Segmented Labor Research Articles

Instrumental and Methodologicalaspects of the segmentation of Regional Labour Markets Using Qualification characteristics

Purpose: the main purpose of this article is to improve forecast-oriented management of the segmentation of regional labour markets for the professions that are in greatest demand in the main groups of the All-Russian Classifier of Occupations. The following tasks should be addressed towards this goal: 1) to group Subjects of the Russian Federation and identify, on forecast basis, the influence factors behind the dynamics of the vacanciesposted; 2) todevelopatoolkitandprioritisetheinfluencefactorsestablishedandtheirinter-relationshiplevel; 3) to preparegroupingsof the regions with the maximum number of vacancies posted in the All-Russian Database of Vacancies for the most needed professions, specialities, and occupations as per the ОК010-2014 All-Russian Classifier of Occupations using the results of two waves of longitudinal investigation; 4) to justify the methodology and toolkit for calculating the integral ratings of Subjects of the Russian Federation; 5) to find out, on an expert basis, the level of high technology employers’ interaction with job centres; and 6) to summarise the instrumental and methodologicalaspects developed and the proposed measures for qualification-based management of the segmentation of regional labour markets.Methods: this article is based on the introduction of elements of a forecast-oriented approach to employment support using the results of regular monitoring efforts by the Russian Ministry of Labour in this area.Results: the article shows that the increase in the number of the vacancies posted by employers in the “Work in Russia” All-Russian Database of Vacancies results from their active engagement with job centres, raises the level of the realisation of businesses’ needs for skilled and professional employees and relieves tensions in regional labour markets. Support of employment is closely related to labour productivity growth, particularly in high technology sectors.Conclusions and Relevance: the materials discussed in the article present elements of forecast-oriented management of job centres aimed at regional labour markets’ segments for the professions and skilled levels required by them. The studies presented develop labour market economics with a view to better regulation of demand for and supply of employees with the required qualifications in the light of the current challenges, including the digitalisation of the economy. The practical use of the results of this article will help update the practice of management of the employment authorities at the federal, inter-regional and regional levels in the light of the results of the “Labour Productivity and Support of Employment” national project that is being implemented.

Book Review: David Peetz and Georgina Murray (eds),Women, Labor Segmentation and Regulation: Varieties of Gender Gaps

Book Review: David Peetz and Georgina Murray (eds),<i>Women, Labor Segmentation and Regulation: Varieties of Gender Gaps</i>

Migrants with insecure legal status and access to work: the role of ethnic solidarity networks

PurposeBuilding upon previous studies on the factors shaping undocumented migrants’ experiences on the host labour markets, the purpose of this paper is to expand the theoretical understanding of labour market participation and ethnic solidarity networks, accounting for the sending context of war and political persecution, and the trajectory to irregularity.Design/methodology/approachThis paper extends the understanding of the role of ethnic solidarity networks on the labour market participation of migrants with insecure legal status. It draws on data from a questionnaire survey of 178 Iraqi-Kurdish migrants with insecure legal status, four focus groups and ten expert interviews. Working conditions and sectors of employment are explored alongside strategies for accessing work and the role of ethnic solidarity networks.FindingsThe analysis of the data provides strong support for the theoretical expectations outlined above, assuming that the conflict-generated diaspora communities display a very distinct solidarity among its members, embedded in a shared history of conflict, persecution and identity struggles. Ethnic solidarity is put to the ultimate test in times of intensified enforcement of employment and immigration law. It stretches to accommodate the risks that employers take to provide work to their insecure co-ethnics, facing the tangible threat of raids, business closure, defamation and colossal fines, to mention but a few. In this context, the authors have defined “stretched solidarity” as a form of support and resource sharing among certain conflict-generated ethnic groups, embedded not only within a shared history of displacement, collective memory and trauma, and shared culture, language, loyalties, obligations and experiences but also in the “reception context”, which may limit ethnic solidarity through restrictive immigration controls.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors recognise the limits of the paper, which are that analysis is mainly based on experiences of the majority of whom were young and male migrants with insecure migration legal status, rather than employers.Social implicationsThis paper has identified the social phenomenon of “stretched solidarity” and has set out a model for understanding its embeddedness within conflict-generated diasporic networks. By drawing together research insights and data on Iraqi-Kurdish migrants with insecure legal status, it addressed the central research question how “unauthorised” migrants get access to the segmented labour market at a time of increased in-border controls in the UK.Originality/valueThe paper contributes towards an enhanced understanding of the complex phenomenon of “stretched solidarity” and its role in migrants’ gaining access to and maintaining employment in the host labour market. The notion of “stretched solidarity” developed here provides a platform for identifying a number of emerging areas for further empirical study and policy thinking. This requires advanced research not only into the processes of migrants’ access to the host labour market but also into the role of ethnic networks, resources and structures that enable migrants in precarious situations to survive.

