深圳特区三资企业劳工问题的调查

本文通过对15家三资企业和230多名员工的调查,对深圳特区劳动管理体制的改革情况,进行了简要的总结和分析。既肯定了改革的成绩和经验,也指出了目前存在的问题和外商对特区劳工问题的意见。在此基础上提出了建议,以使改革深化、完善、配套,更好地适应外商投资的需要,优化投资环境,促进特区外向型经济的发展。     

试论我国农村剩余劳动力的迁移聚集与小城镇发展

本文阐述了我国二元经济结构直接向一元结构转变模式的不适用性,分析了影响我国农村剩余劳动力转移的两大因素:土地问题(土地流转制度及土地产权制度改革)和户籍制度问题,并进一步提出了解决问题的新思路。     

Some Notes on Workplace Equality Renewal in the Swedish Labour Market

In 2001, Swedish authorities imposed a new obligation upon all firms with ten or more employees to undertake annual wage surveys, ‘workplace equality audits’ in which it is possible to ascertain, remedy and prevent unwarranted wage differentials and other unfair employment terms between men and women. An important implication of the new system, called ‘workplace equality renewal’ (självsanering), is that, at the level of the firm all Swedish employers must explain what they mean by work of ‘equal value’ as opposed to ‘different value’. This article discusses the practical pros and cons of the new system, and considers how the surveys can be used in research into the present state of gendered work division. A main finding is that the introduction of this new legislation in the long run might change the Swedish industrial relations system as well as the preconditions for many companies’ human resource management policies. Yet, neither the governmental agencies involved nor the parties’ confederate organizations have been able to clarify what the issue is really about to the single, small business employer or to the local trade union branches. Many employers find any interference, whatever it may be, threatening and trade unions have not realized the potentialities of the system from an employee perspective, potentialities connected to the fact that companies are now more or less forced to make transparent their wage policies at large.     

The labour market flexibility debate in India: Re‐examining the case for signing voluntary contracts

A major focus of India's ongoing policy debate over labour market flexibilization has been the statutory requirement that firms employing 100 or more workers cannot dismiss employees without prior government permission. The case for repealing that requirement (or greatly increasing the workforce threshold) is notably underpinned by Basu, Fields and Debgupta (2009). Here, the author challenges their particular theoretical argument for hiring and firing at will based on the voluntary signing of contracts, demonstrating that their general policy conclusion is logically unsustainable even within the framework of that model. The case for labour market flexibilization through voluntary contracting thus remains unfounded.     

Thank God you're here: the coming generation and their role in future‐proofing Australia from the challenges of population ageing

Like much of the industrialised world, Australia's population is ageing, the implications of which are twofold: increasing demand for publicly funded services and a decline in the supply of prime working‐age people. In grappling with the challenges of a diminishing workforce, the Australian Government is currently relying on its migration programs to provide both the much‐needed labour and skills for the resource boom and also to stimulate the economy through population growth. However, there may be another, not yet fully considered solution to the upcoming demographic problem. This paper investigates how the grandchildren of the baby boomers, termed here the Thank God You're Here generation (Gen TGYH), might impact on Australia's predicted workforce shortage. This generation of workers will enter the labour force as the last of the baby boomers reach retirement age, and will not only be bigger in size than preceding generations (Y, X and Baby Boomers), but also potentially be better educated than the retiring generation. This paper will also canvas the opportunities for both Gen TGYH and employers as well as the challenges for policymakers and governments in maximising the opportunity provided by this generation in the Australian economy.     

Cash Transfers and Children's Education and Labour among Malawi's Poor

This article examines the impact on children's education and labour of monthly cash grants targeted on ultra‐poor households and designed to reduce poverty and enable families to invest in human development. It conducts a randomised community trial, with baseline and endline surveys of intervention and control households; verifies school enrolment; and completes key‐informant interviews and focus‐group discussions. Compared with non‐beneficiaries, intervention children experienced a 5 percentage point difference in enrolment, higher educational expenditures, fewer absences, and a 10 percentage point decrease in labour outside the home. Qualitative data confirm the quantitative findings. Transfers to poor households had a positive impact. However, the Malawian educational system needs to be improved for short‐term impacts to lead to long‐term development in human capital.     

