Research project

Dualisation and economic interest representation in Europe

Over the last four decades, labour markets in industrialised countries have radically changed. Up till the late 1960s, labour markets were primarily characterised by the male breadwinner model, in which married males earned a family income on a full-time and permanent employment basis. Since then labour markets have become more heterogeneous and fragmented. Four developments have been particularly striking: the rise of female employment, the rise of service-sector employment and the decline of manufacturing employment, the increasing wage gap between high and low salaries and finally the increasing division of employees into insider and outsider groups. The project Dualisation and economic interest representation in Europe seeks to examine the above-mentioned conditions and analyse a number of related questions: how have organisations representing economic interests, particularly trade unions and employers, shaped and responded to this development, for example? Similarly, what are the effects for wage-bargaining institutions, organisational development and labour market policy? 

Funding

A Feodor Lynen Fellowship of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Stiftung is funding a two-year research stay at the European Institute, London School of Economics, 2009-2011.

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Project lead