4 | Erhel & Guergoat-Larivière
hal-00616771, version 1 - 24 Aug 2011
The southern cluster is characterised by a high proportion of early school leavers (Figure 3).
These countries exhibit wide male-female employment gaps (except Portugal) but little
segregation, and narrow gender pay gaps. Their relative performance on education and training
is poor, although Spain does somewhat better in this respect. Southern countries are also
characterised by a relatively high in-work poverty risk and a lack of dialogue between
employers and workers on work organisation.
The continental cluster comes close to the EU average on most of the indicators considered. For
example, the countries in this group have average values for participation in education and
training, the proportion of early school leavers, and the proportion of people who have attained
the ISCED3 level of education. Furthermore, this cluster is characterised by relatively good
performances in terms of wages (through both objective and subjective indicators). High
productivity and significant differences in employment rates between older people and the rest
of the population are also remarkable in this cluster. However, there is also some heterogeneity
within this group of countries. For example, Austria tends to be closer to the northern cluster.
This can be explained by its relatively high participation rates in education and training
compared to those of the other continental countries. Slovenia falls in the continental cluster in
this PCA because of its relatively good performances on employment rates, and education and
training, compared to the other new member states.
Although Ireland and the UK have many common features - such as low rates of long-term and
youth unemployment, limited use of fixed-term contracts and high job satisfaction - they do not
belong to the same group. This is due mainly to their markedly different performances on
education and training: the United Kingdom is characterised by a high rate of participation in
training, at 26.6%, as against only 7.5% in Ireland.
In the New Member States’ cluster, working conditions are rather poor (long working days,
health at risk because of work) even if the intensity of work is lower than elsewhere in Europe.
Socio-economic security measured through wage levels and perception of “being well paid” or
having “some good prospects for career advancement” is low. Contrary to older member states,
new forms of employment such as part-time work and temporary contracts do not contribute to
explain socio-economic insecurity as they are not very developed in NMS. Rates of
participation in training are low and long-term unemployment is particularly high in some
countries (Poland, Slovakia). New Member States are also characterised by very low levels of
productivity alongside high rates of productivity growth, which is typical of countries engaged
in a catching-up process. Workers in this group of countries are less satisfied than their
counterparts in other countries.
As regards initial education, the performance of the new Member States is very good: they have
a low proportion of early school leavers and a rather high proportion of people who achieve the
ISCED3-level of education. Bulgaria and Romania, however, perform less well on this indicator
than the other countries in the group.