<p>The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how different welfare and production regimes may have structured individuals’ work orientations into cross-national patterns by the late 1990s and early 2000s. Three different aspects of work orientations are considered in the three studies. Study 1: Welfare Regimes, Production Regimes and Employment Commitment: A Multi-level analysis of Twelve OECD countries. Since the introduction of the first social insurance schemes, questions have been raised regarding the trade-off between the adequacy and equity of benefits, and their effects on individuals’ work orientations. This study examines the role of both welfare and production regime institutions for explaining cross-national patterns in individuals’ employment commitment across twelve OECD-countries in the late 1990s. Results from multi-level analyses show firstly how employment commitment is stronger within more generous welfare regimes as well as within more extensively coordinated production regimes. Secondly, institutions are found to be more important for structuring the attitudes of persons with less stable labour market attachment. Thirdly, for men, there are clear positive cross-level interaction effects between institutional structures and individuals’ socio-economic status, whereas institutions matter more equally regardless of socio-economic status for women. In relation to the concerns with the allegedly negative unintended consequences of welfare regime institutions for creating distortions, these seem to be unwarranted with regards to employment commitment. To the contrary, there appears to be a ‘paradox of employment commitment’: clearly earnings-related benefits of more generous welfare regimes appear to generate stronger commitment to take part in paid work.</p><p>Study 2: Unemployment Insurance and Work Values in Twenty-Three Welfare States. This study addresses the question of whether extended ‘social rights’, specifically in the form of unemployment insurance, is undermining people’s willingness to perform their ‘social duties’ in the form of productive work. Multi-level analyses is used to evaluate how three aspects of institutional design may explain cross-national patterns of work values across twenty-three industrialized countries in 2000. There is a consistent tendency for a positive relationship between more traditional work values with higher generosity of benefit levels as well as more demanding eligibility conditions. To the contrary, a negative relationship is found in relation to duration periods. The strength and significance of these relationships however differ across the three value dimensions studied. Firstly, the clearest pattern is found in relation to how work is valued as a ‘duty towards society’, where all institutional effects are significant. Secondly, in relation to valuations of how ‘unemployed persons should accept job offers or lose their benefits’, the positive effects of the eligibility factor are non-significant, and the negative duration effects are only significant among working men. Thirdly, in relation to how work is not valued as a ‘free choice’, institutional effects are only significant when working women within the sixteen ‘older’ welfare states are compared. The effects of economic development are inconsistent across value dimensions and in the opposite direction expected from modernization theory; more traditional work values are found to be stronger in countries with higher levels of economic development. Study 3: Continued Work or Retirement? Preferred Exit-age in Western European countries. The combination of greying populations, decreasing fertility rates and a marked trend in falling retirement age is profoundly challenging the sharing of resources and supporting responsibilities between generations in the developed world. Previous studies on earlier exit-trends have focused mainly on supply-side incentives and generally conclude that people will exit given available retirement options. Substantial cross-national variations in exit-ages however remain unexplained. This suggests that also normative factors such as attitudes to work and retirement might be of importance. Through multi-level analyses, this study evaluates how welfare regime generosity, as well as production regime coordination explains cross-national patterns of retirement preferences across twelve Western European countries. Analysis firstly shows how both men and women on average prefer to retire at 58 years, meaning on average approximately 7 or 5.5 years before statutory retirement age in the case of men and women respectively. Contrary to what is expected from previous research on supply-side factors, preferences for relatively later retirement is found within more generous welfare regimes and also within more extensively coordinated production regimes. For women, however, institutional effects do not remain once substantial cross-national differences in women’s statutory retirement ages are taken into account.</p>

The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how different welfare and production regimes may have structured individuals’ work orientations into cross-national patterns by the late 1990s and early 2000s. Three different aspects of work orientations are considered in the three studies. Study 1: Welfare Regimes, Production Regimes and Employment Commitment: A Multi-level analysis of Twelve OECD countries. Since the introduction of the first social insurance schemes, questions have been raised regarding the trade-off between the adequacy and equity of benefits, and their effects on individuals’ work orientations. This study examines the role of both welfare and production regime institutions for explaining cross-national patterns in individuals’ employment commitment across twelve OECD-countries in the late 1990s. Results from multi-level analyses show firstly how employment commitment is stronger within more generous welfare regimes as well as within more extensively coordinated production regimes. Secondly, institutions are found to be more important for structuring the attitudes of persons with less stable labour market