Flexibility and social protection

The purpose of this report is to present a review of recent literature relating, first, to links between Europe's social protection systems and, secondly, to the flexible or atypical forms of employment that have emerged over the past twenty years. The aim is to investigate possible approaches to reconciling these two aspects, with a view to safeguarding the security of workers over their entire lives. The report draws on information from six Member States representative of the various welfare systems throughout the EU: Germany and the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain and Greece.