The focus of this chapter is on the quality of part-time and full time employment by using available European datasets with a special attention to the Italian case. The evidence provided shows that one needs to be very cautious in generalizing about part-time employment in the EU when the...

Flexicurity has been heralded as the solution to simultaneously maintain the well-being of employees through employment security while allowing employers to benefit from flexibility. This paper examines one of the claimed benefits that countries with flexicurity policies will reduce the stress...

In the first half of this paper the evidence concerning the costs of job insecurity is presented. There is now sufficient good research data to conclude that job insecurity is damaging to psychological health, marriages and employee motivation, and contributes to 'cycles of disadvantage'. In the...

This paper uses the European Working Conditions Surveys to examine the intensity of work for male and female employees. The first section gives an overview of the usefulness of the survey for examining European Union (EU) working conditions and shows how women's intensity of work has been...

It is commonly asserted that high rates of entrepreneurship and superior economic performance in the United States is linked to a higher cultural tolerance of business failure. After reviewing cross country patterns of entrepreneurship we develop in this paper a measure of cultural attitudes...

From 2000 the NHS was subjected to a series of far reaching reforms, the purposes of which were to increase the role of the primary care sector in commissioning and providing services, promote healthier life styles, reduce health inequality, and improve service standards. These were seen as...

Analyses of individuals\' working lives make a variety of assumptions about the relationship between time, wellbeing and economic stress. Some assume that stress will accumulate in adverse environments, leading to chronic effects of, for instance, long-term unemployment or job insecurity. Other...

The role of trust in vertical contractual relationships between firms in Britain, Germany, and Italy is investigated with a survey of over sixty firms. After a review of the literature in which the nature of trust is discussed and set against a background of social norms and legal systems, data...

Studies have linked cross-national variations in occupational gender segregation with various economic, social and normative characteristics of countries. This study contributes to the research on the role of normative or ‘cultural’ characteristics by examining the influence of the...