Labour Market Position Research Articles

Entrenched Inequalities? Class, Gender and Ethnic Differences in Educational and Occupational Attainment in England.

Research in social stratification tends to focus on class differences in educational and occupational attainment, with particular attention to primary and secondary effects in the former, and class reproduction in the latter, domain. Research in ethnic studies tends to focus, however, on ethnic penalty or premium. Many studies have been conducted in each tradition on specific issues but little research is available that examines class, gender and ethnic effects simultaneously or in tandem with contextual effects, let alone on the whole trajectory from compulsory schooling, through further and higher education, to labor market position. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, this paper shows pronounced class differences but remarkable gender progress in each of the educational domains. With regard to ethnicity, people from minority ethnic heritages had lower GCSE scores due to poorer family conditions but achieved higher transition rates to A-Level study, higher university enrollment and, for some groups, greater attendance at elite universities, resulting in an overall higher rate of degree-level attainment than did whites. One might expect members of ethnic minority backgrounds to fare equally well in their earlier careers in the labor market, but only to find them more vulnerable to unemployment, less likely to have earnings, and more disadvantaged in terms of disposable incomes.

Labour Supply and Informal Care Responses to Health Shocks within Couples: Evidence from the UKHL

Shocks to health have been shown to reduce labour supply for the individual affected. Less is known about household self-insurance through a partner's response to a health shock. Previous studies have presented inconclusive empirical evidence on the existence of a health-related `added worker effect'. We use UK longitudinal data to investigate within households both the labour supply and informal care responses of an individual to the event of an acute health shock to their partner. Relying on the unanticipated timing of shocks, we combine coarsened exact matching and entropy balancing algorithms with parametric analysis and exploit lagged outcomes to remove bias from observed confounders and time-invariant unobservables. We find no evidence of a health-related ‘added worker effect'. A significant and sizeable increase in spousal informal care, irrespective of spousal labour market position or household financial status and ability to purchase formal care provision, suggests a substitution to informal care provision, at the expense of time devoted to leisure activities.

From Bad to Worse: Examining the Deteriorating Labour Market Outcomes of International Graduates in Australia

International graduates have been shown to struggle in their transition to the host labour market after course completion. In Australia, international graduates typically fare worse than domestic graduates in the labour market, with new evidence pointing to a deterioration in their relative labour market position over the years. The contributing factors for the deterioration, however, remain unclear. In this article, we analysed unique large-scale survey data from the Australian Graduate Survey to identify the factors underlying the deteriorating labour market outcomes of international graduates from 2000. Our findings indicate that the deteriorating labour market outcomes of international graduates can be largely linked to the declining share of these graduates who are a citizen or permanent resident of Australia. The rising percentage of international graduates who are non-native English-speakers also played a role, albeit a modest one. These findings call attention to the persistent labour market disadvantage of international graduates and highlight the inadequacies of existing policies aimed at temporary retention and stronger English language skills in promoting labour market integration.

The Value of Formal Host-Country Education for the Labour Market Position of Refugees: Evidence from Austria

Refugees hosted across the developed world often work in low-quality jobs, regardless of education previously attained in their country of origin. In this paper, I analyse the long-term value of formal host-country education for refugees using the example of forcefully displaced Bosnians who arrived in Austria during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Deploying 22 years of Austrian microcensus data, I exploit the age at the time of forced migration as an instrument for the probability of receiving host-country instead of origin country education to recover local average treatment effects of education attained in Austria vis-a-vis Bosnia on labour market outcomes for refugees aged around schooling thresholds. These estimates show that attaining a formal degree in the host-country significantly reduces the probability of work below educational attainment and low-skill employment over the entire observation period. Income differences between Austrian and Bosnian degree holders are visible after more than two decades of stay in Austria. The discount on Bosnian education declines over time for men but not for women, suggesting that host-country degrees are particularly important to groups that faced cultural barriers to quality employment in their country of origin.

