Trade unions are understood to be losing a great part of their capacity of pressure and influence in post-fordist economies. This paper shows how the role played by the Spanish trade unions in the process of reform of the pension system has been very significant.

This paper examines some of the recent changes in the Canadian health care system and describes some of the market incentives in the helath care sector. In contrast to European health care systems in transition, the extent and potential for market incentives is still very limited in the Canadian...

The question as to whether or not 'gender matters' in the issue of the delivery of care may seem a very odd one, given the enormous literature that has developed within a number of social science disciplines that takes gender relations as the primary perspective in the analysis of care. However,...

To what extent there was outstanding change or continuity in Germany and to what extent various programmes stand out as winners or losers of the era Kohl can only be determined by looking at longitudinal data of programme development and at comparative data the put the German Changes into...

In this paper the author tries to summarize a sociological view on citizenship moving from idea presented by t.H. Marshall, whose analysis has become the starting point of much of the sociological discussion on citizenship.