Introduction to the Special Section: Employment Protection Legislation and Labour Markets in Europe

Abstract

The European Sociological Review (ESR) has always paid special attention to work and employment as fundamental elements of the life course and individuals’ life chances. Employment has been studied as a key issue in social stratification research and social mobility, as the outcome of the transition from school to work and the valourization of human capital, and with regard to women's employment in its infinite varieties and forms, not to mention the vast amount of articles on workers’ attitudes and experiences. Next to micro-level analyses, ESR has always dedicated special attention to the role of institutional and contextual factors—welfare states or regimes, industrial relation systems, etc.—and their implications for work and employment. This focus comes without surprise, given that it represents a key topic of the social sciences and constitutes a unifying element between economics, sociology, and political economy. This special section of ESR focusses on the relationship between the regulation (or protection) of employment, labour market efficiency, and social inequality risks that stem from labour market deregulation. Employment and its regulation are at the core of countless political and scientific debates within and outside Europe. The very process of EU construction, before and after the recent recession, has been largely focussed on this issue, most likely at the expenses of other, not less relevant, topics—social inequality among the most urgent ones ( Mills, 2009 , Präg et al. , 2014 ).