ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book brings together leading ... more ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book brings together leading international authors from a number of fields to provide an up-to-date understanding of part-time work at national, sector, industry and workplace levels. The contributors critically examine part-time employment in different institutional settings across Europe, the USA, Australia and Korea. This analysis serves as a prism to investigate wider trends, particularly in female employment, including the continued increase in part-time work and processes that are increasingly creating dualisation and inequality between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ jobs.
The aim is to explain why union density is not only considerably higher in the Ghent country Swed... more The aim is to explain why union density is not only considerably higher in the Ghent country Sweden than in non-Ghent Norway but also why it has declined much more in Sweden, in particular among blue-collar workers. We show how changes to Swedish unemployment insurance in 2007–2013 were followed by a decline in union density and how white-collar unions were more successful than blue-collar unions in developing supplementary income insurance schemes that counteracted membership losses. This type of institutional explanation is nevertheless insufficient. In Norway, too, blue-collar density has decreased while white-collar workers have maintained their density rate. Norwegian data further show that even without unemployment insurance funds, it is possible to achieve a fairly high union density at workplaces with collective agreements. However, without unemployment benefits like we find in Sweden, it is increasingly challenging to establish an institutional foundation for a social custo...
Et utvalg nedsatt av hovedorganisasjonene på arbeidstakersiden har bedt Fafo og AFI om å lage et ... more Et utvalg nedsatt av hovedorganisasjonene på arbeidstakersiden har bedt Fafo og AFI om å lage et kunnskapsgrunnlag for arbeidet med å styrke organisasjonsgraden i Norge. Bakgrunnen er en tendens til en fallende organisasjonsgrad, spesielt i privat sektor. AFI og Fafo har utnyttet sine respektive datagrunnlag og samarbeidet om analysene og tekstproduksjonen
International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations
Using survey data collected in 2010-2011, this article examines patterns of lock-in among employe... more Using survey data collected in 2010-2011, this article examines patterns of lock-in among employees in the Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish labour markets. Workers are defined as locked-in if they have considerable difficulty in finding an equally good job with some other employer. Empirically we measure the concept by means of the employees' own assessment of their labour market prospects. Our results indicate that lock-in is a matter of the interplay between employers and employees. The proportion of those locked-in is lower in Norway - with its higher demand for labour and lower levels of unemployment - than in Finland and Sweden. Young age and good health are associated with relatively optimistic views of job prospects, probably because these attributes impact on the ability to adapt to the demand for labour and because employers tend to be cautious about hiring older workers and those with health problems. The most significant obstacles to finding another job reported by the ...
The Nordic countries are known for being small open economies with large public sectors due to un... more The Nordic countries are known for being small open economies with large public sectors due to universal welfare states and high living standards across occupations and education levels. This combination has recently been characterized as a balanced growth model in which both exports and internal demand (private and public) contributes to economic growth. In contrast to export-led growth models – as seen in Germany – which have starved wages and thus internal demand to increase the cost competitiveness of the export sector (Baccaro & Pontusson 2016), the Nordic countries seem to be able to do both (Alsos et al. 2019). In 2013, The Economist proclaimed Nordic countries as the world’s next ‘supermodel’ due to the emphasis on market dynamics and income security rather than job tenure – a useful blueprint for labor market policy configured for the rapid technological changes foreshadowed in the twenty-first century (Wooldridge 2013).In more recent years, the OECD has linked the flexibil...
The policy responses of the European Union to the fi nancial and economic crisis have brought wag... more The policy responses of the European Union to the fi nancial and economic crisis have brought wage-setting mechanisms within the sphere of the EU’s economic governance regime. Even though these monitoring processes and, in some cases, recommendations have had an impact on collective bargaining processes in some EU states, the Nordic collective bargaining systems have remained relatively unaffected by the European initiatives.
Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2019
To date the Nordic countries have not had a public debate on living wages, in contrast to many An... more To date the Nordic countries have not had a public debate on living wages, in contrast to many Anglo-Saxon countries. This does not mean, however, that the concept of a living wage is alien to them. In this article we examine whether wage-setting mechanisms in the Nordic countries promote and secure a living wage for all employees, and how trade unions have approached the concept of a living wage.
Supplemental material, Bryson_et_al_online_suppl for Gender differences in the union wage premium... more Supplemental material, Bryson_et_al_online_suppl for Gender differences in the union wage premium? A comparative case study by Alex Bryson, Harald Dale-Olsen and Kristine Nergaard in European Journal of Industrial Relations
In this chapter we discuss the development of part-time work in Finland and Norway and ask if the... more In this chapter we discuss the development of part-time work in Finland and Norway and ask if there is a trend towards more marginalised part-time work also in the well-regulated Nordic labour markets. Furthermore, we investigate if there are differences between Norway, with its long tradition for normalised part-time jobs among women, and Finland, where full-time work has been the normal choice for women. Part-time jobs are more common among young persons, women, and in the service sectors. In both countries, part-time jobs are more insecure than full-time jobs. However, there is no strong tendency towards more insecure part-time jobs over time. We also examine mobility from part-time jobs to other positions in the labour market. In both countries, part-time work is characterised by high stability. Hence, the results do not give support for increased polarisation in terms of increased work insecurity among part-time employees. in terms of increased work insecurity among part-time e...
Trade unions have changed from being male dominated to majority-female organizations. We use link... more Trade unions have changed from being male dominated to majority-female organizations. We use linked employer–employee surveys for Norway and Britain to examine whether, in keeping with a median voter model, the gender shift in union membership has resulted in differential wage returns to unionization among men and women. In Britain, while only women receive a union wage premium, only men benefit from the increased bargaining power of their union as indicated by workplace union density. In Norway, however, both men and women receive a union wage premium in male-dominated workplaces; but where the union is female dominated, women benefit more than men. The findings suggest British unions continue to adopt a paternalistic attitude to representing their membership, in contrast to their more progressive counterparts in Norway.
ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book brings together leading ... more ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book brings together leading international authors from a number of fields to provide an up-to-date understanding of part-time work at national, sector, industry and workplace levels. The contributors critically examine part-time employment in different institutional settings across Europe, the USA, Australia and Korea. This analysis serves as a prism to investigate wider trends, particularly in female employment, including the continued increase in part-time work and processes that are increasingly creating dualisation and inequality between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ jobs.
The aim is to explain why union density is not only considerably higher in the Ghent country Swed... more The aim is to explain why union density is not only considerably higher in the Ghent country Sweden than in non-Ghent Norway but also why it has declined much more in Sweden, in particular among blue-collar workers. We show how changes to Swedish unemployment insurance in 2007–2013 were followed by a decline in union density and how white-collar unions were more successful than blue-collar unions in developing supplementary income insurance schemes that counteracted membership losses. This type of institutional explanation is nevertheless insufficient. In Norway, too, blue-collar density has decreased while white-collar workers have maintained their density rate. Norwegian data further show that even without unemployment insurance funds, it is possible to achieve a fairly high union density at workplaces with collective agreements. However, without unemployment benefits like we find in Sweden, it is increasingly challenging to establish an institutional foundation for a social custo...
Et utvalg nedsatt av hovedorganisasjonene på arbeidstakersiden har bedt Fafo og AFI om å lage et ... more Et utvalg nedsatt av hovedorganisasjonene på arbeidstakersiden har bedt Fafo og AFI om å lage et kunnskapsgrunnlag for arbeidet med å styrke organisasjonsgraden i Norge. Bakgrunnen er en tendens til en fallende organisasjonsgrad, spesielt i privat sektor. AFI og Fafo har utnyttet sine respektive datagrunnlag og samarbeidet om analysene og tekstproduksjonen
International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations
Using survey data collected in 2010-2011, this article examines patterns of lock-in among employe... more Using survey data collected in 2010-2011, this article examines patterns of lock-in among employees in the Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish labour markets. Workers are defined as locked-in if they have considerable difficulty in finding an equally good job with some other employer. Empirically we measure the concept by means of the employees' own assessment of their labour market prospects. Our results indicate that lock-in is a matter of the interplay between employers and employees. The proportion of those locked-in is lower in Norway - with its higher demand for labour and lower levels of unemployment - than in Finland and Sweden. Young age and good health are associated with relatively optimistic views of job prospects, probably because these attributes impact on the ability to adapt to the demand for labour and because employers tend to be cautious about hiring older workers and those with health problems. The most significant obstacles to finding another job reported by the ...
