Book review: Digitalisation, Immigration and the Welfare State
| DOI | 10.1177/1388262720910544 |
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
| Author | Irena Lipowicz |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
and conflict are currently facing. She puts the discussion beyond the European Union level by
reflecting upon the case law of the ECtHR and the ILO CEACR.
Both books are highly recommended for academic legal scholars and EU and national policy
makers who would like to gain new innovative insights into the concept of solidarity, at EU law
and beyond, as well as understanding of the implications of the relationship between solidarity and
conflict in European social law.
Author biography
Effrosyni Bakirtzi is a Doctoral Fellow at the Joint Research Graduate School on Social Human
Rights of the University of Kassel and the University of Applied Sciences of Fulda in Germany.
She received her degree in law and a postgraduate degree in international legal studies from the
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and a second postgraduate degree in law from the
Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main. She is currently in the final year of her doctoral studies
investigating the interrelationship between social human rights and austerity in Europe. Her
interests include international, European and comparative labour, social security law and human
rights law. E-mail: frosso_ba@hotmail.com
Ma
˚rten Blix (2017), Digitalisation, Immigration and the Welfare State, Cheltenham (UK)
and Northampton (USA): Edward Elgar, 186 pages, ISBN: 9781788974110
Reviewed by: Irena Lipowicz, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyn
´ski University, Warsaw, Poland.
DOI: 10.1177/1388262720910544
This book, by Ma
˚rten Blix, is one of the many books in the New Thinking in Political Economy
series published by Edward Elgar. This series aims to enhance our understanding of the social
world by encouraging a ‘multidisciplinary approach to the challenges confronting society in the
new century’. The book is a perfect example of such an approach. Both digitalisation and high
immigration rates are major concerns for the contemporary welfare state and its development,
although they present different kinds of issues. The majority of immigrants (in the case of Sweden
discussed in this book) possess rather low skills, whi le digitalisation typically demands more
skilled personnel and, simultaneously, makes the occupations and types of work performed by
less educated and less skilled people redundant. The labour market is changing rapidly, and the
employment status of immigrants is currently much more complicated than it was at the end of the
20th century. This crucial factor for the integration of migrants is, therefore, in danger, resulting in
an increase in the fiscal and political pressure put on the immigrants.
Sweden has one of the most regulated labour markets in the world. Refugees and other immi-
grants find it difficult to obtain employment due to their generally lower skill level and education
compared to those who were born and raised in Sweden. Statistically speaking, the difference in
both skill and education levels between them is as high as 30 per cent and it takes 7-9 years for
immigrants to be fully integrated into the Swedish labour market.
Book reviews 91
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