In the last few decades, attention for the social protection of self-employed people in Europe has grown. The countries that are probably most concerned with the social protection for self-employed persons are the Central and Eastern European states. At the end of the twentieth century, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, they were confronted with rising entrepreneurship. Self-employed entrepreneurship was and still is one of the key elements in the transformation of their guided economy to a free market economy. The essential question for many policymakers of Central and Eastern European states is, consequently, to what extent social protection should have a place in this free economy. This publication gives an overview of the existing social security systems for self-employed people in those states in Central and Eastern Europe with which the EU has started negotiations for a possible entry. More specifically, it concerns Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. For each state it is checked for which risks the self-employed person is socially insured and how the social security systems are structured. Moreover, the author investigates the specific problems, which the states have to deal with when developing a social security protection for the self-employed. After the description of the national systems, the final chapter will offer a brief comparative analysis. The aim of this analysis is to present the key points in the description of the systems for self-employed persons in Central and Eastern Europe. This chapter will equally be used to make the link with the EU countries. Contributions to this book are made by: A. Bubnov- S ¡ koberne, I.C. Dragan, J. Hajdú, J. Hartl, L. Leppik, T. Medaiskis, M. Pliszkiewicz, I. Radicová, D. Sacheva-Atanasova, G. Strban and V. Zagorskis.

All over the world countries face the challenge of inadequate social security coverage for workers without an employment contact. In countries of the global south, this phenomenon is a natural consequence of large informal economies. Countries in the global north increasingly witness the same issue, due to growing labour market flexibility (flex contracts, dependent self-employment, digitization of labour). In this book authors from both hemispheres exchange insights, experiments and practices with the intention of finding better ways to deal with the social security challenges facing workers.

The expansion of the European Union (EU) has put an end to the East-West division of Europe. At the same time it has increased the cultural heterogeneity, social disparities and economic imbalances within the EU, exemplified in the lower living standards and higher unemployment rates in some of the new member states. This important new reference work describes the education systems, labour markets and welfare production regimes in the 10 new Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries. In three comparative chapters, discussing each of these domains in turn, the editors provide a set of theory-driven, comprehensive and informative indicators that allow comparisons and rankings within the new EU member states. Ten country-specific chapters follow, each written by experts from those countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. These chapters provide detailed information on each country's education and training systems, labour market structure and regulations, and its provision of formal and informal welfare support. An important component of each country chapter is the explanation of the historical background and the specific national conditions for the institutional choices in the transitional years. The handbook provides policy makers with the tools to assess the institutional changes in CEE countries, and scholars with ways to apply the proposed indicators to their analytic research. It will be a vital resource that no major research library should be without.

This book aims to fill a void in the literature on the contributions of the state to the social protection, educational training, and human security of its overseas citizens. Additionally, Michel S. Laguerre seeks to explain the rise of the postdiaspora condition: an emancipatory metamorphosis of diaspora status. Laguerre pays particular attention to the crossborder services that the state provides, transfrontier mechanisms developed by various institutions, as well as extraterritorial forms of management and governance. He sheds light on complex crossborder arrangements and management, the multiplicity of crossborder agencies and organizations, and the promulgation of new laws that provide a legal basis for these extraterritorial undertakings by the state. The ability of emigrants to hold citizen status—and to enjoy access to the same rights and privileges as those offered to residents of the homeland—sets the cosmonational context for the performance of the postdiaspora condition.