Search

Context: Existing studies have explored the association between workplace training and wages suggesting that training participation may have a positive association with wages. However, we still know very little about whether this association varies between men and women. Through its potential positive association with wages, training may balance wage differences between men and women. In addition, the gender wage gap varies across the wage distribution. Differences in the association between training participation and wages for men and women across the earnings spectrum may offer an explanation as to why the discrepancy in female/male earnings is larger at some point of the wage distribution compared to others. Approach: Using data from the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and unconditional quantile regression, this paper examines whether the association between workplace training and wages differs between men and women at different points of the wage distribution across 14 European countries. To partly control for endogeneity in training participation, detailed measures of cognitive skills have been included in the models. Findings: Findings show gender differences in the association between training and wages across the wage distribution. In most countries, results indicate larger training coefficients for women than men at the lower end of the wage spectrum whereas they are larger for men at the top. This pattern holds across most countries with the only exception of Liberal ones, where women benefit less than men across the entire wage spectrum. Conclusions: The findings of this work reveal that distributional variations in returns to workplace training follow a similar pattern across industrialized countries, despite their different institutional settings. Moreover, differences in training coefficients of men and women at different parts of the wage distribution suggest that training could reduce gender wage differences among low earners and potentially widen the gap in wages among individuals at the top of the wage distribution.

A competence management system (CMS) was devised to assist the registration of competencies in the textile and clothing sector, starting in the four EU countries of Portugal, Slovenia, the UK and Denmark, further leading to the European network. This paper presents the design and development framework assisting international multicultural environments at the system, organisational and individual levels. Education and training providers are facing demands of the industry and labour markets internationally. The CMS is assisting the transparency, recognition, mobility and partnership between education and training providers, the industry and stakeholders at the international level. For individual users, CMS has proven to be very effective in providing the overall status of competence profile and professional development needs. At the organisational level of employers, the identified functions include the improved overall knowledge management, and a more efficient competence needs assessment and transparent exchange within the larger environment and labour market. As regards the system level, the competence framework at the national level, and the transparency and recognition at the international level, had proven to be efficient at application in the labour market. (Contains 5 figures.)

The aim of this paper is to distinguish some of the factors that have an influence on the length of the joblessness period between the school-leaving date and the start of the first job. Several hypotheses are tested on the basis of a duration model using data on Flemish school leavers. The speed of the transition process is found to be a function of factors that are controllable at relatively low cost, such as search intensity, factors that are manageable at large investments cost, such as the level of education, as well as factors that are outside of control, such as ethnicity. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables and 9 notes.)

