IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/brjirl/v54y2016i3p597-622.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Liberalization Only at the Margins? Analysing the Growth of Temporary Work in German Core Manufacturing Sectors

Author

Listed:
  • Chiara Benassi

Abstract

Drawing on workers’ surveys and workplace interviews, this article investigates the growth of temporary work in German manufacturing sectors since the 1980s. Findings partly confirm a ‘dualization’ scenario as workers without industry-specific vocational training are more likely to be on a temporary contract than skilled workers, and the gap has widened over time. However, also skilled workers have become increasingly vulnerable to casualization due to job routine and the erosion of industrial relations. Evidence confirms the crucial role of institutions in supporting the linkage between specific skills and employment stability, and suggests that the liberalization of the employment relationship has the potential to advance also in the core of the German economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiara Benassi, 2016. "Liberalization Only at the Margins? Analysing the Growth of Temporary Work in German Core Manufacturing Sectors," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(3), pages 597-622, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:54:y:2016:i:3:p:597-622
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/bjir.12189
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hartmut Egger & Volker Grossmann, 2005. "Non-Routine Tasks, Restructuring of Firms, and Wage Inequality Within and Between Skill-Groups," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 86(3), pages 197-228, December.
    2. Karl Brenke & Werner Eichhorst, 2008. "Leiharbeit breitet sich rasant aus," DIW Wochenbericht, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 75(19), pages 242-252.
    3. Caroline Lloyd & Chris Warhurst & Eli Dutton, 2013. "The weakest link? Product market strategies, skill and pay in the hotel industry," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 27(2), pages 254-271, April.
    4. Marsden, David, 1999. "A Theory of Employment Systems: Micro-Foundations of Societal Diversity," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294221.
    5. Chiara Benassi & Lisa Dorigatti, 2015. "Straight to the Core — Explaining Union Responses to the Casualization of Work: The IG Metall Campaign for Agency Workers," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 533-555, September.
    6. Brambor, Thomas & Clark, William Roberts & Golder, Matt, 2006. "Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 63-82, January.
    7. Franz, Wolfgang & Zimmermann, Volker, 1999. "Mobilität nach der beruflichen Ausbildung: Eine empirische Studie für Westdeutschland," ZEW Discussion Papers 99-21, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Rehder, Britta, 2003. "Betriebliche Bündnisse für Arbeit in Deutschland: Mitbestimmung und Flächentarif im Wandel," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 48, number 48.
    9. Virginia Doellgast & Ian Greer, 2007. "Vertical Disintegration and the Disorganization of German Industrial Relations1," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 45(1), pages 55-76, March.
    10. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    11. Werner Eichhorst, 2015. "The Unexpected Appearance of a New German Model," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 49-69, March.
    12. Thelen,Kathleen, 2014. "Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107679566, January.
    13. Anke Hassel, 1999. "The Erosion of the German System of Industrial Relations," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 483-505, September.
    14. Virginia Doellgast, 2010. "Collective Voice under Decentralized Bargaining: A Comparative Study of Work Reorganization in US and German Call Centres," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 48(2), pages 375-399, June.
    15. Bispinck, Reinhard & Dribbusch, Heiner, 2011. "Collective bargaining, decentralisation and crisis management in the German metalworking industries since 1990," WSI Working Papers 177, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    16. Thelen,Kathleen, 2014. "Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107053168, January.
    17. Anke Hassel, 2014. "The Paradox of Liberalization — Understanding Dualism and the Recovery of the German Political Economy," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 52(1), pages 57-81, March.
    18. Hajo Holst & Oliver Nachtwey & Klaus Doerre, 2010. "The Strategic Use of Temporary Agency Work – Functional Change of a Non-standard Form of Employment," International Journal of Action Research, Rainer Hampp Verlag, vol. 6(1), pages 108-138.
    19. Richard Williams, 2012. "Using the margins command to estimate and interpret adjusted predictions and marginal effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(2), pages 308-331, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carla Lima Aranzaes & Christian Lyhne Ibsen & Philip S. DeOrtentiis & Maite Tapia, 2024. "Solidarity with atypical workers? Survey evidence from the General Motors versus United Auto Workers strike in 2019," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 62(1), pages 72-97, March.