Social capital and self-efficacy in the process of youth entry into the labour market: Evidence from a longitudinal study in Sweden

Social networks play an important role in the employer–worker match, and the social capital perspective has been used to understand how social networks contribute to labour market inequality. This paper investigates the effect of social capital on achieving a stable labour market position for young adults, examining how boosted job finding self-efficacy is a possible mediator. The paper also examines whether social capital and self-efficacy are related to the preferred job search method. The study utilises a Swedish survey of young adults that is linked to tax register data on earnings. Here, social capital is defined as an extensive network and measured with the position generator, asking about knowing contacts in various occupations. The paper analyses heterogeneous effects that depend on the respondents’ initial status regarding employment and job search. The results show that social capital and job-finding self-efficacy are positively related to achieving stable employment for the initially not employed job searchers, but there is no effect for those initially employed and not searching for a new job. Furthermore, an analysis of job search methods reveals that social capital is positively related to preferring social networks and direct application and negatively related to searching through public employment services. The results also indicate that self-efficacy mediates only a little of the relationship between social capital and prospective employment, suggesting that job-finding self-efficacy likely only contributes slightly to how social capital affects labour market outcomes.

States and human immobilization: bridging the conceptual separation of slavery, immigration controls, and mass incarceration

ABSTRACT Immigration controls and incarceration both comprise state efforts to limit people’s freedom of movement. Usually analyzed separately, both are part of the legacy of slavery. In this paper, I examine the British Empire’s first implementation of immigration controls against ‘coolie labour’ from its colony of British India following the abolition of slavery in 1835. I also examine the implementation of methods of control and discipline enacted against formerly enslaved people in the United States following its abolition of slavery in 1865. Just ten years after abolition, the U.S. also passed its first immigration controls, the 1875 Page Act. I argue that both immigration controls and mass incarceration were state methods aimed at weakening people’s position in the capitalist labour market and, more generally, to weaken people’s ability to realize social justice. Together, immigration and carceral controls created racialized and gendered categories of people denied access to the mythical institutions of liberal democracy: liberty, fellowship, and equality. Both also strengthened nationalism(s) through the production of a U.S. ‘nation’ secured against ‘criminals’ and ‘foreigners.’ By making connections between immigration controls and mass incarceration, I argue, we can more clearly recognize that the success of prison abolition and No Borders movements are, together, integral parts of the unfinished project to realize liberty.

THE WELL-BEING OF THE OLDER PEOPLE IN THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA: DETERMINANTS AND CHALLENGES

It is attested at the national level that three-quarters of human capital aged 55 and over in Moldova represent an untapped potential for active aging, which means limited opportunities to get old in good health, to be active economically, to have a safe and secure social life. Meanwhile, more older people are in a group risk with high socio-economic vulnerability. According to national demographic prognoses, by the year 2035, every third person would be over 60. At the regional level, Moldova has the lowest indicators on the quality of life of the older people, on the human capital in older age and on the opportunities to empower this category of the population. The paper focuses to calculate and evaluate some indicators of well-being and social inclusion of the older people in the Republic of Moldova. The challenges which the older people population is facing (poor living conditions, financial and material deprivation, limited access, and quality of health services, restricted physical security, etc.) are highlighted. The analysis is based on the latest available national statistics and empirical data. To emphasize determinants of material wellbeing of the older people the binary logistic regression model had been developed based on primary data of the “Discrimination, abuse and violence against older people in Moldova” (2014, CDR, HelpAge) sociological survey of persons aged 60 and over. The factors, which have a significant impact on the material welfare of the older people, are residence area and age, labour market position, the migrant experience, educational attendance, self-perceived health, age-friendly community perception.

