Working to get fired? Unemployment benefits and employment duration

In many countries, jobseekers are entitled to unemployment benefits (UBs) only if they have previously worked a minimum period of time. This institutional feature creates a sharp change in the disutility from unemployment at UB eligibility and may distort the duration of jobs. In this paper, we evaluate this eligibility effect using a regression discontinuity approach. Our evidence is based on longitudinal social security data from Portugal, where jobseekers are required to work a relatively long period to collect UBs. We find that monthly transitions from employment to unemployment increase by 10% as soon as the eligibility condition is met. This result is driven entirely by transitions to subsidised unemployment, which increase by 20%, as non-subsidised unemployment is not affected. The effects are even larger for the unemployed with high UB replacement ratios or those who meet the eligibility condition from multiple short employment spells. These transitions deserve greater attention from UB agencies and public employment services.     

Leader-employee congruence of expected contributions in the employee-organization relationship

Employees' expected contributions can be incongruent with those of their leader. We examine the congruence effect of leaders' and employees' expected contributions on job satisfaction. Results of cross-level polynomial regressions on 947 employees and 224 leaders support the congruence effect. When expected contributions are congruent, employees are more satisfied with their job. Our findings suggest that employees enjoy high challenges, as long as these challenges are in harmony with the expected contributions of their leaders. Employees are less satisfied with their jobs both when their expected contributions were higher than their leaders' and when their expected contributions were lower than those of their leaders. Beyond the relevance of having high expected contributions, the findings highlight the crucial role played by the congruence of expected contributions of leaders and employees.     

Making the Technological Transition – Citizens' Encounters with Digital Pension Services

We examine in this article the impact of digitization on the provision of public services by studying how citizens experience the use of web portals in their pension planning. Based on focus groups and user test material, we elucidate five critical phases that each operate as an obstacle for citizens' further engagement in the digital self‐service process: interest, access, comprehension, reflection and support. We argue that these phases and the obstacles they entail illustrate a transition away from a situation in which control and agency over the quality of public services is embedded in a dyadic relationship between citizens and frontline personnel, and to a situation characterized by more complex relations between citizens, the front line, and the digital infrastructure. We argue that this transition implies that citizens are required to possess a new type of competence that contains both financial and digital skills. Citizens who are unable to develop or acquire such competence are likely to be disadvantaged by the services. Lastly, we argue that these developments pose significant challenges for public administrations to ensure the overall quality of the public services.     

When Social Partners Unite – Explaining Continuity and Change in Austrian and Dutch Labour Market Governance

Why do Austria and the Netherlands, two highly corporatist, coordinated, consensual countries diverge with respect to the involvement of social partners in their Public Employment Service? By comparing and contrasting the competing predictions of the power‐resource, employer‐centred and social partnership approaches, we identify a key omitted variable that can explain the observed variations: the ability of the social partners to unite on reform positions. We demonstrate that when the social partners are divided, their collective power is reduced and partisan‐based policy outcomes become more pronounced. In turn, when the social partners jointly favour a particular outcome, their collective power increases and they can override governmental reform plans, even if the government holds a large legislative majority. These findings highlight the causal importance of power relations between and within the social partners for institutional continuity and change.     

赤峰籍“90后”大学毕业生就业地选择调查研究

本文通过调查问卷及访谈的方式,获取了赤峰籍90年代出生的大学毕业生就业地选择的相关信息,通过对信息数据的整理和分析,分析得出影响其选择的因素。最终提出具有吸引力的地区就业、创业政策方面的建议,引导赤峰籍大学毕业生转变就业观念,合理择业和就业。     

Going to work without educational qualifications: school-to-work transitions of early school leavers in Belgium

ABSTRACT

Risks of exclusion can occur in multiple forms and start early in life. Early school leavers are especially at risk of social exclusion as this is strongly related to turbulent school-to-work-transitions. These young people often find themselves in low-qualified work or unemployment. In this article, we explore the labour market experiences of early school leavers in Flanders, Belgium. In total, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with nine early school leavers and analysed following a grounded theory approach. Our results demonstrate the difficulties early school leavers encounter in their transitions from school to work and their precarious situation in the labour market. Of particular relevance are the insights gained in revealing the perspectives of young people on the importance of educational qualifications, work experience and participation in the labour market, as well as the strategies they develop to enter the labour market without educational qualifications.     

Understanding labour processes in global production networks: a case study of the football industry in Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Over the last few decades, the changing nature of global production and distribution processes has raised a number of critical questions regarding work and employment relations. Presenting a qualitative case study of the football industry in Pakistan as an example of the general mechanism of the social relations of re/production in a global system of industrial organization, this research highlights how and under what conditions informal workers are embedded in extended global production networks. By drawing on the integrated conceptual framework of the global production network (GPN) and labour process theory (LPT), this research sheds light on the working conditions and living realities of informal workers. A potential contribution of this paper is to extend the horizon of production network theory by analysing the work and employment conditions of informal workers, which are absent in existing discussions of these conceptual frameworks.     

“Me,the street,and a backpack”: employment,income, and physical capital in rural recovery

ABSTRACT

Recovery capital is a framework for understanding individuals’ resources for recovery from substance misuse. In a qualitative analysis of rural individuals in recovery (N = 49), the role of physical capital emerged prominently across ten focus groups. Participants highlighted the effects of employment status, income, and other forms of physical capital directly, as well as indirect effects through changes in human capital. Negative cultural capital components, in the form of stigma and employment discrimination, were described as barriers to physical capital acquisition and successful recovery. Based on these findings, we discuss rural recovery challenges and propose a model of recovery capital interactions.     

税收激励与企业劳动雇佣——来自薪酬抵税政策的“准自然实验”

在经济下行压力不断加大的形势下,如何“稳就业”成为了各界关注的热点问题。本文以2008 年推行的薪酬抵税政策作为“准自然实验”捕捉企业税负的外生变化,并以2000-2018 年A 股上市公司数据作为研究样本,利用双重差分法考察了税收激励与企业雇佣行为之间的因果关系。实证结果表明:薪酬抵税政策带来了额外的税收优惠,进而促进了企业的雇佣需求,在有效排除共同趋势、预期效应、政策叠加效应以及反向因果问题后,这一结论依然稳健;异质性检验中发现,薪酬抵税政策对企业雇佣的激励效应在民营企业,成本转嫁能力较弱、劳动密集度较高以及处于市场化程度较高区域的企业中表现更加明显,这意味着企业对劳动力成本的变化越敏感,这一政策的作用效果就越好;薪酬抵税政策显著地提升了企业的经营绩效。本文的研究有助于深入理解税收影响企业行为的微观机理,对于政府利用税收政策扩大就业具有重要启示。