Standard Employment Relationship Research Articles

Unveiling the upsides of low-skilled physical gig work: insights from the gig workers’ perspective in Malaysia

ABSTRACT The gig economy has proliferated recently, fuelled by digital platforms and the global pandemic. This shift has transformed the standard employment relationship between employer and employee, making it crucial to understand the gig workers’ performance in this setting. A sequential mixed-methods approach was used to investigate the underlying phenomena. The study commenced with 1st phase of qualitative study through semi-structured interviews to uncover the major themes spurring gig workers’ psychometric dimensions. Six major themes were identified in 1st phase of the qualitative study, two of which were unique to gig work (joy of gig work, work–life balance) while the 2nd phase of the quantitative study revealed that job autonomy, joy of gig work, and work–life balance positively affect work performance. The findings suggest the requisite refinement of gig worker classification, and gig work measurement tools within the context of organisational strategies and policy development considerations.

Mapping social protection coverage for platform workers: A comparative analysis of Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands

The aim of this paper is to examine if and how the reclassification of platform workers from self-employment status to employment status can provide them with adequate social security protection. Little is known about how this transition would guarantee platform workers adequate social protection within the social protection scheme for employees. National social security schemes, in particular income replacement benefit schemes, often (still) depart from the standard employment relationship, leading to lower protection for atypical work forms. Platform workers combine several of the characteristics of atypical forms of work, such as low earnings, irregular working patterns and working. Integrating platform workers into employee social security schemes faces additional challenges due to the online nature of their work, algorithmic management, high levels of unpaid labor, and employer identification difficulties. This paper focuses on unemployment protection, as EU Member States struggle to provide adequate protection for workers with irregular work patterns and income fluctuations, in the case of (short term) income replacement benefits. By constructing nine ideal work patterns reflective of diverse nature of platform work and current practices among platform work, we analyse how different types of ‘employed’ platform workers may fare within the legislation of three EU countries (Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands). This approach allows us to assess the applicability of unemployment protection to different working patterns among 'employed' platform workers, considering formal, effective, and adequate access to unemployment schemes as outlined in the Council Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed (2019).

The future of work and working time: introduction to special issue

Abstract This introduction to the special issue on the future of work and working time offers an overview of issues of relevance to present-day debates on working time. The aim is to bring together two divergent debates, the first on working time reduction for full-time workers and the second on the diversification and fragmentation of working time. It considers the history of working time including the forces that led to the establishment of the standard employment relationship and to reductions in standard working hours. It addresses contemporary trends and examines why there has been both a stalling of working time reduction and a diversification of working time norms. Some limitations of focussing only on clock time are considered as well as some of the benefits, from more meaningful work to better health and well-being, that stem from both regular and non-excessive working time. The final section turns to the case for reform: it argues that policies are required to address the fragmentation of working time, and that these policies should be combined with a focus on shortening standard working hours that could increase the sustainability of working time in a dual-earner society and even limit the supply of labour for jobs offering only fragmented working time.

The role of informal support systems during illness: A qualitative study of solo self-employed workers in Ontario, Canada.

Today's labor market has changed over time, shifting from mostly full-time, secure, and standard employment relationships to mostly entrepreneurial and precarious working arrangements. In this context, self-employment (SE), a prominent type of precarious work, has been growing rapidly due to globalization, automation, technological advances, and the rise of the 'gig' economy, among other factors. Employment precarity profoundly impacts workers' health and well-being by undermining the comprehensiveness of social security systems, including occupational health and safety systems. This study examined how self-employed (SE'd) workers sought out support from informal support systems following illness, injury, and income reduction or loss. Based on in-depth interviews with 24 solo SE'd people in Ontario, Canada, narrative analysis was conducted of participants' experiences with available informal supports following illness or injury. We identified three main ways that SE'd workers managed to sustain their businesses during periods of need: (i) by relying on savings; (ii) accessing loans and financial support through social networks, and (iii) receiving emotional and practical support. We conclude that SE'd workers managed to survive despite social security system coverage gaps by drawing on informal support systems.