Job (In)Security and Workers’ Training Decisions: A Framing Approach

Context: In this study, we attempt to contribute to the scarce evidence about the relationship between perceived labour market insecurity and worker training investments. Drawing on existing research into framing in decision-making, we investigate whether framing the labour market as insecure increases the willingness of workers to invest in training. We also investigate whether this effect is larger when training contract terms are favourable, such as when training is done mostly in an employer’s time, or when no payback clause is included.Approach: Data are gathered through a vignette-study under a sample of senior Dutch students, with experimental manipulation of frames. Respondents are given a questionnaire in which they are asked to imagine themselves working for a fictitious firm (but presented to them as real). The security/insecurity frames are elicited by randomly stressing either the positive or negative side of a series of events related to the labour market position of people working in this firm. Respondents are then asked to respond to five vignettes, each of these a randomly generated combination of training contract terms. For each vignette, respondents are asked to state whether or not they would be willing to go along with the specified training program under the conditions outlined in that vignette. Data are analysed with multilevel logistic regression. Findings: The willingness to train is not invariably greater under an insecurity frame. Instead, we find a crucial interaction: the willingness to train is greater under an insecurity frame when training-contract terms are favourable (e.g when no payback clause is included), but smaller when training-contract terms are unfavourable. Since the positive and negative effects are approximately equal in size, in a balanced design such as ours they cancel each other out, resulting in a close to zero overall effect for the frame variable.Conclusion: Our results suggest that, when workers are aware of the insecurity in their situation, this only makes them more willing to follow training when the risk of losing their investment is low.

An Intersectional Analysis of COVID-19 Unemployment.

Using the April 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) micro dataset, we explore the racialized and gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the probability of being unemployed. The distribution of the pandemic-induced job losses for women and men or for different racial/ethnic categories has been studied in the recent literature. We contribute to this literature by providing an intersectional analysis of unemployment under COVID-19, where we examine the differences in the likelihood of unemployment across groups of White men, White women, Black men, Black women, Hispanic men, and Hispanic women. As a case of study of the COVID-19 recession, our work engages with the broader empirical literature testing the discrimination theories based on the unexplained gap after accounting for observable characteristics of women, men, and different races/ethnicities and their labor market positions. Controlling for individual characteristics such as education and age, as well as industry and occupation effects, we show that women of all three racial/ethnic categories are more likely to be unemployed compared to men, yet there are substantial differences across these groups based on different unemployment measures. Hispanic women have the highest likelihood of being unemployed, followed by Black women, who are still more likely to be unemployed than White women. We also examine if the ability to work from home has benefited any particular group in terms of lowering their likelihood of unemployment during the pandemic. We find that in industries with a high degree of teleworkable jobs, White women, Black men, and Hispanic men are no longer more likely to be unemployed relative to White men. However, Black women and Hispanic Women still experience a significantly higher probability of job loss compared to White men even if they are employed in industries with highly teleworkable jobs. As we control for both individual and aggregate factors, our results suggest that these differences are not simply the result of overrepresentation of women of color in certain industries and occupations; rather, unobservable factors such as discrimination could be at work.

Prizes in Working-Class History and the State of the Field

Prizes in Working-Class History and the State of the Field

Determinants of the Socio-Economic Situation of Living Standards in Areas Previously Occupied by State Farms in Poland: A Case Study

Purpose: The research objective was to diagnose the socio-economic situation in areas formerly occupied by a state-owned farm in Poland, using the Province of Warmia and Mazury as an example. Design/Methodology/Approach: Both a quantitative method and a qualitative one was employed. The research was conducted among residents of areas previously occupied by state-owned farms using a poll approach and a questionnaire designed by the research authors. Findings: A combination of factors, individual, cultural, and macrosocial ones, contributed to the situation when former state-owned agricultural farms in Poland are now an area where many negative, interconnected issues, such as unemployment, poverty, marginalization, lack of prospects and hope for the future, are concentrated. One of the major problems in these territories' labor market is the low occupational activity level among residents. Despite the high unemployment rate, nearly ¾ of the surveyed persons were not interested in improving their labor market position. Practical Implication: The practical implication arising from the research is the possibility of using the results in creating a regional policy in areas affected by the negative consequences of the operation and subsequent dissolution of state-owned agricultural farms. Originality/Value: It is still necessary to conduct studies in the areas formerly dominated by state farms in agriculture and search for new system-scale solutions, especially because the current interest in residents' situation in these areas is now waning. Rural areas, with their specific characteristics, for example, the occurrence of hidden unemployment, are distinguished by a large untapped human potential.