Newly Hired Teacher Mobility in Charter Schools and Traditional Public Schools: An Application of Segmented Labor Market Theory

Compared with traditional public schools (TPS), charter schools on average have much higher teacher turnover rates. Our study draws on segmented labor market theory to examine the dynamics of the teacher labor market in charters and TPS, focusing on newly hired teachers. Based on longitudinal data for Utah’s public school teachers, we employ multiple methods to determine how the timing of newly hired teachers’ decisions to transfer or exit can be attributed to the sector differences. Results indicate that newly hired teachers in charters are more likely to exit the teaching profession and less likely to transfer to another school than TPS teachers.

Using your ties to get a worse job? The differential effects of social networks on quality of employment in Colombia

This article examines the effect of social networks (SNW) by investigating how mobilizing family, friendship or kindship ties in job searches affects the quality of employment (QoE) using quantitative and qualitative data. Drawing from socioeconomic literature on the segmented labor market, the authors propose an original and multidimensional measure of job quality and a fruitful estimation of the effect of SNW on QoE that allows for dealing with complex inter-groups heterogeneity. Using the Great Integrated Household Survey and a sample on Bogota's workers in 2013, they provide empirical support that the use of ties is negatively correlated with the QoE for those who are vulnerable. Likewise, the use of social relations is not significant for protected workers. Complemented by focus groups interviews, these results raise questions about the difference prevailing in relational practices between necessity networks for precarious workers and opportunity networks for protected workers in the Colombian capital.

Demographic Differences in Protean Career Behavior: A Study of a High Demographic Inequality Labor Market

The protean career concept is dominating recent career research. Demographic groups are postulated to differ on protean career behavior with implications for career development, social equity and management of an increasingly diversified workforce. The purpose of this paper is to explore the unique contributions of employees&amp;rsquo; gender, nationality, sector and age in the deployment of career advancement strategies in the high demographic inequality labor market of Kuwait. This is one of the few studies with an exclusive focus on demographic differences in protean behavior. Most protean career research treats demographic difference as an ancillary focus, even though demographic differences are part of the foundation of psychological sciences. The study utilized a set of questionnaires on a sample of 908 highly educated young employees working in Kuwait. Primary findings are that there are greater demographic differences in protean career in Kuwait than in the West. Men, Kuwaitis, private sector and younger employees deploy significantly more career advancement strategies and have stronger strategy orientations than women, self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), civil servants and older employees. The results are attributed to contextual inequalities in opportunities because they echo the Kuwaiti segmented labor market by gender, nationality and sector. They also reveal that women&amp;rsquo;s and SIEs&amp;rsquo; proactive career histories have not been sustained in the Kuwaiti workplace. These demographic differences in protean behavior suggest that the potential benefits of this behavior are limited to members of particular groups, and any intervention strategies to support career development may, therefore, benefit a large portion of the workforce that is impacted by the inequalities. The originality and value of this study stems from addressing four literature gaps. Specifically, it examines the understudied protean behavior as most studies have focused on attitudes. It centers on demographic differences in protean career behavior, utilizes native and SIE samples working in high inequality non-Western context.