Multidimensional typologies of precarious employment and their relationships with mental well-being in Korean wageworkers: A latent class analysis based on the Korean Working Conditions Survey (2020–2021)

BackgroundPrecarious employment (PE) has been conceptualized as having a multidimensional nature, and research addressing this topic in Asian countries is scarce. This study examined the typologies of PE and their relationships with mental health among Korean workers. MethodsFrom October 2020 to April 2021, the Korean Working Conditions Survey was conducted on Korean wageworkers (weighted N = 38,347), representative of the nation. With theory-based operationalization of PE, we identified typologies and classified workers through latent class analysis. Logistic regression was performed to explore the association between PE typologies and mental health among workers, represented as odds ratio (ORs) and confidence intervals (CIs). ResultsFour distinct employment typologies emerged: (i) standard employment relationships (SER, 34.5%), (ii) moderate employment precariousness (MEP, 43.5%), (iii) underemployment (17.9%), and (iv) daily laborers (4.1%). Women were overrepresented in the MEP and underemployment types, while the SER type consisted of those with higher educational attainment and white-collar jobs. The OR (95% CI) of depression was 1.38 (1.27–1.50) for the MEP type, 1.48 (1.32–1.66) for the underemployment type, and 2.15 (1.85–2.51) for the daily laborers, compared to the SER type. For individual elements of PE, temporary employment, low wages, low-income predictability, and low involvement in work process were positively associated with depression, whereas part-time employment was negatively associated with depression. ConclusionEmployment insecurity, low material rewards, and a lack of rights and protection can contribute to the poor mental health of workers. Policy interventions are warranted to mitigate inequalities in employment quality among Korean workers.

Why No One Can “Have It All” and Why That Matters for Everyone1

New trends in the organization of economic and private life have added a major wrinkle to the still unfolding gender revolution. The decline of the standard employment relationship has eroded the ability of salaried and wage‐earning men to support a family household, while the decline of permanent, heterosexual marriage has undermined the traditional gender bargain that encouraged most women to provide unpaid caregiving in exchange for a partner's financial support. These widespread social shifts have created new economic insecurities and intensified work–family conflicts. Drawing on 120 in‐depth interviews with a diverse group of mid‐life adults, I examine how workers and parents are navigating these new conflicts and insecurities. Four work‐care strategies are emerging, all of which involve significant trade‐offs. Among the four patterns, however, people are most satisfied with an egalitarian strategy. A substantial proportion in the other groups, which include traditional couples, childless singles, and unequal dual‐earners, also express a preference for a more egalitarian sharing of work and care, although the preference for equality varies by gender. Effective social policy thus needs to insure that everyone—including people of all genders, class positions, and family circumstances—has the opportunity to forge a more equal, blended, and secure division of work and caregiving.

Employment trajectories of workers in low-skilled jobs in Western Germany

According to the segmentation theory, low-skilled jobs belong to the secondary sector of the labour market. Low-skilled jobs do not require vocational training and workers are interchangeable. Therefore, workers in this sector have poor working conditions and are regularly affected by employment interruptions. The current state of research, however, does not provide any longitudinal information about individual employment stability of workers performing low-skilled jobs. Furthermore, most of these workers are employed full-time and have completed professional training. Against this background, this paper deals with employment trajectories of workers in low-skilled jobs and their changes over time with regard to standard employment relationship. The aim of the explorative study is to analyse the assignment of workers in low-skilled jobs within the segmentation theory and to determine how segments have changed over time.We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to analyse the employment trajectories of two cohorts aged 35 to 44 years in Western Germany over a period of ten years. The employment trajectories are compared by means of sequence analysis with optimal matching algorithm as well as cluster analysis applying the “Partitioning Around Medoids” method (PAM) in combination with results from hierarchical ward clusters. The employment trajectories indicate that low-skilled jobs can be assigned to both the secondary and the primary sectors. The cohort comparison of employment trajectories shows change and continuity in the context of segments.

