ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to investigate patterns of labor market exits in the late phase of men's employment careers in Spain. Different authors have suggested that the globalization process has fostered deep transformations in the production systems and in the labor markets of OECD countries in the last decades (Castells 1996; Standing 1999; Soskice 1999). Central to this interpretation are two ideas: first, national firms have become more exposed to international competition due to the growing interconnectedness of financial, goods, and service markets; second, the global diffusion of information and communication technologies has enabled changes in production and organization strategies of firms. Following the theoretical framework put forward in the introduction of this volume, we interpret the globalization process as one of the underlying engines of the shift towards a knowledge-based economy and the parallel decrease in manufacturing employment (Burton-Jones 1999; Alderson 1997; Saeger 1997).
