Jean-Yves Boulin

THE ORGANISATION OF TIME OVER THE LIFE COURSE: EUROPEAN TRENDS

ABSTRACT Over the last decades, the life course approach has developed into a major research paradigm. The notion of life course provides a common field of research and a heuristic conceptual device aiming at studying individuals trajectories over time. In its modern version, the life course approach can be said to represent a major innovation in our understanding of complex social phenomena, making time, context and process core theoretical dimensions of social behaviour. Most of the research using this approach has stressed the extent to which social structures and individual factors shape the life course of individuals and has focused on the developmental consequences of alternative life trajectories. One of the main features of the life course approach is therefore to recognize the crucial role time plays in our understanding of individual behaviour and structural changes in society. The second important dimension of the life course approach is its attempt to take a holistic view, in that the analysis no longer focuses on isolated specific events, phases or demographic groups as being discrete and fixed but considers the entire life as the basic framework for empirical analysis and policy evaluation. The link between individual trajectories on one hand and historical period, social structures, as well as human agency on the other is also at the core of the life course paradigm. The notion of life course posits therefore that life trajectories are constituted by a palette of sequences of events that are both individually and socially constructed. The main objective of this cross-country comparative paper is to analyse to which extent the design of national welfare state regimes shape households’ patterns of labour market integration over the life course. An analysis of the various national regulatory frameworks, with special focus on institutional opportunities and/or barriers to combine paid work with other social activities, is provided. Special attention is also given to companies’ human resource and time management and whether human resource strategies encompass a life course perspective. By linking the specificity of the various regulatory and social protection systems to the countrys current patterns of labour market integration the authors not only examine the impact of the overall institutional framework on time allocation over the life course but, also the extent to which the current working time options actually affect the sustainability of the social protection systems. Finally, in the conclusion, some policy implications are suggested with a special focus on the needs of finding new forms of time organisation and distribution of income over the life course. According to the authors these new forms of time management might contribute to a better work life balance for employees and might favour positive compromises between firms’ productive efficiency and employees’ needs for a larger control on their time structures over their life course.

A major change in working time

Abstract This article describes how this special issue was conceived, the rationale behind it and the principal lessons to be drawn on the subject of working time in industrialized countries. It shows that we may be at a turning point in history; a process of fundamental transition is occurring between one epoch—the industrial era during which linear, uniform working time, based on a specific mode of production and set of professional relationships, was imposed as the central pivot around which the whole of society was organized—and another, characterized by a noticeable reduction in, but above all a significant diversification of the nature of working time, ie rapid change in its content and form. We are witnessing the shift from a single temporality—time imposed synchronistically—to a plural temporality—individually chosen working time and variable hours.

Labour market adjustments during the crisis: the role of working time arrangements1

Depending on the country in question, the crisis has had different impacts on employment. We will analyse the main reasons for these differences and scrutinize the main characteristics of the policies that have been implemented in reaction to the crisis. The analysis focuses mainly on a comparison between France and Germany. This leads us to stress the differences between these two countries in the ability of social partners to find ways to prevent redundancies through job protection agreements. It appears that the gap between job protection and employment protection can be overcome when certain conditions are met in dealing with employees working short time, with training as a paramount consideration. We highlight the role of new working time arrangements and regulations – among them working time accounts – for promoting flexibility and security for both employers and employees.

Trade union modernisation in France: is there still time?

* Sociologist, Head of research, CNRS/Iris-Travail & Société/Université Paris-Dauphine As in most developed countries, and particularly in Europe, the French trade union movement has been in deep crisis for the past 15 years or so. As France’s oldest trade union prepares to celebrate its centenary’, all French unions are experiencing a profound and longterm process of de-unionisation, to the extent that some observers are wondering whether the movement can survive in the face of companies’ new human resources management policies (Linhart, D. 1994). Some companies, desperately trying to find a negotiating partner, have invented the &dquo;trade union voucher&dquo;’; proof, as if it were needed, of the sorry state of the French unions.

