Labour Market Context Research Articles

Racial-Ethnic Poverty Gaps in Later Life: A Role for Late Career Employment Quality?

Abstract Racial-ethnic disparities in poverty are an important form of inequality in older age. Recent scholarship on racial-ethnic poverty gaps demonstrates that, beyond individual characteristics and behaviors, racialized structural factors like employment contribute to such gaps. Yet surprisingly little is known about the role of employment quality, despite observed racial-ethnic disparities in employment quality and the role of employment history in shaping later life well-being. Using data from the 2002–2018 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and three poverty measures, we decompose the proportions of the Black-white and Hispanic-white poverty gaps among households led by 65-year-olds that are attributable to disparities in late career employment quality. We find that racial-ethnic disparities in late career employment quality account for 17–28 percent of the observed Black-white and 18–32 percent of the observed Hispanic-white poverty gaps, thus explaining a greater proportion of such gaps than many common individual or behavioral explanations. Disaggregating employment quality into its component measures, we find racial-ethnic disparities in access to employer-provided health insurance and hourly wages account for the largest proportion of racial-ethnic poverty gaps. Our findings suggest that employment quality captures important racialized dimensions of labor market context that help account for racial-ethnic inequalities in later life poverty in the United States.

The Search for Sources of Conflicts: Supply and Demand in the Labor Market

Classical approaches towards categorizing conflict within the field of social sciences may not be applicable to the labor market context because they are beyond economic theories. To the best of our knowledge, currently, neither national nor foreign literature contains any conceptual systematization of conflicts that occur during the hiring process. Such systematization would combine conflict factors at the intersection of economic, sociological, and conflict theories. The article proposes a categorization that is based on the prominent conflict theories while taking into consideration potential employment conflicts within the labor market. The proposed categorization groups market participants (supply and demand sides) and sorts conflicts by type (systemic and non-systemic conflicts). Four primary sources of conflict are identified, including market mechanisms and salary expectations (systemic conflicts), company values and human capital (non-systemic conflicts). Systemic factors of conflicts such as supply/ demand matching and wage expectations are determined by market mechanisms. These economic factors are determined by objective and predictable processes, but sociological theories of conflict are typically excluded from the aforementioned context, which can result in a biased portrayal of macroeconomic processes. In addition, the policy of a particular company and a job seeker’s expectations for a specific job position are nonsystemic, they depend on such types of factors as company values and human capital.This categorization enables early identification of the source of conflict and potential reduction of its destructive effects.

Stretched Thin: How a Misalignment Between Allocation and Valuation Underlies the Paradox of Diversity Achievement in Higher Education

Racial inequality is remarkably resilient in organizational and labor market contexts despite efforts to resolve it, which raises significant questions about the mechanisms underlying its persistence. We argue that organizational efforts that increase the inclusion of underrepresented racial groups in the short term may conceal an emergent mechanism that paradoxically results in exclusion over time. The emergent mechanism stems from an acute misalignment between the scope of allocation in the matching process and the scope of valuation in the evaluation process, which ultimately increases voluntary and involuntary turnover among underrepresented racial groups. We examine this paradox through a revelatory case in higher education. Drawing on comprehensive administrative and research performance data from a large (R1) U.S. public university, we find that Black assistant professors are significantly more likely than their White colleagues to be allocated to non-standard positions, i.e., formally appointed in two academic departments with shared compensation. Our results demonstrate that such non-standard appointments are associated with a significant decline in research productivity, which remains central during the evaluation process. The end result is that jointly appointed assistant professors—among whom Blacks are disproportionately represented—experience lower likelihoods of retention.

The effect of the local economic context and local public services on financial satisfaction among youth in European cities.

