Monitoring flexicurity policies in the EU with dedicated composite indicators

The notion of flexicurity promotes the idea of compensation of labour market deregulation (= flexibilization) with advantages in employment and social security. To monitor effects of flexicurity policies in Europe, flexicurity indices are constructed from (a) scores of the strictness of employment protection legislation provided by the OECD, (b) qualitative juridical data on social security benefits (unemployment insurance, public pensions, etc.), and (c) data on the dynamics of employment types (permanent, temporary, full-time, part-time, self-employed, etc.). The empirical investigation shows that, contrary to political promises and theoretical opinions, the current deregulation of European labour markets is not compensated with improvements in social security.