Welfare Beyond the Welfare State: The Employment Relationship in Britain and Germany

ISBN-13: 9783319652221 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 295 str.

Felix Behling

Opis

This book examines employee welfare in British and German companies from the 19th century through to the present day. Tracing the history of employee welfare, this comparative study reveals new issues beyond the dominant focus on the welfare state, showing that companies are an integral part of welfare systems with surprisingly few differences between the UK and Germany. Maintaining that employee welfare is a key feature of the modern employment relationship, Behling shows how the welfare programme supported industrialisation in the 19th century by cementing the standard employment model of the Fifties and Sixties, as well as how it revolves around corporate social responsibility today. The result is an innovative exploration into the changing nature of employment relationships, contemporary welfare systems, and the co-evolutionary - rather than categorical - development of economic and political institutions. An engaging and well-researched text, this book will hold special appeal to scholars of social policy, welfare politics, as well as anyone interested in the role of the state in people's working lives.

Recenzje

"What makes this book unique in comparison to other books on the welfare topic is that it takes the employment relationship as the base and employers, especially the founders of the business, as the main actors, rather than, as found in traditional works, identifying the 'state as the main actor alongside a few other institutional organisations' ... ." (Abhishek, European Journal of Social Security, Vol. 22 (1), 2020)

Spis treści

Chapter 1.Welfare Beyond the Welfare State. The Employment Relationship in Germany and the UK.

Chapter 2. A Blueprint for Mass-employment in the Period of Industrialization

Chapter 3. Building the Welfare State in the Nineteenth Century

Chapter 4. Employee Welfare in the Shadows of the Post-war Welfare State

Chapter 5. The Heyday of Welfare States in the Post-Second World War Period

Chapter 6. Socially (Ir)responsible Companies in the Twenty-first Century

Chapter 7. The Welfare State and Post-industrial Labour Markets

Chapter 8. A Long Way Ahead to a Long Way Ahead : Employee Welfare and Women

Chapter 9. Trade Unions and the Challenge of Employee Welfare

Chapter 10. Conclusion

O autorze

Felix Behling is a senior researcher at the Sociological Research Institute Göttingen (SOFI), Germany. He is co-editor of The Changing Worlds and Workplaces of Capitalism (Palgrave, 2015).