The impact of early life-course transitions on equality at work and home

This paper investigates two aspects of the paid employment relationship between female and male partners aged 23. It is argued that in order to understand women's position in the home and the labour market it is necessary to consider employment relationships in the context of the household. The impact of children on women's labour force participation is already well known and in this paper we show that marriage also has an independent effect on hours worked. The second aspect of the paper concerns the relative financial contribution of each partner to the family income from their labour market earnings. It is recognised that power and equality within the home are to some extent derived from the relative contribution of partners to the family income. It is shown that women are economically dependent on men even in the early stages of their partnership before children and that this dependence is greater among women with children.     

The globalization of production,national labour regulations and income inequality in the global North and South, 1980–2013

A central concern over global value chains (GVCs) is whether the integration of national firms into GVCs exacerbates income inequality within countries. However, despite decades of research, the distributional consequences of GVCs remain unclear in the empirical literature. Drawing on panel data from 96 countries between 1980 and 2013, we examine the effects of GVC integration on market income inequality and whether national labour regulations moderate these effects. We find integration increases inequality in the global North and South. More importantly, we find labour regulations amplify the inequality effects of integration in Southern countries by expanding the size of the informal sector while suppressing these effects in Northern countries by promoting unionization. This suggests institutional power from national labour regulations may enhance the bargaining power of labour in the North through increasing collective resources while disempowering labour in the South through reinforcing labour market segmentation between formal and informal sectors.     

More but not better jobs in Chile? The fundamental importance of open‐ended contracts

Chilean governments since 1990 have relied on economic growth to generate employment, higher wages and better conditions of employment. But the results of this policy have been mixed: quantitative improvements in employment and wages have not been matched by improvements in job quality. Contrasting Chile's seemingly rigid regulatory framework with its actual labour market flexibility, the authors stress the importance of employment conditions in assessing labour market performance. They empirically explore the effects of individual and job characteristics on employment and income‐generating capabilities, whose most powerful determinant, they find, is employment under an open‐ended contract. They conclude with a discussion of policy implications.     

Divergent female part-time employment in Britain and Denmark and the implications for gender equity

This paper examines women's employment in Britain and Denmark, societies characterised similarly by high proportions of female employees working part‐time but by rather different gender arrangements. Part‐time working is associated with female‐carer workers; women who have reduced their hours in the labour market to bring up children and are able to do this because of the presence of an alternative source of income—usually a male breadwinner. Yet Denmark has been conceptualised as having more of ‘dual‐breadwinner’ gender arrangement than Britain. It would seem then, that part‐time working is distinctly different in these two societies. Examining this question, the paper concludes that extensive part‐time working for women, and not men, does indeed tend to reinforce a traditional male‐breadwinner model. However, the strength of this reinforcement varies, depending on the relative conditions of the part‐time labour market. These conditions vary substantially cross‐nationally and can also change rapidly within one society over time. As a result, the typical ‘role’ a part‐time job plays for women can also vary cross‐nationally and can change over time.     

The (unexpected) structure of “rents” on the French and British labour markets

This paper considers the allocation of labour on the French and British markets, using objective wage and subjective satisfaction data. We show that, in some sectors, workers enjoy both higher wages and higher job satisfaction. We argue that this reflects labour market wage rents. Perhaps surprisingly, wage rents are typical of the British public sector and permanent contracts, but not of their French counterparts. In France, such rents are found in full-time, rather than part-time jobs. Hence, the data provide little support for the usual a priori that the French labour market is structured along insider–outsider model lines, whereby wage rents are captured by the insiders of the public sector to the detriment of the private sector. However, they do suggest that part-time employment is involuntary to a far greater extent in France than in Great Britain.     

