This book provides an introduction and overview to seven applied financial studies on the theme of labour. The studies cover a wide range of topics, from the individual effects of becoming disabled on key aspects of labour market outcomes in Germany, to testing whether there is evidence of compression of morbidity using Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data and analysing the effects of this on the labour supply of older people. The studies employ a variety of applied techniques across a range of countries.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Applied Economics.

In an increasingly globalised world manifested in greater economic integration, human capital is an important factor. One of the key sources of human capital to the global economy is India, and the main destinations for Indian professionals has been Western developed economies, the Middle East and Gulf regions and East and Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia as a region has close historical, social and cultural linkages with India, and India has undertaken a number of initiatives under its "Look East" policy (LEP) to enhance ties with the Southeast Asian region. This book examines the trends and motivations of human capital flows from India into this region. Focusing in particular on Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, the book provides an analysis of Indian labour in a variety of sectors, including information technology (IT) sector, academia, banking, oil and gas. Based on empirical data, the book provides an analysis of current trends in the flow of human capital from India to Southeast Asia. It will be of interest to policy makers, businessmen, students, analysts and academics in the field of Asian studies, foreign relations, human capital and labour migration.

This book examines the implications of China s economic reforms for domestic work and domestic workers. The author examines the factors that give rise to paid domestic work in a socialist economy, and goes on to look at the need for social protection of domestic workers within cities in contemporary China.

Using a socialist feminist approach, the book investigates how China's economic restructuring has deliberately crafted a domestic service sector from the top-down. Through the analysis of the situation of paid domestic labour, it demonstrates how the changes in socialist ideology under a market economy have justified the state s support for paid domestic labour; the large role of the state in these ideological changes; and how domestic labour is related to economic changes and the market economy itself. The book argues that state s economic reforms have changed gender and class relations in Chinese society.

Based on interviews with domestic workers, their employers, their social advocates, and government officials, this book examines the economic and social security of domestic workers and provides information about their precarious working conditions that could be improved through public policy. It also explores women s agency and activism, and the current role of NGOs and trade unions in labour protection."

The high growth performance of the Indian economy since the launch of economic reforms in the early 1990s has been much lauded. But how much of this growth has made its way to the poor? In a radical assessment of 'inclusive growth', this book probes the impact of neo-liberal policies on employment, poverty and inequality. It critiques the claim that market-friendly economic reform policies 'trickle down' to the poor and reduce poverty and deprivation. The author uses exhaustive data - from the formal and informal sectors - to create a profile of the aam aadmi. He advocates the need for a broad-based growth and development strategy that alone will address the many-sided social and economic inequalities in India. The volume will be useful to scholars and students of economics, development studies, labour studies, and sociology.

A map which shows where innovation is clustered worldwide is also a map of the location of the highly skilled and talented labour. New technologies, their creative applications or synergy across different areas of scientific research or technology development always create opportunities for the employment of particularly creative labour. This book explores the kinds of institutions and structures which need to exist to make sure that such skills are both offered and employed in particular 'islands of innovation'. Networking Regionalised Innovative Labour Markets illustrates the theme of how existing concentrations of skills in scientific, technological and managerial elites are reinforced through inter-regional mobility using exemplars from a range of countries and regions. These include the US, UK, Italy, Germany, and Central and Eastern Europe. The book's originality lies in its in-depth assessments of the factors associated with the extent to which some regions hold their positions in networked islands of innovation. It is shown that those islands of innovation that attract highly skilled workers from abroad, particularly those from foreign islands of innovation, perform better for example in the US, Italy and the UK. In contrast, even the most innovative Czech regions tend to lose the highly skilled workers vis-a-vis the most innovative regions of the world, mainly to regions in the USA.

In the last decade, nonunion employee representation (NER) has become a much discussed topic in the fields of human resource management, employment relations, and employment/labor law. This book examines the purpose, structure, and performance of various types of employee representation bodies created by companies in non-union settings to promote collective forums for voice and involvement at the workplace. This unique volume presents the first longitudinal evidence on the performance, success, and failure of NER plans over an extended time period. Consisting of twelve detailed, in-depth case studies of actual NER plans in operation across four countries, this volume provides unparalleled evidence on such matters as: the motives behind the initial establishment of NER, different organizational forms of NER in industry, key success and failure factors over the long-term, pro and con evaluations for employers and employees, and more. Voice and Involvement at Work captures an unequalled international and comparative perspective through a wide cross-section of different NER forms.

