This article examines nonstandard employment and precariousness in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway). Drawing on data from the Labour Force Survey from 1995 to 2015, the article investigates and compares recent developments of nonstandard employment in the countries and analyzes whether fixed-term contracts, temporary agency work, marginal part-time work and solo self-employment have precarious elements (measured as income or job insecurity). We conclude that nonstandard employment has remained rather stable in all four countries over time. However, although nonstandard employment seems to be largely integrated in the Nordic labor markets, it still entails precarious elements in certain countries in particular. Norway and Denmark stand out as having less insecure labor markets, while Finland and Sweden have more precariousness associated with nonstandard employment. We argue that these differences are explained by differences in the institutional contexts in the countries.

Through a cross-national comparative study of local government "best practice cases" of socially responsible procurement in Denmark, Germany and the UK, this article critically examines the role of labour clauses in addressing issues of low wages and precarious work in public supply chains. It provides new insights on the negotiations and outcomes of labour clauses across different stages of the policy process, including implementation and monitoring. The analysis demonstrates the importance of pragmatic alliances of progressive local politicians, unions, and employers in ensuring that socially responsible procurement moves beyond rhetoric, along with supportive national and sectoral employment regimes. Labour clauses can compensate for weak systems of labour market regulation by setting higher standards for outsourced workers, while they play a complementary role in more regulated labour markets by levelling up wages and working conditions to prevailing collectively agreed standards.

The UK is distinctive in having the most liberal market-oriented welfare system in the European Union and the most majoritarian governmental system, capable of rapid and decisive action. The 1997 New Labour government abandoned the traditional neo-Keynesian/social democratic approach of the party and embarked on a programme of market-oriented welfare state reform. This reflects many aspects of policy direction (pursued more gradually and under different circumstances) elsewhere in Europe, and advocated in the European Employment Strategy and OECD proposals. The UK is thus a suitable test case to assess the impact of a new departure in welfare policy: welfare ends through market means. This paper shows that New Labour has achieved real successes in mobilising the workforce, broadening opportunities for women and reducing poverty. However, the approach faces intractable problems in stimulating and regulating private providers of welfare, and limitations in the extent to which it is able to reduce poverty among those of working age who are not in the labour market. These result from the incompatibility between welfare and market objectives: secure, adequate incomes for all, and work incentives for citizens and market freedom for providers.

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This paper examines the work and care strategies chosen by full-time working families with children in Finland, Italy, Portugal and the UK. It asks whether European families in different countries, facing the same problems of balancing employment and childcare responsibilities, respond to their situations in similar ways. An increase in dual-earner families where both parents work full-time represents a general employment trend in today's Europe. Also, within families with children, such employment patterns are now more common than they were previously. National differences may therefore not any longer be as marked as often indicated by country-based surveys. The qualitative data from the SOCCARE Project offer a way to examine this issue. The focal point of the paper is to make a comparative analysis of couples in similar work and care situations. Using their working hours as the common denominator, this paper analyses their daily childcare arrangements and how these are impacted by gender roles, working schedules, flexibility of workplace, income levels, parents' educational background and availability of care facilities. The paper concludes that European families' work and care strategies have many similarities whereby national differences may not be as marked as often indicated by contemporary research.