Download or read book Economic Restructuring and the Growing Uncertainty of the Middle Class written by Bram Steijn and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic Restructuring and the Growing Uncertainty of the Middle Class focuses on a relatively new research area which is becoming increasingly more important: the growing uncertainty of the middle class. Until recently, members of the middle class were not only assured of a good social and economic position but also of the continuation of this position. Nowadays, economic and organisational changes are threatening this once secure position. The boundaries between the middle classes and the working class are becoming less and less visible. `Making a career', which was in the past central for middle class people, is becoming ever more difficult. Moreover, organisational restructuring is threatening their employment. It seems that insecurity is becoming a central element in the lives of members of the middle class. In this book experts from several European countries discuss the question of to what extent the position of the middle class is really changing. They also discuss the mechanisms that are propelling these changes, and the effects these changes have on the attitudes of middle-class people. As the experts are from several parts of Europe (Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Russia), the reader can compare the situation of the middle classes in these various countries. This book contains valuable information for anyone interested in this important topic: not only for those involved in the studies of economic and organisational change and social stratification and those interested in the similarities and differences between European countries, but (amongst others) for policy-makers, managers, and trade union representatives who will be dealing with problems induced by the changes that are discussed in the book.

Download or read book Stemming Middle Class Decline written by Nancey Green Leigh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-04 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are Americans as well-off as they used to be? The answer affects everything from product markets and housing sales to social tranquility and presidential (and local) elections. This volume examines what is happening to the American middle class. In a detailed and comprehensive analysis, Nancey Green Leigh tracks changes in the pattern of income distribution over a twenty-year period. While earnings have increased, there is a widening gap between what middle-level earnings can purchase and the cost of a middle standard of living.Due to the fact that this decline has not been experienced equally in all regions, separate analyses are reported for urban and rural locations, major census regions, and the largest states. To identify which workers have been most affected, Leigh compares earning trends by race, gender, educational level, industry of employment, part- or full-time status, and fringe benefit recipiency. Rejecting short-term and demographic explanations, Leigh links the decline of the middle class to economic change and industrial restructuring.Leigh concludes her work by examining planning and policy prescriptions to improve the prospects of members - and aspiring members - of the middle economic class. She documents the decreasing ability of middle-level earners to purchase a middle standard of living and attributes the decline in part to failures in planning. Failures of planning, she observes, have contributed to the growing divergence between middle-level earnings and the middle standard of living. Stemming Middle-Class Decline provides comprehensive data and trends on workers, communities, regions, and the nation that all policymakers and government officials should read and examine with care.

Download or read book The Coming Class War and How to Avoid it written by Paul E Peterson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear, accessible analysis of the worsening distribution of income and wealth in America.

Download or read book Social Exclusion in Europe written by Paul Littlewood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exclusion has come to hold a prominent place in the political discourse of all governments in the European Union and in the European Commission itself. As such, it figures importantly in various research agencies’ funding priorities attracting academics to develop and conduct major research programmes. But what does it mean? This book analyzes the different meanings the term exclusion has come to convey and surveys a wide variety of actual applications in different European countries.

Download or read book The Other People written by M. Wilkes Karraker and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an interdisciplinary and accessible approach to issues of global migration in the twenty-first century in 13 essays plus an appendix written by scholars and practitioners in the field.

Download or read book Job Insecurity Union Involvement and Union Activism written by Hans De Witte and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains empirical analyses of European psychologists and sociologists on the impact of job insecurity on trade union membership, activism and upon the attitudes of individual workers towards unions. Little is currently known about the impact of job insecurity on the union participation of workers, which is significant given the importance of trade unions in European collective bargaining systems. This volume reports innovative and pioneering research on this research gap. It answers questions such as: do workers more easily join unions because of job insecurity, or does it make them leave the union? Does it influence participation in work's council elections or affect the intention to become a union activist? And are workers less satisfied and less committed to their unions when they experience job insecurity? The book contains recommendations for policy makers, social partners and practitioners in the field of work and organizations.

Download or read book Economic Dignity written by Gene Sperling and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Timely and important . . . It should be our North Star for the recovery and beyond.” —Hillary Clinton “Sperling makes a forceful case that only by speaking to matters of the spirit can liberals root their belief in economic justice in people’s deepest aspirations—in their sense of purpose and self-worth.” —The New York Times When Gene Sperling was in charge of coordinating economic policy in the Obama White House, he found himself surprised when serious people in Washington told him that the Obama focus on health care was a distraction because it was “not focused on the economy.” How, he asked, was the fear felt by millions of Americans of being one serious illness away from financial ruin not considered an economic issue? Too often, Sperling found that we measured economic success by metrics like GDP instead of whether the economy was succeeding in lifting up the sense of meaning, purpose, fulfillment, and security of people. In Economic Dignity, Sperling frames the way forward in a time of wrenching change and offers a vision of an economy whose guiding light is the promotion of dignity for all Americans.