The Scale, Factors and Mobility and Stability Motives in The Labour Market

The Object of the Study. Employed populationThe Subject of the Study. Mobility and stability in the labour marketThe Purpose of the Study. Analysing the processes of mobility and stability in the labour market in the aspect of effective regrouping of labour resourcesThe Main Provisions of the Article. In the conditions of structural transformations of the economy, the role of interfirm mobility of workers should increase. It is important that this process contributes to the improvement of the quality characteristics of the labour force. In many ways, this is achieved by increasing the reserves of human capital, but a change of work can counter this. It is known that stable employment with long-term labour relations are preferable for the growth of workers' qualifications. Moreover, interfirm mobility sometimes leads to a decrease in the quality of human potential. The analysis of these processes, their dominant trends, factors and motives was based on our theoretical and applied studies of the segmented (dual) labour market. In accordance with them, the labour market is divided into segments with high-quality and mass labour resources. The information base was provided by official statistics and an expert survey of workers, conducted at the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences using the qualitative interview method. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that mass resources are more mobile in the labour market, which is rarely accompanied by an improvement in their quality. This mainly applies to workers with low qualifications. They quit due to unattractive work and poor work-related security. For skilled workers, preference is more preferable than stable employment, but with good earnings and working conditions, for the sake of improvement of which they are ready to change jobs, but without changing their profession. At the same time, the processes of high mobility of specialists, whose professions allow working in various fields of activity (information technologies etc), have also been opened. It has been established that so far the increase in the level of employment of high-quality labour resources is limited by low rates of structural transformations of the economy.

Global market and income gaps between industries: evidence from finance industry and manufacturing industry

The income gap among industries in China is usually explained by the theory of segmented labor market. However, this perspective cannot explain why the finance industry has the highest average income among the monopoly industries, while the manufacturing industry has much lower incomes than any other competitive industry. This paper argues that it can be explained by the way China participates in the economic globalization. Liberalization of the manufacturing industry and protection of the finance industry are China’s strategies in dealing with opportunities and challenges of economic globalization. This paper compares the average incomes of monopoly and competitive industries, as well as that of finance and manufacturing. Analyses of panel data spanning from 2000 to 2014 show that the bigger the size of foreign trade, the higher the average income of the finance industry, and the lower the average income of the whole monody industries; at the same time, FDI reduces the average income of the manufacturing industry. This research advances the literature of segmented labor market by pointing out that income inequality between industries in China should be understood in the context of economic globalization.

Trayectorias y experiencias migratorias entre Paraguay y Argentina: trabajadores paraguayos en la producción forestal del delta del río Paraná

En este trabajo analizamos las trayectorias y experiencias migratorias de jóvenes paraguayos que trabajan en la producción forestal en el Delta Inferior del río Paraná, desempeñándose en tareas estacionales que son consideradas duras y sacrificadas. Este caso es un ejemplo de la manera en que las migraciones favorecen los procesos de acumulación de capital en el agro en contextos en los que se agudiza la precarización y flexibilización del trabajo rural. Contrastamos las características socio-demográficas de este grupo con las de la mayoría de los paraguayos que, en Argentina, se dirigen hacia áreas urbanas. Planteamos que la expansión de la forestación en el Delta fue favorecida por su participación en un mercado laboral segmentado destinado a migrantes recientes. Señalamos los estereotipos que legitiman su asignación a las peores posiciones de trabajo. Finalmente, analizamos sus trayectorias y experiencias migratorias y laborales.

Not Waving but Striving: Research Collaboration in the Context of Stratification, Segmentation, and the Quest for Prestige

ABSTRACTIn this article we examine the ways in which institutional stratification and academic labor segmentation contribute to shaping faculty collaborative activities. We draw on interviews from science and engineering faculty at two institutions in the United States to highlight how collaboration, as an essential form of academic labor, is shaped by institutional factors like resource stress and isomorphic pressures to fit the ideal of the “world-class” research-intensive university. The findings suggest that a university’s relative position in the institutional status hierarchy has a significant impact on the types of resources faculty seeking to establish collaborations can access and mobilize, thus reinforcing existing patterns of institutional stratification where “striving” institutions can never catch up to their more prestigious peers. At the same time, the pressure to maximize institutional prestige can create paradoxical interinstitutional dynamics where seemingly successful “Mode 2” units that rely almost exclusively on external resources and partnerships with industry are expected to mold themselves more closely to the activity streams of traditional academic units.

Employment Quality: An Overlooked Determinant of Workers’ Health and Well-being?

