Irena Kogan, Michael Gebel, and Clemens Noelke (Eds.): Europe Enlarged: A Handbook of Education, Labour, and Welfare Regimes in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

This handbook provides a comparative discussion of education, labour, and welfare regimes in 10 Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia). The marketization of these countries’ economies (especially labour markets) has naturally introduced inequality, thus shaping the distribution of income, goods, and more broadly, access to social and economic add-ons. As the foundation of stratification systems, these core components have shaped, and will continue to shape, these countries’ abilities in both the domestic and international systems. In this book, the first three chapters (the editors having contributed a chapter each) address each topic in lieu of the regional democratic transitions and recent ascensions to European Union membership, introducing a comparative framework of central indicators to identify and account for national variation. For education, Kogan highlights the stratification of educational systems as a function of educational tracking, differentiation within levels of education, and the quality of tertiary education provided through vocational and post-secondary training. Gebel addresses the cross-national variation in labour market institutions and economic contexts citing labour force participation, the relevance of informal economies, and the labour market institutional settings as core comparabilities. Noelke attends to the welfare regime transitions, focusing on job security (unemployment and poverty), emerging market risks, and the distribution of these in conjunction with labour market policies in each society. The authors correctly assert that Central and Eastern European countries’ capacities to address these issues affect the resultant social order and living conditions as well as international competitiveness. The remaining chapters of the handbook consist of country experts’ historical and descriptive assessments of education, the labour market, and the welfare provisions in each country. In sum, the handbook is useful for policy makers and academics alike, providing not only detailed descriptions of each of these features for each country, it also places those descriptions in the larger theoretical framework of structural and institutional changes that have taken place.