Institutions and the prevalence of nonstandard employment

Abstract

How can we explain differences in nonstandard employment across countries? This article provides an overview of the multifaceted relationships between national-level institutions and the three dominant forms of nonstandard employment, that is, temporary, part-time and solo self-employment. The article highlights the great heterogeneity that exists among the different forms of nonstandard work, both within and between countries. Neither welfare regime approaches nor dualization and precarization theories sufficiently capture the ongoing diversification of employment relationships across countries. However, the institution-specific analyses reviewed here are also not without challenges: high-quality macro- and microlevel data are scarce; institutions interact in complex ways with their environment and exert distinct effects on different groups of workers; moreover, the demographic composition of the workforce and the role of cultural characteristics make it difficult for researchers to correctly specify such macro-to-micro links in their empirical work. In addition to outlining several avenues for future research, the article informs ongoing debates on the relevance of nonstandard work for the study of social inequality and research in comparative political analysis.