This book analyses contemporary trends in radical unionism in Europe. It contains nine country case-studies that probe the limits and possibilities of trade union renewal with a focus on radical activity. The editors follow a broad definition of radical unionism, including trade union organisations that can be characterised as radical either in terms of ideology and political identity or in terms of organising and mobilising activity. The ongoing economic crisis and consequent austerity measures, and employers' strategies for increasing labour market flexibility have encouraged the deregulation of capitalism in Europe. The question this book asks is whether radicalised unionism, political action and grassroots activism present opportunities for union renewal and collective interest representation in this economic context. This question is examined in nine national contexts with diverse industrial relations frameworks and trade unions. The editors assess the degree to which we are witnessing the emergence of 'radical political unionism' as an alternative model of trade unionism in Europe, focused on class struggle, engagement in social movement activity beyond the workplace, and politicised union strategies aligned to new left-wing political formations.

More than nine out of every ten working women in India are employed in the informal economy, unprotected by labour laws and excluded from basic forms of social security. They work as daily labourers in the fields, small producers and industrial outworkers in their own homes and as vendors on the streets. These workers typically receive very low wages and experience extreme forms of social, economic and political marginalisation. This book examines what types of interventions can improve the well-being of women working in the Indian informal economy. Using the case study of the Self Employed Women s Association, Worker Identity, Agency and Economic Development argues that work-life reform for informal women workers has moral and social dimensions, as well as economic.
Drawing on the work of social philosopher Axel Honneth, the book argues that worker agency is critical to the process of work-life reform in the informal economy. Using empirical data collected amongst SEWA members the study shows that there is a positive and developmental relationship between a worker s identity, or psychological integrity, and her actual capacity to engage in the political economy for constructive change. The study shows that membership based organisations can promote the social foundations of recognition and respect that are critical to identity and agency, as well as provide worker s with real opportunities to develop alternative non-exploitative economic institutions that deliver improved wages and social security. But in organizing informal workers for collective action the existing distribution of power and wealth, as well as gender privilege are challenged. The result is social conflict and sometimes violence. Conflict of this nature is endemic to the development process, but is often overlooked in development literature and policy design.

The book will be of interest to development scholars and practitioners, as well as those interested in the dynamics of women s empowerment and socio-economic change for informal economy workers. "

With national industrial relations systems struggling to keep apace with the global and mobile nature of capital, the emergence of the European works council has caught the imagination of both practitioners and scholars of this institution in the last two decades. European works councils find themselves at the centre of an ever emerging European industrial relations landscape, offering employees of multinationals within the European Economic Area the opportunity to work together in regulating employment conditions. An in-depth empirical study of five European works councils, this book offers a unique look into factors which promote and hinder the development of solidarity amongst employees. With a sociological bent, this volume is a must for EWC delegates struggling to deal with geographical, cultural and historical factors that undermine relations between them.

The wide-ranging European perspectives brought together in this volume aim to analyse, by means of an interdisciplinary approach, the numerous implications of a massive shift in the conception of 'work' and the category of 'worker'. Changes in the production models, economic downturn and increasing digitalisation have triggered a breakdown in the terms and assumptions that previously defined and shaped the notion of employment. This has made it more difficult to discuss, and problematise, issues like vulnerability in employment in such terms as unfairness, inequality and inadequate protection. Taking the 'deconstruction of employment' as a central idea for theorising the phenomenon of work today, this volume explores the emergence of new semantic fields and territories for understanding and regulating employment. These new linguistic categories have implications beyond language alone: they reformulate the very concept of waged employment (including those aspects previously considered intrinsic to the meaning of work and of being 'a worker'), along with other closely associated categories such as unemployment, self-employment, and inactivity.

This book addresses the contemporary debate about the 'third way' in European social democracy, by analysing the exemplar case of social democracy - 'the Swedish model' - this book challenges the recent 'third way' perspective. The author argues strongly against the widely held belief that the nature of contemporary capitalist restructuring and globalisation has rendered traditional social democracy obsolete.

In 2002 the International Labour Organization issued a report titled 'Decent work and the informal economy' in which it stressed the need to ensure appropriate employment and income, rights at work, and effective social protection in informal economic activities. Such a call by the ILO is urgent in the context of countries such as India, where the majority of workers are engaged in informal economic activities, and where expansion of informal economic activities is coupled with deteriorating working conditions and living standards. This book explores the informal economic activity of India as a case study to examine typical requirements in the work-lives of informal workers, and to develop a means to institutionalise the promotion of these requirements through labour law. Drawing upon Amartya Sen's theoretical outlook, the book considers whether a capability approach to human development may be able to promote recognition and work-life conditions of a specific category of informal workers in India by integrating specific informal workers within a social dialogue framework along with a range of other social partners including state and non-state institutions. While examining the viability of a human development based labour law in an Indian context, the book also indicates how the proposals put forth in the book may be relevant for informal workers in other developing countries. This research monograph will be of great interest to scholars of labour law, informal work and workers, law and development, social justice, and labour studies.

