Recently, PPMI has completed a project on public interventions to combat labour market segmentation (LMS), commissioned by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound).
The study was launched to explore and add policy evidence to the complex phenomenon of LMS. The ambition of the analysis was to go beyond the most typical interventions that had been used to address LMS in the past, namely reforms of employment protection legislation. Such an exploratory approach was applied to complement existing studies which focus on the regulation of contractual employment arrangements and disregard relevant policy measures of other types, including subsidised employment, promotion of self-employment, minimum wage regulations, vocational education and training, and family policies.
To answer the main research question on what policy measures are the most effective in tackling LMS, the project team implemented a number of tasks: prepared an overview of key policy developments and initiatives, which have been introduced in the EU since 2008 and addressed LMS; developed a theoretical framework, which reveals the typology of the relevant policy measures and their links with observable outcomes and contexts; conducted 10 case studies and additional desk research to fuel the comparison of the measures adopted in France, Germany, Spain and the UK; derived key lessons learned and prepared policy pointers for future.
Eurofound is in the process of publishing a working paper, which builds on our study results.
