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This article challenges popular wisdom that economic globalization uniformly increases working time in industrialized countries. International investment and trade, they argue, have uneven effects for workplace bargaining over standard hours and over work-time flexibility, such as use of temporary or fixed work contracts. The authors explain how such globalization will tend to more substantially decrease standard hours than it does work-time flexibility. And they explain how works councils and union-led collective bargaining alter the way globalization affects both aspects of working time.The analysis of German enterprise data supports these expectations. Measures of globalization diminish standard working hours but yield more temporary work, fixed-contract work, and flexible working arrangements. Works councils and collective bargaining, however, mediate these effects in contrasting ways. Among enterprises without works councils or collective agreements globalization triggers more standard hours, but among firms with such representation globalization triggers fewer hours. With respect to flexibility, however, globalization increases use of temporary or fixed-term contracts more strongly where works councils or collective bargaining are present than when they are not. In short, economic openness has uneven consequences for working time, and firm-level labor representation channels those consequences in ways that highlight political agency in how people respond to globalization.

The Swedish welfare state model is based on a high volume of male labour and steadily increasing labour market participation by women. General working time reductions to below the 40-hour norm did not previously enter into the trade unions' framework of goals, preference being given to individual working time reductions, for example in the form of parental leave. As a result of the employment crisis in the early 90s the prevalent conception of the welfare state based on economic growth was shattered, so that the idea of general working time reduction began to enjoy increased popularity in large sectors of the population, particularly among women.

This cumulative dissertation consists of three contributions that empirically analyse economic risks at the level of the individual and the household from different perspectives. The first analysis "Future public pensions and changing employment patterns across cohorts" aims to quantify the effects of labour market changes and pension reforms across birth cohorts in East and West Germany. The pension reforms since 1992 have reduced the generosity of the German pension system. While these reforms have improved the financial sustainability of the system, old-age poverty is expected to rise in the future. Furthermore, unemployment levels have been high and persistent in the past decades. And the "standard" full-time employment relationship covered by social security has lost significance. It is expected that both pension reforms and labour market changes will substantially reduce the level of public pensions for younger cohorts. To estimate these effects for cohorts born between 1937 and 1971, a microsimulation model is developed that accounts for cohort effects in employment biographies and pension reforms. The second contribution, "The effect of health and employment risks on savings", focuses on short-term economic risks of the active population. The central questions are whether and to what extent individuals build up assets as a precaution to expected variance in net household income. Involuntary unemployment constitutes one of the most important risks during the pre-retirement period. A key determinant of unemployment is health status. The estimation model is based on the theory of precautionary savings which adds a savings motive to the theory of intertemporal allocation. The basic hypothesis states that a part of accumulated savings provides insurance against future contingencies. Although the theoretical concept is stringent and plausible, the empirical literature has not been able to set approximate limits to the amount of savings that can be attributed to the precautionary motive. A key question for ...

Das Modell des schwedischen Wohlfahrtsstaates gründete sich auf ein hohes Arbeitsvolumen von Männern und eine stetig zunehmende Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen. Allgemeine Arbeitszeitverkürzungen unterhalb des 40-Stunden-Standards hatten auch in den Zielvorstellungen der Gewerkschaften keinen Platz, statt dessen wurde individuellen Arbeitszeitverkürzungen, z.B. in der Form des Elternurlaubs, der Vorzug gegeben. Durch den Beschäftigungseinbruch zu Beginn der 90er Jahre wurde das auf anhaltendem Wirtschaftswachstum basierende Verständnis des Wohlfahrtsstaates erschüttert, so daß die Idee allgemeiner Arbeitszeitverkürzungen in größeren Teilen der Gesellschaft, vor allem bei Frauen, populärer wird. (Transfer / FUB)

Die Arbeitszeitpolitik der vergangenen Jahre zielte vielfach auf eine Flexibilisierungder Arbeitszeiten. Ein Grund für diese Flexibilisierungspolitik ist in der Flexibilisierungder Produktmärkte zu sehen. Durch eine Ausweitung der Ladenöffnungszeiten und dem Übergang zum Ausgleich von Nachfrageschwankungen nicht über die Lagerhaltung, sondern über die Produktionsmenge (Bosch 2003) haben flexible Arbeitszeitformen in Deutschland an Bedeutung gewonnen. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird im Folgenden beschrieben, wie sich die Verbreitung von Wochenend-, Abend- und Nachtarbeit seit 1995 in Deutschland entwickelt hat. Zudem wird auf die Nutzung unterschiedlicherRegelungen zum Ausgleich von Überstunden eingegangen. In einer Regressionsanalyse basierend auf Paneldaten wird die Frage untersucht, wie sich unterschiedliche Formen flexibler Arbeitszeiten auf die Arbeitszufriedenheit als Indikator der Qualität der Arbeit aus Sicht der Erwerbstätigen auswirken.