The employment situation of older workers in Germany used to be poor. However, in recent years it has improved considerably. Germany has shifted its policies to strengthen the labor market performance of older workers. Policy has focused on less early exits of older workers and far-reaching institutional changes concerning public pension schemes and unemployment benefit systems. A better overall development of the labor market and an increased labor force participation of women contributed to the more favorable employment situation of older workers. Nevertheless, we still observe severe problems for certain groups of older workers. The older workers are and the lower their skill level is the weaker is their labor market integration. If older persons are already unemployed they will experience severe difficulties to (re-)enter the labor market. In order to become actually a country for old workers the issue of employability needs much more attention. Such a strategy relies on continuous skill improvement as well as a healthy environment and does not only address older workers but also younger workers facing a prolonged working life. Germany-No

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Since the beginning of the 1990s, the composition of work arrangements has significantly changed. Whereas non-standard work arrangements such as part-time or temporary employment grew over time, standard work lost in importance. However, data from the German Labour Force Survey does-at least for the recent past-not show a clear indication for a much greater speed with respect to changes in the composition of work arrangements. In addition, developments are also driven by a long-term trend. Shift-shareanalyses suggest that shifts in the demographic or industry composition of employment were only of minor importance as a driving force for the trend. This means that factors related to the behaviour of the parties involved have obviously played a decisive role. In this context it is important that Germany is a country with regulations creating incentives for an increased use of nonstandard work arrangements. Of relevance in this context are high social security contributions, a considerable level of employment protection, a stronger activation of unemployed due to recent labour market reforms and a still dominant male bread winner model. Zeiten des Wandels: Was treibt das Wachstum atypischer Erwerbsformen in Deutschland? Zusammenfassung Seit Anfang der 1990er Jahre hat sich die Zusammensetzung der Erwerbsformen grundlegend verändert. Während atypische Formen der Erwerbstätigkeit, wie Teilzeitarbeit oder befristete Beschäftigung, an Bedeutung gewannen, verlor das sog. "Normalarbeitsverhältnis" dagegen an Boden. Jedoch legen Daten des Mikrozensus nahe, dass sich das Tempo des Wandels in der jüngeren Ver