Dual Labor Markets

Abstract

The concept of dual labor markets (DLM) was developed by institutionalist economists critical of dominant economic analyses of labor market inequalities, then fed into economic sociology. Against neoclassical economic models of the allocation of workers across a spectrum of jobs according to individual skills and preferences, DLM emphasized that management decisions and organizational structures distinguished different categories of workers and generated an enduring division between primary and secondary segments governed by distinctive logics. Many white male workers were favored for “primary” jobs with organizational job ladders, which offered training, promotion, pay gains, and job security within “internal labor markets” governed by organizational rules. Meanwhile women, minority ethnic groups, and migrants usually had access to insecure, low‐paid jobs without internal training or promotion prospects, so were confined to external labor markets constituted by these “secondary” jobs.