From Selective Exclusion Towards Activation: A Life Course Perspective on the French Social Model

Erhel, Christine; Lima, Léa; Nicole-Drancourt, Chantal

doi:10.4337/9781849806381.00012

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Figure 1 also provides insights into the gender time gap and the French model of female labor market participation. Note that in contrast to many other European countries, the share of part-time workers among French women has remained stable over the past decade at roughly 30% (European Commission 2012), as has the prevalence of full-time work due in large part to the highly developed public childcare and preschool services (Erhel, Lima, and Nicole-Drancourt 2010). A noteworthy effect of the introduction of the 35-hour week seems to be that it allowed more (primarily female) part-time workers to switch to full-time contracts (Oliveira and Ulrich 2002).…”

Section: Changing Norms and Lagging Normalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s a Long Way from Norms to Normality

Lehndorff

2014

ILR Review

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the present overview on existing research addresses the double implication of working-time standards as legal (or contractual) norms, on the one hand, and socially established normality, on the other. Looking primarily at the evidence on the statutory 35-hour week in France, the author discusses the question of how changes in norms as stipulated by law or collective agreements may affect working-time practices in the society. given the specific institutional and policy tradition of statist intervention in France, a comparison with the effects of the contractual 35-hour week on actual hours in the West german metal industry highlights particular strengths and weaknesses of the French approach. While the empirical evidence underscores the crucial importance of statutory norms and the interaction between governments and social actors, it equally reveals the increasing difficulties to set limits to normal hours for growing shares of the workforce just by setting statutory or collective norms. the transformation of new working-time norms into normality leading to a generalized shorter standard workweek is a long-term social process that requires continual intervention of actors at various levels and must be embedded in agreements both at the workplace and within households. C hanging working-time standards takes time. If we look back at workingtime developments in the capitalist world in general and in 20th-century europe in particular, it is easy to distinguish two major long-term trends. the first, and fundamental, change was the step-by-step establishment of the 8-hour day and, later, the 40-hour week as a legally mandated or widely adopted contractual standard. this was accomplished by the 1970s or 1980s in large parts of europe (much earlier in the United states) and by the 1990s and early 2000s in eastern europe and Portugal. the second trend, which has gained ground over the last 20 or 30 years, is the proliferation of nonstandard working hours above and below the 40-hour standard across many countries and industries.In most countries, once the 40-hour week was established, the general push for shorter standard work hours lost momentum. While some trade * steffen Lehndorff is Research Fellow at the University of Duisburg-essen. many thanks to Peter Berg, gerhard Bosch, Jean Charest, michel Lallement, eleonora matteazzi, François Rycx, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. Correspondence can be directed to steffen.lehndorff@uni-due.de.

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Section: Changing Norms and Lagging Normalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s a Long Way from Norms to Normality

Lehndorff

2014

ILR Review

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“…Here the EU through the EES, but perhaps more significantly through its structural funds, has promoted the development of state supported programmes for young people even in the southern countries where young people do not have access to passive benefits (Seferiades, 2003) and where there was previously little state support for integration into their first job. However, the degree of normalization varies across countries and has been taken to a high level in France, which spends the most on active labour market policies of various kinds for young people (Erhel et al, 2010; Ryan, 2001) and where the development of this array of programmes, initially as responses to a potentially temporary problem of high youth unemployment, could be said to have institutionalized a longer supported transition into wage work. Employers perhaps no longer expect to offer unsubsidized entry level jobs to young people (Couppié et al, 2006; Erhel et al, 2010).…”

Section: Responses To New Needsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the degree of normalization varies across countries and has been taken to a high level in France, which spends the most on active labour market policies of various kinds for young people (Erhel et al, 2010; Ryan, 2001) and where the development of this array of programmes, initially as responses to a potentially temporary problem of high youth unemployment, could be said to have institutionalized a longer supported transition into wage work. Employers perhaps no longer expect to offer unsubsidized entry level jobs to young people (Couppié et al, 2006; Erhel et al, 2010).…”

Section: Responses To New Needsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstruction amid deconstruction: or why we need more of the social in European social models

Rubery

2011

Work, Employment and Society

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This article makes two key arguments. First, European social models are being asked to extend social support to meet new needs associated with the ageing society, changes in citizens' aspirations and behaviour and the reduced reliability of support from employers and the family. How nations respond to these new needs varies according to current gaps in provision and to political will, but most states up to the crisis were expanding their range of social interventions, sometimes leading to hybridization of their traditional social models. Second, deconstruction of social models to implement neoliberalism and reconstruction to meet new needs are often two sides of the same process. Reforms to meet new needs may take a neoliberal form, and neoliberal reforms may generate new needs. European social models may have to respond to these pressures for, unlike those of the USA, European citizens still look to the state to ensure their social citizenship rights.

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From Selective Exclusion Towards Activation: A Life Course Perspective on the French Social Model

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

It’s a Long Way from Norms to Normality

It’s a Long Way from Norms to Normality

Reconstruction amid deconstruction: or why we need more of the social in European social models

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