This topical and timely analysis of late career and retirement within nine European societies and the USA examines how social inequality structures have developed in an era of globalization and aging populations. For several decades, many European societies relied on pushing and luring older workers out of employment by using generous early retirement programs in order to relieve national labor markets in times of globalization. However, as this book argues, one of the major challenges facing European and Northern American societies today is their severe demographic aging, which in turn...

For much of the twentieth century, women lagged considerably behind men in their educational attainment. However, in recent decades, young women have become an important source of human capital for labor markets in modern societies, as well as potential competitors to the male workforce. This book asks whether or not women have been able to convert their educational success into gains on the labor market

From an international comparative perspective, this third book in the prestigious eduLIFE Lifelong Learning series provides a thorough investigation into how social inequalities arise during individuals' secondary schooling careers. Paying particular attention to the role of social origin and prior performance, it focuses on tracking and differentiation in secondary schooling examining the short- and long-term effects on inequality of opportunities. It looks at ways in which differentiation in secondary education might produce and reproduce social inequalities in educational opportunities and...