In the past four decades, high-income countries have seen a thorough socio-economic restructuring with important implications for the jobs of many workers, including health- and safety-related aspects. Much attention has been paid to psychosocial risks related to intrinsic features of contemporary work tasks, while the occupational health and safety consequences of 'new' conditions and relations of employment have remained neglected. This relative neglect is unjustified given the disrupting nature of many contemporary forms of employment. In this commentary, I introduce the concept of 'employment quality' as a novel approach towards measuring employment-related OHS risks. Employment quality involves a 'typological approach' towards employment arrangements, identifying five employment types in European labour markets, showing a distinct profile in terms of health-related employment characteristics. Moreover, these types align with segmented labour market theory, have a clear socio-economic profile, and show strong associations with workers' self-reported health.

Emerging Dynamics of Labour Market Inequality in India: Migration, Informality, Segmentation and Social Discrimination

Evidence for three decades or more indicates that wage inequality has consistently increased in most labour market segments in India. This paper focuses on how informalisation, migration, segmentation, and social discrimination, which operate most significantly at the lower end of the labour market, have contributed to well-being deficits and rising labour market inequality. There is a large and growing wage gap between formal and informal workers in the organised sector after controlling for other characteristics of the workers. On average, workers who are allocated formal or informal work in the organised sector have very similar characteristics. Across both formal and informal work, while education and experience improves wages, female and low-social-status workers have lower wages, controlling for other characteristics. This paper argues that seasonal and circular labour migrants form a growing segment of the informally employed. Poor and low-caste workers form a disproportionate proportion of such workers. Seasonal/circular migrant workers usually form the lowest rung of labour at organised sector work sites. They are segmented and fragmented by the recruitment process and along lines of caste, sex, ethnicity, language and region. This segmentation and fragmentation creates the basis for capital to acquire low-cost, highly flexible labour, who work long hours and take up the most dangerous work. This paper shows that the process of labour segmentation in Indian labour markets builds on well-entrenched processes of social discrimination but has assumed new forms as the workforce has become more mobile and informalised. Gender-based labour segmentation builds on the culturally determined social reproduction responsibilities of female workers and other socio-cultural factors. This paper concludes that while the above processes are linked to the underlying dynamics of capitalist growth in India, more equitable labour market outcomes at the bottom of the pyramid can be achieved through the provision of suitable social protection, sensible labour market regulation and a more comprehensive anti-discrimination framework.

The Uses and Abuses of Inequality

Social inequalities obviously affect human capabilities and are undesirable from a welfare standpoint. But they may actually be useful for particular growth trajectories, by creating segmented labour markets that reduce production costs. Some patterns of growth may rely on such inequalities and thereby accentuate and perpetuate them. In extreme cases, “modernising” capitalism, instead of destroying traditional forms of social oppression and discrimination, can strengthen pre-existing social inequalities. Two examples from India illustrate this: the significance of unpaid and underpaid care work that both relies upon and reinforces gender-based inequalities; and the persistence of dehumanising forms of work such as manual scavenging and unprotected sanitation work, that rely upon caste discrimination. To avoid the most regressive and oppressive socio-cultural tendencies of the past being strengthened by the operations of capitalism, policy interventions need to reiterate the core principles of ensuring human freedom and dignity in the economic sphere as well.

Language skills in an ethnically segmented labour market: Estonia 1989–2012

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between skills in the Estonian, Russian and English language, and labour market outcomes in Estonia, a linguistically divided country.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use the Estonian Labour Force Surveys 1992–2012. The authors rely on multivariate linear regression models to document the relationship between language skills and labour market outcomes.FindingsEstonian language knowledge (for ethnic Russians) are important determinants of unemployment. Wage, in contrary, is closely related to English skills. Ethnic Russian men do not earn any premium from speaking Estonian, while women, fluent in Estonian earn approximately 10 per cent more. For ethnic Estonians, Russian fluency is associated with a similar income gain.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the observational nature of the data, the effects reported in this study are not causal effects. As a second limitation, the self-reported language skills data may be imprecise and hence the effects the authors report may be too small.Practical implicationsThe results stress the role of workplace segregation, both along gender and ethnic lines, in determining the individual labour market experience.Originality/valueThe authors provide a comprehensive overview of the effects of language skills in a rapidly developing labour market in a linguistically divided economy. The authors analyse several languages with different legal status and document long-term trends in the effects.