    2. Doellgast, Virginia & Marsden, David, 2019. "Institutions as constraints and resources: explaining cross-national divergence in performance management," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 89978, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. David Weisstanner, 2017. "Dualization and inequality revisited: Temporary employment regulation and middle-class incomes," LIS Working papers 720, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Weisstanner, David, 2019. "Insiders under pressure: Flexible employment and wage inequality," INET Oxford Working Papers 2019-06, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    5. Thomas Paster & Dennie Oude Nijhuis & Maximilian Kiecker, 2020. "To Extend or Not to Extend: Explaining the Divergent Use of Statutory Bargaining Extensions in the Netherlands and Germany," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 532-557, September.
    6. Xavier St‐Denis & Matissa Hollister, 2023. "Two paths towards job instability: Comparing changes in the distribution of job tenure duration in the United Kingdom and Germany, 1984–2014," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(3), pages 723-751, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ochsenfeld, Fabian, 2018. "The Relational Nature of Employment Dualization: Evidence from Subcontracting Establishments," SocArXiv ta4r6, Center for Open Science.
    2. Thomas Paster & Dennie Oude Nijhuis & Maximilian Kiecker, 2020. "To Extend or Not to Extend: Explaining the Divergent Use of Statutory Bargaining Extensions in the Netherlands and Germany," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 532-557, September.
    3. Werner Eichhorst & Paul Marx, 2021. "How stable is labour market dualism? Reforms of employment protection in nine European countries," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 27(1), pages 93-110, March.
    4. Guglielmo Meardi & Melanie Simms & Duncan Adam, 2021. "Trade unions and precariat in Europe: Representative claims," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 27(1), pages 41-58, March.
    5. Simon Jäger & Shakked Noy & Benjamin Schoefer, 2022. "The German Model of Industrial Relations: Balancing Flexibility and Collective Action," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 53-80, Fall.
    6. David Marsden, 2015. "The future of the German industrial relations model [Die Zukunft des deutschen Modells der Arbeitsbeziehungen]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 48(2), pages 169-187, August.
    7. Weisstanner, David, 2019. "Insiders under pressure: Flexible employment and wage inequality," INET Oxford Working Papers 2019-06, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    8. John T. Addison & Paulino Teixeira & Katalin Evers & Lutz Bellmann, 2016. "Is the Erosion Thesis Overblown? Alignment from Without in Germany," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 415-443, July.
    9. Arthur Corazza, 2020. "Power, interest and insecurity: A comparative analysis of workplace dualization and inclusion in Europe," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 153, European Institute, LSE.
    10. Egidio Riva & Roberto Rizza, 2021. "Who receives occupational welfare? The importance of skills across Europe’s diverse industrial relations regimes," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 27(1), pages 97-112, February.
    11. Susanne Pernicka & Vera Glassner & Nele Dittmar & Klaus Neundlinger, 2021. "Forces of reproduction and change in collective bargaining: A social field perspective," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 27(3), pages 345-363, September.
    12. Dingeldey, Irene & Kathmann, Till, 2017. "Einführung und Wirkmächtigkeit des gesetzlichen Mindestlohns in Deutschland: Institutionelle Reformen und gewerkschaftliche Strategien in einem segmentierten Tarifsystem," Schriftenreihe Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft 21/2017, Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft (IAW), Universität Bremen und Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen.
    13. David Weisstanner, 2017. "Dualization and inequality revisited: Temporary employment regulation and middle-class incomes," LIS Working papers 720, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Walker, James & Wood, Geoff & Brewster, Chris & Beleska-Spasova, Elena, 2018. "Context, market economies and MNEs: The example of financial incentivization," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 21-33.
    15. Martin Behrens & Andreas Pekarek, 2021. "Divided We Stand? Coalition Dynamics in the German Union Movement," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 503-531, June.
    16. Guy Vernon & Mark Rogers, 2013. "Where Do Unions Add Value? Predominant Organizing Principle, Union Strength and Manufacturing Productivity Growth in the OECD," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 51(1), pages 1-27, March.
    17. Torben Krings, 2021. "‘Good’ Bad Jobs? The Evolution of Migrant Low-Wage Employment in Germany (1985–2015)," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(3), pages 527-544, June.
    18. Schneider, Martin R., 2021. "Labor-Management Relations and Varieties of Capitalism," GLO Discussion Paper Series 934, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Baccaro, Lucio & Pontusson, Jonas, 2018. "Comparative political economy and varieties of macroeconomics," MPIfG Discussion Paper 18/10, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    20. Jens Arnholtz, 2023. "The embedded flexibility of Nordic labor market models under pressure from EU‐induced dualization—The case of posted work in Denmark and Sweden," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 372-388, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:54:y:2016:i:3:p:597-622. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.