EU-Mediterranean youths in the crisis: substitution vs. income effect

The economic crisis that erupted in 2008 has had particularly adverse effects on the youth labour market outcomes in the European Union Mediterranean economies. So far little evidence is available on the reaction of the young to the adverse conditions their household members faced due to the crisis. Youths could have decided to prolong or stay in education instead of participating on the labour market (substitution effect) or they could have decided to increase their participation (income effect). By using the EU Labour Force Survey data, we explore the probability of young adults changing their labour market status from (i) inactivity to employment, (ii) inactivity to unemployment, (iii) employment to education, and (iv) unemployment to education in response to labour market outcome changes in their households: (i) both parents losing the job; (ii) one of the parents losing the job, (iii) both parents becoming inactive, (iv) one of the parents becoming inactive, and (v) both parents remaining unemployed. Estimated probit models include seven EU Mediterranean countries during the 2006–2015 period. Results support both income and substitution effect, without clear identification of the dominance of one effect over the other.     

Intermittent labour forms in U.K. agriculture: Some implications for rural areas

Intermittent labour forms — generally conceived as ‘seasonal or casual workers’, but also including labour supplied by agricultural contractors or, under cooperative arrangements, by neighbours or family members — are an established and increasingly important part of the U.K. agricultural labour market. Unfortunately, relatively little is known about either the precise level or the detailed character of such labour. Although the MAFF June Census does collect data on ‘seasonal or casual’ workers it is limited in both its scale and depth of coverage. In this paper, the results of a survey of intermittent labour forms on farms in part of north Wales and the north and south west Midlands are discussed. In general, it is shown that the true extent of intermittent employment is almost certainly much greater — perhaps by a factor of five or more — than the MAFF Census figures would imply. From the survey data it is demonstrated that farms across the range of product and size structures make extensive use of both directly-recruited and indirectly-recruited (contract) labour. More specifically, a restructuring process and the substitution of such labour forms for regular labour is evident.Having considered the level and character of intermittent employment in modern agriculture the paper goes on to consider some of the implications for rural economies. In general it is argued that the use of intermittent labour has almost certainly precipitated some radical changes in the organisation of the farm labour force and in the ability of farmers or growers to service their own needs from within. Moreover, the restructuring process has served to erode the viability of the rural economic and social structure by replacing stable job opportunities with alternatives that offer only a marginal form of job experience and limited income and which cannot in isolation support rural communities.     

Redistribution and labour supply

This paper explores the effect of personal income taxes on redistribution when labour supply reactions are taken into consideration. The results indicate that the classical non-behavioural results on redistribution are not necessarily satisfied in a more general behavioural framework. In this respect, it is shown that the relevant transition to measure redistribution is not the transition from the initial post-tax to the final post-tax income distribution, but rather from the more precise initial pre-tax to the final post-tax income distribution. In addition, the necessary and sufficient conditions to ensure redistribution in this wider setting are postulated, which helps determine the behavioural bias under alternative tax and labour supply models. This shows that the functional specification of labour supply may also affect the results.     

Reinforcement and erosion of traditional gender roles among young people in a poor metropolitan area of Turkey

This paper aims to contribute to the existing studies on the young women’s transition to adulthood in the case of Turkish women’s exclusion from the labour market. The issue is discussed largely within the boundaries of traditional gender restrictions that keep women out of employment. Herein, we argue that the gender-based control of young women, perceived as the reason for their exclusion from the labour market, may be used by disadvantaged women as a way of avoiding difficult and unfavourable employment situations. Similarly, the gender roles imposed on men could also not be fulfilled due to the same restrictive labour market conditions. Furthermore, we suggest that the poverty simultaneously strengthens and erodes the very base of the traditional gender structure for both young women and young men, while forcing the young women out of employment and the young men to the unstable working conditions. This argument is based on a study conducted in Alt?nda?, Ankara with a sample of 279 females and 340 males aged between 15 and 24. A mixed methodology, comprising a survey questionnaire followed by 60 in-depth interviews and 4 focus group discussions, was employed for this study.     

