The challenges of self-employment in Europe. Status, social protection and collective representation

Summary:

This book aims at explaining the variance in legal status, working conditions, social protection and collective representation of self-employed professionals across Europe.

Further information:

In recent decades, due to unprecedented technological advancements, Europe has seen a move towards on-demand service economies. This has allowed the growth of self-employed professionals who are able to satisfy an increasing demand for flexible and high-skilled work. This book explores the need for reform of regulations in Europe, studying the variance in legal status, working conditions, social protection and collective representation of self-employed professionals. It provides insights into ways that policy could address these important challenges.

Presenting the results of a wide-reaching European survey, this book highlights key issues being faced across Europe: the implementation of universal social protection schemes; active labour market policies to support sustainable self-employment and the renewal of social dialogue through bottom-up organisations to extend the collective representation of self-employed professionals. With its theoretically-informed, empirical and interdisciplinary comparative analysis, this book identifies and explains key strategies to resolve these challenges.

Contents:

Foreword | David Marsden

1. Introduction: self-employed professionals in a comparative perspective | François Pichault and Renata Semenza
2. New self-employment as a theoretical matter | Renata Semenza and Anna Mori
3. Working conditions and needs: results of a European survey | Anna Soru, Elena Sinibaldi and Cristina Zanni
4. The place of self-employment in the European context. Evidence from nine country case studies: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom | Laura Beuker, Paolo Borghi, Marie-Christine Bureau, Antonella Corsani, Bernard Gazier, Alejandro Godino, Bas Koene, Antonio Martín-Artiles, Oscar Molina, Anna Mori, Frédéric Naedenoen, Maria Norbäck, Klemen Širok, Maylin Stanic and Lars Walter
5. Comparing the national contexts | Laura Beuker, François Pichault and Frédéric Naedenoen
6. Continuity and discontinuity in collective representation | Anna Mori and Bas Koene
7. Conclusions: perspectives on self-employment in Europe | Manuela Samek Lodovici, François Pichault and Renata Semenza

Afterword: conditions for a new social dialogue in Europe | Bernard Gazier