Changes in work and social protection: France, Germany and Europe

Abstract

Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, ParisThis article adopts a dual approach to the examination of unemployment insurance reforms in France and Germany.On one hand it looks back at the historical link between waged work and social protection which is characteristic of both systems; on the other hand it considers the impact of the European Employment Strategy on national reforms. The historical retrospective reveals the eminently political nature of social protection and its intimate relationship with a vision of society based on a nation of wage-earners. That vision is now being called into question but the kind of alternative political project needed to breathe life into the idea of SocialEurope has yet to emerge.C ri sis in both the wel fare state and the la bour mar ket is fre quently invoked to jus tify far-reach ing re forms of so cial pro tec tion sys tems. However, the im pact of la bour mar ket changes on so cial pro tec tion var ies depend ing on whether the ma jor ity of so cial ben efits are fi nanced through taxation or through wage-based so cial se cu rity con tri bu tions and there fore di rectly linked to em ploy ment. This ar ti cle will fo cus on the im pact of contem po rary changes in the work place on those pro tec tion sys tems that are based on em ploy ment, with ref er ence to the ex am ples of France and Germany -two coun tries which have both placed em ploy ment and insurance at the heart of their social protection systems.First, the his tor i cal per spec tive will en able us to look at the foun da tions of this mar riage be tween em ploy ment and so cial se cu rity and show how, since the end of the nine teenth cen tury, work on one hand and the na tion State on the other have been brought to gether as the bed rock of a far-reaching po lit i cal pro ject to pro vide se cu rity for in di vid ual and com mu nity. The tran si tion from as sis tance to in sur ance, and per sonal fault to col lec tive responsibility, is sig nif i cant ev i dence for this; work, cod i fied by law on the basis of one's em ploy ment cat egory, be comes both the ex pres sion of participation in the com mon good and the source of so cial sta tus.

Unemployment Insurance Reform – 1991–2006: A New Balance between Rights and Obligations in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain

“…The traditional institutional features of social rights in conservative unemployment insurance schemes are well identified (e.g. Kvist 1998; Clasen 2001; Zimmermann 2006; Palier and Martin 2007): rights derived from employment and occupational status; access to benefits and the duration of payment dependent upon the length of the insurance career; earnings‐related benefits and expressed by generous replacement rates with weak levels of sanctions. All such features explain the medium level of decommodification found by Esping‐Andersen (1990).…”

“…In recent years, the debate points to the main objectives of unemployment protection having changed: the so‐called passive policy became secondary and a ‘return to work at all costs has become the paragon of social policy’ (Clasen 2000: 38). As a result, we can speak of a new nexus between social rights and obligations (Kvist 2000: 2) that can be summarized as follows: ‘rights are no longer automatically guaranteed and are accompanied by a whole range of incentives and sanctions’ (Zimmermann 2006: 39). There is no doubt that all the above mentioned indicators are proven and able to characterize all the qualitative changes relating to eligibility, entitlement and obligations, including sanctions.…”

“…In itself, this kind of criticism cannot explain the lower popularity of this social programme but such a prevailing opinion may have had some influence over the nature of reforms implemented in the last decade (Kvist 1998, 2000; OECD 2000; Zimmermann 2006). More specifically, if we assume a reduction in the depth and breadth of such polices was a priority in restructuring unemployment protection, then policy measures may be expected to reflect this option.…”