Over the last two decades, trade union membership in Central and Eastern Europe has been in continuous decline and there is a common perception that trade unions in the region are weak. However, little is known about the actual relevance of trade unions for individual workers in the...

This paper reviews the features of social assistance programs in Central and Eastern Europe in the mid 2000s along five dimensions, i.e. expenditure, entitlement rules, benefit levels, centralization of administration, and the provision of additional services. It finds that generally expenditure...

The poverty reduction potential of national social assistance programs in eight Central and Eastern European countries is examined using data from the EU-SILC. Results indicate that social assistance programs are a marginal component of the social protection system throughout the region. They...

The paper addresses and summarizes the role of unemployment in the transformation process from an economic system with a dominant state sector to a system with a dominant private sector. After reviewing the basic facts and some of the main explanations why unemployment is high during transition...

We examine long-term implications of unemployment for material conditions and well-being using the Polish sample from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Retrospective data from the SHARELIFE survey are used to reconstruct labour market experiences across the threshold...