Global employment and decent jobs, 2010–2030: The forces of demography and automation

Globally, an estimated 734 million jobs will be required between 2010 and 2030 to accommodate recent and ongoing demographic shifts, account for plausible changes in labour force participation rates, and achieve target unemployment rates of at or below 4 per cent for adults and at or below 8 per cent for youth. The facts that most new jobs will be required in countries where “decent” jobs are less prevalent and workers in many occupations are increasingly subject to risks of automation further compound the challenge of job creation, which is already quite sizable in historical perspective. Failure to create the jobs that are needed through 2030 would put currently operative social security systems under pressure and undermine efforts to guarantee the national social protection floors enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).     

Marriage and gender inequality: work–family arrangements of Portuguese and British highly qualified women

This article examines work–family reconciliation processes in order to understand if, over the course of marital life, women become socially closer or further away from their partner. Drawing on work–life interviews with highly qualified women in Portugal and Britain, we compare these processes in two societies with different historical and social backgrounds. Findings reveal three main configurations of social (in)equality which emerge during married life: growing inequality in favour of the man, in favour of the woman or equality between spouses. With due attention to the importance of national specific factors, we present three main conclusions. First, (in) equality is built up over the course of marital life and female strategies for reconciling family and work are at the core of this process. Second, the national specificities can mould the effects of cross-national gender mechanisms. Third, the intersection between cross-cultural phenomena such as conservative attitudes towards domestic work and national specificities (such as the availability of part-time options) is a rather complex process which needs further research.     

Technical and vocational education and training in Uganda: A critical analysis

This article undertakes a diagnostic study of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sub‐sector in Uganda, with a view to characterizing the sub‐sector and identifying its potential strengths and weakness. We undertook a cross‐sectional pre‐survey of purposively selected key stakeholders in the TVET sub‐sector. We selected performance indicators following their importance in influencing the TVET reform process. Both qualitative and quantitative data was solicited from the stakeholders. Quantitative data was collected through stakeholder‐specific structured questionnaires, whilst qualitative data was collected through desk review and field visits, individual focused interviews and focus group discussions. Our findings indicate that financing and planning constraints have resulted in poor quality equipment, under‐ and ill‐trained staff, limited adoption of a competence‐based education and training (CBET) curriculum, not to mention the supervision inadequacies of TVET institutions. Besides, the limited TVET sub‐sector interaction with the private sector has incapacitated TVET curriculum development to nurture skills demanded by the private sector. Furthermore, backward technology use in the private sector has equally inhibited the success of student attachment programmes. Finally, legal ambiguities have perpetuated a qualification jungle and overlapping curricula.     

Information and communication technology adoption in micro and small firms: Can internet access improve labour productivity?

The rapid spread of information and communication technologies (ICT) may increase firms’ productivity with important consequences for job creation and for economic growth. This article contributes to this discussion by analysing the impact of internet adoption on labour productivity and the mechanisms shaping this relationship in Peruvian micro and small manufacturing firms over the period 2011–2013. The article estimates a reduced form where labour productivity is a function of internet adoption and other explanatory factors. Internet adoption is instrumented using a measure of the availability of financial opportunities for micro and small firms in Peru. Findings indicate that internet adoption: (a) increases firms’ labour productivity; (b) reallocates employment away from temporary administrative workers and non‐remunerated workers and expands employment of permanent production workers; (c) leads to the formalization of labour relationships, to the implementation of new organizational practices and to the improvement of training measures. While changes in employment and formalization of workers are linked to labour productivity gains, increases in training measures and organizational changes do not generate any additional productivity increase. Policies oriented to promote the adoption of ICT in micro and small firms can be beneficial to close the productivity gap with larger firms in Peru. Moreover, policies directed to the formalization of the workforce can provide an extra benefit, i.e. additional labour productivity gains in firms adopting the internet. Finally, policies oriented to the development of digital skills are also important to ease the re‐employment of those workers losing their jobs and the achievement of additional productivity gains that new organizational practices can provide.