First published in 1974, Employment Policies in Developing Countries is an attempt to take stock of experience that has been acquired in a number of developing countries in matters relating to employment promotion. It begins with a discussion of the nature of the employment objective, its role in the development process and with some attempt to quantify the dimensions of the problem. In Part Two employment promotion measures are examined in relation to each of the major economic sectors, while Part Three is concerned with vocational training, migration, and demographic policies. Finally, some suggestions are made as to how developing countries might define employment goals and formulate programmes for their attainment. This book is a must read for scholars and researchers of economics, labour economics and public policy.

In the first half of the nineteenth century the main employments open to young women in Britain were in teaching, dressmaking, textile manufacture and domestic service. After 1850, however, young women began to enter previously all-male areas like medicine, pharmacy, librarianship, the civil service, clerical work and hairdressing, or areas previously restricted to older women like nursing, retail work and primary school teaching. This book examines the reasons for this change. The author argues that the way femininity was defined in the first half of the century blinded employers in the new industries to the suitability of young female labour. This definition of femininity was, however, contested by certain women who argued that it not only denied women the full use of their talents but placed many of them in situations of economic insecurity. This was a particular concern of the Womens Movement in its early decades and their first response was a redefinition of feminity and the promotion of academic education for girls. The author demonstrates that as a result of these efforts, employers in the areas targeted began to see the advantages of employing young women, and young women were persuaded that working outside the home would not endanger their femininity.

This book consists of a comparative analysis of policy-making in Australian and British telecommunications and printing trade unions. It tests the validity of different theoretical models of union policy-making and behaviour, whilst also assessing the strength of the book's hypothesis, that informal micro-political influences inside unions - such as personal friendships, enmities and loyalties - affect union policy-making to a greater extent than has been previously acknowledged in the literature. Two central questions lie at the heart of this book: How, and why, do unions adopt specific policies? What factors explain the different behaviour of similar unions, when faced with comparable policy choices? As a former senior union officer the author realised that trade unions are often wary of publically disclosing those factors which informed their policy choices. For this reason an interview-rich methodology was adopted, which involved a seventeen-year longitudinal study, in which over 220 officers and staff of all the relevant unions, were interviewed in depth. The result is a book which throws new light on the rich and complex process of union policy-making.

European trade unions are among the most influential and powerful institutions within Western economies, in many cases cooperating with the government and employers' associations in socio-economic decision-making processes. Consequently they also play an important role in the formulation of policies relating to immigration and the migrant workers, who are arriving and becoming part of the workforce the unions are representing and protecting against employers and other authorities. However, trade unions have not always fulfilled their role as the most obvious organization to defend the interests of foreign workers to the extent they could be expected. The reasons for this are complex and due to conflicts of interests that arise from their intermediary position between employers, government authorities, and indigenous workers. This volume offers a rich analysis of the situation in seven major European countries but also a comparison of the data found and an attempt to account for the differences established. It ends with some conclusions on the prospects of trade unions within the European Union, and on the lessons to be learned from the present analysis.

Unpacking Globalization examines the experiences of people living with the forces that are transforming economic systems, culture, gender relationships and governance. The book offers interdisciplinary analysis of the well-being of women and men as they cope with the changes of globalization. Through theory, case studies, and data, several themes emerge indicating that from the household to the continental level, change is leading to new awareness and new survival strategies for both women and men. The contributors to the volume come from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. They present analysis of global changes and historical background from diverse perspectives and offer case studies on social security, gender, and macroeconomy. They employ feminist theory as well as detail the experiences of current and future women entrepreneurs. An exciting interdisciplinary text, Unpacking Globalization can supplement women's studies, anthropology, sociology, and economic development courses.

Based on new archival research, G. Williams Domhoff challenges popular conceptions of the 1930's New Deal. Arguing instead that this period was one of increasing corporate dominance in government affairs, affecting the fate of American workers up to the present day. While FDR's New Deal brought sweeping legislation, the tide turned quickly after 1938. From that year onward nearly every major new economic law passed by Congress showed the mark of corporate dominance. Domhoff accessibly portrays documents of the Committee's vital influence in the halls of government, supported by his interviews with several of its key employees and trustees. Domhoff concludes that in terms of economic influence, liberalism was on a long steady decline, despite two decades of post-war growing equality, and that ironically, it was the successes of the civil rights, feminist, environmental, and gay-lesbian movements-not a new corporate mobilisation-that led to the final defeat of the liberal-labour alliance after 1968.

