Job quality,industrial relations and the crisis in Europe

This paper reports results from recent Eurofound research on the impact of the crisis on industrial relations and working conditions in Europe, based on the output of Eurofound's European Working Conditions Observatory and European Industrial Relations Observatory and data from the European Working Conditions Survey. Overall, the crisis – even if it is sometimes difficult to separate the effect of the crisis from megatrends in working conditions and industrial relations – seems to have had an impact on both domains. With reference to industrial relations, the impact of the crisis has influenced actors, processes, and outcomes. Regarding working conditions, the results appear to be in line with the literature on the topic, which relates the crisis to an increase in job insecurity, a decrease in work intensity, in working hours, and in anti-social working time arrangements, and a general improvement in terms of health risks and related outcomes.     

The Political Economy of Social Insurance: Towards a Fiscal‐Centred Framework

This article draws attention to social insurance (SI) as a revenue raising institution, and explores the potential merits of drawing on new fiscal sociology for studying the development of SI systems. This is done by revisiting previous research conducted in Germany, the USA, Finland and Israel and by offering a new reading of their findings. The reviewed cases support two interlocking claims drawn from new fiscal sociology to the study of SI. The first is that state actors may perceive SI as an extraction instrument and employ it to advance fiscal and/or economic interests other than covering the costs of SI schemes. The second is that the design and management of contribution policies for such purposes may have substantial ramifications for the development of SI schemes. In addition, while current understandings tend to associate fiscal concerns with welfare state retrenchment, this article shows that they can also play a major role in driving welfare state expansion.     

Establish a Glorious Century of Maintaining Life＇ s Dignity

现今的世界上,有许多人由于内战、贫困与饥饿、环境破坏等威胁,迫使他们的生命及尊严处于危险状态,也有大批人仍然饱受着人权侵害、种族歧视的痛苦。为和平、人权、人道的奋斗,绝不是低层爬到高山的顶峰就可以达到终点那样。重要的是要创建一股一代接一代、谁也阻挡不了的滔滔洪流,并日积月累地把它发展和扩大。这就是我们为了建设一个和平未来的不断挑战。     

加入WTO与中国社会保障制度的发展与完善

十年来中国社会保障建设取得了很大的成就,社会保障成为改善民生和社会建设重要领域和促进力量,对于克服经济全球化深入发展背景下各种矛盾、促进经济发展和社会稳定发挥着积极的作用。但是,中国社会保障制度还不完善,面对世界贸易组织框架下越来越复杂的国际国内形势,需要进一步加快社会保障制度建设,选择科学合理的社会保障模式和管理体制,加强社会保障公共服务体系建设,实现人人享有社会保障。     

Insecure times? Workers' perceived job and labor market security in 23 OECD countries

By examining the association between employees' perceptions of job security and central labor market policies and characteristics, this paper seeks to understand the mechanisms through which institutions generate confidence and positive expectations among individuals regarding their economic future. The analyses distinguish between different facets of perceived job security and different institutional mechanisms. My multilevel analyses of a data set that contains information on 12,431 individuals and 23 countries show that some labor market policies and characteristics are more likely than others to provide workers with subjective security. Unemployment assistance in particular is an effective means of reducing workers' worries about job loss. Dismissal protection, by contrast, only unleashes its psychologically protective effects under certain conditions. The paper's main conclusion is that the effectiveness of policies varies and that different types of labor market institutions serve as complements rather than as substitutes.     

发达国家运动员职业转型的保障政策研究

运动员保障政策不仅关系到运动员竞技成绩的提高和职业生涯的规划,还关系到竞技体育事业的可持续发展。通过对发达国家多个案例的分析论证,发现发达国家运动员保障政策对促进运动员职业转型有完备的法律体系、健全的保险种类、典型的计划和项目、系统的文化教育和职业培训体系以及广泛的社会参与5个影响要素。运动员保障政策越是满足以上5个要素,越能促进运动员职业转型成功。     

浅议高校财务信息化的安全问题

随着计算机的发展和信息化的普及，各个行业都不断地在改革和创新，财务行业亦是不落人后。财务信息化改变了传统的会计模式，加快了效率，降低了差错率，提高了数据处理能力，适应当前前经济社会发展的需要。但与此同时，复杂的互联网环境与财务信息系统特有的性质也带来了新的隐患，直接影响账务安全，威胁整个财务行业的发展。因此，探讨软硬件防护对安全管理的意义有助于高校计划财务处信息化建设工作。     

构建高职院校校园安全文化体系的思考

本文论述高职院校校园安全文化体系建设的构想以及实现途径。     

Getting Real About Food Prices

The 2008 spike in world grain prices is widely recognised to have had serious impacts on food security and poverty, but these high grain prices are commonly described as low in historical terms – an inconsistency resulting from the use of advanced‐ and global‐economy price indices in calculating real prices. This ignores the high share of food in poor people's expenditures and the indirect effects of income growth on expenditure patterns of rich consumers. Poor consumers have not experienced the same falls in real food prices and are more vulnerable to price shocks. Different price indices must be developed to take account of differences between consumer groups.     

Change in the Chilean social model

Chile modernized its social model in two stages characterized by different strategies: developmentalism (1924–73) and the Washington Consensus (1973–2008). In the first stage, the State pursued both social policies of universal coverage and land reform, while also building up the country's economic and institutional infrastructure. After the 1973 military coup, some public services were dismantled and privatized, and the labour movement was suppressed. Since the end of the dictatorship in 1990, resistance to state regulation and an anti‐labour bias have persisted, albeit to a diminishing degree due to advances in democratization and, latterly, the current world economic crisis.