Employment Context Research Articles

Gender Norms and Gender Equality in Full-Time Employment and Health: A 97-Country Analysis of the World Values Survey.

Gender Norms and Gender Equality in Full-Time Employment and Health: A 97-Country Analysis of the World Values Survey.

Working in hospitality and catering in Greece and the UK: Do trade union membership and collective bargaining still matter?

Existing literature suggests that terms and conditions of employment are universally poor in hospitality and catering. Based on fieldwork comprising more than 70 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in the UK and Greece in 2018 and 2019, this article maps the field in the two countries and discusses the key parameters that structure working conditions, pay determination, and the impact of trade unionism and absence thereof. Poor working conditions and precariousness are prevalent in both contexts as expected, but surprisingly wages and other terms and conditions at least for a significant section of the hospitality workforce are comparatively better in Greece. An explanation for these findings is suggested with reference to the tradition of collective bargaining in hotels in Greece which partially survived the 2008 crisis and the legal reforms that followed. Trade unionism, despite its weakening and discrediting, has left its mark as a tradition contributing to the emergence of formal labour-based initiatives and more broadly to maintaining an openness to collectivism and collective action, more so than in the UK context. This combination of the distinct institutional and sectoral features of the Greek case and worker agency has served to ameliorate the context and content of employment for substantial sections of the hospitality workforce.

Rethinking tourism’s definition, scope and future of sustainable work and employment: editorial for the Journal of Sustainable Tourism special issue on “locating workforce at the heart of sustainable tourism discourse”

This special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism showcases research that addresses an identified gap that is the relative neglect of the sustainability concept in a workforce context. The special issue presents 10 papers, each making a unique and distinct contribution to knowledge. This extended review/editorial presents a critique of current definitions of sustainability in an employment, and specifically in a tourism employment context, acknowledging and critiquing extant literature. The review then moves on to summarising all the submissions to this special issue, uniquely recognising the themes from both submissions as well as accepted papers. These exercises culminate in the presentation of a refreshed conceptualisation of sustainable employment, before we introduce the final selected papers. The submissions are mapped onto a proposed conceptual framework, which recognises the multi-dimensional influences of the evolving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), recent Sustainable Human Resource Management (SHRM) and tourism literature, and the hot-off-the-press contributions to theory of this special issue. Finally, the paper offers concluding remarks that we hope will influence and guide future research endeavours.

Implementation and Management of Workforce Diversity in the Indian Context: Employer and Employee Perspectives

This study focuses on the issue of worlrforce diversity among organizations in India. It analyses the current perspectives, of employees and employers, regarding the need, enforcement, and management of diversity in their respective organizations. The paper tries to cover different employment contexts by studying a Public Sector Unit, an Indian MNC, and a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) organization. The study investigates the seriousness of implementation of Diversity with respect to the seriousness of the perception of the need for Diversity. The study attempts to uncover the purpose of worlrforce diversity, and seeks the answer whether diversity is being implemented by organizations only to pacify the sensibilities of a progressive society or to increase the productivity ofthe Organization.

A narrative review of graduate employability models: their paradigms, and relationships to teaching and curricula

Increasingly governments expect universities to improve graduate employment outcomes. Universities respond by implementing employability strategies in, alongside and outside curricula, with debates ongoing about whether employability is part of the curriculum, why and how. The context and process of employability is commonly framed in neoliberal and human capital paradigms. Some academics are resistant to their university’s employability strategy and programmes often adopt a ‘bolt on’ approach, which is outside the curriculum. At this time, the world is in the midst of multiple crises, linked to sustainability, technology and survival in societies, which are redefining and affecting life and work. With all these tensions in mind, should universities reconsider how they think and act with respect to graduate employability, careers and the world of work? What are the key values of employability paradigms and models, and how do they connect to the curriculum? This paper presents a narrative review of conceptual employability models published in the peer reviewed higher education literature since 2000 with each model positioned on a continuum based on its: (1) paradigm, i.e., underlying beliefs about careers, employability and employment; and (2) relationship to teaching and curricula (i.e., intra-, extra- and/or co-). I observe that most models are focused on the employability of individuals (i.e., career, skills, capabilities) and economic success (i.e., markets, knowledge economy, workforce), with limited consideration of wider contributions to local and global career development through social, ecological or technological lenses. Models with stronger individualistic focus appear to be less connected to teaching and curricula than models that also focus on others. The potential implications of these observations for universities and teaching and learning are discussed.