Based on new archival research, G. Williams Domhoff challenges popular conceptions of the 1930's New Deal. Arguing instead that this period was one of increasing corporate dominance in government affairs, affecting the fate of American workers up to the present day. While FDR's New Deal brought sweeping legislation, the tide turned quickly after 1938. From that year onward nearly every major new economic law passed by Congress showed the mark of corporate dominance. Domhoff accessibly portrays documents of the Committee's vital influence in the halls of government, supported by his interviews with several of its key employees and trustees. Domhoff concludes that in terms of economic influence, liberalism was on a long steady decline, despite two decades of post-war growing equality, and that ironically, it was the successes of the civil rights, feminist, environmental, and gay-lesbian movements-not a new corporate mobilisation-that led to the final defeat of the liberal-labour alliance after 1968.

Provides an up-to-date synthesis of the many strands of distributional analysis used in the fields of social policy, welfare theory and public finance. Develops a consistent mathematical approach into a self-contained and unified treatment of the distribution and redistribution of income. Thoroughly updated edition of a well adopted textbook. Substantially enhanced by the inclusion of two new chapters on Poverty and Horizontal Inequity (unfairness in income taxes) - issues of popular interest in which there has been a great deal of recent theoretical research. A reference and resource work spanning several areas of economics not drawn together elsewhere. -- .

Chinese students are the largest international student population in the world, and Japan attracts more of them than any other country. Since the mid-1980s when China opened the door to let private citizens out and Japan began to let more foreigners in, over 300 thousand Chinese have arrived in Japan as students. Student migrants are the most visible, controversial and active Chinese immigrants in Japan. The majority of them enter Japan's labour market and many have stayed on indefinitely. Based on the author's original fieldwork data and government statistics, this book gives a comprehensive portrayal of an often neglected group of international migrants in a society that for decades has been considered a non-immigrant country. It introduces Chinese students' diverse mobility trajectories, analyses their career patterns, describes their transnational living arrangements, and explores the mechanisms that give rise to their identity as 'new overseas Chinese'. This book contributes to our understanding of international migration and international education in an age of globalization. It points out that student migrants are key to the internationalization of Japanese society, and potentially in other countries where immigration is still considered a challenging reality. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, Sociology and Labour Studies.

As developing and transition economies enter the next phase of reforms, labor market issues increasingly come to the fore. With the increased competition from globalization, the discussion is shifting to the need for greater labor market flexibility and the creation of "good" jobs. Moreover, the greater actual and perceived insecurity in labor markets has generated a new agenda on how to structure safety nets and labor market regulation. The older questions of the links between the formal and informal labor market, reappear with new dimensions and significance. More generally, it is clear that an accurate understanding of how labor market structures function is essential if we are to analyze alternative policy proposals in the wake of these concerns. Oddly enough, in spite of this great importance, there are no recent monographs that bring together rigorous studies produced by academic researchers on these various issues. This book fills that gap. Under the steely editorship of Ravi Kanbur and Jan Svejnar, the contributors flourish in their attempts to enliven these debates.

During the last two decades, India has maintained a decent economic and development rate, except in the field of employment. This book examines this phenomenon and the Indian growth pattern. It discusses the impact of trade reform and the recent financial crisis on the labour market through the changes in technology and productivity growth. Using secondary and primary data, it theoretically and empirically shows the emerging issues in the contemporary labour market. The book contributes to the renewed interests in the following areas: The impact of economic reform on technological change and total productivity growth and in turn its impact on the labour market The impact of trade reform on the form and functioning of labour markets The effect of the global financial crisis on Indian labour market Offering interesting modelling exercises and empirical verifications that bring fresh ideas and new content, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of development economics, international economics and South Asian studies.

What does it mean to provide justice for undocumented workers who have been living among us without proper legal documentation? How can we do justice to the undocumented migrants who have been doing the low-skilled, low-paid jobs unwanted by citizens? Why should we even try to do justice for people who violate the laws of the society? Religious Ethics and Migration: Doing Justice to Undocumented Workers addresses these questions from a distinctive religious ethical perspective: the Christian theology of forgiveness and radical hospitality. In answering these questions, the author employs in-depth interdisciplinary dialogues with other relevant disciplines such as immigration history, global economics, political science, legal philosophy, and social theory. He argues that the political appropriation of a Christian theology of forgiveness and the radical hospitality modeled after it are the most practical and justifiable solutions to the current immigration crisis in North America. Critical and interdisciplinary in its approach, this book offers a unique, comprehensive, and balanced perspective regarding the urgent immigration crisis.