Youth unemployment, NEETs and structural inequality in Spain

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to apply an intersectional analysis to assess the impact of structural factors on the risk of being a NEET for youth in Spain. The author study if inequalities have changed after the economic crisis, once youth policies designed to improve the Spanish school-to-work transition (SWT) system were implemented.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on microdata from the Spanish Survey on Income and Living Conditions, the paper compares the probability of becoming not in employment, education or training (NEET) of young men and women born inside or outside Spain and living in different types of households.FindingsAlthough unemployment rates have improved since the end of the crisis, the situation regarding youth employment, poverty and inequalities remains challenging. Gender and other structural differences are usually ignored in policy debates and in the measures adopted to fight youth unemployment, leading to the persistance of inequalities.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis illustrates new lines and trajectories in the segmentation of youth labor markets along the lines of gender, household and country of origin.Practical implicationsThe findings highlight the need for introducing an analysis of the different sources of vulnerability in policy designs in order to promote a real and sustainable change in SWTs.Originality/valueThe contribution of this research to the literature on NEET and SWT is to introduce a framework that allows for the intersectional analysis of gender and other structural inequalities.

Heterogeneous labour demand in the Colombian manufacturing sector

Using the Colombian Annual Manufacturing Survey between 2000 and 2013, we investigate the heterogeneity in labour demand within the industrial sector based on the elasticities. We find that long-run own-price, output, and TFP elasticities vary across a variety of dimensions such as regions, sectors, and plant sizes depending on workers’ skills and contract modalities (open-ended and temporary). The determinants of industrial labour demand are quantitatively different, mainly, across regions and, to some extent, subsectors when we focus on demand for unskilled workers. It is possible that, given the importance of apparel in the manufacturing sector in Pereira, labour demand for permanent skilled workers in that city is different from that of Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín. Thus, labour demand heterogeneity is just a symptom of the underlying differences in the production processes and produced goods, technologies, labour force qualification and productivity, preferences of workers, rigidities and wage-setting procedures, and peculiarities of goods’ markets, etc. Suggestions to induce more wage flexibility and decrease labour segmentation emerge from this paper.

Blaise Pascal: Miracles and Reason by Mary Ann Caws

 Reviews ture. e book’s deep excavation of J. M. Coetzee’s interests in central Europe at the point of difficult transition from the Austro-Hungarian empire and its handling of the subversive intertextual allusion of Zoë Wicomb’s fiction demonstrates, among other things, that such writing is by its very nature global. Modelling a method of interpretation that is ultimately hopeful, this book has much to say about the fates of literary reading in uncertain times, and the potential expansiveness of scholarly interest against the segmentation and marketization of academic labour. U  B A R Blaise Pascal: Miracles and Reason. By M A C. London: Reaktion. . xx+ pp. £.. ISBN ––––. ere is a paradox in writing the biography of a writer who declared the self detestable , derided the notion of person, and excoriated Montaigne for attempting to paint a portrait of himself. Why risk reducing Pascal’s thoroughly anti-subjective project, grounded on extraordinary scientific, philosophical, and theological reflections , to the personal and the psychopathological? In this masterful short biography Mary Ann Caws avoids such pitfalls by focusing not on character but on Pascal’s style of life, and in so doing manages to introduce readers to the crux of his thought. Her Pascal is a ‘tense thinker’, who rarely spends time on ideas beyond his first brilliant intuitions and experiments, always afforded by circumstances and chance encounters. For Pascal, it is sufficient that these ideas contradict the obvious: there is void in nature, an object is an infinity of views, a machine can think, the fools are precisely those who think themselves smart, especially in politics, etc. A thinker of tensions who finds the Cartesian method naive, Pascal constantly stages contradictory perspectives on a complex universe. Each chapter links Pascal’s inventions to the pressure of circumstances. e theory of conical sections follows his move to Paris and his induction into Mersenne’s Académie. Pascal invents the calculator aer his father’s move to Rouen as a tax collector. e chance discovery of Jansenism leads to the first conversion and deepens Pascal’s relationship with his sister Jacqueline, a significant writer and actress. He invents probability theory during his ‘worldly’ period of active friendship with gamblers. is leads to the Wager argument (Caws manages to show its significance without repeating the accumulated scholarship). e second conversion follows the night of the Mémorial, a text Pascal wore sewn in the lining of his coat and which Caws reads as a poetic expression of the experience of the ineffable, leading to the first project of an Apology for Christianity presented to M. de Sacy. e war staged by Les Provinciales (a politicaltheological assault against the Jesuits as well as a phenomenology of bad faith) is linked to the miracle of his niece’s cure in Port-Royal. At the end of a trajectory linking peaks of thought to major events, Caws reads the Pensées not just as an anthropological and theological reformulation of all the strands of Pascal’s thought but also as a reflection on thinking and style which, to the modern reader, is a school of writing. MLR, .,   In places Caws could have gone further. In the Entretien with Sacy, Pascal did not just juxtapose Montaigne and Descartes, but built a philosophical ‘machine infernale’ where Stoicism and scepticism would reveal each other’s vanity, both for life and for salvation. As for the Pensées, Caws’s equation of fragment with aphorism is debatable. e Entretien, L’Esprit de la géométrie, several fragments marked as preface, chapter sections, and conclusion, and public readings given by Pascal of some of the Pensées assembled into bundles indicate a coherent apologetical project . Had he not died prematurely, he would surely have merged the fragments into chapters, while maintaining the aphoristic nature of many existential paradoxes pointing only to a solution beyond existence. More could be said in that regard on miracles and prophecies as irrational but indubitable proofs in history. Nietzsche and perhaps Char and Foucault could have been more explicitly discussed in the chapter on posterity, and the satirical Rondeau against the Jesuits needs...