Workplace investigations, the epistemic power of managerialism and the hollowing out of the Norwegian model of co-determination

Workplace investigations are increasingly being used in Norwegian workplaces in both public and private sectors to investigate allegations of misconduct, harassment, blameworthy conditions, and other breaches of the Norwegian Working Environment Act. Workplace investigations are often triggered by complaints submitted through internal organizational whistleblowing and ‘speak up’ systems. With the EU Whistleblower Directive, ISO 37002:2021 Whistleblowing Management Systems – Guidelines and the ISO/AWI TS 37008 Internal Investigations in Organizations under development, we witness further standardization of whistleblowing systems and investigative procedures within organizations. And yet, these systems have so far received little critical attention. Our in-depth qualitative analysis of 22 such cases within standard employment relationships, informed by extensive literature review, secondary data and case files, has revealed that workplace investigations escalated conflicts, negatively affecting whistleblowers, trade union representatives, safety representatives, and other critical and dissenting voices, and that these systems leave little room for trade union representatives, co-determination or collective approaches to conflict resolution. We argue that this cannot be merely attributed to botched or biased investigations that have failed to follow ‘best practice’ guidelines. Instead, these are by default inquisitorial processes: the employer funds the investigation, creates the mandate and acts as prosecutor, police and judge in one. We analyse these methods and their epistemic power in light of the increasing privatization and pluralization of policing within the context of regulatory capitalism and the ‘criminalization’ of compliance, arguing that such methods are an expression of larger phenomena that lead to the progressive hollowing out of co-determination and workplace democracy and justice, in Norway and likely elsewhere.

Self-employment, illness, and the social security system: a qualitative study of the experiences of solo self-employed workers in Ontario, Canada

BackgroundToday’s labor market has changed over time, shifting from mostly full-time, secured, and standard employment relationships to mostly entrepreneurial and precarious working arrangements. Thus, self-employment (SE) has been growing rapidly in recent decades due to globalization, automation, technological advances, and the recent rise of the ‘gig’ economy, among other factors. Accordingly, more than 60% of workers worldwide are non-standard and precarious. This precarity profoundly impacts workers’ health and well-being, undermining the comprehensiveness of social security systems. This study aims to examine the experiences of self-employed (SE’d) workers on how they are protected with available social security systems following illness, injury, and income reduction or loss.MethodsDrawing on in-depth interviews with 24 solo SE’d people in Ontario (January – July 2021), thematic analysis was conducted based on participants’ narratives of experiences with available security systems following illness or injury. The dataset was analyzed using NVIVO qualitative software to elicit narratives and themes.FindingsThree major themes emerged through the narrative analysis: (i) policy-practice (mis)matching, (ii) compromise for a decent life, and (iii) equity in work and benefits.ConclusionsMeagre government-provided formal supports may adversely impact the health and wellbeing of self-employed workers. This study points to ways that statutory social protection programs should be decoupled from benefits provided by employers. Instead, government can introduce a comprehensive program that may compensate or protect low-income individuals irrespective of employment status.

The goods (and bads) of self‐employment

The goods (and bads) of <scp>self‐employment</scp>

Are All the Stable Jobs Gone? The Transformation of the Worker–Firm Relationship and Trends in Job Tenure Duration and Separations in Canada, 1976–2015

The literature on flexibilization documents the decline of the standard employment relationships, resulting in greater job insecurity. Consequently, the stability of career trajectories is expected to have decreased. However, existing studies in many countries pose a significant challenge: the available evidence shows no clear downward trend and possibly even an increase in job stability since the 1970s, as measured by trends in job tenure duration or job separations. This article highlights important limitations of such studies and provides novel evidence on the transformation of career trajectories. It is the first to provide evidence of a decrease in average job tenure duration for men in Canada and a decrease in five-year and 10-year retention rates over the four decades between 1976 and 2015, adjusting for sociodemographic shifts unrelated to flexibilization. We also find that average job tenure has increased for women, while their long-term job retention rates declined.

