scholarly journals A GENERALIZED LABOR MARKET THEORY: INEQUALITY AS LABOR DISCIPLINE DEVICE

2013 ◽  
Vol 70 (276) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adolfo Figueroa

The standard microeconomic theory of labor market assumes that unemployment operates as the labor discipline device in advanced countries. What is this device in developing countries? This paper seeks to give an answer to this question by constructing a new theoretical model and by confronting its predictions against a set of empirical regularities that characterize the functioning of labor markets in developing countries. In comparing the two models, the paper shows the existence of a generalized labor market theory in which inequality among workers constitutes the common labor discipline device, which just takes different forms in advanced and developing countries.

Author(s):  
M. Tkachenko

The author believes that the world labor market should be perceived as a taxonomic unit limited in its scope by the features of the national labor markets and, at the same time, having the incentives to expand as a result of the increasingly powerful factors of globalization. The key challenges to the global labor market are associated with the acceleration of the transnationalization of capital, with the changes in foreign trade, and with the increased international migration. All these global factors exert unambiguous impact on the jobs, the wages and the productivity in the national economies. Their impact on the economies of developed and developing countries varies considerably. Much will depend on the external economic strategy and the readiness of national labor markets to counter the external challenges.


Author(s):  
Shailaja Fennell

Characteristics of labor markets are often assumed to be universal, when in fact they are peculiar to patterns of employment in Europe and North America. This essay makes these universalist assumptions about labor markets for youth explicit, challenging their foundational claims in relation to trends in parts of the Global South. Urbanization, the Standard Employment Relationship (SER), and the notions of precarity are all analyzed for their Northern biases. The work of early labor market theorist W. Arthur Lewis is then explored, critiquing how his theory was reduced to one aspect—rural labor migration to urban factory work to increase productivity—when it had complex social, political, educational, and policy-related implications. Southern scholars should not be interpreted in terms of their relevance to Northern processes. They should be grappled with on their own terms, in relation to the Southern contexts from which they speak. Finally, an agenda for Southern labor market theory building is offered.


Author(s):  
Simon Charles Parker

A simple theory of the labor market is presented in which the short end of the market sells. A flexible parameterisation of the theory yields an earnings distribution density function which is closely approximated by the well-known beta and gamma specifications. Apart from providing a theoretical rationale for these tractable and closefitting specifications, the theory suggests that the parameters of the beta distribution (this distribution encompassing the gamma as a special case) can be interpreted in terms of the structure of labor markets. This has implications for why earnings distributions take their commonly observed positive skew, as well as for wider issues including the relationship between employment and equality.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-89
Author(s):  
Sijeong Lim

AbstractMuch scholarly attention has been given to the potentially disruptive distributional implications of new technologies in labor markets. Less explored is the way citizens as socially embedded individuals perceive and respond to technological transformation. This study fills this gap by exploring how welfare state institutions shape and are shaped by citizens’ perceptions of technological transformation. My analysis covering over 50 developed and developing countries finds that welfare state generosity is associated with a greater acceptance of technological change. I also provide evidence consistent with the expectation that labor market interventions of the welfare state have the potential to reduce the skill cleavage over technological transformation by mitigating the insecurity faced by the low-skilled. Additionally, citizens embracing technological transformation are more supportive of the welfare state than techno-skeptics are.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Kate Plaskonis

Though Denmark and Sweden have had a similar historical development over the years, the differences in their labor markets have become more visible than ever. While the labor shortage is increasing in Copenhagen, there is a high number of unemployed individuals with a more substantial proportion of vulnerable groups among them in Sweden. Despite some appealing factors (such as less governed labor law, the simplicity of employing and the high wages), the interest of Swedes to work in Copenhagen area has decreased, and as a result, the number of commuters has fallen. Could it then be employers’ attitudes towards foreign-born individuals that differ? Through interviewing Swedish and Danish employers and foreign-born population, Fördomsfönster Öresund project investigates if the attitudes differ and how social sustainability and utilizing the existent competence frame a common regional labor market. Interviews show that some concepts might be crucial in addressing the issue: language, prejudice, leadership and the difference in perceptions. By informing and responding to these problem areas, there is a strong possibility of greater integration, competence-based employment and higher revenues in commuting within the region. Keywords: Diversity, competence, social sustainability, labor market, green commuting