‘I Can't Put a Smiley Face On’: Working‐Class Masculinity,Emotional Labour and Service Work in the ‘New Economy’

The growth of the ‘service economy’ has coincided with the large‐scale detachment from the labour market of low‐skilled men. Yet little research has explored exactly what it is about service work that is leading such men to drop out of the labour market during periods of sustained service sector employment growth. Based on interviews with 35 unemployed low‐skilled men, this article explores the men's attitudes to entry‐level service work and suggests that such work requires skills, dispositions and demeanours that are antithetical to the masculine working‐class habitus. This antipathy is manifest in a reluctance to engage in emotional labour and appear deferential in the service encounter and in the rejection of many forms of low‐skilled service work as a future source of employment.     

Day Labourers' Work Related Injuries: An Assessment of Risks,Choices, and Policies

Literature and theory surrounding the informal economy in international contexts suggest that informal work arrangements may entail assuming various levels of risk, and that the higher the level of risk in an employment arrangement, the higher the premium paid to the worker. This study is designed to assess if a wage compensation for risk exists within the United States' day labour job market ‐ the most visible sector of the United States' informal economy. Using data from the 2005 National Day Labour Survey we find a statistically significant wage premium indicating that a risk‐wage tradeoff within the day labour informal economy exists. Ultimately, we argue that current policy interventions facilitated through day labour centres into the day labour market appear to be effective in mitigating the risks associated with this type of employment.

• Evidence of a risk‐wage premium in the day labour market suggests there is an incentive to assume higher levels of risk in work arrangements which presents significant concerns for worker safety.
• Higher levels of work related risks assumed by day labourers, may be minimized if they receive proper safety training through a formal venue such as a worker centre.
• Worker centres only serve 20 per cent of all day labourers in the United States, suggesting a need for the establishment of additional worker centres in other connected or industry based work sites, to help mitigate potential work related risks and injuries in the day labour market.

     

Income taxation and the allocation of market labor

The allocation of work effort within the market economy will be unaffected by taxation if all returns from labor market activity are taxed equally. However, if the earnings from certain types of market employment are taxed at relatively lower rates, labor will shift into these areas until after-tax earnings are equal across all types of employment. This paper presents evidence suggesting that income taxation induces labor to move from high- to low-tax geographic areas and from wage and salaried jobs into self-employment activities. By affecting the allocation of market labor, the income tax generates a welfare loss in addition to that resulting from the tax’s effect on total work effort.     

Shadow employment in post-transition—Is informal employment a matter of choice or no choice in Poland?

According to a dualistic view, shadow employment may follow from two main labour market failures: (i) official market labour taxation distortions make it ineffective for some agents to engage in registered employment due to a tax wedge; or (ii) for some workers regular employment may be unattainable do to some high access costs or demand constraints, which results in seeking earning opportunities beyond the boundaries of the official labour market. Whereas in the first case revenues from unofficial employment should be higher than the corresponding official ones (tax evasion hypothesis), in the alternative explanation labour market tightness seems to be an underlying reason (market segmentation hypothesis).We use a unique data set from a survey on undeclared employment from Poland. Using propensity score matching and decomposition techniques we demonstrate that workers of shadow economy are characterised by slightly higher endowments, while their revenues are considerably lower than among matched official economy counterparts. Although unobservable heterogeneity is considerable, results are robust. Although this is not direct evidence, we believe these results point to the labour market segmentation hypothesis and endangerment with social exclusion.     

The Production of Difference and Maintenance of Inequality: The Place of Young Goan Men in a Post‐Crisis UK Labour Market

This article examines the ways in which young migrant men are constructed as potential employees in a British town where service sector employment, often on a casual or precarious basis, dominates the bottom end of the labour market. Low‐wage jobs in many British towns are now constructed as feminized, low waged and demanding personal skills of empathy and servility. In this context, young men, and especially young men of colour, including recent in‐migrants, are at a disadvantage, constructed by employers, agencies, co‐workers and customers as less eligible workers than ‘locals’. We use the experiences of young men from Goa as a lens though which to trace the ways in which expectations and experiences when looking for employment produce a hierarchical division of labour in precarious jobs at the bottom end of the service sector.     

