ABSTRACT
Social risks are likely events related to social actions that imply individual losses of calculable probability if they occur and gains if they do not occur. Risks related to the labour market were shared among men and governed by the state or trade unions organized as industrial risk communities. The impact of the escalating risks associated with human capital investment returns is twofold and ambiguous. On one hand, it feeds the tendency toward credentialing that leads to overinvestment in formal education or training. On the other, it encourages risk aversion that leads to underinvestment in education or training, especially in relation to low-skilled and older employees with only short-term employment prospects. In terms of governance, parental risk-sharing as social insurance would have the advantage of reducing the fragmented, non-transparent and often contradictory childcare subsidies that have mushroomed over the decades. Daniel Bernoulli, one of the founders of probability theory and risk management, gives us a clue.