How Does the Provision of Childcare Services Affect Mothers’ Employment Intentions? Empirical Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment

AbstractNumerous studies have demonstrated that the provision of early childhood education and childcare services (ECEC) is associated with higher women’s participation in the labor market. However, many questions about the causal relationship between the supply of childcare and patterns of female employment remain open. In an effort to overcome common endogeneity problems, we conducted a conjoint experiment in Switzerland, which enables us to analyze mothers’ employment intentions in different – and even in some hypothetical – contexts. Our results demonstrate that improving the provision of ECEC services does affect mothers’ intentions to engage in paid labor. Nevertheless, mothers comprise a heterogeneous group. As expected, ECEC services’ effects are limited for mothers with comparatively high levels of employment. In contrast, mothers with low levels of employment are quite reactive to changing policy contexts, especially if external childcare spots for preschoolers become affordable. Notably, elasticity is present not only in the behavior of women with preferences for supplementary, external childcare, but also in that of women with preferences for parental or home-centered childcare. Our study thus highlights childcare policies’ potential to change the patterns of female employment in contexts marked by persistent traditional gender roles and limited childcare provision.

The Role of Self-Efficacy as a Mediating Variable in CareerEDGE Employability Model: The Context of Undergraduate Employability in the North-East Region of Nigeria

(1) Background: Tertiary institutions are facing increasing pressure to produce employable undergraduates who can drive the sustainability of strong economic growth and development. As such, responsibility lies with the higher education sector in ensuring undergraduates’ readiness for entry to the labor market, thus joining the ranks of those already employable. Thus, this study applied the CareerEDGE model as a theoretical basis to investigate the factors associated with undergraduate employability. The mediating effect of self-efficacy on the predictive relationships was also examined. (2) Methods: Data were collected from a sample of 264 from six universities in the North-East region of Nigeria. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to perform the data analysis in this study. (3) Results: Results revealed that the five constructs of the CareerEDGE model (career development learning; work experience; degree subject knowledge, skills, and understanding; generic skills; and emotional intelligence) are positively associated with undergraduate employability. Self-efficacy was found to mediate this relationship. Altogether, these results signal that the CareerEDGE model contributes to undergraduate employability and that self-efficacy is instrumental in elucidating this relationship. The results add to the extant knowledge on the impact of the CareerEDGE constructs on students’ approaches to careers. (4) Conclusions: The findings have significant implications for higher education institutions and career practitioners in identifying ways of enhancing undergraduates’ career planning strategies within a more challenging labor market context.

Unhoused and unhireable? Examining employment biases in service contexts related to perceived warmth and competence of people experiencing houselessness.

Lack of safe and stable housing is a pernicious and growing social concern, and stereotypes about individuals experiencing houselessness are generally quite negative. Little scholarly work has examined housing insecurity and its associated stereotypes in employment contexts. The purpose of the current research was to examine, in the context of the hospitality industry, whether housing status influences hiring managers' perceptions of hireability (Study 1)and customers' evaluations of an organization and its employees (Study 2) using the stereotype content model. Across two experimental studies, we assessed participant attitudes toward individuals experiencing houselessness. In Study 1, we instructed 148 hotel managers to listen to a hypothetical job interview with either an unhoused or housed job applicant, and then complete measures of hireability. In Study 2, we instructed 139 hotel customers to observe a hypothetical interaction with either an unhoused or housed employee, and then evaluate the employee and the organization. Study 1's findings suggested an indirect effect of housing status on perceived hireability through warmth, and this indirect relationship was moderated by gender. Men who were houseless were rated lower in warmth, and thus lower in hireability, than non-houseless men or women regardless of their housing status. However, houseless men were perceived by customers as warmer than non-houseless men as employees, driving higher evaluations of the organization and the employee (Study 2). Hiring initiatives targeted at providing short-term housing for unhoused employees will benefit employees, employers, and the larger communities they encompass.

