By now, it is commonly accepted that labor markets in advanced societies are in a process of deep transformation. The general trend seems to be one of increasing flexibility with regard to wages and/or employment contracts. This is most apparent for those European labor markets which were seen as quite egalitarian only one or two decades ago. The overall research question of the book project is to explain this change from a rather standardized employment model (stable employment relationships, permanent contracts, wage compression) to a more de-standardized one (flexible employment relationship, temporary contracts, wage dispersion). In addressing this question one particular issue lies at the core: the occupational heterogeneity in the process of labor market change. In the comparative labor market literature, the growth of non-standard employment such as f ixed-term contracts, agency work, freelance and part-time work as well as increased wage dispersion is usually discussed referring to the development of national averages over time.
Start date: 01/12/2011
Finish date: 01/07/2013
Financing: IZA – Institute for the Study of Labor
Responsable researcher: Óscar Molina (UAB); Coords. : Werner Eichhorst (IZA), Paul Marx (IZA)
Documents and publications:
