The ideas behind economic democracy and financial participation are not new; the International Congress on Profit-sharing first met in Paris in 1889. The practical objective of many profit-sharing schemes was increased labour management co-operation. Some also had an ideal objective - the resolution of a perceived contradiction between concentrated wealth and power and the democratic ideal. In "Economic Democracy and Financial Participation", Daryl D'Art has two objectives. Firstly, to examine if, and under what conditions, profit-sharing schemes and employee shareholding can motivate workers and generate cooperative striving. Secondly, he identifies the schemes of financial participation which have the potential to realise economic democracy within the individual firm and society at large. To fulfill these objectives the author draws on the results of research carried out in the USA, Sweden, Denmark and Ireland. By making a comparative international study he contrasts an individualist approach to economic democracy with a collective approach. This book should be of interest to undergraduates and academics of economics, management, organizational behaviour, industrial relations, bu

The contributors show that the current understanding of trafficking excludes large groups of people who, due to their migration status, experience human rights violations on a continuum of exploitation ranging from forced labour to minor detractions from labour standards.

The current economic crisis has presented itself as a formidable challenge to the welfare states of Europe. It is more relevant than ever to ask: do existing minimum income protection schemes succeed in adequately protecting citizens, be it whether they are excluded from work, working, retired, or having children? Drawing on in-depth and up-to-date institutional data from across Europe and the US, this volume details the reality of minimum income protection policies over time. Including contributions from leading scholars in the field, each chapter provides a systematic cross-national analysis of minimum income protection policies, developing concrete policy guidance on an issue at the heart of the European debate.

Exploring recent contemporary debates on gender and migration, this book scrutinizes the relationship between women's work in ethnic economies and social integration, arguing that women in Britain zigzag their way to social integration.

Growth patterns have changed radically over the last two decades, to which capital and the labour markets appear to have failed to adapt. Unemployment in Europe has been growing, almost without remission, to levels unseen since the Great Depression. These facts are somewhat at odds with the development of growth theory which has mainly been orientated towards an equilibrium full employment framework. The main message of equilibrium theory of fluctuations was precisely that the policy maker is impotent. Now, with the universal acceptance of endogenous growth theory, the common concensus proposition would be `we are all neo-classical for the short run and Keynesian for the long run' (investment being too important for growth to be left entirely in private hands).

This book describes the social and economic issues that emerge from mothers in labor markets. It provides insight in what the quantitative effect of motherhood on the decline in mothers' earnings is, and how things differ for mothers with lower income and lower levels of education. It also sheds light on how this effect varies for different countries and/or cultural areas, and what the impact of socio-economic policies on mothers' labor supply is and how it changes in different family contexts. The book covers topics such as labor participation and hours of work, paid-work and home production, flexibility and work from home, self-employment and entrepreneurship, fertility and maternity leave, wage-penalty and career interruption, labor supply and childcare, gender norms and cultural issues, intra-household wage inequality and much more. This book provides an interesting read to economists, social scientists, policy makers and HR managers and all those interested in the subject.

This volume discusses such topics as where we stand in industrial relations and human resources, critical junctures in the transformation of industrial relations systems, and successor unions and the evolution of industrial relations in former Communist countries.

This volume examines new theoretical developments in labour contracts and relates them to the actual content of such contracts, and to differences in labour contracts which depend on the specifics of the institutional environment in which they are negotiated. This study is done from an international perspective, by comparing differences in labour contracts among European countries and between Europe, Japan and the US. The comparison consists of a careful description of selected characteristics of labour contracts and traits of the institutional environment and an explanation of their national emergence. The novelty of the study lies in the integrated approach of practical specification of labour contracts and theoretical analysis based on economic principles of efficiency. Existing contract theory in labour economics is used and extended when necessary to explain the occurrence of certain contract clauses, the division between legal and private arrangements, the role and function of institutions in the labour market and so on.

In the past, youth has been seen as a transition into the labour market, but today young people's identities are increasingly wrapped up in their value as workers. In this book, young people describe the meaning of work in their own words. Drawing on these narratives, the author reveals how their identities are intertwined with the dynamics of labour and value in post-Fordist capitalism and how social inequalities are manifested through the practices and ethics that young people draw upon to cultivate an economically productive self. Illuminating the rapidly changing social conditions that mould youth identities, this book represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of youth and work.

This book examines recent developments in Brazilian labour relations. Analysing the current state of labour relations in Brazil, the author shows how the proposals advanced by the new unionism have put strong pressure on the corporate system still legally enforced and have successfully developed a new political culture he terms the 'political culture of active citizenship'.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) should not be defined by the structural parameters and opportunities of low-income countries, given that it also comprises a number of higher-income countries. This book finds that SSA is tightly constrained in its growth, employment and poverty outcomes. Rather than taking this as a conceptual downside, these constraints to growth and development have to be recognised and overcome-not just by a few countries able to escape them more easily, but by all countries in SSA, such that no country is left behind. The book observes a weakness in the quantum of growth in SSA. It relates this to a growth path based more on extractives than manufactured goods. While SSA is endowed with extractives, global demand for these is very volatile. These boom-bust cycles in export demand come to affect not just the export sector in SSA as a resource curse, but also the production of output of the entire economy. The book captures this through the working out of equilibrium in four major markets: the tradeables market, the domestic goods market, the labour market, and the money market.

This book explores the impact of railroads on 19thcentury Russian peasant collectivism. The mutual-insurance mechanism in a precarious agricultural environment, provided bya structured communal-village system predicated on the reputation and authorityof community norms,is exposed to rationalist exchange-occasioning an institutional adaptation process:the individualization of property rights in land. Spatial-mobility technology animated market integration, specialization, literacy,and human-capital acquisition among peasant wage workers who commuted from their villages.Temporarily rising transaction costs forced the Tsar to concede household property rights in land in the so-called Stolypin reform of 1906.This challenge to the imperial patrimony, powered by the railroads, steered late imperial Russia toward constitutional governance.The spatial-mobility technology gave peasants access to centers of agglomeration of knowledge, changedcognitive perceptions of distance, and reduced the uncertainty and opportunity costs of travel. The empirical findings in this monograph corroborate the conclusion that the railroads occasioned a cultural revolution in late imperial Russia and made Stalin unnecessary for the modernization of the Euro-asian giant. This book highlights the profound effect that the development of the railroads had on Russian economic and political institutions and practices. It will be of indispensable valueto students and researchers interested in transitional economics and economic history.

This volume illustrates connections between the concerns of vocational psychology and the adjoining disciplines of sociology, cultural anthropology, and labor economics. The intent is to suggest how vocational psychology and career counseling might recognize more explicitly the ever-changing social influences and institutional constraints that affect individual as they begin,or contemplate beginning, their adult work.

PLANT CLOSED--A sign of the times? These two words have had profound meaning for workers in every factory and office across the country. Millions of workers who have already been displaced by closings have had to pick up the pieces of shattered lives and get on with the business of living. Those who are still working are faced with the insecurity of wondering whether they might find the gates closed some morning when they arrive at work. The number of plant closings and the threat of future closings have raised many questions. What has been happening to the American economy that has resulted in major companies closing their doors? What forces within the international and national political economies are converging to reshape the labor force, eliminating jobs in manufacturing and expanding employment in the lower wage, insecure manufacturing sector? What happens to displaced workers, their families, and the community in which they work? In "Plant Closings," the authors examine the reasons plants close and the social, economic, and psychological consequences. A variety of causes are identified including capital flight, decreasing profit rates, and the pursuit of lower labor costs. Through the analysis of a case study the authors examine the changing health patterns, political attitudes, and financial stability of displaced workers. There is also discussion of the impact on the community at large and on the individual institutions within the community. Finally, the authors analyze legislation that addresses the human and social costs of unemployment. "Carolyn C. Perrucci" is professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Purdue University. "Robert Perrucci" is professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Purdue University. "Dena B. Targ" is professor in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University. "Harry R. Targ" is professor in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University.

Over the last 20 years, the number of professional managers displaced from US corporate jobs has increased dramatically. This has coincided with the rapid expansion of employment in the US nonprofit sector; a sector that has a high proportion of managerial and professional workers among its employees.
Workforce Transitions from the Profit to the Nonprofit Sector examines the career sequences of dislocated white-collar corporate managers who want to move to the nonprofit sector. It highlights the managers' motivations, the structural barriers which prevented them from making the transition, and the methods of penetrating the barriers. It uncovers the reasons why some corporate managers are able to make the transition and why others do not. Finally, it presents the methods of adaptation that were utilized in their new environments.
This volume will be of interest to human resource managers in the profit and nonprofit sectors, sociologists, occupational researchers, and organizational psychologists.

