Platform Economics by Codagnone Cristiano;Karatzogianni Athina;Matthews Jacob;

Author:Codagnone, Cristiano;Karatzogianni, Athina;Matthews, Jacob;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781787439856
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Published: 2018-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

Non-standard Work and its Effects

In order to consider ambivalence and challenges of flexibilisation trends, it is worth contrasting the potential benefits and risks of these forms of works. Flexible non-standard working practices have various positive aspects for labour market actors. Non-standard employment has been identified as a means to improve work opportunities, notably for women and migrant workers, and for countering high levels of unemployment by creating new, flexible jobs (ILO, 1997). Firstly, flexible contracts give employees the opportunity to reveal or signal their productivity to their prospective employers. This ‘stepping stone’ interpretation of non-standard employment (de Graaf-Zijl, van den Berg, & Heyma, 2011) suggests that such contracts may help to reduce informational asymmetries and improve matching between jobs and candidates (Ichino, Mealli, & Nannicini, 2008). Secondly, non-standard contracts may be preferred because of the opportunity afforded to the individuals for greater flexibility. Given that employment security rests increasingly on individuals taking responsibility for their current and the future human capital development (Urtasun & Núñez, 2012), gaining firm-specific human capital via the rigidities of a permanent full-time contract may be less attractive than was the case formerly. Thirdly, flexible forms of employment may suit those individuals who desire to balance their working and non-working lives. On the other hand, job insecurity and precariousness can negatively impact on physical and mental health (Burchell, 2009; Herbig, Dragano, & Angerer, 2013; Paul & Moser, 2009; Virtanen et al., 2005). Precarious jobs may become ‘traps’ as opposed to ‘bridges’ into secure work and reduce social mobility (Cahuc & Kramarz, 2005; Gash, 2008; ILO, 1997). A large study of Europeans aged 20–35 years shows, for instance, that temporary work is a choice among the younger group (aged 20–25 years) but tends to become a trap for the those aged 31–35 years who cannot find better employment (Nunez & Livanos, 2014). Trends towards work becoming more flexible have also been associated with growing inequality. A study using EU-SILC data for 24 European countries shows that temporarily employed have a higher poverty risk than permanent workers, mainly due to lower wages (Van Lancker, 2012). The fiscal costs would in the end would increase for governments dealing with the social costs of job insecurity (Adams & Deakin, 2014).

A large proportion of individuals in NSW are not fully covered or not covered at all by social protection systems (ILO, 2016, 2017; Matsaganis, Özdemir, Ward, & Zavakou, 2016; Spasova, Bouget, D., Ghailani, D., & Vanhercke, 2017), especially because there is a substantial gap between statutory and effective accession to benefits (building up entitlements): ‘Even if non-standard workers are covered by a social protection scheme and thus formally have access to the related benefit, they may not have effective access to it because eligibility criteria are set in such a way that they have major difficulties meeting these’ (Spasova et al., 2017, p. 14). According to a calculation presented in Matsaganis et al. (2016), in Europe 13% of all those employed aged 15–64 years are at risk of not being entitled

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