Ninke Mussche

Female employment differences, poverty and care provisions

In this article, we link an analysis of female employment in the OECD with a reflection on the role of the welfare state regarding the provision of care. First, we reveal a picture of multi-speed labour market participation, with highly skilled women approaching male employment rates irrespective of the type of welfare state and low-skilled women lagging considerably behind, especially in the conservative welfare states. We also show that the gaps between the sexes, educational groups and countries grow even wider among women with children. Consequently, dual earnership is far from generalized in the OECD and differences in poverty rates may be explained by (among other factors) the uneven participation in paid labour of women. To counteract this phenomenon, we therefore plea for a welfare state reform towards the inclusion of care. This will ease the entry to paid employment for mothers and low-skilled women, and thus act as a poverty reduction strategy. A combination of several policy measures is suggested.

Long-Term Care Financing in Belgium

Long-term care (LTC) in Belgium consists of a wide range of benefits in cash and in kind, organized at the federal, regional and municipal levels, and is related to health and social service provision.1 The bulk of LTC services are provided as part of the federal public compulsory health insurance system, which is financed by social security contributions and general taxes. The main actors in the management of the system are the federal parliament (issuing the main laws governing the system), the Ministries of Health and Social Affairs, the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (NIHDI) and the sickness funds, which serve as intermediaries between the administration, the providers and the patients. Since public health insurance covers practically the whole population, LTC coverage is also nearly universal. However, since LTC services provided through the health insurance system cover only nursing care (as well as paramedical and rehabilitation care) and part of personal care to dependent persons, a whole range of services is organized and provided at the regional and local level. Indeed, while there is no specific LTC legislation at the federal level, the regional governments have issued decrees that regulate a wide range of issues related to LTC services: certification of facilities such as nursing homes and day care centres, integration and coordination of services at the local level, quality monitoring systems and so on.

How posting shapes a hybrid single European labour market

Some scholars argue that intra-EU labour migration improves the allocation of human capital in Europe and that labour mobility is still too low to constitute a single European labour market. Others insist that free movement of labour and services makes employment more precarious and causes wage dumping. Less attention has been given to the origins, destinations and nature of flows of posted workers, partly because data on posting are scarce. We aim to fill this gap by exploring unique posting data for Belgium. We argue that while the free movement of labour and a single European labour market have been policy goals for decades, it is the free movement of services that is shaping a hybrid single European labour market, since high levels of short-term service mobility are more significant than long-term labour migration. This is as much a phenomenon of intra-EU15 mobility as of post-accession mobility, and is set to remain more prevalent than classic free movement of labour.