The post-2008 economic recovery period has seen varying degrees of improvement in the well-being of young individuals across different countries, regions, and cities of the EU. This study contributes to the literature on the geography of well-being by examining the impact of urban economic contexts on the subjective well-being of youth in Europe, a topic that has received limited attention so far. Specifically, we investigate how the local economic context has affected financial satisfaction among the young (15-35 age group) in European cities during the recovery period after the economic crisis. We study whether living in a city with better opportunities in the labor market, on the housing market, or with better local services (e.g., education or health care) affect financial satisfaction among the young. We carried out multilevel analysis of financial satisfaction among young adults on data from the Quality of Life in European Cities survey (years 2012, 2015, 2019), which asks about aspects of quality of life among a representative sample of the population in a large number of cities in EU Member States. Overall, the results suggest that a better labor market context (where it is in general easier to find a job) has a statistically significant positive effect on financial satisfaction among the young. Our results also show that satisfaction with the financial situation among young adults is significantly higher in cities with a higher quality of local social services. On the other hand, we have found only small (and statistically non-significant) contextual effect related to the local housing market.

One Size Does Not Fit All: Global Perspectives on IT Worker Turnover

Although the IT workforce has become increasingly global, much of the research on issues related to IT workers published in leading academic journals is conducted in the U.S. However, the majority of the world does not share the same context as the U.S. Despite that, comparative studies exploring country differences rarely demonstrate how and why these differences occur on a global scale. By relying on a dataset based on a survey of more than 10 000 IT workers in 37 countries, we employed the decision tree technique to build an accurate model of IT job turnover in the U.S. We then applied this model to 36 countries to test whether it is more accurate in countries that are similar to the U.S. in terms of their geographical proximity to the U.S. and the proximity of their cultural, political, and labor market contexts. The findings demonstrate that while the U.S. model of IT job turnover is not necessarily less accurate for countries that are geographically farther from the U.S., it is less applicable in the countries with cultural, political, and labor market conditions different from those of the U.S. Thus, global IT managers are recommended to interpret the U.S.-centric literature with caution.

Victim or Perpetrator? e Criminalization of Migration and the Idea of 'Harm' in the Labour Market Context

Victim or Perpetrator? e Criminalization of Migration and the Idea of 'Harm' in the Labour Market Context

Determinants of overlapping mismatch in the Turkish labour market

Using a micro dataset from labour force survey of Turkey and employing a multinomial logistic regression, this paper examines the determinants of mere overeducation, mere field of study mismatch and full-mismatch (who are both overeducated and field of study mismatched simultaneously). The target group consists of full-time wage-based employees who graduated from higher education and are aged 20–65. The determinants of mismatch are analysed under four variable groups which are labour market context, demography, field of study and job-specific characteristics. In line with the earlier empirical evidence, we find that the unfavourable economic conditions at the time of entry into the labour market might affect the behavioural pattern of individuals while searching for a matching job. Moreover, the sharp increase in university graduates increased further the fierce competition for the limited jobs available in the labour market, and resulted in a high likelihood of mismatch especially for the recent graduates. In sum, the estimation results yield that any mismatch category is responsive to those determinants where fully-mismatched employees are more responsive. Hence, we propose that the policy implications should better focus on the full-mismatch category.

Intergenerational transmission or local labour market context? A comparative analysis of the formation of work value patterns in 65 European regions

AbstractThis article analyses the driving factors behind the formation of individual work values in European welfare states. By comparing relative preferences for extrinsic and intrinsic work values, we shed light on the discussion of the effects of intergenerational transmission and the structuring effects of labour market policies and regional opportunity structures on the formation of work values. Therefore, a multilevel analysis is applied using the innovative CUPESSE data set, which provides data on young adults and their parents in 65 NUTS‐1‐regions from 11 European countries. The results show that individual work values of young Europeans are most substantively shaped by the respective values of their parents. Furthermore, we demonstrate that individual characteristics such as sex, education and personal unemployment experiences determine preferences for work values. Finally, the paper shows that the local labour market context and welfare state arrangements also play a decisive role in the formation of individual work values.