Employees’ privacy perceptions: exploring the dimensionality and antecedents of personal data sensitivity and willingness to disclose

AbstractThe processing of employees’ personal data is dramatically increasing, yet there is a lack of tools that allow employees to manage their privacy. In order to develop these tools, one needs to understand what sensitive personal data are and what factors influence employees’ willingness to disclose. Current privacy research, however, lacks such insights, as it has focused on other contexts in recent decades. To fill this research gap, we conducted a cross-sectional survey with 553 employees from Germany. Our survey provides multiple insights into the relationships between perceived data sensitivity and willingness to disclose in the employment context. Among other things, we show that the perceived sensitivity of certain types of data differs substantially from existing studies in other contexts. Moreover, currently used legal and contextual distinctions between different types of data do not accurately reflect the subtleties of employees’ perceptions. Instead, using 62 different data elements, we identified four groups of personal data that better reflect the multi-dimensionality of perceptions. However, previously found common disclosure antecedents in the context of online privacy do not seem to affect them. We further identified three groups of employees that differ in their perceived data sensitivity and willingness to disclose, but neither in their privacy beliefs nor in their demographics. Our findings thus provide employers, policy makers, and researchers with a better understanding of employees’ privacy perceptions and serve as a basis for future targeted research on specific types of personal data and employees.

Mothers and Workers in the Time of COVID-19: Negotiating Motherhood within Smart Working

The article is an autoethnographic account written by three Italian academic researchers and mothers with children of different ages. The authors engage in a reflection starting with their experience as working women committed to the work–family negotiation process while facing the COVID-19 health emergency that has affected the whole world. This article focuses on how we, as middle-class, heterosexual, white mothers working in a privileged employment context during the period of the pandemic lockdown, negotiated the complex mother and worker roles, balancing work and family time while smart working (teleworking from home). We start with a reflection on the use of autoethnography as a research tool and then propose an analysis of work–family balance strategies in an anomalous situation, such as that of the lockdown, highlighting the tensions in gender roles within dual-career families.

3 Temporary workers and COVID‐19: Currents below a calm sea

Chapter 3 provides an overview of the context of temporary employment, including long‐term trends, before considering the experience of temporary work during the COVID‐19 crisis and what may be expected in the recovery phase. All of which have important implications for workers, enterprises and economies. The chapter demonstrates that temporary employment has served as a buffer against the shock caused by the pandemic, as it has done in previous crises. Employers have scaled back the use of temporary workers, causing significant gross job loss among this category of workers. At the same time, many permanent employees who lost their jobs have found new opportunities in temporary employment. The net effect is that the share of temporary workers among all employees has remained fairly constant in countries with available annual data, concealing the significant labour market churn.

The importance of starting well: the influence of early career support on job satisfaction and career intentions in teaching

ABSTRACT Across the UK and internationally high rates of attrition among recently qualified teachers has focused attention on strengthening early career support. Policy attention has shifted from recruitment to the issue of sustainability. While the importance of induction is widely recognised, few studies investigate the components of early career support that new teachers deem most effective and the contextual conditions that support professional growth. This article explores the complex relationship between perceptions of pre-service preparation, school context and induction experience on the continuing learning needs, job satisfaction and career intentions of teachers at the end of their first year post-qualification. The analysis draws on 382 survey responses from teachers undertaking statutory induction in primary and secondary schools in the North West of England and Scotland in 2019. The findings suggest that the quality of initial teacher education is the strongest predictor of continuing development needs at the end of induction. High quality preparation has the potential to sustain new teachers across diverse employment contexts and the many challenges of the early career phase.

Autistic Adults' Experiences of Diagnosis Disclosure.