attachment. Thirdly, for men, there are clear positive cross-level interaction effects between institutional structures and individuals’ socio-economic status, whereas institutions matter more equally regardless of socio-economic status for women. In relation to the concerns with the allegedly negative unintended consequences of welfare regime institutions for creating distortions, these seem to be unwarranted with regards to employment commitment. To the contrary, there appears to be a ‘paradox of employment commitment’: clearly earnings-related benefits of more generous welfare regimes appear to generate stronger commitment to take part in paid work. Study 2: Unemployment Insurance and Work Values in Twenty-Three Welfare States. This study addresses the question of whether extended ‘social rights’, specifically in the form of unemployment insurance, is undermining people’s willingness to perform their ‘social duties’ in the form of productive work. Multi-level analyses is used to evaluate how three aspects of institutional design may explain cross-national patterns of work values across twenty-three industrialized countries in 2000. There is a consistent tendency for a positive relationship between more traditional work values with higher generosity of benefit levels as well as more demanding eligibility conditions. To the contrary, a negative relationship is found in relation to duration periods. The strength and significance of these relationships however differ across the three value dimensions studied. Firstly, the clearest pattern is found in relation to how work is valued as a ‘duty towards society’, where all institutional effects are significant. Secondly, in relation to valuations of how ‘unemployed persons should accept job offers or lose their benefits’, the positive effects of the eligibility factor are non-significant, and the negative duration effects are only significant among working men. Thirdly, in relation to how work is not valued as a ‘free choice’, institutional effects are only significant when working women within the sixteen ‘older’ welfare states are compared. The effects of economic development are inconsistent across value dimensions and in the opposite direction expected from modernization theory; more traditional work values are found to be stronger in countries with higher levels of economic development. Study 3: Continued Work or Retirement? Preferred Exit-age in Western European countries. The combination of greying populations, decreasing fertility rates and a marked trend in falling retirement age is profoundly challenging the sharing of resources and supporting responsibilities between generations in the developed world. Previous studies on earlier exit-trends have focused mainly on supply-side incentives and generally conclude that people will exit given available retirement options. Substantial cross-national variations in exit-ages however remain unexplained. This suggests that also normative factors such as attitudes to work and retirement might be of importance. Through multi-level analyses, this study evaluates how welfare regime generosity, as well as production regime coordination explains cross-national patterns of retirement preferences across twelve Western European countries. Analysis firstly shows how both men and women on average prefer to retire at 58 years, meaning on average approximately 7 or 5.5 years before statutory retirement age in the case of men and women respectively. Contrary to what is expected from previous research on supply-side factors, preferences for relatively later retirement is found within more generous welfare regimes and also within more extensively coordinated production regimes. For women, however, institutional effects do not remain once substantial cross-national differences in women’s statutory retirement ages are taken into account.

本文嘗試以政治經濟學的取徑，研究當代高等教育的轉型與資本主義的連結。 本文以Marx對資本主義的批判為基礎，並結合Polanyi對虛構商品的考察，以及Jessop對知識的虛構商品化的論證，本文以為，在知識經濟的時代當中，知識被「虛構」為商品與資本，將知識勞動者收編至剝削的生產關係之中；在此，知識不僅只是經濟長波的關鍵，也是資本的競爭力－佔有超額利潤的能力，的關鍵所在。也因而，生產知識的場域，尤其是大學，就被捲入了資本主義之中，成為學術生產體制。 而被捲入資本主義的大學知識勞動者不僅只有教授或研究、教學人員，當中，又以研究生最為特殊，他們是「被生產的勞動力商品，同時又是生產知識商品的勞動力」。本文提出了勞動學習的概念，並以「是否直接生產剩餘價值」和「是否承受市場壓力」檢視研究生的勞動學習。本文以臺灣大學工會的案例，探討在勞動與學習混合為一的「勞動學習過程」、「學術外包」以及「名為助學的薪資與工作內容」的作用底下，研究生承受市場壓力，並被排除在勞動法制的保障之外的情形。 但是依照「有勞動事實就必須有勞動保護」的原則，本文以適用勞動法的各種要件主張研究生應適用勞動法令並享有各種勞動權，並得組成工會進行團體協商、維護自身權益。 最後，本文認為，我們必須正視資本主義式的學術生產體制對於研究生的剝削與壓迫，承認師、校、生之間的矛盾，進而團結抵抗資本主義的不斷擴張。 / This dissertation tried to examine the interconnection between the transformation of higher education and capitalism from political economy perspective. Based on the critique on capitalism by Marx, the inspection on fictitious commodity by Polanyi and the account of commoditization of knowledge of Jessop, this dissertation argues that, in the so-called knowledge economy, knowledge presents as the form of commodity and capital, and subsequently subsumes the knowledge worker into the exploited relation of production under capitalism. Besides, knowledge is also the key to create “long wave”, and more importantly, the competency of capital, which allows capital to gain surplus profits in the competition. With the development of knowledge economy, university has been transformed as “Academic Production Regime”. The graduates are also been subsumed into the Academic Production Regime. They are unique in this regime because they are “produced commodity of labor power, and also the labor power to produce commodity”. I bring up the concept of “learning by laboring” to examine, “Do the graduates produce surplus value?” and “Do the graduates endure the press from market?” With the case of Taiwan University Union, I asserted that the mixture of laboring and learning, academic subcontracting, and grant of student aid obscured the exploitation to graduates. Graduates now endure the press from market and be ignored by the protection of labor laws. I investigated the controversy of applying graduates employees to labor law, and argue that every labor should be protected by labor law. Finally, I contended that we shall confront the conflict between graduates, faculty and the university, and uniting to against the spread of capitalism