Bringing together contributions from leading labour market policy scholars from across the globe, this state-of-the-art Handbook offers extensive and compelling analyses of labour market policy in advanced democracies. Drawing on the lively debates on labour market policy that have characterised comparative social policy and comparative political economy scholarship in recent years, the Handbook provides theoretical insights into the core concepts, changing contexts and main actors that shape contemporary labour market policy. Using macro-regional case studies spanning Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America, it offers detailed empirical illustrations of how major labour market policies and institutions have evolved over time and across countries. Chapters further examine the diversity of policy options and their various political implications, assessing the relationship between labour market policy and major socio-economic outcomes, such as inequality, well being and political participation. Integrating cutting-edge theory with rich empirical insights, this incisive Handbook will be an invaluable reference for students and scholars of comparative social policy and comparative political economy. Its comprehensive coverage will also allow policy-makers and practitioners to reflect critically on the role of labour market policy in today’s complex societies.

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.

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.