Entering the Twilight Zone: The Local Complexities of Pay and Employment Equity in New Zealand

This article introduces the recent pay and employment equity situation in the New Zealand state sector through a discussion of research carried out for a Pay and Employment Equity Taskforce. It investigates the twilight zone of pay and employment equity — the murky situations where pay and employment equity programmes already exist, but progress for senior women has stalled for no obvious reasons. Qualitative research is necessary to make sense of these complex situations and to complement labour‐market level studies. The example used is a study of teachers in New Zealand schools, where a range of complex reasons, including lack of support, gendered job designs and intense workloads, creates a bottleneck for women at senior levels. The authors argue that highly decentralized human resources practices work against progress in equal employment opportunity in the state sector.     

Employment Conditions in the Senegalese Horticultural Export Industry: A Worker Perspective

The rapid transformation of the agri‐food sector in developing countries has created rural off‐farm employment opportunities, especially for women. There is growing concern about worker welfare and employment conditions in agri‐food and export sectors, but empirical evidence on this issue is scant. We analyse contractual preferences of female workers in the horticultural export sector in Senegal. We use a discrete choice experiment to assess women's preferences for a labour contract and employ a latent class model to capture preference heterogeneity. We find that women have a high willingness to accept a labour contract in the horticultural export industry, and that differences in preferences for contract attributes can be explained by women's empowerment status.     

Economic Penalties and Rewards of Family Formation,Gender and Education in the Low‐income Sector in Germany1

This article examines the differential effects of changes in family formations on men's and women's economic vulnerability. The motivating question is whether investments in education provide sufficient resources to escape the risk of poverty in the low‐income sector or if changes in household characteristics are more important determinants of one's living standard. Changes in household characteristics are defined in terms of partners' entry into and exit from households and partners' different labour market profiles. The analysis focuses on households in the low‐income sector in Germany, a population that is at high risk of poverty in a social welfare state that is expected to mitigate the effects of changes in family formation independent of gender. Findings from panel regression analysis demonstrate that women, in contrast to men, benefit economically as much as or more from investing in traditional family formations than in their own labour market position. This is especially the case for women with lower levels of education.     

Disabled people, the reserve army of labour and welfare reform

This paper is concerned with explaining why in contemporary society there has been a number of changes to income maintenance and labour market policy for disabled people. Taking a regulation approach theoretical framework it engages with the debate about whether disabled people can be considered to be part of the reserve army of labour. Rejecting previous broad-brush approaches that seem to suggest that all disabled people are part of the reserve army, it argues that the policy changes have been aimed at reconstructing non-employed disabled people as an important part of the reserve army in a period when labour markets are becoming tighter. In this sense disabled people are crucial to New Labour's regulation of neo-liberal accumulation that is structured through a contradiction between economic stability and increasing participation in paid employment.     

Equality Management – Towards a Materialist Approach

Attempts to redefine equality initiatives to fit squarely within the enterprise culture serve only to mask an ongoing conceptual confusion in the area of equality management. This theoretical article attempts to show that this conceptual confusion lies within the narrowness of approaches which address labour market inequalities from both an equality of opportunity and an equality of outcome perspective. The inability of these perspectives to satisfactorily address systemic causes of labour market inequalities pulls our attention towards a more materialist approach which may be found (this side of a capitalist/patriarchal society) within an equality of condition frame of reference. This widens the perspective from which equality management can be pursued so that measures to address the differential distribution of resources, rewards, opportunities and treatment in the workplace are informed by all three equalities: opportunity, outcome and conditions. Such a theoretical approach is inevitably limited in that it only provides a framework for addressing those who are in paid employment, i.e. seeks to reform the capitalist/patriarchal system. However, by posing questions of the crucial pillars of such systems notably status, reward and with that power, the ‘long’ and ‘radical’ agendas of the equality project may once again be picked up.