Ta. Diprete et al., Institutional determinants of employment chances. The structure of unemployment in France and Sweden, EUR SOCIOL, 17(3), 2001, pp. 233-254
Linked employer-employee data for Sweden and France are used to test compet
ing hypotheses about the structure of unemployment in France and Sweden der
ived from a comparison of their welfare-state structures, labour-market ins
titutions, and the linkages between their educational system and labour mar
ket. Contrary to standard predictions derived from welfare-state theory, th
e unemployment structure of France does not conform to the classic insider-
outsider labour-market model that scholars generally attribute to conservat
ive welfare-state regimes. Instead, France has a flexible two-tier labour m
arker that produces relatively high entry rates into employment along with
the strong age and educational gradients in exit rates that would be expect
ed for a country with high firing costs. Even during the deep recession of
the early 1990s, Sweden was also characterized by a strong age gradient in
the rate of exit from an employer. However, Swedish rates do not show a str
ong education gradient, which is the expected consequence of Sweden's loose
ly linked school and work institutions, and extensive active labour-market
policies. Active labour-market policies during the Swedish recession of the
early 1990s appear to have further changed the shape of the age-unemployme
nt curve in that country by raising the exit rate of older workers more tha
n would have resulted from the dynamics of labour demand alone.