social and employment policies nor their underlying socio-political dynamics are consistent with the conventional dualisation account. It demonstrates that the rollback of employment protections has impacted core workers more than peripheral ones, and that the unemployment insurance system has become considerably more inclusive of workers with discontinuous employment biographies. Given that the regulatory autonomy of the social partners - trade unions and employer associations - remained high in the unemployment insurance system until recently, the outsider-oriented direction of much recent institutional reform in this field casts particular doubt on the notion of a pro-dualisation cross-class coalition in France. I argue instead that in a context where fundamental reform of the labour market remains a source of deep conflict, French social and political actors have coalesced on a second-best strategy of subsidising outsider precariousness, including through the social insurance system. This helps to explain why segmentation remains so entrenched in France, but also why France has not seen the sharp rises in working-age poverty that are associated with dualisation elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of digital technologies challenge existing institutional approaches towards labour markets segmentation and dualisation by dissolving the employeremployee nexus. When national governments adapt to digitalisation by deregulation they risk to fostering "flexibility at the margin" which can reinforce digital cleavages at the intersection of tasks, skills and new technology. This is because deregulation threatens the existing country-based employment and industrial relations structures by favoring companies fissuring the labour markets while reducing employment protections for all workers. In the paper we illustrate this argument by shedding light on the case of Belgium as one of the countries in Europe with a generous and encompassing system of collective bargaining and strong employees' representation structures, and which has been experiencing a deregulatory trend in response to digitalisation, following the introduction of the 2016 law "De Croo". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Due to the ongoing Covid-crisis, the number of workers benefiting from short-time work schemes was high, especially during lockdowns, another large group of workers started working from home, and others, unfortunately, lost their jobs. The current situation is unprecedented, because it is the only global recession driven solely by a pandemic and the decrease in life expectancy is the worst since World War II. This article first shows that the literature on the socioeconomic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic does not say much about working poverty. Applying a theoretical model presented in 2018 based on the four mechanisms that lead to working poverty (at the household level), this article considers the potential short- and mid-term implications of the pandemic for the working poor in Europe. It also proposes conceptual reflections about which working poverty indicators may improve our understanding of what has unfolded since the pandemic began. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a strong adherence to liberalism, the labor market in Hong Kong is characterized by a low level of external regulation and an emphasis on self-adaptation as coping. The government mainly attend to the quality of manpower supplied meeting the market need, as well as peaceful industrial relations. Segmentation of labor is a natural result of this lowly regulated liberal market. Benefited from a relatively stable economy, unemployment in the past two decades mainly contained, but dualisation observed with widening income gap, as well as an emerging sector of insecure labor. The recent COVID-19 pandemic is leading to a sudden and unexpected economic crisis. Though with more ad hoc measures, cautious in regulating the labor market maintained. While we are waiting for further government initiatives, the ending of the employment subsidy from December will certainly worsen the situation. Further dualisation will be the result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular accounts of labour market reforms in Western Europe have identified a process of dualisation over the last three decades, whereby service sector employment has been deregulated while workers in the core manufacturing sector still enjoy high levels of employment protection and high wages. Two different labour market logics are thought to be in place between core and peripheral sectors and to co-exist in a stable equilibrium nurtured by the co-incidence of interests between capital and labour in core manufacturing sector, who jointly acted to safeguard workers in core sectors at the expense of peripheral service sectors. Building on the case studies of labour market and vocational training reform in Germany, this article challenges this account. It is argued that processes of dualisation are best conceptualised as the contested outcome of a political conflict between capital and labour. Dualisation is not a stable equilibrium but rather the result of bargaining processes between employers who push for liberalization and unions who try to prevent it or - at least - mitigate it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the evolution of the dual labour market in Spain in the postcrisis and provides a first assessment of the labour market impact of the Covid-19 crisis. With the only exception of reducing the distance between the regulation of temporary and permanent contracts, the reforms introduced during the great recession and the post-crisis period have not only failed to reduce inequalities in the labour market, but have amplified some of them in interaction with austerity policies. Policies targeting young workers have delivered limited success in improving the position of the most disadvantaged, and more generally, to reduce dualisation as temporary employment remains very high whilst employment conditions of younger groups have deteriorated and become more widespread among those with higher educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Employment has a key role in shaping people's health. It provides both opportunities for its promotion and exposure to risk factors, such as periods spent in unemployment or in precarious jobs. In recent decades, the Italian labour market has been reformed structurally, with the aim of shifting social policies towards a model of flexicurity. This research reviews these reforms from an equity perspective, with a focus on the distribution of labour related health risks, and on the role played by welfare measures. To this end, we introduce a labour market inclusion indicator, which sums up those who are employed to those who are unemployed but receiving welfare benefits. We use this indicator to identify the main social groups "suffocated" by the crisis and assess the ability of welfare measures to "rescue" them. Results show that the crisis had a heterogeneous impact, affecting young workers and females the most. The welfare state was most effective in protecting those less affected by the economic downturn, thus increasing inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)