Selective Flexibilization and Deregulation of the Labour Market: The German Answer to Increased Needs for Employment Flexibility and its Consequences for Social Inequalities

Abstract

In both academia as well as public discourse, globalization has turned into a prominent reference when discussing recent changes in contemporary societies. The majority of earlier literature,however, has largely restricted itself to the broader relationship between globalization and entire national economies, although there have been smaller studies that have investigated how globalization actually 'trickles down' to the individual life course levels of modern European citizens, concentrating on single life course transitions. Based on contributions from international experts, this volume extends this perspective by providing an up-to-date account of globalization's influences on individual life courses in nine different European societies and of political strategies to mediate this influence. The authors provide ample evidence that globalization does not lead to an equivocal 'race to the bottom' in modern welfare states but is mediated differently by nation-specific institutions. Furthermore, they show that employment insecurity is often channelled to specific disadvantaged groups, thereby amplifying existing inequality structures.