The moderating effect of context of reception, labour market and education system on the migrant-native gap in university expectations

ABSTRACT This paper explores the cross-national variation in the gap in university expectations between native and second-generation immigrant students and whether it is moderated by characteristics of the country of residence of children of immigrants. Three domains have been considered at the national level: the context of reception of immigration (legal status of non-national immigrants and views about immigration of the local population); labour market segmentation and education systems (external differentiation). The study tests the general hypothesis that settings that enhance individual autonomy and widen room for choice by removing formal and informal barriers that migrants and their descendants face in everyday life and in specific domains (education and labour market) are associated with a larger gap in university expectations that is favourable to children of immigrants (a larger ‘immigrant advantage’). Applying a two-stage analysis to PISA 2015 data, results provide overall support for this hypothesis. More welcoming contexts of reception are associated with a larger immigrant advantage. External differentiation is negatively associated with it, both for students attending general and vocational tracks, especially the latter, as compared to non-tracked students attending common tracks. There is not a robust association between labour market segmentation and the university expectations’ gap.

Gender Gap in Urban Job Market During the Pandemic: The Case of Ukraine.

Remarkable resistance of Ukraine has become in the world focus starting from the dawn of February 24th, 2022. While policymakers draft plans to address the consequences of the war, it is crucial to understand the pre-war labor market context, risks of joblessness, inequalities, and sources of resilience. In this paper, we study inequality in job market outcomes in 2020-2021 during another global disaster-the COVID-19 epidemic. While there is a growing literature on worsening gender gap for developed countries, not much is known about the situation in transition countries. We fill in this gap in the literature by using novel panel data from Ukraine, which enacted strict quarantine policies early on. Our pooled and random effects models consistently indicate no gender gap in the probability of not working, fearing to lose job or having savings for less than one month. This interesting result of non-deteriorating gender gap can potentially be explained by higher chances of urban Ukrainian women to switch to telecommuting compared to men. Although our findings are limited to urban households only, they provide important early evidence on the effects of gender on job market outcomes, expectations, and financial security.

The (In)Flexibility of Racial Discrimination: Labor Market Context and the Racial Wage Gap in the United States, 2000 to 2021

Does racial wage discrimination increase during economic downturns? In this article, the author tests empirically the association between economic conditions and racial wage discrimination for black, Hispanic, and Asian workers. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the author finds that the wage gap between Hispanics and whites, and between Asians and whites, increases with the job-seeker rate and unemployment rate. However, the wage gap between black and white workers increases slightly with the unemployment rate and does not change at all with the job-seeker rate. The author advances the concept of “wage discrimination flexibility” to argue that racial wage discrimination against black workers is more rigid and resistant to changes in economic environments, whereas wage discrimination against Hispanics and Asians is more flexible and responsive to economic conditions. The author discusses the implications of these findings for theories of discrimination and for policies aiming to foster equal opportunities in the labor market.

Graduating in uncertain times: The impact of COVID‐19 on recent graduate career prospects, trajectories and outcomes

AbstractThis article examines the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on recent UK graduates' initial employment outcomes and how they experience the transition into a challenging labour market context. We draw on longitudinal survey and interview data, collected from recent graduates who had mainly graduated during the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic in summer 2020 that examines graduate perception of the labour market, impacts on labour market entry impacts and early career progression and effects of periods of unemployment or under‐employment. The article shows some of the main impacts of the recent pandemic‐affected labour market, including: widespread concerns about job opportunities and employer support, the perceived employment impacts of the pandemic and early signs of scarring and labour market disorientation amongst those who were struggling to find employment of their choice. Such experiences are clearly intensified during the specific COVID‐19 context, but the policy implications they raise have wider relevance for supporting graduates during future periods of labour market volatility.

