In recent years, changes occurring on the European labour market have radically questioned paid labour, a basic principle that has been applicable since the 18th century in European societies. The transformations in paid labour, commonly referred to in terms such as restructuring, globalisation, flexibilisation, deregulation, precarisation, individualisation, etc. is not restricted merely to its structure, form, venue, and extent; the radical change of "material" labour went hand in hand with radical alterations of its concepts and significance for the social, political, cultural order of industrial societies. This paper intends to highlight several aspects of paid labour, its ethnocentrist, nationalistic, and sexist concepts as well as the significance of the "paid labour" paradigm for political culture within the global context.

Numerous research projects and publications in the field of social, labour-market, migration, and gender policies, as well as emigration from Austria (ed. jointly with Traude Horvath), Vienna 1996;

FeMale: Geschlechterkonstruktionen in der Sozialpolitik. Das Beispiel der Lohnarbeitsmarkt- und Sozialpolitikformierung in Österreich im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, in: Kreisky, E.,B.Sauer (ed.): Das geheime Glossar der Politikwissenschaft, Frankfurt 1997;

Dilemmas der Sozialpolitik, Feministische Betrachtungen über Sozialstaat und Sozialstaatlichkeit, in Kreisky E., B. Sauer (ed); Geschlecht und Eigensinn, Vienna 1998.