By the middle of the s a series

By the middle of the 1970s, a series of economic crises replaced earlier trajectories of prosperity and uninterrupted growth with rapidly rising levels of unemployment and declining rates of profitability. This end to the so-called “golden age of capitalism” signaled a fundamental shift both in the institutional makeup of advanced capitalist countries and the relative balance of power between capital and labour (Bambra, Netuveli & Eikemo, 2010; Huber & Stephens, 2001). As a result of these shifts, labour market regulations, and the welfare state more generally, were increasingly viewed as institutional distortions that interfered with the proper functioning of capitalist markets. Neoliberal reforms were presented as necessary remedies for persistent levels of economic stagnation and unemployment (Glyn, 2006). The expansion of flexible forms of employment conditions was a direct consequence of these neoliberal reform efforts (Quinlan et al., 2001). Employers argued that labour market rigidities restricting flexible hiring and firing practices undermined the ability for firms to adapt their labour force to rapid changes in market demand and, by extension, undermined their prospects for success in an increasingly competitive global economy. The governments of advanced capitalist countries, responding to the growing political power of capital, committed themselves to deregulating labour markets and loosening restrictions on hiring and firing (Emmenegger, 2009). To varying extents, national governments stripped their labour markets of alleged rigidities and, as a consequence, paved the way for a rise of flexible forms of employment conditions, including temporary employment contracts (Auer & Cazes, 2003).
The social and health consequences of temporary employment Employment conditions are important determinants of health (Muntaner, Chung & Solar, 2010a). As labour market flexibilization has led to a substantial erosion in the quality and oxycodone hydrochloride of employment conditions (Kalleberg, 2009), the need to account for these determinants of health has increased over time (Benach & Muntaner, 2007). Public health researchers have drawn on the concept of precariousness as a way of capturing the adverse health-related consequences of changing employment conditions (Vives, Amable & Ferrer, 2010). They have described at least five pathways that are assumed to link flexible—and, more specifically, temporary—employment to health (Benavides, Benach & Muntaner, 2006; Muntaner, Solar & Vanroelen, 2010b).
Enter flexicurity The governments of advanced capitalist countries have engaged in a calculated search for a new regulatory model that is capable of reconciling the seemingly contradictory demands they face from employers for greater labour market flexibility and workers for social security. According to advocates of the flexicurity approach, flexibility and security are not contradictory policy objectives but rather complementary agendas that can be pursued simultaneously and in a synergistic fashion (Wilthagen & Tros, 2004). The flexicurity approach claims to offer an institutional blueprint for non-precarious forms of flexibility. This blueprint suggests that the link between flexible employment and negative health and social outcomes can be interrupted and even overcome through the provision of generous and comprehensive social security measures (Bosch, 2004; MacAllister, Nylén & Backhans, 2016). The approach therefore presents itself as a framework according to which social security systems can attenuate the adverse health consequences associated with increasingly flexible labour markets. At the core of this institutional blueprint lie three key dimensions of social intervention (Bekker & Wilthagen, 2008). Drawing on this institutional blueprint, advocates of the approach suggest that flexicurity policies can operate as effective buffers against the adverse health and social consequences associated with temporary employment. It is assumed, in other words, that by promoting employability, adaptability, and compensation for the experience of unemployment, flexicurity policies will allow workers to better cope with flexible employment conditions (Berglund, Furåker & Vulkan, 2014; Sjöberg, 2010).