As autism is an invisible and often stigmatised condition, disclosing the diagnosis may lead to both support and/or discrimination. This mixed-methods questionnaire study examined autistic adults' experiences of disclosure in various contexts. The sample consisted of 393 participants aged 17-83years from two longitudinal surveys. Almost all participants disclosed their diagnosis to someone, most commonly to friends. A significant minority of participants studying and/or working at the time had not disclosed to their education provider/employer. Content analysis of open-ended responses showed participants desired to gain understanding and support from disclosure but feared prejudice. While some received support, others encountered dismissiveness and misunderstanding. Findings highlight the need to improve autism understanding and reduce stigma within and beyond educational and employment contexts.

Migrants' Social Integration and Its Relevance for National Identification: An Empirical Comparison Across Three Social Spheres.

A key element of migrants’ well-being is their emotional integration, that is, the extent to which they perceive themselves as members of society and their identification with the country they are living in. To foster this sense of belonging, many integration programs aim to increase the migrants’ social integration, for example, by organizing events for migrants to meet natives in various settings. The validity of this strategy is supported by decades of international research. It remains unclear, however, which aspects of social integration are most relevant for national identification. Multiple theories concerned with contact and group identification support the assumption that contact to natives should foster a sense of belonging and national identification. However, for a contact situation to bear this potential, a certain set of criteria, including aspects like direct personal contact, a similar social status, and the presence of egalitarian norms, needs to be fulfilled. It is expected that these characteristics are more likely to be fulfilled within family and friendship settings than in contact situations within the employment context. Hence, I expect contact to natives within the network of friends and family to be more greatly associated with migrants’ national identification. I analyzed data from a 2013 cooperation between the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), that is, the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample, as well as the 2014 wave of the SOEP. The subsample used included 2,780 first- and second-generation migrants living in Germany. The results indicate that not all kinds of contact are equally linked to national identification. In contrast to expectations, in neither the cross-sectional models nor the lagged models was living together with native family members significantly linked to national identification. Similarly, the association between having predominantly native co-workers and national identification was insignificant when controlling for migrant-specific characteristics. Only the relation with having predominantly native friends was significant and positive across all models. This as well as a comparison of the associations lead to the conclusion that when it comes to migrants’ national identification native friends might be the most relevant form of contact to natives.

A learning design framework for community resilience: International and transdisciplinary perspectives on a boundary object

To equip graduates to respond to sustainability challenges, higher education institutions are developing programs and innovative pedagogical approaches that target new types of 21st century knowledge and skills. Resilience is a core concept in sustainability discourse, and one that is also driving pedagogical innovation that targets specific learner attributes. We argue that the topic of community resilience – as a theoretical boundary object – presents rich opportunities for transdisciplinary Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). This paper highlights international and cross-disciplinary trends in learning design for community resilience-focused university programs. The results outline the survey responses of 111 educators, researchers, and practitioners from a range of disciplines. One-way analysis of variance showed consistent results across the different groups of participants, regardless of geographic location, disciplinary background, or employment context. The research offers a learning design framework for teaching community resilience in higher education institutions, highlighting the importance of academic—practitioner collaboration in program development, disciplinary expertise to inform transdisciplinary learning, hybridised pedagogical approaches, and fostering student agency through assessment tasks.

Constraining labour: The integration dynamics of working‐class horticultural migrants in rural areas of Norway, the UK and the US

AbstractThis article argues that many low‐wage migrants moving to work in rural areas of the developed world end up in very specific and precarious employment and housing contexts: working in temporary/seasonal jobs within horticultural labour markets and often living in employer‐provided tied accommodation. This context—which we profile by drawing on qualitative case study evidence from Norway, the UK and the US—makes integration virtually impossible. It is only after moving on from precarious temporary/seasonal work and out from tied accommodation that rural integration becomes viable. Yet even then, the integration of these workers is often limited. Migrants are largely ‘quarantined’ and separate and invisible from the host society. Not surprisingly, migrants tend to treat their lack of rural integration as ‘liminal’, that is, a temporary and in‐between life stage. They also engage in ‘transnational simultaneity’ by maintaining family/communal relations back home, whilst focusing largely on work in the host country. This liminality and transnational simultaneity help working‐class migrants survive their quarantined lives.