This paper examines women's employment in Britain and Denmark, societies characterised similarly by high proportions of female employees working part-time but by rather different gender arrangements. Part-time working is associated with female-carer workers; women who have reduced their hours in the labour market to bring up children and are able to do this because of the presence of an alternative source of income — usually a male breadwinner. Yet Denmark has been conceptualised as having more of ‘dual-breadwinner’ gender arrangement than Britain. It would seem then, that part-time working is distinctly different in these two societies. Examining this question, the paper concludes that extensive part-time working for women, and not men, does indeed tend to reinforce a traditional male-breadwinner model. However, the strength of this reinforcement varies, depending on the relative conditions of the part-time labour market. These conditions vary substantially cross-nationally and can also change rapidly within one society over time. As a result, the typical ‘role’ a part-time job plays for women can also vary cross-nationally and can change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing number of recipients of disability and long-term sickness benefits has resulted in the introduction of specific employability programmes in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In the UK Pathways to Work involved enabling and support measures for benefit recipients with long-term health conditions. In Denmark ‘flex-jobs’ are an integral occupational health intervention for both employed and unemployed people with reduced working capacity. Through a comparative analysis primarily based on stakeholder interviews in both countries, this paper argues that the concept of an inclusive labour market strategy is crucial to assisting these groups into work, underpinned by governance and a politics of representation. In Denmark both the role of the social partners and subsidized employment are significant. In the UK governance has been constrained and insufficient attention has been paid to income security. Comparing these two models highlights policy learning for the UK from the successes of and challenges to the Danish model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the impact of outsourcing on individual wages in three European countries with markedly different labour market institutions: Germany, the UK and Denmark. To do so we use individual-level data sets for the three countries and construct comparable measures of outsourcing at the industry level, distinguishing outsourcing by broad region. We discuss some possible intuitive reasons for why there may be differences in the impact of outsourcing across the three countries, based on labour market institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Active labour market policies (ALMPs) have evolved as pivotal social policy instruments designed to place the unemployed and other disadvantaged groups in sustainable employment. Yet, little is known about what drives employer participation in such initiatives. This article provides a nuanced account of the socio-economic aspects of the demand-side of ALMPs, by investigating employer embeddedness in wider social networks created by employer associations and employee collective voice as enabling mechanisms for employer participation in ALMPs. Drawing on an original survey of employers in the United Kingdom (UK) and Denmark, we found that the extent of employer embeddedness in such social networks is positively associated with employer participation in the UK but not in Denmark, where the effect was indirect and mediated through collective bargaining. The effects of employer network ties and employee collective voice affirm the importance of a more integrated analysis of the interactions between network ties and institutions in ALMP research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comparative study of the labour market and social policy measures introduced in light of the COVID-19 crisis in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom between March 2020 and January 2021. Its main aim is to understand whether the crisis response has changed the structures of the welfare states concerned. Focusing in particular on the differences regarding the crisis measures taken for individuals in 'standard employment' and 'non-standard workers' in each country, it argues that, although extensive temporary protection instruments were introduced for both groups during the crisis, these did not lead to an immediate convergence as regards these groups' social protection. Rather than changing the underlying structures of welfare systems, many of the measures in fact highlighted the specific vulnerabilities of large segments of Europe's labour markets. States have, however, granted social compensation at unprecedented levels, which could result in improved infrastructures and a clearer understanding of the responsibility of the welfare state in future emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature addressing attitudes about social policy and the welfare state has been telling us for decades that welfare interventions are supported by those individuals who benefit from a specific measure. The diffusion of ‘demanding’ active labour market policies (ALMPs), however, challenges this relationship. Using a novel dataset, I analyse which individual- and country-level factors explain public support for demanding ALMPs in five Western European countries. The results show that labour market risk and ideological orientation influence public attitudes towards these ALMPs. Thereby, unemployed individuals sympathising with the political right are more strongly opposed to demanding measures than employed individuals with the same political preferences. Moreover, aggregate support is found to be correlated with the country's ALMP legacy, varying from high levels in Germany and the UK to low levels in Denmark and France. The findings suggest that most ALMPs are in fact implemented despite the opposition of their beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws on the research of authors participating in this Special Issue, as well as a broader evidence review on how health, disability, labour market inequalities and other factors contribute to high levels of disability benefit ( DB) claiming among certain communities. We argue that the evidence points to a complex combination of factors feeding into high levels of DB claiming in the UK and beyond, namely: geographical concentrations of health problems and disability-related barriers; gaps in employability and skills; and labour market inequalities that limit the quantity and quality of work opportunities in some regions. The article then provides a comparative, critical commentary on the evolution of activation and welfare reform policies in the UK and (briefly) Denmark - a welfare state that has experienced similarly high levels of DB claiming, but has adopted very different policy responses. Specifically, we discuss the extent to which emerging active labour market policies, occupational health services and changes to the benefit system reflect the evidence on the nature of the barriers faced by people on DBs. The article concludes by identifying recommendations for health, employment and labour market policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketization is an important component of international shifts in the governance of employment services. Despite contrasting underlying welfare systems and employment services of different scales and character, both Denmark and Great Britain were distinct from many other comparable countries in contracting out employment services in the late-1990s. By comparing the starting positions and divergent trajectories of marketization in these two very different welfare systems, we see some common traits in how it so far has been difficult to make marketization deliver on its promises. We find in both cases difficulties for the contracted-employment services to reduce bureaucracy, save money through innovation, realize user choice, prevent poor quality services or increase efficiency/effectiveness through better job outcomes. Instead we find, paradoxically, that the market could not operate without re-regulation. In the absence of the intended effects, we furthermore question why policymakers in such different socio-political contexts continued to support the marketization strategy. The explanation is found in combination with wider governance and policy shifts, which have contributed towards altering the governance mix to reposition key actors and interests in ways that would have otherwise been contested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In industrialized countries women have increasingly become a target group for active labour market policies, or ‘activation’. However, to date, the burgeoning literature on activation has tended to overlook its link with the highly gendered nature of welfare. This article presents the first comparative analysis of activation approaches for partnered women in the UK, Australia and Denmark. Three core arguments are put forward that emphasize how the ideas (causal claims, beliefs and assumptions) articulated by key policy actors were crucial to both the construction and delivery of activation policies. First, women’s differentiated access to benefits directly conflicted with the focus on the individual within activation policies. Second, activation was premised upon paid labour, embodying ideational assumptions about the meaning of (paid) work, in turn devaluing caring labour. Third, the ‘problematization’ of women outside the labour market resulted in their gendered ‘processing’ through the social security and activation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates whether women work part-time through preference or constraint and argues that different countries provide different opportunities for preference attainment. It argues that women with family responsibilities are unlikely to have their working preferences met without national policies supportive of maternal employment. Using event history analysis the article tracks part-time workers' transitions to both full-time employment and to labour market drop-out. The article compares the outcome of workers in the UK, a country with little support for maternal employment, relative to Denmark and France, two countries with a long history of facilitating workers' engagement in both paid employment and family life. It finds evidence of part-time constraint in the UK relative to the other two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]