Download or read book Class and Politics in Contemporary Social Science written by Dick Houtman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dick Houtman argues that neither authoritarianism nor libertarianism can be explained by class or economic background, but rather by position in the cultural domain-- what he calls cultural capital. Although he examines all of the statistics and arguments of the conventional approaches with care and concern, Houtman convincingly demonstrates that the conclusions drawn from earlier studies are untenable at a more general theoretical level. Despite differences among advocates of class explanations, their theories are based on largely identical research findings--in particular a strong negative relationship between education and authoritarianism. Unobstructed by the conclusions these authors felt called upon to draw from the findings themselves, Houtman configures them in a new way. The hypotheses derived from this new theory allow for a systematic, strict, and competitive testing of original theses without ignoring the value of and earlier research. After demonstrating that authoritarianism and libertarianism cannot be explained by class or economic background, Houtman examines the implications of this argument for today's death of class debate in political sociology. He holds it to be unfortunate that the relevance of class to politics is typically addressed by studying the relation between class and voting. This conceals a complex cross-pressure mechanism that causes this relationship to capture the net balance of class voting and its opposite, cultural voting, instead of class voting. He argues that references to a decline in class voting may be basically correct, but dogmatic reliance on the relation between class and voting to prove the point systematically underestimates levels of class voting and produces an exaggerated picture of the decline.

Download or read book Middle Class Meltdown in America written by Kevin T Leicht and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-17 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In accessible prose for North American undergraduate students, this short text provides a sociological understanding of the causes and consequences of growing middle class inequality, with an abundance of supporting, empirical data. The book also addresses what we, as individuals and as a society, can do to put middle class Americans on a sounder footing.

Download or read book Falling Behind written by Robert H. Frank and published by . This book was released on 2007-07-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although middle-income families don't earn much more than they did several decades ago, they are buying bigger cars, houses, and appliances. To pay for them, they spend more than they earn and carry record levels of debt. In a book that explores the very meaning of happiness and prosperity in America today, Robert Frank explains how increased concentrations of income and wealth at the top of the economic pyramid have set off "expenditure cascades" that raise the cost of achieving many basic goals for the middle class. Writing in lively prose for a general audience, Frank employs up-to-date economic data and examples drawn from everyday life to shed light on reigning models of consumer behavior. He also suggests reforms that could mitigate the costs of inequality. "Falling Behind "compels us to rethink how and why we live our economic lives the way we do. "Copub: Russell Sage Foundation"

Download or read book Contemporary Greece and Europe written by Achilleas Mitsos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-17 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title was first published in 2000: Contemporary Greek society is characterized by an all-embracing trend for reform. This task, however, is constrained by problems of Greek polity rooted in the historical and political culture. This text explores the important facets of divergence between Greece and the EU, examining the process through which they affect the relative performance of the country in the economic, social, political and international relations fronts, together with significant attempts to modernize and rationalize internal and external policies and structures. The book is in five parts. In the first, introductory, section, Greece's Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs, the late Yannos Kranidiotis, analyzes the fundamental objectives of Greek foreign policy, whilst the editors explore the challenges of EU membership for Greek domestic and foreign politics, and Greece's participation in the process of European integration. The second part deals with Greece and the EMU, the third analyzes the issues related to state modernization and adjustment. A fourth section examines the welfare state and related policies, and the final part analyzes Greece's foreign policy and external relations, with particular emphasis on the Balkans and Greek-Turkish relations.

Download or read book Social Quality A Vision for Europe written by Laurent Van der Maesen and published by Kluwer Law International B.V.. This book was released on 2001-01-31 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume represents the outcome of two years of intensive debate about the future of Europe. It aims to provide the European Union with a vision: one that will unite all of its citizens and help to create the democratic legitimacy that the EU currently lacks. It builds on the first book on social quality, The Social Quality of Europe, which introduced the concept and which has been enthusiastically received by both the scientific and policy communities. The book develops three crucial elements of social quality: the theoretical validity of the concept, its practical application, and its identity or `genetic code'. It establishes an independent identity for social quality, with a unique focus on the quality of the social, which enables it to act as the rationale for economic, social, and cultural policies and, therefore, an escape route from the dominance of narrow economic thinking in policy making.

Download or read book Social Policy Developments in Greece written by Elias Mossialos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years there has been much debate surrounding the future of the welfare state in Europe, the complex factors influencing reform, and the extent to which responses to pressures on welfare could lead to irreversible systemic changes in social policy. By providing an in-depth analysis of social policy developments in Greece, this work furthers understanding of welfare reform trajectories in Europe. The authors thoroughly examine aspects of structural change, challenges and responses in major policy areas of employment, social security, family and gender, health and social care, and migration. Research issues central to the debate on 'recasting European welfare states', such as structural adjustments with regard to the production, organization and delivery of welfare, significant changes in the financial side of social protection, the role of political parties, the social partners and other major social actors in influencing (or resisting) policy reform, are at the forefront of the contributions to this volume. The scope and intensity of pressures on the Greek welfare state emanating from the supranational level and the challenges linked to European integration and economic and monetary union are also of crucial importance in the analyses undertaken.

