In recent years, the concept of flexicurity has come to occupy a central place in political and academic debates regarding employment and social policy. It fosters a view in which the need for continuously increasing flexibility is the basic assumption, and the understanding of security increasingly moves from social protection to self-insurance or individual adaptability. Moreover, it rejects the traditional contradictions between flexibility and security, blending the two into a single notion and thus depoliticizing the relationships between capital and labour. This volume provides a critical discussion of the flexicurity concept, the theories upon which it is built and the ideas that it transmits about work, unemployment and social justice. It shows that flexicurity fosters the further individualization of social protection, an increase in precariousness and the further weakening of labour in relation to capital. The authors present a series of alternative theoretical, normative and policy approaches that provide due attention to the collective and political dimension of vulnerability and allow for the development of new societal projects based on alternative values and assumptions.

Recoge: 1. The challenges and opportunities of globalisation and change - 2. An integrated flexicurity approach - 3. Flexicurity policies - 4. Flexicurity and social dialogue - 5. Developing common principles of flexicurity - 6. Flexicurity pathways - 7. The financial dimension of flexicurity - 8. Next steps: flexicurity and the Lisbon Strategy for growth and jobs - 9. Annex.

Flexicurity is a European policy agenda seeking to increase both flexibility and security in the labour-market. This book argues that it needs a revision: Although flexicurity is set out to change the way Europeans work and live, and even though it is being justified by workers’ needs, flexicurity lacks of a clear and democratically justified vision of society. Flexicurity is confronted here with Amartya Sen’s capability-approach, a paradigm of well-being evaluation. How is flexicurity related to a concept of employment as part of a way of life which people have reason to value? How capability-friendly are established flexicurity-indicators? It is thus shown how the capability-approach can be used in the field of labour-market and social policy.

This study, on the role of flexibility and security on labour market performance, argues that flexicurity is the most relevant approach for Central and Eastern European countries. The book follows the pattern of analysis used in "Labour markets in transition", a previous monograph by the authors, and re-examines the different dimensions of flexibility, including flexible forms of employment. It studies fluctuations of labour turnover over the economic cycle. Then it review changes in the regulatory provisions, collective bargaining, labour taxation and labour market policies and their impacts on key labour market indicators for the period 1999-2003 as compared with the end of the 1990s. Through a series of national case studies, the volume examines how the countries of Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland have attempted to balance labour market flexibility and security since the late 1990s. A discussion on wage flexibility is also included. The search for abetter combination of flexibility and security has been a major challenge within the European Union and it is often seen as indispensable for improving competitiveness and at the same time maintaining the European social model. This book looks into how this can be achieved through the flexicurity approach and shows how "activation" of labour market policies and social dialogue can be the keys to success.

Evaluates the impact of European integration on social policy development since the launch and relaunch of the Lisbon strategy discussing the challenges posed by the still unfolding global economic crisis of 2007-2009.

This book explores the normative and legal evolution of the Social Dimension - labour law, social security law and family law - in both the EU and its Member States, during the last decade. It does this from a wide range of theoretical and legal-substantive perspectives. The past decade has witnessed the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty and its emphasis on fundamental rights, a new coordination regulation within the field of social security (Regulation 883/2004/EC), and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the so-called Laval Quartet. Furthermore structural changes affecting demographics and family have also challenged solidarity in new ways. The book is organised by reference to distinct 'normative patterns' and their development in the fields of law covered, such as the protection of established groups, the position of market functional values and the scope for just distribution. The book represents an innovative and important interdisciplinary approach to analysing EU law and Social Europe, and contributes a complex, yet thought-provoking, picture for the future. The contributors represent an interesting mix of well-known and distinguished as well as upcoming and promising researchers throughout Europe and beyond.

In its Green Paper about the need for labour market reform, the European Commission argued that the increasing diversity of 21st century working relationships means that existing labour law is no longer adequate. This report brings together the evidence from a wide range f experts and representative bodies about these issues as they affect the UK labour market. It finds that the evidence does not support the Commission. The consensus is that the relatively light regulation of the UK labour market is advantageous and that problems of social disadvantage and structural unemployment are better addressed by measures aimed at tackling poor skills and social inequality rather than changing labour law. The report therefore recommends that efforts at EU level should focus on the promotion and sharing of good practice, rather than the introduction of new legislation.