The policy discourse termed flexicurity is on its way of becoming a concept. Yet, this political process bears the risk of departing from the very idea of flexicurity. This paper argues that this could be prevented if flexicurity were guided by a clear conception of human well-being. The paper suggests complementing flexicurity by the capabilityapproach. Random or adverse effects of flexicurity-policy on human freedom can be avoided if 'flexibility and security' in the employment system are recognised not as ends in themselves, but as instruments at the service of people's capabilities. In principle, it is argued, flexicurity has the potential of extending human freedoms.
The present paper analyses frontline workers' incomes in the fields of education, health, and welfare ("EHW"). In the face of an upsurge in demand for such services, the question is how EHW occupations can attract enough qualified workers, now and in the future. In public perception, EHW work is poorly paid, while empirically, wage heterogeneity between occupations is quite large. A comprehensive comparison of EHW occupations' wages across Europe is still lacking. The present contribution seeks to fill this gap by comparing incomes for 24 European countries, based on data from the European Union's labour force survey (EU-LFS) between 2016 and 2020. Our descriptive analysis yields that EHW workers earn slightly above-average incomes in the majority of countries. This result can be explained by the high share of EHW workers with a tertiary education level. By contrast, for EHW workers with only secondary education, we find that they earn less in EHW than in other labour-market segments. Both outside and inside the EHW, we observe higher incomes for men than for women. Between EHW occupations, there is an income hierarchy led by medical doctors and tertiary education teachers. At the lower end, there are personal care workers with lower formal education who earn below-average incomes in all observed countries. Yet the degree to which they are penalised differs widely. From a dynamic perspective, our findings hint at a slightly deteriorating relative income position of EHW workers in the 2010s, apparently caused less by declining wages than by structural change in the wider labour market.