Some tentative conclusions

On the whole the contributors are broadly critical, not only of the capacity of the Lisbon strategy to foster a real policy of innovation and growth, but also of its effects – modest, to put it mildly – in terms of governance (for a more positive evaluation see Rodrigues 2009). On the positive side, however, Lisbon was the first attempt to devise an all-embracing strategy rather than drawing up one-off policies. Moreover, even though the results have been modest, there was an avowed intent to encourage stakeholder participation.

Working on Sunday: Regulations, Impacts and Perceptions of the Time Use Practices

During the last decades, most European countries have changed the regulation of Sunday’s opening hours. The trend is clearly an extension of work during Sundays particularly in shops and cultural and leisure activities. But the rising Sunday’s work in these fields call for an extension of working hours in other services: transportation, childcare, cleaning, etc. The issue of Sunday’s work raises a strong debate between supporters and opponents. This contribution first shortly reviews the changes in Sunday’s opening hours in different European countries. It then looks at different controversial sets of arguments and at current time use patterns comparing those working on Sundays and those not. The time use analysis is done in a gender perspective. Indeed, women tend to be more involved in activities that are subject to the debate (retail, cultural activities such as libraries). These data mainly come from surveys and analysis of different sets of data. Finally, the contribution gives some ideas concerning the way to regulate Sunday’s opening hours and the possible impact on time uses and on representation of the Sunday in our culture. One of the results is that Sunday’s regulation should be defined at the local level, in the frame of local time policies.

Pension reforms and the crisis

On 7 July 2010 the European Commission launched its Green Paper on EU pension reform, stating that ‘as the number of pensioners in Europe rises, and the relative number of people of working age declines, further reforms are needed if adequate pensions are to remain sustainable’. The Commission has clearly underlined the need to raise the retirement age throughout Europe. Presenting the Green Paper, EU Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner László Andor said that ‘the choice we face is poorer pensioners, higher pension contributions or more people working more and longer’. However the EU’s ‘marge de manouevre’ for defining pensions policy in Member States is limited, with pensions the responsibility of national governments. The initiative is therefore bound to generate controversy in EU Member States. In addition to the demographic problem threatening the sustainability of pension systems, the financial and economic crisis has led a number of countries to announce plans to modify pension systems and raise the retirement age as part of austerity measures to cope with debt crises. The crisis might even be used as a pretext to move towards a neoliberal agenda threatening the first pillar of social protection and pensions. Recent developments in certain countries document how challenging the pension reform issue is in relation to these countries’ social protection models and traditions and to the effects the financial and economic crisis is having on their overall situation. In this article Members of the Transfer Editorial Committee highlight some of the recent developments in France, Ireland and Spain as well as in the new Member States, illustrating the considerable diversity not only in terms of how systems are configured, but also in terms of government policies and trade union reactions.

Book Review: Pierre Rosanvallon La légitimité démocratique. Impartialité, réflexivité, proximité, Seuil: Paris, 2008; 368 pp.: 9782020974622, 21

With this book, Pierre Rosanvallon, Professor at the Collège de France, continues his series of works charting the birth and transformation of democracy since the French Revolution and the Enlightenment in Europe and in the United States of America. This third volume is devoted to analysing the disintegration of the forms of legitimacy that had come into being in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries (the election, which founded the ‘legitimacy of establishment’, and the competitive examination (concours) which formed the basis of the public administrations set up to ensure the general interest) and to the emergence of new forms of legitimacy (categorized by the author as ‘impartiality’, ‘reflexivity’ and ‘proximity’). What Rosanvallon describes in relation to this process of change is what he terms a ‘decentering of democracy’ in the course of which we move away from a form of democracy based on an identification between those who govern and those who are governed – and which, paradoxically, has created a distance between these two categories – towards a ‘democracy of appropriation’, based on proximity, on the general principle of paying attention to the particular. The first part of the book describes how the two-pronged form of democratic legitimacy – as it derives from Parliament (via elections) and from the civil service (via the concours) – was constituted. Given that election entails endorsement of the majority principle, Rosanvallon describes how the transition from unanimity as a principle to unanimity as a mechanism was able to be conceptualized and how the fictional assimilation of the majority with ‘the people’ came to be constructed. The shortcomings of the legitimacy gained by election, the manner in which this mode is liable to become stymied by the – claimed or supposed – incompetence or corruption of those who govern and those who are governed, gradually gave rise to the idea, much disputed in its early stages, of setting up a permanent apparatus of administrative power to embody the general interest, a mode described by Rosanvallon as ‘legitimacy gained through identification with the general’. The embodiment of the general interest was, in this way, shifted from the elected figure to the civil servant, to a form of administrative power that is both independent and objective, regarded as standing above party interests and as being based on the virtues of disinterestedness and rationality (with the concours ensuring selection to the civil service of the most able, those whom Rosanvallon labels the ‘jacobins d’excellence’). This history of the construction of a two-pronged legitimacy ends with the tale of its dilution, as the ‘legitimacy of establishment’ becomes undermined by the disaffection, everywhere apparent, in relation to elections while, everywhere too, the power of civil servants – the ‘legitimacy of identification with the general case’ – is simultaneously called into question. Social change, the rise of individualism, changes in the world of labour, in the content of work and manner of its organization, the growth of neoliberal ideas and the inequalities that go hand in hand with them, have undermined the corporatist rationale of status in favour of increased insistence on the need for the personal recognition of individuals. As such, it is the very foundations of our democracies, the majority principle as bearer of the general will and the notion of general interest, that have, since the 1980s, been destabilized.