Understanding Employability in Changing Labor Market Contexts: The Case of an Emerging Market Economy of Thailand

This paper qualitatively reexamines the definitions, components, and sub-components of employability under the changing labor market contexts of the under-researched country of Thailand, an emerging market economy (EME). Semi-structured interviews among chief human resources (HR) officers, HR experts, HR academics, HR consultants, and top HR executives in various well-recognized private firms across industries in Thailand, virtual field visits to each company located in Bangkok and other provinces in Thailand, nonparticipant observation, and a review of archival documents and web-based resources were conducted. This paper proposes that Thailand’s institutional context, specifically the labor market context, plays an important role in shaping employability among workers needed by firms within that context. Several challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, aging societies, technological disruption, the growth of the cryptocurrency market, and the changing patterns of work, affect Thailand’s institutional context, specifically the labor market context, and worsen the problem regarding the shortage of job candidates or graduates who are readily employable. Here, employability among workers refers to the strong potential that helps job candidates obtain suitable jobs and readies them for work and to survive in the real word. It consists of three main components: (1) career ability, (2) resiliency, and (3) attitudes and personal attributes. Each component consists of several sub-components (25 sub-components in total). All of the components and sub-components of employability are necessary for job candidates or young graduates in the context of the Thai labor market. However, there are sub-components of employability that are necessary for job candidates who are working in EMEs with several abovementioned challenges that affect the labor market context.

Gender Stereotypes about Leadership and Entrepreneurship: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

Countries around the world have shared understanding and unconscious biases of what abilities and personality characteristics men and women possess, and how each gender should or should not behave. Gender stereotypes tend to cast men as more competent, strong, and agentic, and women as more communal, warm, and other-oriented compared to members of the opposite sex. Partly because of such gender stereotypes, men and women are perceived and evaluated differently, and they perceive and evaluate themselves differently. Gender stereotypes are consequential: they impact women’s career choices and advancement to the management and top-level positions in the corporate sector, their likelihood of founding new ventures and receiving key financial, human capital, and network resources necessary for scaling up their businesses, their job performance, cognitive resources, and professional fulfillment. Our symposium makes a direct contribution to the 2022 AOM’s theme “Creating a Better World Together”, promoting cross-disciplinary dialogue among scholars from (social) psychology, sociology, entrepreneurship, economics, and organization theory to deepen our understand of ‘how, why, and when’ gender stereotypes are likely to influence male-female differentials in the corporate leadership and entrepreneurship. Our symposium has two goals. We bring together scholars to take stock of the literature, identify puzzles in extant work and future research directions, and build bridges for interdisciplinary research. Our symposium features pioneers from (social) psychology whose work on stereotypes has been path-breaking and is considered foundational in research on attitudes, gender, and diversity, along with strong emerging scholars working at the ‘biases and entrepreneurship’ research nexus. Our second goal is to discuss the effectiveness of existing behavioral interventions to combat gender stereotypes and increase gender leadership diversity in both labor market contexts. The symposium is designed to foster a dialogue between the panelists, discussants, and the audience centered around five discussion topics. It will close with the organizers’ summary synthesizing the scholarly exchange. The symposium is designed for researchers in ENT, OMT, and GDO but could be of interest to a much broader AoM audience interested in research on stereotypes, diversity in leadership and innovation, and organizational performance.

Platforms and Prejudice: The Cycle of Racial Disparities on a Labor Platform

We examine a multistage evaluation process to understand the conditions under which racial minorities are at risk for disparate work outcomes using data from a platform-based skilled labor market for small business entrepreneurs. Analyzing various evaluative outcomes including job cancellations, ratings, and job allocation for nearly 100,000 jobs, we find that workers perceived as racial minorities (relative to white) receive significantly more cancellations, as well as more one-star ratings and fewer five-star ratings, even among top performers. Factors that reduce uncertainty, including worker quality, and both worker and customer experience, help attenuate the disparity in cancellations but not in ratings. Further, we demonstrate the cyclical nature of bias entrenchment and the interplay of bias with formal practices—ratings and cancellations are mutually reinforcing, and feed back into priority algorithmic work assignments. Our research illustrates the critical role that uncertainty plays in magnifying bias against racial minorities in labor market contexts and that the mechanism driving bias is a function of the evaluation stage. We contribute to the sociological literature on bias in labor market processes, status and inequality in organizations, and work precarity.

