Dirk Hofacker – författare

Globalization has been strongly shaping and transforming both national economies and individual careers in recent decades. These profound changes have had significant consequences for individual careers of men and women both during and after their employment career. This impressive new collection focuses on the effects of the globalization process on late-midlife workers and the exit from employment – a relationship that has up to now mostly been neglected in social science literature on aging and employment.

The research documented within these pages poses several important questions:

* Has globalization produced fundamental shifts in late-midlife workers’ labor market participation and late careers? * What transformations in old age career mobility can we observe? * How are these transformations filtered by different national institutional settings?

With an impressive array of contributions, this volume will interest students and academics involved in the study of sociology, welfare and globalization.

Given the growing importance of Eastern European countries in the development of the EU, there is an urgent need to reconstruct the recent dynamic developments in women''s work and care in these societies, and the socio-political determinants thereof. Considering their specific cultural, economic and historical development, it can be assumed that the trends and determinants of women''s labour market trajectories in CEE countries differ significantly from those in the other European countries that have frequently made up the basis for established theories in social and labour market research. This being the case, can ''standard'' theoretical approaches, mostly modelled on evidence from Western Europe, be transferred to the analysis of Eastern European countries? This edited collection scrutinises pivotal aspects of women''s careers in Eastern Europe, providing a detailed overview of trends and determinants of women''s employment in Eastern Europe, and reflecting critically on theoretical approaches in social and labour market research.

This pivotal study of the relationship between the current labour market and future pensions explores the ways in which public policies relating to education, employment and welfare work to sustain a decent living standard during retirement. Using a diverse range of comparative studies across a multitude of countries and nation-specific case studies, chapters consider the influence of institutions and social, cultural and economic norms on public pensions and retirement saving behaviours in young adults.

Providing a valuable insight into contemporary research findings, this innovative book will be essential reading for students and scholars in the areas of welfare states, labour economics, pensions and the sociology of youth. Policymakers in these fields will also benefit from its analysis of sustainable pension policy development.

Examining the early retirement trend virtually all modern societies have been faced with since the onset of the globalization process in the 1970s and 1980s, this book provides a thorough analysis of older workers’ late careers and their retirement transitions, as well as explaining why this trend has developed differently between nations. To promote an effective reversal of the early retirement trend, national policymakers are advised not to concentrate their efforts exclusively on reducing the financial incentives for an early exit still present in most national pension systems. In addition, it is also recommended that they invest in the employability of older workers, implying a thorough reconsideration of the design of education and labor market policies.

Dirk Hofäcker presents a unique and comprehensive synthesis of theories describing and explaining the trend towards early retirement, and critically discusses their comparative advantages and shortcomings. Researchers and students of sociology, economics, gerontology, demography and comparative welfare states should not be without this book and policymakers and practitioners dealing with labor market policies will find it invaluable.