Critical analysis of the manners of establishment and extension of employment relationships of employees in higher education of the Republic of Serbia

This paper aims to inspect various problems that appear in regard to different ways of establishing employment relationships and executing employee selection in the Republic of Serbia's higher education system. It is especially important to stress the fact that in establishing an employment relationship in higher education there are prominent elements of public law that differentiate between this type of employment relationship and a standard employment relationship. When we also add that in the higher education system of Serbia, there are two organisational types of higher education institutions - academic and applied studies, it becomes evident that the subject of this article is important to the wider scientific community. Furthermore, in this article, the authors will analyse and point to certain legal and procedural shortcomings regarding the extension of an employment relationship of teachers who have met the conditions for an old-age pension.

Law and gendered labour market segmentation

AbstractThis article captures the shared understanding in the literature of labour law's interaction with gender, distinguishing between law's different functions – constituting labour market institutions, sustaining them, addressing unwarranted outcomes and transforming the institutions. Constituted, in part, by law, the standard employment relationship and the institutions of formal employment have segmenting gendered effects. While legal norms designed to correct these effects are important, they also sustain them. The authors argue for a transformative alternative that would follow two general principles in designing new labour standards, namely, universalization of scope and adaptive content in the interests of differently situated women and men.

Segmenting and equalizing narratives in the ILO's standard‐setting practice

AbstractIn shaping the employment relationship internationally, the ILO initially reproduced the Western normative narrative of the standard employment relationship (SER). When the global South and women gained a stronger voice within the ILO, a contrasting egalitarian narrative emerged, challenging the SER hegemony and creating a layering of narratives. Combining historical institutionalism and structuration theory, the authors follow the development of these narratives and consider how the resultant legal and normative conflicts between them can be explained by focusing on the composition of ILO membership and the representation of women in International Labour Conferences over time. The authors draw a number of legal‐political conclusions from their findings.

Reflecting the changing world of work? A critique of existing survey measures and a proposal for capturing new ways of working

In recent decades we have seen significant and varied changes in the world of work. Most prominent among these is the diminishing prevalence of the standard employment relationship. These changes challenge traditional notions of what constitute ‘employment’, ‘employers’, ‘employees’, the ‘workplace’ and the ‘working day’. Many current survey instruments are still based on the concept of the standard employment relationship, however. This article illustrates some limitations of existing conceptualisations and definitions of flexible work arrangements and of the instruments used to measure them in major surveys. It also suggests ways of tackling these limitations. The aim of highlighting potential limitations of existing survey instruments is to enable data users to be more reflective about what the results actually do and do not report, and to encourage survey designers to modify existing instruments and develop new instruments to better capture contemporary realities, including multiple jobholding and internet and platform work.

Coping with precarity during COVID-19: A study of platform work in Poland.

This article explores how the COVID‐19 pandemic has affected the work and life experiences of platform workers' and how workers have responded to the outbreak in Poland. Platform workers have been exposed to substantial fluctuations of demand during the pandemic, magnifying the distortions existing in an unregulated asymmetrical employment relationship diverging from the standard employment relationship. Findings illustrate how workers have attempted to reduce the disruptions underpinning the existence of this unregulated asymmetrical relationship by adopting different strategies, which resemble Hirschman's typology of loyalty, voice and exit. We explain the choice of strategies by highlighting workers' different access to resources and institutional capabilities, as well as by variation in their orientations.

Steering wheels to make ends meet: Understanding stressors and coping strategies among app-based taxi drivers in Tehran

Management scholars' understanding of occupational stress and coping is predominantly based on experiences of workers in standard employment relationships with organizations. Interviewing 64 app-based taxi drivers in Tehran, we examined stressors and coping strategies embedded in a growing occupational context—low-skilled app-based jobs—in an understudied non-Western developing Islamic country. Our findings revealed six stressors embedded in our participants' occupational and country contexts. The drivers coped with these stressors with six strategies that comprised (a) hiding their job, (b) adjusting at work, (c) rationalizing, (d) self-sacrificing, (e) trusting God, and (f) looking for another job. Our paper responds to the call for contextual and international perspectives in careers research, and informs career scholars and practitioners interested in examining and addressing the needs of similar groups of workers in similar occupational and country contexts.