It’s getting late today, please do the laundry: The influence of long-distance commuting on the division of domestic labor

The study examines the effect of long-distance commuting on the division of domestic labor in heterosexual couples. A long journey to work can affect other areas of life. Commuters often have lower life satisfaction and their intimate relationships may be impaired by mental stress. When looking at domestic labor the question arises of who is in charge of managing the household and childcare. Do women still adopt the “lion’s share of housework” or take over the “second shift” if they spend part of the day on long commutes to work and back home? A long commute is defined as a journey to work of at least 45 minutes, daily or several times a week. We present the results of pooled regression analysis and fixed effects regressions conducted on data from the German Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam) for the years 2013, 2015, and 2016. The pooled analysis suggests a moderate association between a woman’s long commute and her partner’s engagement in housework and childcare, especially when she commutes daily. Instead of living ‘reversed roles’, the partners share such tasks. However, when the association between a woman’s long commute and her partner’s engagement in childcare is estimated exclusively with fixed regression, it remains significant. If the man is a long-distance commuter, most often his partner is solely responsible for all household tasks. Relative labor market position and income distribution within the couples, as well as adherence to gender roles explain the effects of long-distance commuting on labor division.

The legal protection of women migrant domestic workers from the Philippines and Sri Lanka: an intersectional rights-based approach

Women migrants’ position in the global labour market is constrained by gender and racial divisions of labour, and the work they are offered is often insecure, low-paid and concentrated in feminised sectors of the economy, such as domestic work. It is not only women who predominantly perform domestic work, but also women of a certain race, ethnicity, socio-economic class and nationality. This article adopts an intersectional rights-based lens to examine how selected policies and regulations in the Philippines and Sri Lanka are discriminating against, and creating conditions for the systematic exploitation of, women migrant domestic workers positioned at the intersection of multiple converging identities.

The short or long end of the stick? Mothers’ social position and self‐employment status from a comparative perspective

Women with dependent children have repeatedly been shown to be more likely to be self‐employed than other women. The mumpreneurship thesis explains this motherhood effect as a preference‐based strategy to meet both good worker and good mother norms. The disadvantaged worker thesis argues that mothers in weak labour market positions are pushed into self‐employment because of work–family conflict. Exploring patterns of motherhood effects across 23 high‐ and middle‐income countries, I argue that the mumpreneurship and disadvantaged worker theses should not be considered as conflicting hypotheses, but rather as addressing separate social position groups. I identify four clusters of countries where either one, both or neither of the two hypotheses can be confirmed. Country‐level analyses indicate that more negative attitudes towards housewives are associated with larger motherhood premiums for women in high social positions, whereas higher enrolment and smaller classes in pre‐primary education increase the motherhood premium for all groups.

Digital Divide in Perceived Benefits of Online Health Care and Social Welfare Services: National Cross-Sectional Survey Study.

BackgroundThe number of online services in health care is increasing rapidly in developed countries. Users are expected to take a more skilled and active role in taking care of their health and prevention of ill health. This induces risks that users (especially those who need the services the most) will drop out of digital services, resulting in a digital divide or exclusion. To ensure wide and equal use of online services, all users must experience them as beneficial.ObjectiveThis study aimed to examine associations of (1) demographics (age, gender, and degree of urbanization), (2) self-rated health, (3) socioeconomic position (education, experienced financial hardship, labor market position, and living alone), (4) social participation (voting, satisfaction with relationships, and keeping in touch with friends and family members), and (5) access, skills, and extent of use of information and communication technologies (ICT) with perceived benefits of online health care and social welfare services. Associations were examined separately for perceived health, economic, and collaboration benefits.MethodsWe used a large random sample representative of the Finnish population including 4495 (56.77% women) respondents aged between 20 and 97 years. Analyses of covariance were used to examine the associations of independent variables with perceived benefits.ResultsAccess to online services, ICT skills, and extent of use were associated with all examined benefits of online services. ICT skills seemed to be the most important factor. Poor self-rated health was also consistently associated with lower levels of perceived benefits. Similarly, those who were keeping in touch with their friends and relatives at least once a week perceived online services more often beneficial in all the examined dimensions. Those who had experienced financial hardship perceived fewer health and economic benefits than others. Those who were satisfied with their relationships reported higher levels of health and collaboration benefits compared with their counterparts. Also age, education, and degree of urbanization had some statistically significant associations with benefits but they seemed to be at least partly explained by differences in access, skills, and extent of use of online services.ConclusionsAccording to our results, providing health care services online has the potential to reinforce existing social and health inequalities. Our findings suggest that access to online services, skills to use them, and extent of use play crucial roles in perceiving them as beneficial. Moreover, there is a risk of digital exclusion among those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, in poor health, or socially isolated. In times when health and social services are increasingly offered online, this digital divide may predispose people with high needs for services to exclusion from them.

