'Non-standard' employment is becoming more common. Fewer people are working full-time and/or have permanent employment contracts; more are working part-time, have fixed-term contracts or are self-employed. Many scholars have pointed to the negative consequences of this development, including 'precarious' forms of employment and in-work poverty. This volume provides a thorough theoretical and empirical analysis of these processes by understanding the 'destandardization' of employment in Europe and the associated modifications in socio-economic regulation both at national and EU level. The book provides country studies of the UK, Spain, Germany, Poland, Croatia, and the Nordic countries and offers comparative European analyses of part-time and fixed-term employment in relation to in-work poverty, exclusion and anomie. Emphasis is on 'best practice' in the governance of non-standard employment. Is there evidence for a new and socially inclusive European employment standard?

Preface; Richard Hyman Introduction: Changing Employment Standards in a Crisis-ridden Europe; Martin Fritz and Max Koch PART I: THE THEORETICAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND 1. A Conceptual Approach of the Destandardization of Employment in Europe since the 1970s; Jean-Claude Barbier 2. Employment Standards in Transition: From Fordism to Finance-Driven Capitalism ; Max Koch 3. Non-Standard Employment and European Union Employment Regulation; Julia S. O''Connor PART II: COUNTRY STUDIES 4. The Expansion of Temporary Employment in Spain (1984-2010): Neither Socially Fair nor Economically Productive; Jorge Sola, Luis Enrique Alonso, Carlos J. Fernández Rodríguez and Rafael Ibáñez Rojo 5. ''Flexicurity'' through Normalization? Changes in Scope, Composition and Conditions of Temporary Employment in Croatia; Teo Matković 6. Destandardization of Employment in the UK: Issues, Politics and Policy Re-Invention; Lefteris Kretsos and Miguel Martínez Lucio 7. Non-Standard Employment in Poland: Option or Necessity?; Anna Buchner-Jeziorska 8. Revival of the ''German Model''? Destandardization and the New Labour Market Regime; Hajo Holst and Klaus Dörre 9. Non-Standard Employment and Perceptions of Job Characteristics and Labour Market Situation: An Intra-Nordic Comparison; Bengt Furåker PART III: THE COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 10. Should We Care about Part-Time Work from a Poverty Perspective? An Analysis for the EU15 Countries; Jeroen Horemans and Ive Marx 11. Temporary Employment and Poverty in the Enlarged European Union: An Empirical and Comparative Analysis; Wim Van Lancker 12. Non-Standard Employment and Anomie in the EU; Martin Fritz 13. Conclusion: Non-Standard Employment: Concept, Empirical Results and Policy Implications; Max Koch and Martin Fritz Max Koch is Professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Welfare, Lund University, Sweden. His recent publications include Capitalism and Climate Change: Theoretical Discussion, Historical Development and Policy Responses and Diversity, Standardization and Social Transformation: Gender, Ethnicity and Inequality in Europe (co-edited with Lesley McMillan and Bram Peper). Martin Fritz is Research Assistant at the EUROLAB, Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany.