Introduction

This edited volume investigates whether and, if so, how the patterns of change of labour market policies in European Union (EU) member states have altered since the emergence in 2010 of reinforced pressures on public spending (‘fiscal austerity’). More specifically, the book explores, through national case studies: whether retrenchment or expansion has taken place; whether there has been a shift in the logic of activation policies; and how the retrenchment and expansion of protection have been distributed across the well-protected and the less well-protected labour market populations. Looking at the big European picture, do we see a convergence or a divergence in labour market policy trends and outputs? Can we identify different patterns of change across member states? Last but not least, we ask whether there has been a divergence or convergence in labour market insecurity that can be associated with the ongoing policy changes and macroeconomic conditions.

Here, labour market policies are considered a domain of social policy. We thus examine changes in government policy interventions in unemployment benefit systems (insurance and assistance), employment protection legislation (EPL) and active labour market policies (ALMPs). In that respect, this book focuses on a special case of the broad question of whether and, if so, how social policies in Europe have been changing in the context of EU-driven fiscal austerity since 2010.

The questions of whether and, if so, how social policies in general and labour market and unemployment policies in particular have been adapting under the financing pressures from ‘permanent austerity’ (Pierson, 1998), but also following the emergence of ‘new’ social risks (eg possessing low or obsolete skills, and insufficient social security coverage), have been studied extensively since the 1990s (for a sample from a very extended list, see Pierson, 1994, 1996, 2001; Clayton and Pontusson, 1998; Esping-Andersen, 1999; Esping-Andersen et al, 2002; Korpi and Palme, 2003; Hacker, 2004; Armingeon and Bonoli, 2006; Starke, 2006; Hausermann, 2010; Clasen and Clegg, 2011a; Bonoli and Natali, 2012c; Vis and Hemerijck, 2014; Huber and Stephens, 2015). Key changes identified in the literature have included, as well as questioned, retrenchment in more or less overt or politically costly forms but also the development of new policy approaches and instruments, such as activation, social investment and ‘needs-based’ policies, for addressing (‘new’) social risks (for a review, see Häusermann, 2012).