EU Social Policy

Question 1

What does social policy refer to

Answer 1

employment and living conditions (welfare)

Question 2

nations have differing priorities e.g

Answer 2

labour markets
social securtiy
leisure e.g some want more leisure like Germany (42 days), some want more work

Question 3

How is social policy decided

Answer 3

By council of ministers with QMV

Question 4

Treaty of Rome seeked establish

Answer 4

Freedom of movement for workers
Fr

Question 5

overall progress

Answer 5

Little progress, thus lead to the European Social Fund (ESF) 1969

Question 6

European Social Fund

Answer 6

Investing in jobs and skills

Question 7

ESF was initially limiyed to

Answer 7

financial support temporaril unemployed
migrant workers
localised retraining

Question 8

then saw more pprogress with the single european market

Question 9

Economic integration creates winners and losers

Answer 9

some regions lose out to other more compeptitive regions due to competitive effects of the SEM

Question 10

what does the willingness of losers to undertake eco

Question 11

EU founders believed

Answer 11

full harmonisation of social policies was not a necessary component of integration

Question 12

Division of wage

Question 13

states w high prod can pay

Question 14

Non wage benefits examples

Answer 14

Pensions
Flexibility e.g work from home
Health insurance
Right to disconnect - e.g in portugal illegal for firms to contact workers outside woring hours, in France have legal right to ignore emails sent after work hours
Sick pay

Question 15

Effect of non-wage benefits to firms

Answer 15

Increased cost of employing workers.

Assume it increases by ‘T’

Question 16

As the cost of employing increases, what do they do instead

Answer 16

Firms give a lower wage (W1) and employ less

Question 17

As the cost of employing increases, what do they do instead

Answer 17

Firms give a lower wage (W1) and employ less

Question 18

Diagram

Answer 18

Shift downwards (fall) in labour demand

Question 19

2 types of T

Answer 19

Government charges e.g NI contributions

Private chargers e.g giving holiday to workers, or private pension

Question 20

That was close economy.

Open economy

Answer 20

More elastic demand (more responsive to a change in wage) - so more competition between workers

So wages fall below W1 (even lower than closed economy)

Question 21

Diagram

Question 22

open economy productivity gain

Answer 23

ss

Question 24

What explains why some states can pay relatively higih wages and remain competitive

Answer 24

High productvity

Question 25

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Answer 25

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Answer 26

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Answer 27

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Question 28

Return on training requires

Answer 28

Long term relationship between firm and employee

Question 29

German vs UK free market view

Answer 29

thus social policy can be viewed as enhancing produvvtivity and flexible proudction in high value added goods, (german) rather than making countries uncompetitive (by increasing T) (UK)

Question 30

Q

Question 31

QQ

Question 32

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