Before 1997, education was a way for young French men to avoid military service in the army. After the abolition of compulsory conscription in 1997, this incentive to stay on in education disappeared. We show that the decrease in the benefit of pursuing education for men was followed by a fall in their educational achievement relative to women and…

This paper tests a central implication of the theory of equalizing differences, that workers sort into jobs with different attributes based on their preferences. We present evidence from four new time-use data sets for the United States and France suggesting that workers who are more gregarious, as revealed by their behavior when they are not…

In a context of fierce competition in the labour market and employment system, the decision to continue studying after completing French short-cycle higher vocational education must be distinguished from the simple individual decision for optimum allocation of resources postulated by standard human-resource theory. It has much more to do with a…

Focuses on three assumptions: employment is central to social integration; the demand for goods and labor is becoming more individualized; and the state continues to play a major role on work and employment. Outlines frameworks for the future of labor and work in France. (JOW)

Reviews experiences of countries with programs to legalize undocumented aliens. The countries had the following in common: (1) concern about the impact on the labor market, less concern about cultural and political issues; (2) educational programs for the citizenry; and (3) publicizing the contributions already made by these aliens. (VM)

Examines the advantages and disadvantages of partial retirement--the transitional period between full-time employment and complete retirement--including easing the transition, labor market effects, and financial implications for social security systems and employers. Reviews partial retirement policies in eight countries and concludes that there…

German, British, and European Commission models of vocational training were compared with the situation in France. Rethinking of the link between training and employment may be necessary in a context in which occupational mobility is less clear cut than it used to be. (SK)

In France, as in many European countries, youth from foreign ethnic backgrounds appear less integrated than those who are accepted as established French citizens into civil society through the educational system and the labor market. Until now, existing research on employment inequalities in France has, for good reasons, concentrated on the large…

This paper explores the impact of policies and institutions on employment and unemployment of OECD countries in the past decades. Reduced-form unemployment equations, consistent with standard wage setting/price-setting models, are estimated using cross-country/time-series data from 21 OECD countries over the period 1982-2003. In the…

This paper examines policies regarding access to social benefits and the labor market in nine representative liberal industrialized democracies. Five are self-consciously nations of immigration: the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel, and France. Four are de-facto immigration nations within the European Union (EU): Germany, the Netherlands,…

Although young people are graduating from college in increasing numbers in France, their labor market prospects have worsened. The employment system's capacity to absorb college graduates is out of kilter with the numbers of graduates from higher education. (SK)

Because of high unemployment rates among youth in Europe, comparative research has focused on identification of those risks and opportunities associated with the integration process from unemployment to work. The integration process of immigrant youth, however, received much less attention, despite their initially higher risk of unemployment than…

This article analyses the early careers of young scientists in France. Since training and early career management are designed to cater almost exclusively for an academic career, a substantial proportion of PhDs lack support to design their training in relation to the job they will look for after graduation. Even if most young scientists manage to…

Many of the current policy debates in Europe focus on what kind of "knowledge economy" or "knowledge society" would be best in the future if it is to combine both economic competitiveness and social cohesion. Should European economies move increasingly towards the so-called Anglo-Saxon model of flexible labour markets and high…