The European Job Security Gap

The authors use a large-scale data set covering 13 European countries during the period 1995 to 2001 to compare trends in cross-skill inequalities in terms of wages and exposure to insecure job positions. Cross-country comparisons of these two facets of inequality show that (a) higher wage gaps generally come along with lower job security gaps and (b) job security represents the main lever for adjustment to macroeconomic changes in most European countries. The authors conclude that transatlantic differences in attitude toward inequality is more in the type of inequality that each society is more inclined to tolerate than in overall tolerance for inequality.