The Welfare State and Life Transitions uses the lens of key life stages to highlight changes in these transitions and in available resources for citizen support within nine European welfare states.This timely book reveals that new life courses are found to require more, and not less welfare support, but only Sweden has developed an active life course approach and only three more could be considered supportive, in at least some life stages. For the remainder, policies were at best limited or, in Italy?s case, passive. The contributors reveal that the neglect of changing needs is leading to greater reliance on the family and the labour market, just as these support structures are becoming more unpredictable and more unequal. They argue that alongside these new class inequalities, new forms of inter-generational inequality are also emerging, particularly in pension provision.This topical book will strongly appeal to academics and students interested in social policy, gender equality policy, pensions, industrial relations, labour economics, political science, and comparative welfare systems.

The last decade has given rise to a strong public discourse in most highly industrialized economies about the importance of a skilled workforce as a key response to the competitive dynamic fostered by economic globalisation. The challenge for different training regimes is twofold: attracting young people into the vocational training system while continuing to train workers already in employment. Yet, on the whole, most countries and their training systems have failed to reach those goals. How can we explain this contradiction? Why is vocational training seen to be an "old" institution? Why does vocational training not seem to be easily adapted to the realities of the 21st century? This book seeks to respond to these important questions. It does so through an in-depth comparative analysis of the vocational training systems in ten different countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, the United Kingdom and the USA.

The rise to prominence of the service sector - heralded over half a century ago as the great hope for the twenty-first century - has come to fruition. In many cases, employment in the service sector now outnumbers that in manufacturing sectors, and it is accepted that in all developed countries, the service sector is the only one in which employment will grow in future. The reasons for this is the subject of much controversy and debate, the outcomes of which are not merely of academic interest but of decisive importance for economic policy and the quality of working and living conditions in future. In order to examine these various arguments, research teams from eight European countries worked together for three years on a comparative study of the evolution of service sector employment in EU member states. They also investigated working and employment conditions in five very different service industries (banking, retailing, hospitals, IT services and care of the elderly) in a number of countries, and the results of their research are presented in this informative new collection, of interest to students academics and researchers involved in all aspects of industrial economics.

The last decade has given rise to a strong public discourse in most highly industrialized economies about the importance of a skilled workforce as a key response to the competitive dynamic fostered by economic globalisation.

The challenge for different training regimes is twofold: attracting young people into the vocational training system while continuing to train workers already in employment. Yet, on the whole, most countries and their training systems have failed to reach those goals. How can we explain this contradiction? Why is vocational training seen to be an old institution? Why does vocational training not seem to be easily adapted to the realities of the 21st century?

This book seeks to respond to these important questions. It does so through an in-depth comparative analysis of the vocational training systems in ten different countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, the United Kingdom and the USA.

Series Information:
Routledge Studies in Business Organizations and Networks

This collection draws on international comparisons from the main industrialized countries in a key field - the construction industry. One only has to walk around almost any major city in the industrialized economies of the world to see how well the construction industry is doing and this study is a timely analysis of a growing field.
This genuinely internationally focused book has contributions from leading experts and academics in the sphere of construction.
This well-written, informative collection is a must-read book for advanced students, academics and professionals who are serious about the industrial economics and the construction industry.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203166132

The Welfare State and Life Transitions uses the lens of key life stages to highlight changes in these transitions and in available resources for citizen support within nine European welfare states.This timely book reveals that new life courses are found to require more, and not less welfare support, but only Sweden has developed an active life course approach and only three more could be considered supportive, in at least some life stages. For the remainder, policies were at best limited or, in Italy?s case, passive. The contributors reveal that the neglect of changing needs is leading to greater reliance on the family and the labour market, just as these support structures are becoming more unpredictable and more unequal. They argue that alongside these new class inequalities, new forms of inter-generational inequality are also emerging, particularly in pension provision.This topical book will strongly appeal to academics and students interested in social policy, gender equality policy, pensions, industrial relations, labour economics, political science, and comparative welfare systems.

Edmond Malinvaud This book provides a most welcome survey of what statisticians and economists know about an aspect of production that is difficult to precisely characterize but matters a lot for both its importance on economic performance and its social implications. That such a survey is timely cannot be overemphasized; the point is well argued in the introduction to the book, which shows how discussions of the last decades stressed the importance of capital operating time as an economic variable in a series of distinct but interrelated topics, from growth theory to employment policies. Nowadays still more than ever in the past, production not only requires capital as well as labour but also depends on varied and complex forms of work organization, which tie more or less closely to one another the uses of the two main factors. In industry and services labour needs many pieces of capital for efficient production, some operating permanently others assisting when needed. Many, even among the most modem equipments, cannot well function without constant guidance or control by human labour. The cost of interrupting some industrial processes is so high as to impose continuous operation. The timing for the provision of many services has to be patterned in accordance with the rhythms of activities or requirements of those demanding these services, and so on. This interplay is so complex that its particularities were, and still are most often, fully neglected in statistical information and in economic analysis.

Professor Bosch's study of infantile autism is a most valuable contribution to the slowly increasing body of knowledge about this baffling and most severe psychiatrie disorder of childhood. Reading it in the original German when it first appeared in 1962, I was greatly impressed by his deep sympathy for these unfortunate children and by his keen insight into the overt manifestations of a behavior which presents the observer with tantalizing riddles. Having spent nearly a lifetime in unravelling the meaning of the behavior of autistic children, I was much taken by Professor Bosch's very different approach to the same problem. His research sheds further light into the darkness that reigns in the mind of the autistic child. I am delighted that his important contribution is now easily available also to American readers. Everybody who works with children suffering from infantile autism for any length of time and also studies this disease, becomes impressed by how much their inability to relate and to resporrd appro"prrately can teach us about human psychology in general, and in particular how and why things go wrong in man's relations to his fellow man. All through his book, Professor Bosch correctly stresses that autistic behavior is neither asymptom nor a syndrome, but a unique form of breakdown in all inter personal relations."