With a focus on the European labour market, this book seeks to understand how digital transformation affects changes in employee-employer relations. These consequences include shifts in job security and job flexibility as well as alternative work arrangements in the digital economy. This phenomenon has both positive and negative implications for employees and employers. The book presents a theoretical, conceptual and empirical analysis of employment relations in the digital economy, which are manifested, among others, in flexible or non-standard forms of employment, contract work and a radical shift from position-based to skill-based work. The approach taken in the book provides researchers and students of economics, business and other social sciences with an overview of interdisciplinary theoretical and conceptual perspectives and frameworks on labour market and employment relations. In particular, it presents a comprehensive range of research on flexible forms of employment in the digital economy. The range of issues covered is also tailored to business practitioners who wish to understand the ongoing changes in employment relations and the emergence of new forms of work as a result of digital transformation. It will also be of value to representatives of labour market institutions involved in implementing new forms of work and employer-employee relationships in Industry 4.0.

This book takes as a starting point that welfare states in developed societies do not provide systems of social insurance against the risk of an early death. In contrast to the way in which economically developed countries provide ways of insuring citizens against other possibilities, such as unemployment and disease, no such social insurance mechanism exists for early death. It aims to demonstrate that, despite the impossibility to compensate the victims of a short life once they are identified, and despite the impossibility to identify the persons who will be short-lived (when they are still alive), it is nonetheless possible to construct a social insurance against the risk of a short life by means of age-based statistical discrimination favouring all young persons. Combining philosophical literature with economic analysis, the book re-examines the ethical foundations of social insurance, and proposes a major reform of the welfare state: the construction of a social insurance against a short life. It shows how such an insurance system could be constructed by partially 'reversing' existing pension systems, by offering a period of retirement to all young adults before they start their career. Such a 'reversed' pension system would allocate more free time and opportunities to younger members of society before they enter the labour market, and, hence, this system would also improve the lives of the - unidentified - young persons who will turn out to die prematurely. The book discusses the social desirability of this new system, as well as its financial feasibility and societal consequences, examining how pension allowances paid to young adults may be financed by the work of senior workers. As such, this book demonstrates how the universal uncertainty about the duration of life can be reconciled with the idea of social justice. With an accessible and interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to academics working in a range of fields, including economics, public finance, social insurance, the economics of ageing and the welfare state, economic ethics and political philosophy.

The distinguished contributors in this volume provide a variety of essays, which are written in honor of Emmanuel Drandakis. These essays fall into four uniform areas of economics: economic growth, general equilibrium, labor economics and game theory and applications.The editors focus on a select set of issues that stand high on the agenda of academic research. They provide fresh insights and approaches to the analysis of these issues, and thus open up wider avenues for our understanding of the dilemmas posed for theory and policy. Readers are offered new empirical evidence on such thorny social problems as, for example, unemployment, the intergenerational transmission of human capital and the response of wages to price and endowment changes. These contributions, in conjunction with the realisation that the papers are written by some of the most distinguished economists in the respective areas, make the volume an attractive addition for all who are interested in the contemporary research and teaching of economics.

The first volume focuses on globalization, international migration, employment, labour agency, technological change, and labour resilience. This book aims to examine how labour institutions, both in developed and developing countries, have responded to the challenges faced over the last 30 years. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in labour economics, political economy, and development economics.

The growth of the services sector in developing countries and their increased participation in trade in services have far-reaching implications for promotion of employment and income and management of international migration. The book brings out these implications in the context of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and explains how trade-related temporary movements of persons can be a partial substitute for longer-term migration, serving the interests of both developed and developing countries in a more efficient global economy.

This book analyses the management of human resources in Chinese industry, covering the period from 1949 to present, particularly focusing on the period of economic reforms in the 1980s and early 1990s. For four decades Chinese workers have enjoyed job security under the 'iron rice-bowl' employment system. This arrangement is now under threat from the recent labour reforms and the emergence of a nascent labour market. The study looks in detail at these developments in the North-Eastern cities, China's industrial heartland.