Series: Forschungsberichte / Institut für Sozialpolitik

Within the last few decades, the provision of social services was and still is changing in many ways: due to ideological changes and cost containment efforts, the public sector has been gradually withdrawing from his dual role as financier and provider of social services. The public sector now prefers acting as a financier rather than a provider. It purchases services on behalf of service users, while private sector organizations assume the responsibility for service provision. Recently, European rules for public procurement policies and the efforts to liberalize service markets have promoted changes in the funding relationship between public entities on the one hand and nonprofit or forprofit organisations on the other hand. Increasingly, in terms of instruments the public sector follows a contractual approach to managing its relationship with private and nonprofit organizations. Performance related forms of funding are becoming gradually more important whereas funding via grants is on the decline. Moreover, modes of public procurement are relying more heavily on competitive processes. (...) (author´s abstract) / Series: Working Papers / Institut für Sozialpolitik

We analyse the characteristics of workers who provide work on the basis of a civil or commercial contract, but who are dependent on or integrated into the firm for which they work. We argue that these dependent self-employed lose their rights under labour law, receive less favourable benefits from social security protection and are often beyond trade union representation and collective bargaining. Using data from the British Labour Force Survey we test two hypotheses: (1) Dependent self-employed workers are significantly different from both employees and (independent) self-employed individuals, thus forming a distinct group. (2) Dependent selfemployed workers have lower labour market skills, less labour market attachment and, thus, less autonomy than self-employed workers. The data support our hypothesis that dependent selfemployed workers are a distinct labour market group which differs from both employees and independent self-employed individuals. Men, older workers, those with low education and a low job tenure have greater odds of working in dependent self-employment than their counterparts. Our results suggest that dependent forms of self-employment are used by firms to increase labour flexibility. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

(kein Abstract vorhanden) / Series: Working Papers / Institut für Sozialpolitik