Jenny Julén Votinius

Young employees – securities, risk distribution, and fundamental social rights

Introducing a basis for further development of a risk-security model, this article discusses how such a model could be applied in an analysis of the area of youth employment. The article explores certain aspects of recent youth employment policies as expressed in union policies and in the national labour law of a number of EU Member States. Special attention is paid to national labour law reforms that have been adapted in the wake of the crisis and in which youth employment is promoted through a levelling-down of the employment rights, particularly for young people. The article explores typical components of this specific kind of labour law reform, in the light of youth employment policies at the EU level, with examples from a number of Member States, and in relation to the standards set by social fundamental rights.

Intersectionality as a Tool for Analysing Age and Gender in Labour Law

This chapter examines the value of applying an intersectional approach in analysing the position of older women in a labour law setting. In the labour market context, and in this chapter, older persons are understood as those who are perceived as approaching their post-employment years. Acceptance of the idea that the critical period with regards to old age and employment begins at the early end of a person’s working life is reflected in EU policies on active ageing and in the age discrimination cases of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which mainly concern employees from the age of just above 50 years of age and older. It is also reflected in research on age discrimination, and on perceptions and attitudes regarding employee age. Today, both age and gender are established as important factors in EU labour law. Nevertheless, possible intersectional effects of these two factors are still disregarded in the legal rules, as are effects of other intersectionalities. The chapter acknowledges that the conditions under which men and women live may have legal implications for older persons in the labour market. It also explores how stereotypical perceptions of older employees, together with gendered expectations and perceptions on the labour market, work to influence the content and application of labour law. An important conclusion is that, both in the social context within which the law is shaped and in the law itself, age and gender intersect to the detriment of older persons in the labour market—and this is particularly true for women.

Normative Distortions in Labour Law: Exploring the Field of Parental Rights in Working Life

This article identifies, conceptualizes and analyses a normative conflict, embedded in social practises and conceptions on gender in the institutional framework of the market, which underlies labour law regulation as well as legal argumentation regarding working parents. The article evinces and models the basic structure of vital mechanisms operative in weakening parental rights in working life and labour law. The model is fleshed out inductively, using examples from Swedish national law, where the protection of parental rights is fairly strongly formulated, but where, in the same time, the provisions concerning employees’ parenthood have a relatively weak position in the living law. The weakness is explained as a normative incoherence, as expressed in labour law adjudication. In their application, legal provisions to support parental caring and gender equality thus can be forced to give way to encroaching norms based on the value of market efficiency.This article identifies, conceptualizes and analyses a normative conflict, embedded in social practises and conceptions on gender in the institutional framework of the market, which underlies labour law regulation as well as legal argumentation regarding working parents. The article evinces and models the basic structure of vital mechanisms operative in weakening parental rights in working life and labour law. The model is fleshed out inductively, using examples from Swedish national law, where the protection of parental rights is fairly strongly formulated, but where, in the same time, the provisions concerning employees’ parenthood have a relatively weak position in the living law. The weakness is explained as a normative incoherence, as expressed in labour law adjudication. In their application, legal provisions to support parental caring and gender equality thus can be forced to give way to encroaching norms based on the value of market efficiency.