The book presents the results of the first comprehensive empirical study on the control of minimum wages in Germany. It offers an overview of the challenges and problems of enforcement and compliance with minimum wages, taking three sectors as examples (construction, meat industry, hospitality). On the basis of numerous interviews with experts from the field (e.g. trade unions, employers' associations, customs) and a comprehensive evaluation of the broad international research literature, it identifies starting points and strategies for sustainably improving compliance with and enforcement of minimum wages.

Im Buch werden die Ergebnisse der ersten umfassenden empirischen Untersuchung zur Kontrolle von Mindestloehnen in Deutschland prasentiert. Es bietet am Beispiel von drei Branchen (Bauhauptgewerbe, Fleischwirtschaft, Gastgewerbe) einen UEberblick zu Herausforderungen und Problemen bei der Durchsetzung (Enforcement) und Einhaltung (Compliance) von Mindestloehnen. Auf der Basis zahlreicher Interviews mit Expertinnen und Experten aus der Praxis (z. B. Gewerkschaften, Arbeitgeberverbande, Zoll) und einer umfassenden Auswertung der breiten internationalen Forschungsliteratur werden Ansatzpunkte und Strategien aufgezeigt, um die Einhaltung und Durchsetzung von Mindestloehnen nachhaltig zu verbessern.

In ca. 30 Unternehmen der Bundesrepublik wurden in den letzten Jahren sog. Beschaftigungsplane vereinbart. Sie sollten durch eine Qualifizierungsphase Entlassungen verhindern. Die Praxis der Beschaftigungsplane in der Bundesrepublik wurde anhand von 12 Fallstudien untersucht und mit ahnlichen Massnahmen in Frankreich verglichen. Das Ergebnis: Durch Beschaftigungsplane konnten Massenkundigungen verhindert werden, die Unternehmen wurden starker auf internen Strukturwandel verpflichtet, Un- und Angelernte wurden vor Dauerarbeitslosigkeit bewahrt. Beschaftigungsplane sind eine notwendige strukturpolitische Erganzung zum traditionellen Kundigungsschutz. Abschliessend entwickelt der Autor Vorschlage zur Verankerung von Beschaftigungsplanen in der Arbeitsmarkt- und Strukturpoliti

Es sind einige Worte zum rechten Versdindnis und einige Worte des Dankes, die ich dieser Studie voranstellen mochte. Fiir mich selbst ist es ein erster Versuch, die vielen, in langjahrigem und engem Umgang mit dies en autistischen Kindern gewon- nenen Erfahrungen theoretisch zu einem Bilde zusammenzufiigen. Ich habe deshalb die Darstellung der Falle vorangestellt, urn diesen Werdegang yom Leser nachvoll- ziehen zu lassen und urn die rechte Proportion zwischen der Breite und Fiille der Erfahrung und der notwendigen Abgrenzung und Abstraktion der Theorie deutlich zu machen. Dabei kam es mir allerdings darauf an, durch viele, in den Text eingefiigte Beobachtungen immer wieder auch den umgekehrten Weg von den mit Hilfe einer anthropologisch-phanomenologischen Methode gewonnenen Einsichten zuriick zur klinischen Beobachtung zu gehen. Damit sollte gezeigt werden, daB diese Ergebnisse die natiirliche", im Umgang mit abnormen Kindern gewonnene Erfahrung gerade nicht verstellen oder ausklammern, sondern als besonders wertvollen und aussichts- reichen Zugangsweg bestatigen. Anthropologisch ist die Methode insofern zu nennen, als zunachst eine Bestimmmung der Region des Daseins angestrebt wird, deren Strukturen und Gehalte bei autistischen Kindern in spezifischer Weise abgewandelt sind und dann erst die Herausarbeitung der Phanomene in ihrem jeweiligen regio- nalen Bezug. Wenn ich mich dabei zu Beginn einer antithetischen Form der Darstel- lung bedient habe, so nicht zum Zwecke einer Abwertung anderer theoretischer Ein- stellungen und Methoden, sondern zur klareren Herausarbeitung des eigenen Denk- weges.

For four decades now, information and communication technologies have been seen as principal drivers of socio-economic change. Stimulated in recent years by the Internet, the National Information Infrastructure, and European Information Society strategies, the "Information Society" has undergone a new wave of developments. In its new form, the Information Society directly affects the everyday lives of citizens, provoking concerns about the future of work, information overload, access to continuing education, surveillance, and privacy. This volume examines a wide range of issues at stake in the European Union, from employment and the labor market, to the domestication of technologies in households, to larger implications for political processes and democracy. Extending comparisons to other industrialized countries, it demonstrates that the Information Society is far too diverse and rich to be typified in simplistic dichotomies such as information "haves" and "have nots" and that simple upbeat or pessimistic responses to the new technologies are surely false messengers for the future. The authors discern general social trends and patterns in the way that these very important technologies already affect our lives and work. But they find there is still considerable room to use the technologies as a positive force for social change or, equally, to fail to take up any positive opportunities. This book helps broaden and inform communication technology debates worldwide and will be of interest to academics, students, industrialists, policymakers, and anyone who wishes to better understand the impacts of the new Information Society in Europe and beyond.