Download or read book Stemming Middle class Decline written by Nancey Green Leigh and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 1994 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are Americans as well-off as they used to be? The answer affects everything from product markets and housing sales to social tranquility and presidential (and local) elections. This volume examines what is happening to the American middle class. In a detailed and comprehensive analysis, Nancey Green Leigh tracks changes in the pattern of income distribution over a twenty-year period. While earnings have increased, there is a widening gap between what middle-level earnings can purchase and the cost of a middle standard of living. Due to the fact that this decline has not been experienced equally in all regions, separate analyses are reported for urban and rural locations, major census regions, and the largest states. To identify which workers have been most affected, Leigh compares earning trends by race, gender, educational level, industry of employment, part- or full-time status, and fringe benefit recipiency. Rejecting short-term and demographic explanations, Leigh links the decline of the middle class to economic change and industrial restructuring. Leigh concludes her work by examining planning and policy prescriptions to improve the prospects of members—and aspiring members—of the middle economic class. She documents the decreasing ability of middle-level earners to purchase a middle standard of living and attributes the decline in part to failures in planning. Failures of planning, she observes, have contributed to the growing divergence between middle-level earnings and the middle standard of living. Stemming Middle-Class Decline provides comprehensive data and trends on workers, communities, regions, and the nation that all policymakers and government officials should read and examine with care.

Download or read book The Upside of Inequality written by Edward Conard and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scourge of America’s economy isn't the success of the 1 percent—quite the opposite. The real problem is the government’s well-meaning but misguided attempt to reduce the payoffs for success. Four years ago, Edward Conard wrote a controversial bestseller, Unintended Consequences, which set the record straight on the financial crisis of 2008 and explained why U.S. growth was accelerating relative to other high-wage economies. He warned that loose monetary policy would produce neither growth nor inflation, that expansionary fiscal policy would have no lasting benefit on growth in the aftermath of the crisis, and that ill-advised attempts to rein in banking based on misplaced blame would slow an already weak recovery. Unfortunately, he was right. Now he’s back with another provocative argument: that our current obsession with income inequality is misguided and will only slow growth further. Using fact-based logic, Conard tracks the implications of an economy now constrained by both its capacity for risk-taking and by a shortage of properly trained talent—rather than by labor or capital, as was the case historically. He uses this fresh perspective to challenge the conclusions of liberal economists like Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz and the myths of “crony capitalism” more broadly. Instead, he argues that the growing wealth of most successful Americans is not to blame for the stagnating incomes of the middle and working classes. If anything, the success of the 1 percent has put upward pressure on employment and wages. Conard argues that high payoffs for success motivate talent to get the training and take the risks that gradually loosen the constraints to growth. Well-meaning attempts to decrease inequality through redistribution dull these incentives, gradually hurting not just the 1 percent but everyone else as well. Conard outlines a plan for growing middle- and working-class wages in an economy with a near infinite supply of labor that is shifting from capital-intensive manufacturing to knowledge-intensive, innovation-driven fields. He urges us to stop blaming the success of the 1 percent for slow wage growth and embrace the upside of inequality: faster growth and greater prosperity for everyone.

Download or read book Labour in the 21st Century written by Emanuele Dagnino and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2017-06-23 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Several major transformations have characterized the world of work in recent years. Those transformations follow different patterns in different countries, yet their dynamics are so interrelated that it is often hard, if not impossible, to distinguish the causal relationships among them. Technological advances, globalization, old and new media, demographic changes, and new production and economic systems are all key factors acting on this ongoing transformation which is impacting both the world of work and society as a whole. In the spirit of Karl Polanyi, the well-known scholar who described the rise of market-based societies, we are led to wonder if we are witnessing a new “Great Transformation of Work”, on such a scale that it might change the very meaning of work in our society, and even its anthropological connotations. Accordingly, this volume investigates and discusses the different aspects of this transformation from a comparative perspective. In order to propose better solutions to cope with these changes, it is necessary to analyze their ongoing dynamics. Lawmakers, unions, scholars and practitioners are all called to do their part in order to achieve the goals of sustainability and fairness of our economic systems.

Download or read book Will Europe Work written by Martin Kohli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-01-14 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the post war years European integration was driven by nation states attempting to stimulate economic growth and social cohesion through European trade and cooperation. The results were prosperous, and unified Western European societies were based on full employment and redistributive welfare states. However, in today's Europe - a Europe subject to increasing international competition fuelled by both economic and cultural globalization - the European social model needs to be re-examined, yet its emphasis on cohesion remains crucial for the future of Europe as a unified polity. Investigating this issue in depth, this outstanding collection is divided into three key sections. These parts: * ask how recent developments have changed the old European model of employment and social protection, and outline a possible new European social model * focus on the questions of European identity and European borders, with special emphasis on cultural divisions such as ethnicity * concentrate on institutions such as citizenship and language, and reflect on sociology's ability to address European integration and the new European social order. Will Europe Work? brings together some of the leading names in European sociology to look at the construction of this new European social order through changing patterns of employment and Welfare and changing definitions of citizenship and identity.