The Work Experience of Graduates as a Motivating Element in the Teaching-Learning Process

The current labour market context requires Universities to continuously adapt to changes to train students who can respond to the market's needs. Based on their professional experience, university graduates can and must be an essential element for university education to be in line with the labour market. This article presents a proposal for integrating graduates in the teaching-learning process, playing an active role. The study has been developed in the context of a bachelor's degree (Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering) and a master's degree (Master's Degree in Secondary School Teaching). The satisfaction survey results show that the experience has been very positive for our students. At the same time, it helps reduce the students' insecurity concerning their professional future.

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.

‘This isn’t forever for me’: Perceived employability and migrant gig work in Norway and Sweden

Information asymmetry regarding local job prospects, imperfect portability of qualifications and a lack of host country language skills combine to reduce migrants’ perceptions of their own employability. As a result, platform mediated gig work has become a common labour market entry point for new migrants. However, there is a near-universal expectation among workers is that gig work will be undertaken short-term, rather than as the first step of a longer gig-career. While research has explored the individual and structural factors, there has been limited attention as to how the specific occupational context in which a worker is embedded can also shape workers’ perceived employability. In this article, I therefore present the results of 37 semi-structured interviews with migrant Foodora couriers across Norway and Sweden, exploring how the specific occupational context of gig work intersects with migrants’ perceived employability. This article identifies, firstly, that obtaining employment in gig work was not perceived to be a reflection of workers’ own local employability. Secondly, workers’ short-term temporal orientations shape how participants are able to cope with the physical, emotional and identity demands of gig work. Thirdly, workers have to re-frame their perceived employability in the face of what is perceived to be widespread discrimination in the local labour market context. Lastly, the specific occupational context of gig work was considered to be either of no value to future local employers, or a negative signal as to a worker’s skills and labour market integration.

Timing patterns for making STEM-related educational choices in academic education – findings of a narrative study

ABSTRACT The labour market for young STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) graduates requires flexibility and adaptability, which may potentially conflict with the spreading worldwide tendency toward delayed graduation. This is a cause for concern among academicians, policy makers and practitioners at all levels, as it may generate important psychological and labour market consequences for the young people. The current study explored choice-making timing patterns regarding STEM academic education in Israel. This research is based on a narrative inquiry into 55 in-depth interviews with parents of STEM students. The findings revealed four distinct timing patterns in educational choice-making: early choice (in secondary school); choice during military service, which is mandatory for both genders in Israel; late decision making, i.e. after ‘taking time’ for identity explorations; and ‘last minute’ choice, i.e. making a choice directly before or even after starting one’s academic education. Revealing these major timing patterns may enable Israeli educational policy makers to offer optimal intervention strategies precisely at the important turning points in the lives of young-adult learners. Policy makers in other countries may learn from our findings and adapt them to the specific characteristics of their educational, cultural and labor market context.

Gender Equality in Employment Perquisites with Reference to Sweden, GCC and India

The scope of social policy today is extensive. With the changing global scenario there is a rediscovery of “social” in it. Indubitably, there is a gender perspective on social policy globally. The world Economic Forum states that there are only six countries in the world (Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Sweden) where women have equal work rights to men. It is noted that the situation in different countries vary when it comes to the working benefits of different genders whether for native or expatriate workers in those places. Though there are rooms to enjoy attractive income and favorable working conditions such as job security, generous retirement plan, and other welfare benefits, there are still various factors that might lead to gender-based differences or gender discrimination in the unique labor market context of the GCC countries. The scenario is distinct in many Scandinavian nations like Sweden. Those countries are often considered as the role model for gender equal work allowances. When it comes to India there is still disparity and difference in many areas despite of the social security system the country offers in its policies. This paper aims at a descriptive and qualitative study on the causes, consequences and conclusion of the gender disparity in employee allowances of these nations. The study would imply simple random method of interrogations to examine gender differences empirically within the labor market of the mentioned nations. The economic benefits of a gender equal nation in the framing of social policy will be emphasized and focused.