Screening through Activation? Differential Effects of a Youth Activation Program

We study the anatomy of responses to a major activation programme targeted at unemployed youth, introduced in Sweden in 2007. We use a regression discontinuity design to analyse individual reactions to the programme. We find that individuals who have a relatively high predicted probability of finding a job respond to the threat of activation, whereas there is no significant effect for individuals in a weaker labour market position. This is consistent with activation programmes working as a screening device between those who are able to find work on their own vs. those who are not. In addition to examining traditional predictors of poor labour market outcomes (e.g. education and school dropout status), we find a strong concentration of health problems among individuals with poor labour market prospects. We use register data covering the entire Swedish population, including very detailed information on health.

Feminationalisme en hoe vrouwen belangrijk worden in het maatschappelijk debat over migratie en integratie.

Women’s organizations fighting for rights for immigrant women emphasized thesuppression of women within Islam. There was little attention to the labour marketposition of immigrant women, and a lot of attention to violence and lack of rights.Debates feminized and Islamitized at the same time. Arguments used by organizationsfighting for immigrant women’s rights were appropriated by right-wing populistparties. This is called femi-nationalism. Right-wing parties also appropriatedthe gay rights discourse (homo-nationalism). The right-wing populist parties did soextensively, but as this article shows, so did other parties.

Who bears the brunt? The impact of banking crises on younger and older workers

How do workers in different age groups fare on the labor market when a banking crisis occurs? Using data on 41 banking crises in 38 developed countries between 1990 and 2014, we examine how banking crises affect the labor market position of workers from five different age groups (including those aged 65 years and older) and whether employment protection legislation shields workers from unemployment. Results show that unemployment increases for all age groups in the aftermath of banking crises, but much more so for younger workers. The labor force participation of older women increases significantly in the medium run, whereas older men close to retirement withdraw from the labor market. Countries with strong employment protection legislation shield workers from the impact of banking crises in the short run but show signs of increases in unemployment rates for young and middle-aged workers in the medium run.

Ready for parenthood? Dual earners' relative labour market positions and entry into parenthood in Belgium

Rising symmetry in public gender roles as a result of women’s rising educational and labour market participation could make both partners’ labour market positions equally relevant with respect to family formation. It is, however, unclear whether and to wha

Development and content validity of the Abilitator: a self-report questionnaire on work ability and functioning aimed at the population in a weak labour market position

BackgroundThe unemployed have lower work ability and poorer health than the employed. This situation deteriorates when unemployment continues. The long-term unemployed often have co-morbidities and face many other challenges. This increases the need for a multidimensional assessment of work ability and functioning in different service settings. In this study, we describe the development and analyse the content validity of the Abilitator, a self-report questionnaire on work ability and functioning for those in a weak labour market position.MethodsThe Abilitator was developed in 2014–2017. Its construct was assessed by members of academic expert panels (n = 30), practical expert panels of professionals (n = 700) and target group clients (n = 28). The structure and the content of the questionnaire was co-developed in 29 workshops and adjusted twice based on the expert panels’ feedback. The Abilitator was also implemented among target group clients (n = 3360) in different services and projects. During its development the Abilitator was linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). The content validation process followed the guidelines recommended by the Consensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) panel.ResultsThe construct of the Abilitator combines the multidimensional and biopsychosocial models of work ability and functioning. It also includes aspects of social inclusion and employability. It evaluates social, psychological, cognitive and physical functioning, and the ability to cope with everyday life. The content of these concepts was validated by the academic and practical expert panels. The Abilitator’s 79 ICF codes covered 57% of the Generic, 77% of the Brief Vocational Rehabilitation, and 8% of the Minimal Environmental ICF Core Sets. When compared with the Work Ability Index (WAI) and the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0), the direct equivalences of the ICF codes were 36 and 44%, respectively.ConclusionThe Abilitator sufficiently comprehensively covers the relevant aspects to enable the assessment of the overall work ability and functioning of the population in a weak labour market position.