Segmented Labour Market of Seelampur: A Key Site of Exclusion

If I engage with Muslim manufacturers and we decide a particular date for delivery of the final product, they will deliver the product on time. But after that, they will continuously demand their payment. Since they have large families, their demand is genuine but it becomes hard to work in such an atmosphere. I prefer a comfortable work space and engage with only those with whom I am comfortable in the business. And so, if people of Hindu community are available, I prefer them over Muslims. Manish1

Immigration, Social Networks, and the Emergence of Ethnic Segmentation in a Low-Skill Labor Market

Postwar migration to “western” countries has gone hand in hand with the development of ethnically segmented labor markets, particularly in low-skill roles where entry requirements are minimal. While numerous theories have been forwarded as to why such situations occur, it has remained difficult to empirically test the relative impact of the many interacting processes that produce segmentation in the labor market. In this article, we investigate the processes of ethnic segmentation in low-skilled labor markets, where referral hiring is the norm, with particular reference to the role of ethnically homogeneous social networks and forms of discrimination. We employ an agent-based modeling approach, adapting key elements from Waldinger and Lichter’s widely cited networked explanation of ethnic labor market segmentation. This approach allows us to provide a different lens on theories of ethnic labor market segmentation, investigating the relative impacts of different causal processes that are difficult to investigate in this way using other social science approaches. The overall results from our model indicate that ethnically homogeneous social networks have the effect of increasing the level of ethnic segmentation within a referral-based labor market, but that these networks also help immigrant populations grow and protect them from the negative impacts of employer discrimination. Furthermore, these networks have a greater impact on labor market segmentation than discrimination alone. In conclusion, this sociologically informed agent-based model provides important insights into the manner and extent in which changes in social conditions may affect population-level phenomena.

“Para no estar sin hacer nada”: formación para la inserción laboral de personas inmigrantes en Barcelona

En este artículo nos hemos propuesto analizar las políticas de formación que se dirigen a la inserción laboral de las personas inmigrantes en la ciudad de Barcelona. Sirviéndonos de la propuesta de Chris Shore y Susan Wright (1997) de llevar a cabo una antropología de las políticas, hemos podido reconocer la explicitación de las características ideales que se espera que presenten las personas inmigrantes. Es decir, hemos podido identificar la recurrente solicitud de atenuación o de eliminación de las particularidades culturales, que supuestamente inciden de manera negativa en su inserción laboral, así como también, la recomendación de que se muestren siempre activos en la búsqueda de empleo. De igual modo, hemos podido reconocer los procesos de descalificación de los saberes de las personas inmigrantes y su consecuente “inclusión diferencial” en el segmentado mercado de trabajo.