Author(s):  
Anne Phillips

No one wants to be treated like an object, regarded as an item of property, or put up for sale. Yet many people frame personal autonomy in terms of self-ownership, representing themselves as property owners with the right to do as they wish with their bodies. Others do not use the language of property, but are similarly insistent on the rights of free individuals to decide for themselves whether to engage in commercial transactions for sex, reproduction, or organ sales. Drawing on analyses of rape, surrogacy, and markets in human organs, this book challenges notions of freedom based on ownership of our bodies and argues against the normalization of markets in bodily services and parts. The book explores the risks associated with metaphors of property and the reasons why the commodification of the body remains problematic. The book asks what is wrong with thinking of oneself as the owner of one's body? What is wrong with making our bodies available for rent or sale? What, if anything, is the difference between markets in sex, reproduction, or human body parts, and the other markets we commonly applaud? The book contends that body markets occupy the outer edges of a continuum that is, in some way, a feature of all labor markets. But it also emphasizes that we all have bodies, and considers the implications of this otherwise banal fact for equality. Bodies remind us of shared vulnerability, alerting us to the common experience of living as embodied beings in the same world. Examining the complex issue of body exceptionalism, the book demonstrates that treating the body as property makes human equality harder to comprehend.


Author(s):  
Marta Postigo Asenjo

RESUMENEl sistema patriarcal no afecta exclusivamente al poder político y judicial, sino que afecta a la estructura interna de la sociedad, la identidad y las formas de vida de los individuos que en ella viven. Para comprender mejor como condiciona el sistema patriarcal las formas de vida y la visión que tienen los individuos de la realidad social, hemos de analizar el modo en que se extiende al orden institucional y lo determina mediante "tipificaciones" de hechos y de personas y mediante roles concretos, esteoreotipaciones sexiuales que obstaculizan el acceso a la esfera pública de la mujer, así como su reinserción en el mercado laboral, en suma, todo aquello que afecta al conocimiento común que comparten los miembros de una comunidad. El cambio hacia una mayor igualdad y una real democracia paritaria y compartida no es posible sin una paulatina educación y concienciación de la sociedad en su conjunto.PALABRAS CLAVEPATRIARCADO-TIPIFICACIÓN SOCIAL-IGUALDAD DE GÉNEROABSTRACTPatriarchalism is not only present in politics and the judicial system. It also affects the internal structure of society, above all the life and identitý of individuals. To understand better how it conditions their ways of life and the vision the individuals have of social reality, we should study how patriarchalism r3eaches the system of institutions and how this becomes determined by "typifications" of facts and people, and by certain roles or sexual stereotypes that hinder the access of women both to the public sphere and to tha labor market. It sum, everything that concerns the common knowledge that the members of a community share. The move towards more equality and towards a more egalitarian democracy heavily depends on the spread of civic education to the entire society.KEYWORDSPATRIARCHALISM-SOCIAL TYPIFICATION-GENDER EQUALITY


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-105
Author(s):  
Naila Maier-Knapp

In December 2015, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) celebrated the official establishment of the ASEAN Community. Having emerged in 1967 as a regional grouping of developing countries with minimal shared interests—beyond the common concern of economic growth and national resilience, ASEAN now has established regional structures which have been vital in enhancing development and dialogue on a broad range of issues across the Southeast Asian region. Over the years, the institutional development at the regional level has been accompanied by various efforts to promote regional unity and identity. The more recent years have also displayed that the international community has been supporting these efforts for ASEAN unity and identity by showing greater recognition of ASEAN as an international actor in its own right, for example, through the establishment of numerous country delegations to ASEAN.


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