The German Precariat and the Role of Fundamental Security - Is the Unconditional Basic Income a Possible Solution for the Growing Precarity in Germany?

Bernard Gilroy and Julia Günthner ()
Additional contact information
Julia Günthner: Paderborn University

No 109, Working Papers CIE from Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics

Abstract: The international business competition fostered new forms of flexible working and atypical employment. The flexibilization process started during the 1970s and continues to change the labor market and the perception of labor to the present day. As a result, a new class, called the precariat, is establishing which can be characterized by insecure employment and living. Precarity resulting from fixed-term, short-term, part-time or temporary employment can concern everyone and has negative consequences on society, economy and health. In parallel to the development of precarity, a possibility of basic security in the form of the Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) is discussed globally. However, the particular situation in Germany, regarding the precariat and the UBI as a possible solution has not been outlined yet. Although, UBI implementation models have been proposed for Germany, there is no analysis in the current literature that would show the effect of the UBI on the German precariat. Applying a modern macroeconomic analysis within the scope of the jobless growth argument, the paper investigates the effect of an UBI on goods demand, economic growth, employment level and consequently, the precariat. The paper shows that an implemented UBI as well as labor-related security increase economic growth and can reduce the German precariat. Politicians and employers should be aware of this positive aspect of the UBI and implement policies to reduce labor-related insecurities in order to decrease the growing precarity.

Keywords: Precariat; atypical employment; flexibility; basic income; jobless growth; AS; AD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 E24 E27 H53 I13 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://groups.uni-paderborn.de/wp-wiwi/RePEc/pdf/ciepap/WP109.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pdn:ciepap:109

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers CIE from Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by WP-WiWi-Info ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ) and ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).