Symposium

Symposium

Digitally Disconnected: Qualitative Study of Patient Perspectives on the Digital Divide and Potential Solutions.

BackgroundAs telemedicine utilization increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, divergent usage patterns for video and audio-only telephone visits emerged. Older, low-income, minority, and non-English speaking Medicaid patients are at highest risk of experiencing technology access and digital literacy barriers. This raises concern for disparities in health care access and widening of the “digital divide,” the separation of those with technological access and knowledge and those without. While studies demonstrate correlation between racial and socioeconomic demographics and technological access and ability, individual patients’ perspectives of the divide and its impacts remain unclear.ObjectiveWe aimed to interview patients to understand their perspectives on (1) the definition, causes, and impact of the digital divide; (2) whose responsibility it is to address this divide, and (3) potential solutions to mitigate the digital divide.MethodsBetween December 2020 and March 2021, we conducted 54 semistructured telephone interviews with adult patients and parents of pediatric patients who had virtual visits (phone, video, or both) between March and September 2020 at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) primary care clinics. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze interview data.ResultsPatients were keenly aware of the digital divide and described impacts beyond health care, including employment, education, community and social contexts, and personal economic stability. Patients described that individuals, government, libraries, schools, health care organizations, and even private businesses all shared the responsibility to address the divide. Proposed solutions to address the divide included conducting community technology needs assessments and improving technology access, literacy training, and resource awareness. Recognizing that some individuals will never cross the divide, patients also emphasized continued support of low-tech communication methods and health care delivery to prevent widening of the digital divide. Furthermore, patients viewed technology access and literacy as drivers of the social determinants of health (SDOH), profoundly influencing how SDOH function to worsen or improve health disparities.ConclusionsPatient perspectives provide valuable insight into the digital divide and can inform solutions to mitigate health and resulting societal inequities. Future work is needed to understand the digital needs of disconnected individuals and communities. As clinical care and delivery continue to integrate telehealth, studies are needed to explore whether having a video or audio-only phone visit results in different patient outcomes and utilization. Advocacy efforts to disseminate public and private resources can also expand device and broadband internet access, improve technology literacy, and increase funding to support both high- and low-tech forms of health care delivery for the disconnected.

Mapping the Matrix: Understanding the Structure and Position of Social Work in Mental Health Services in England and Wales

Abstract Social work is one of the core professions within mental health services in the UK, though its position as local authority ‘outsider’ excludes it from health-based workforce planning, leaving the exact national composition of mental health social work shrouded in mystery. In the context of increasing demand and limited resources, this lack of clarity precludes effective use of the mental health workforce. This study aimed to map the provision of mental health social work across England and Wales. A cross-sectional design was used, with brief surveys issued to all local authorities and National Health Service trusts responsible for providing social work or mental health services. These surveys collected the number of mental health social workers in each agency and their employment contexts for subsequent descriptive statistical analysis. Responses were received from 96.6 percent of agencies, employing 6,584 social workers. Findings indicated that mental health social work varies widely across both nations, with little clear rationale for, or consistency in, how social work is structured within mental health services. While these findings establish the first robust framework for understanding the size and scope of mental health social work provision, further research is required to establish temporal and contextual understandings to inform future service planning.

On the advent of environmental, social and governance reporting and its intersection with privacy

An emerging area of regulation in the form of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting is aimed at long-term sustainability and addressing the challenges of climate change and social inequality. This paper explores how ESG reporting intersects in interesting ways with well-established privacy principles under the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation. The paper analyses these privacy implications in the context of the first formal ESG law of comprehensive scope — the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation — as well as existing global ESG disclosure standards. In particular the ‘S’ of ESG encompasses issues in the employment context relating to gender equality and diversity and inclusion (D&I), thereby implicating sensitive personal data and complicating the collection of such data. In addition, the paper looks towards the question of whether there is, or should be, a ‘P’ of privacy incorporated in ESG and considers the potential development of measurable privacy metrics for this purpose.