Normalizing and Resisting the New Precarity: A Case Study of the Indonesian Gig Economy

The article examines the effects of the normalization of a new form of precarious work—tied to the gig economy and shaped by the imperatives of neoliberalism—in impeding the formation of solidarity that would enable workers to challenge structural issues that shape their precarity, although without entirely preventing collective organization. While the article focuses on the manifestation of the new precarity and workers’ responses in the app-based transport service in Indonesia, it seeks insights from the different experiences of other countries. It is argued here that the historical absence of the Standard Employment Relationship (SER), and the historically rooted ineffectiveness of labor and broader society movements aggravate problems in translating the precarity discourse into the organizational struggles of contemporary labor.

What does non-standard employment look like in the United States? An empirical typology of employment quality.

Despite significant interest in the changing nature of employment as a critical social and economic challenge facing society-especially the decline in the so-called Standard Employment Relationship (SER) and rise in more insecure, precarious forms of employment-scholars have struggled to operationalize the multifaceted and heterogeneous nature of contemporary worker-employer relationships within empirical analyses. Here we investigate the character and distribution of employment relationships in the U.S., drawing on a representative sample of wage-earners and self-employed from the General Social Survey (2002 - 2018). We use the multidimensional construct of employment quality (EQ), which includes both contractual (e.g., wages, contract type) and relational (e.g., employee representation and participation) aspects of employment. We further employ a typological measurement approach, using latent class analysis, to explicitly examine how the multiple aspects of employment cluster together in modern labor markets. We present eight distinct employment types in the U.S., including one resembling the historical conception of the SER model (24% of the total workforce), and others representing various constellations of favorable and adverse employment features. These employment types are unevenly distributed across society, in terms of who works these jobs and where they are found in the labor market. Importantly, women, those with lower education, and younger workers are more likely to be in precarious forms of employment. More generally, our typology reveals limitations associated with binary conceptions of standard vs. non-standard employment, or insider-outsider dichotomies envisioned within dual labor market theories.

Индекс прекарности для психологического изучения российского рынка труда

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the Precarity Index scale, present its psychometric characteristics, identify psychological and biographical correlates of precarity, and compare different types of employment at the Russian labour market. Method. The sample consistedof 495 people between 30 and 45 years who were included in four types of employment: permanent; fixed-term (one–three years); temporary (less than one year); and casual, short-term employment. Results. The precarious employment attributes have been analyzed both in foreign and domestic approaches. The key attributes are highlighted, and Precarity Index scale is proposed. It includes 13 items to assess current and expected employment characteristics. The hypotheses of construct validity and empirical validity of Precarity Index have been confirmed. Its psychological correlates are experience of job insecurity and forced employment, perception of career development barriers, and deprivation of the psychological benefits which a standard employment relationship includes. Different types of employment have different levels of precarity. Full-time permanent employment hasthe lowest level, casual (short-term) employment has the highest one. The unemployment periods in career and the frequency of job changes during the past three years are the biographical correlates of Precarity Index. Conclusions. The scale has acceptable psychometric properties, construct validity and empirical validity. The Precarity Index can be considered as employment uncertainty for specific individuals and groups, it reflects the history and current quality of their employment. It is proved that the psychological functional structure of precarious work differs from a stable work a lot. There has been made a conclusion that a finer differentiation between casual and temporary (less than one year) employment is needed; the further analysis of informal employment as a component of the Precarity index is needed. Value of results. The Precarity Index is a new instrument to measure a set of behavioural and subjective characteristics of employment. It provides a new perspective to evaluate organizations, social, age, and professional groups in terms of employment quality. The scale has an interdisciplinary potential; it may be useful for sociologists and economists, human resource managers. The emergenceof a compact scale measuring precarity is an important step in the study of human adaptation to different types of employment at the Russian labour market.