Dualization, stratification, liberalization, or what? : An attempt to clarify the conceptual underpinnings of the dualization debate

Abstract

Despite its many contributions, a central problem in the dualization debate is conceptual overstretching, as we will argue in this short comment. The term “dualization” has been used to describe different processes, which are often subsumed under this heading: the rise of atypical employment, increasing labor market stratification in general, or the partial deregulation of welfare state policies and institutions. This multitude of usages weakens the utility of dualization as a theoretical concept. In the next section, we briefly look at the evolution of the dualization debate on the micro level before we proceed to the macro level. In the concluding section, we speculate about the future of dualization as a concept for describing welfare state transformations.