France: changes in the rules governing representativeness of trade unions and collective bargaining

Jack O’Connor, SIPTU General Secretary, said that ‘the right to collective bargaining is enshrined in Article 28 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and applies in virtually every other EU Member State, in one form or another. The Government’s refusal to make a commitment that Article 28 would be implemented sent out a strong signal that it would give priority to the big business agenda after a “yes” vote on Lisbon, just as it did after the “yes” vote on Nice.’ Such a move by the government would signal clearly to Ireland’s workers that the new EU structures would benefit them, as well as employers, and it would be a message to employers that they must learn to live with collective bargaining when their employees wished to avail themselves of it, just like employers in the rest of Europe. He went on to say that the union has ‘a great deal of concern about exploitation and the ratcheting down of employment standards’. The government responded that such a move would have to be agreed as part of any new National Social Partnership agreement and could not be introduced at the behest of one union.

Eine europäische Bewegung für Zeiten der Stadt? Ein internationaler Überblick

Es besteht kein Zweifel, dass Zeit zu einer der wichtigsten Fragen des modernen Alltagslebens geworden ist. Obgleich Tendenzen zur Verringerung der Arbeitszeit und zum Anstieg der „Freizeit“ bestehen, haben die Burger — Frauen und Manner — standig das Gefuhl, immer weniger Zeit zu haben und permanent unter Stress zu stehen. Michael Endes Roman „Momo“ mit den „grauen Mannern“, die Zeit stehlen, scheint Wirklichkeit geworden zu sein. Wir werden uns in immer starkerem Mase des Verlusts an Lebensqualitat bewusst, den wir durch Verkehrsstaus, Warten in Schlangen und Stehen vor verschlossenen Laden, Bibliotheken und Behorden erleiden. Wir bemerken jedoch auch die Existenz einer gegensatzlichen Kraft: Die Burger/-innen wehren sich gegen den „Diebstahl von Zeit“ und fordern „Zeitsouveranitat“ und „Zeitwohlfahrt“. Das italienische Modell „Tempi della citta“ dient als Grundlage fur das Konzept „Zeiten der Stadt“, das ein neuer Ausdruck des vor kurzem entstandenen Wunsches nach Selbstbestimmung auf dem Gebiet der Zeit ist. Was nutzt es uns, von Reichtumern und Waren umgeben zu sein, wenn wir nicht in der Lage sind, richtig von ihnen Gebrauch zu machen, da uns die Zeit fehlt? Der Gestaltungsansatz „Zeiten der Stadt“ verspricht kein neues Paradies — aber er verspricht einen demokratischen und solidarischen Ansatz fur die Kultivierung und Kontrolle, fur die „Humanisierung“ der Zeitstrukturen des Alltags in der kommunalen Umwelt, indem er sie den Erfordernissen und Wunschen der Einwohner anpasst. Um dieses Versprechen und die ersten Schritte zu seiner Verwirklichung geht es in diesem Bericht.