The Nordic countries are known for being small open economies with large public sectors due to un... more The Nordic countries are known for being small open economies with large public sectors due to universal welfare states and high living standards across occupations and education levels. This combination has recently been characterized as a balanced growth model in which both exports and internal demand (private and public) contributes to economic growth. In contrast to export-led growth models – as seen in Germany – which have starved wages and thus internal demand to increase the cost competitiveness of the export sector (Baccaro & Pontusson 2016), the Nordic countries seem to be able to do both (Alsos et al. 2019). In 2013, The Economist proclaimed Nordic countries as the world’s next ‘supermodel’ due to the emphasis on market dynamics and income security rather than job tenure – a useful blueprint for labor market policy configured for the rapid technological changes foreshadowed in the twenty-first century (Wooldridge 2013).In more recent years, the OECD has linked the flexibil...
The policy responses of the European Union to the fi nancial and economic crisis have brought wag... more The policy responses of the European Union to the fi nancial and economic crisis have brought wage-setting mechanisms within the sphere of the EU’s economic governance regime. Even though these monitoring processes and, in some cases, recommendations have had an impact on collective bargaining processes in some EU states, the Nordic collective bargaining systems have remained relatively unaffected by the European initiatives.
Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2019
To date the Nordic countries have not had a public debate on living wages, in contrast to many An... more To date the Nordic countries have not had a public debate on living wages, in contrast to many Anglo-Saxon countries. This does not mean, however, that the concept of a living wage is alien to them. In this article we examine whether wage-setting mechanisms in the Nordic countries promote and secure a living wage for all employees, and how trade unions have approached the concept of a living wage.
Supplemental material, Bryson_et_al_online_suppl for Gender differences in the union wage premium... more Supplemental material, Bryson_et_al_online_suppl for Gender differences in the union wage premium? A comparative case study by Alex Bryson, Harald Dale-Olsen and Kristine Nergaard in European Journal of Industrial Relations
In this chapter we discuss the development of part-time work in Finland and Norway and ask if the... more In this chapter we discuss the development of part-time work in Finland and Norway and ask if there is a trend towards more marginalised part-time work also in the well-regulated Nordic labour markets. Furthermore, we investigate if there are differences between Norway, with its long tradition for normalised part-time jobs among women, and Finland, where full-time work has been the normal choice for women. Part-time jobs are more common among young persons, women, and in the service sectors. In both countries, part-time jobs are more insecure than full-time jobs. However, there is no strong tendency towards more insecure part-time jobs over time. We also examine mobility from part-time jobs to other positions in the labour market. In both countries, part-time work is characterised by high stability. Hence, the results do not give support for increased polarisation in terms of increased work insecurity among part-time employees. in terms of increased work insecurity among part-time e...
Trade unions have changed from being male dominated to majority-female organizations. We use link... more Trade unions have changed from being male dominated to majority-female organizations. We use linked employer–employee surveys for Norway and Britain to examine whether, in keeping with a median voter model, the gender shift in union membership has resulted in differential wage returns to unionization among men and women. In Britain, while only women receive a union wage premium, only men benefit from the increased bargaining power of their union as indicated by workplace union density. In Norway, however, both men and women receive a union wage premium in male-dominated workplaces; but where the union is female dominated, women benefit more than men. The findings suggest British unions continue to adopt a paternalistic attitude to representing their membership, in contrast to their more progressive counterparts in Norway.
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Papers by Kristine Nergaard