Europeans at work

Duncan Gallie, a well-known sociologist in France, brought together eight of his colleagues from European countries (Denmark, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Sweden) to devote herself to the comparison of the “ quality of work and employment “(“ The Quality of Work ) In five countries, on which they have chosen to focus, as representing the internal diversity of the European Union (Denmark, France, United Kingdom, Germany and Spain) ; Other countries, such as Sweden, appear according to the chapters, but in a non -homogeneous manner. In its introduction, Duncan Gallie explains to the reader the objective of the work: it was not only to compare the countries concerned according to their quality of employment and work, but also to verify the validity, as for the variety of these qualities, of the classic explanations which stor the countries in types: Welfare Regimes (The three worlds of capitalism of welfare) Following Gosta Esping-Andersen, or Regimes production Following Peter Hall and David Soskice, who opposed coordinated and liberal market savings. To these two main approaches, Duncan Gallie opposes the perspective of theories “ universalists “, That he goes back to work” industrialist “, Developed from the 1960s (Kerr and Dunlop) in the 1980s (the theories of segmentation of Doeringer and Piore). The fact that, within these universalist works, Duncan Gallie does not take into account the authors who worked on the side of social protection (like Harold Wilensky) is a sign of the magnetization of the work towards the quality of work more than towards the quality of employment.

If we translate here “ quality of work and employment This is because it seems to us that the dimensions studied by the authors are both of both. This question is far from being clarified in the international comparison, and if the debate on the “ flexicity »Has harmfully tried to seize it, as well as the reflections driven by the European Commission at the end of 2001, today relatively marginalized, the various traditions of such and such a country have not stopped playing a major role. It is therefore both all the merit of the authors to want to gather the two facets of “ work », Heard as an entity that opposes capital (or as a production factor, in economics), and all the difficulty of the exercise. Quality of Workin the title, in fact brings together five dimensions: the content of the work (job Or Work Tasks), qualification (Skill Development), training, employment statutes (contractual statusses), the articulation of employment and family life. Each of these dimensions is the subject of a chapter: within the limited limits of this review, we will unfortunately not be able to do justice to all the chapters, and we will focus especially on two of the dimensions, that of the content of the work and that of the statutes of employment, before concluding on more general lessons on the international comparison and the interest of the use of the concept of quality of employment and work.

Employment insecurity

The dimension of employment statutes is treated from the angle of the “ Job Insecurity “, That would often be called in France” Precariousness of employment », Term which, unlike insecurity, of universal European significance. On this point, Serge Paugam and Ying Zhou decided to work, not from indicators often used (such as, for example, the duration of the presence in his job – tenure – or the share of temporary work – Temporal work -), but rather considering the feeling of insecurity, as measured in two Eurobarometer surveys of the European Commission (in 1996 and 2001). According to this measure, employment insecurity is generally higher than in the post-war decades. But it is in countries where social differences are the least that the feeling of insecurity is also the weakest: Sweden and Denmark. However, if the authors show everywhere a correlation between the insecurity of employment and its poor quality (in terms of qualification, access to training, initiative in work and possibility of “ conciliation “Family work), the Scandinavian countries are an exception in that their active populations are better” integrated ». In addition, they do not observe, beyond borders, systematic relationships between such or such characteristic of employees and insecurity of employment or work. The authors have built a typology of forms of professional integration (“ Patterns of Employment Integration ) From two dimensions which, of course, are consistent with the general definition of the introduction of Duncan Gallie: on the one hand the safety of employment and on the other the content of the work, an approach which echoes that which Serge Paugam used in his survey published in The precarious employee In 2000. According to this typology, the differences appear relatively low between France, Germany and Great Britain, but Denmark and the Scandinavian countries more generally are exceptional, because of their systems “ inclusive »Professional integration. The explanation in terms of Welfare Regimes Or varieties of capitalism, as well as a universalist explanation, therefore do not resist exercise, except for the Scandinavian family.

Professional training and work quality

On the aspect of the content of the work, the chapters are written by Duncan Gallie (a specific chapter and a large part of the introduction – for the presentation of literature in a historical perspective – are devoted to it). Here, the author starts from the idea of ​​the sociology of work of “ Task Discretion “(“ Autonomy in work “Would be an approximate translation) and its links, explored by this literature, with self -realization and health, physical and mental. To identify the possible effects of welfare Or models of capitalism, Duncan Gallie mobilizes a set of various data: the first, comparative, emanate from the Dublin Foundation, the second of national surveys which are heterogeneous, but much more detailed. On the other hand, it takes into account institutional data concerning the proportion of union members among employees, policies carried out in the field of working conditions, industrial relations systems, etc. This very varied set of data cannot be commented in detail here, but it leads the author to nuanced conclusions. It rules out the idea that differences in economic structures would explain the variations in the degree of employee initiative in their work. These variations are rather, according to him, to relate to institutional features: the rate of unionization and the best conditions of negotiation and working in Sweden, for example. But fine analysis shows that it is not possible to coincide the objectification of the quality of work from this angle with this or that model of capitalism. The case of Germany is enlightening in this regard, where the author observes both the deterioration of the quality of the work of atypical workers, and the relative homogeneity of professions and social categories ; Note that these measures are made before the Hartz reform of the 2000s.

In total, Duncan Gallie reaches the conclusion that the most discriminating factor for the risk of polarization in terms of professional categories is the vocational training system, in its articulation with the initial training system: in countries where the acquisition of skills / qualifications (“ Technical Skills ») The least depends on employers, employees are most likely to preserve decision -making autonomy in their work (“ The Decision-Making Scope of Their Jobs »). However, in total, diversity in Europe is not to be summed up by groups in types of regimes, whether of production or social protection: it is the national variety that prevails.

The difficulties of approaching diversity

To conclude a comment too brief on this interesting work, two comparative points seem to be underlined. The first concerns the choice of authors to use the concept of Job Qualitymade here by quality of employment and work. This use seems coherent with the diversity of the dimensions considered, and it is relatively robust for the objective that the work has set for itself: measure and compare very diverse facets of contemporary work in Europe. The concept turns out, through its generality and its synthetic character, much more adequate than that, classic so far in Latin countries, of precariousness of employment and work, which has however spread in the 2000s in Germany, and especially for atypical workers whose specific fate Duncan Gallie notes in this country.

The second point that the book brings for the comparison concerns the highlighting of the limits which are due to comparative analysis only centered – as often that of economic work – on quantitative indicators drawn from statistical surveys. On several occasions, the chapters underline the fragility and the vulnerability of these data which often are far from being homogeneous and suffer from too few observations or difficult to represent. At the same time, Duncan Gallie relativizes, in his very clear and synthetic conclusion, reasoning in terms of “ families »From countries, which has set out to impose itself all over the comparisons. On the one hand, he shows, only the Scandinavian family turns out to be quite homogeneous in the study, but even it should not hide the important differences noted here between Denmark and Sweden. Furthermore, Duncan Gallie tells us, we must not forget the analysis in terms of societal coherence, which grants the particularity of national arrangements, as Marc Maurice, Jean-Jacques Sylvestre and François Sellier had shown, have more than twenty-five years old, comparing Germany and France from their education and vocational training systems. The two approaches are complementary, underlines Duncan Gallie convincingly in the last of his conclusion sentences.