The Flexibilization of European Labour Markets and the Development of Social Inequalities: Comparing Evidence from Nine Globalized Countries

Abstract

Throughout the last two decades, globalization and the manifest increases in employment flexibility frequently associated with it have become increasingly highly debated topics and ‘buzzwords’ in media, politics, and science. Whereas, initially, the decreasing importance of national borders and the growth of a worldwide economy were often associated with favourable repercussions such as lower prices, more choice, greater freedom, higher living standards and prosperity (Edwards, 1998), and the tide of public opinion appears to have turned. Despite manifest increases in average living standards, recent survey data demonstrate that virtually one half of European citizens nowadays perceive globalization as a threat to their national economies (European Commission, 2007). In a similar manner, social and economic scientists have come to greet globalization with increasing scepticism. Nowadays, they more frequently expect the ‘flattening out’ of cross-national institutional differences to lead to adverse cross-national convergence towards the lowest common denominator. Following this line of argument, globalization is considered to steer neoliberal processes. Against a background of a virtually unlimited mobility of work and capital, national economies and welfare states enter into a global competition to provide the most favourable conditions for businesses that inevitably force them into a ‘race to the bottom’ (Teeple, 1995) as regards both their labour market regulation and their social safety net. In consequence, many scientists foresee a convergence of welfare and social policies (Montanari et al., 2007; Navarro et al., 2004; Taylor-Goodby, 2003) and labour market regulations towards an ideal–typical neoliberal model (Marginson and Sisson, 2002; McBride and Williams, 2001) based on unregulated labour markets, residual welfare provision, minimum levels of employment protection, and a universal ‘hire-and-fire’ principle. Thus, constant growth in a flexible world economy is achieved at the cost of decreasing job and social security.