Social Exclusion and Labour Market Challenges in the Western Balkans

This edited volume focuses on the issue of social cohesion and explores the ways in which a lack of appropriate skills emanating from the weaknesses of the education systems in the Western Balkan region underpins high levels of structural unemployment and migration. It examines how states have sought to offer social protection to those excluded, based on high rates of employee social contributions, inadvertently creating adverse incentives to labour market participation. It also provides a detailed introduction to the main conclusions of the various contributions gathered here, and an overview of the lessons learned, which will be of direct interest to policy makers and practitioners in the field of social cohesion in the Western Balkans.

The chapters of this book, presented at a conference of the LSEE Research Network on Social Cohesion held in Skopje 2017, comprise the latest research by leading scholars from the region who are part of the network.