Flexicurity outside the employment relationship? Re-engineering social security for the new economy

Abstract

What types of normative or regulatory frameworks of social protection are needed for labour markets to function effectively in countries with developed systems of labour law and social insurance? The existing social insurance model was devised during the Beveridge era, which was premised on ‘male breadwinners’ and full-time employment. Since then, flexible labour markets have resulted in the erosion of the standard employment relationship and a rise in self-employment and other entrepreneurial forms of work. ‘Atypical’ work, including zero hour contracts and agency work, have fragmented the labour contract and denied workers employment status. When coupled with forced self-employment in the gig economy, it is arguably the case that flexible labour markets demand equally flexible protections if the new ‘entrepreneurial’ workers are to fulfil their productive capacities. And yet, the social insurance system has not adapted to these changes. The concept of ‘flexicurity’ has been utilised with varying degrees of success in different European countries to make adaptations to production and labour market systems. The aim of this chapter is to re-examine social security aspects of this formula in order to recalibrate the scope of social protection in developed economies in order to benefit all labour market participants. The chapter examines the legal and philosophical nature of social insurance as a species of social rights based on universal human rights that guarantee participation in the production and distribution of society’s welfare. The transformation of social and employment policy to manage the risks in the new economy will require a reconfiguration of the institutions of social protection to re-align techniques of intervention with the nature of the risks they are intended to cover.

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