Impact of Postgraduate Student Internships During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China

To understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on postgraduate students’ internships in China, 911 students from different regions of China were surveyed through online questionnaires. Among the postgraduate students surveyed, 48.51% of which believed that the pandemic had its greatest impact on colleagues interaction, and 59.60% believed that the pandemic had a strong impact on practical skills. In total, 31.8% of postgraduate internship programs were impacted by COVID-19. The proportions of respondents having severe, moderate, and mild anxiety levels were 1.42%, 4.72%, and 15.92%, respectively; and the rates of severe, moderate, and mild depression were 1.64%, 10.86%, and 21.84%, respectively. ANOVA found that major, degree type, and degree of impact of the pandemic on colleague interactions and improved practical abilities all affected postgraduate mental health. The findings suggest that the mental health of postgraduate students should be monitored during a pandemic, and targeted psychological counseling should be offered. Postgraduate internships should be emphasized as to ensure a smooth internship process during a pandemic period. Psychological counseling and assistance should be provided to those whose internships were affected by the pandemic, and programs should be set up to aid postgraduate students in adapting to the new internship and employment conditions brought on by the “new normal” of pandemic prevention and control.

Combatting exploitation of migrant temporary agency workers through sectoral self-regulation in the UK and the Netherlands

The recent growth of precarious work has sparked a vivid debate on whether this tendency can be reversed by the social partners through sectoral self-regulation. In this sectoral case study of the temporary work agencies sector in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the views, approaches, power and interaction between trade unions and employers’ organizations are studied in the context of increasing labour migration in the decade following European Union enlargement. The results show that the employers’ organizations have been leading actors in self-regulation, seeking collaboration with trade unions in the Netherlands. In both countries, trade unions have taken an inclusive approach but had little power to affect the deterioration of employment conditions. It has proven difficult to the social partners to reverse the process of increasing precarious work and exploitation. Strict regulatory frameworks imposed by the government are needed to turn a vicious circle into a virtuous one.

Suitability of Rural Living & Work Facilities, Spatial Behavior of Farmers and Family Income

In recent years, China has put forward policies to improve rural infrastructure and promote the development of rural industries causing to dramatic transition in the living and employment conditions. Moreover, under the pressure of the high expenditure of living and the difficulty of finding jobs, new changes have taken place in the spatial behavior pattern of farmers’ residence and employment. Based on a field survey of 839 observations in 123 villages in Poyang Lake basin, China, we developed indicators to evaluate the suitability of rural living facilities (SLF) and work facilities (SWF). Multinomial logit regression model was used to measure the relationship between SWF, SLF and the spatial behavior patterns of farmers. The results show that: (1) SWF development in rural areas lags behind SLF; (2) Higher SLF is most distributed in suburban areas ; (3) Higher SWF is mostly distributed in suburban towns and characteristic towns; (4) The effects of SLF and SWF on the spatial behavior patterns of farmers are significantly positive; (5) Farmers in the urban-rural amphibious pattern usually obtain a higher income level, and also bring vitality to the countryside.

Missing Men? Precarity and Declining Labor Force Participation Among Working-Class Men

Recent research has noted declining labor force participation among working class men in the United States, but with little attention to the mechanisms underlying such withdrawal. In this article—drawing on in-depth interviews with 61 working-class men from rural Pennsylvania—I address this gap in the literature by prodding respondents on the sequential character of their employment experiences, their perceived vulnerabilities, and the calculations they make in the contexts in which they live. Findings reveal fluctuations in their engagement with work, something I refer to as participation churn. However, respondents’ labor force narratives also show how they adapt to local employment conditions and personal circumstances, a phenomenon referred to as adaptive nonparticipation. The results highlight key mechanisms underlying labor force dropout and have implications for how declining labor force participation should be understood. These findings advance the sociological understanding of how workers—even in precarious positions—assert agency.

Transforming Conditions of Feminist and LGBTI+ Activism

This chapter provides an in-depth understanding of the conditions for feminist and LGBTI+ activism in Russia, Turkey, and Scandinavia, including legislative frames, access to resources and funding, employment conditions, and geographical and geopolitical locality. Instead of taking the relations between the state, civil society, and feminist and LGBTI+ activists for granted as an overarching explanatory model for comparative analysis, the chapter examines the multifaceted nature of the relations between the state, civil society and feminist and LGBTI+ activists in Russia, Turkey, and Scandinavia. Further, the chapter scrutinizes transnational, national, and local scales that influence the conditions of activism across the three research contexts. The discussions in the chapter are wrapped up by an interrogation of how donor politics influence the activist agenda in Russia, Turkey, and Scandinavia and of what resistant practices activists lean on in their everyday work.

The industrial relations chameleon: collective bargaining in the facility management business

PurposeThe paper aims to analyze collective bargaining in the facility management business of these six countries to explore similarities and differences between them. The analysis serves to test the differential impact of the national institutional setting on the protection provided by collective agreements to facility management workers.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a case study methodology to approach a facility management multinational company providing services in six European countries (France, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK) that represent different industrial relations systems with variance in key dimensions of collective bargaining, including its structure, coverage and extension of agreements.FindingsThe extension of the facility management business model has not always adopted a high-road strategy aimed at enhancing the quality and efficiency through the integrated management and delivery of services, which is expected to positively impact employment conditions. Rather, it has, in many cases, been a deliberate, low-road attempt to undercut working standards, taking advantage of the multiple services provided by the company in a context of growing de-centralization in collective bargaining. The results point to an important role of industrial relations institutions in shaping facility management strategies and outcomes.Originality/valueSimilar to other forms of outsourcing, facility management leads to fragmented employment relations. However, the concentration of outsourced workers under the same supplier organization introduces opportunities to ensure the protection of workers, depending on the adoption of a high- or low-road competitive strategy. This paper provides for the first time comparative evidence about industrial relations in facility management businesses, a largely under-researched area.

Employment precarization as a factor of wages differentiation and social wellbeing

Employment conditions (form of labor relations, social security, (un)stability of wages, informal payments, etc.) are a key factor of the social-economic differentiation in the contemporary Russian society, which determines the need to clarify the relationship between the workers position in the labor market and ones earnings. There are many empirical assessments of wage losses for various types of non-standard employment (informal, temporary, part-time, casual, etc.); however, each type is just one manifestation of precarization (as non-guaranteed and unstable employment), which does not present this phenomenon in general. The author considers the relationship between precarization and wages. Based on the data of the all-Russian survey of the working population (2018), the author argues that not all but some features of precarization (lack of indefinite term employment agreement, sick leave and vacation pay) are associated with a lower salary; only a high level of precarization (three or more its features together) significantly reduces wages. Despite the fact that this relationship is partly mediated by the level of education of the employee, precarization still has an independent negative impact on wages. Groups of workers with a high and low level of precarization are heterogeneous in wages which can compensate for the disadvantages of the unstable and non-guaranteed employment situation. Thus, workers can be divided into four groups according to their employment precarization and salaries, which determine their social well-being. The unstable group with wages below average shows the lowest level of subjective well-being and social optimism both in life in general and in assessing the labor sphere. The unstable group with wages above the average declares a lower level of social well-being than the stable group with wages below the average, i.e., higher wages do not compensate for the negative consequences of precarious employment which worsens social well-being even provided wages above the average.

CRECIMIENTO IMPULSADO POR LOS SALARIOS EN MÉXICO: UN ANÁLISIS DE REGRESIÓN UMBRAL

<p>En este artículo proponemos que la actividad económica de México puede estimularse cuando los salarios progresan en relación directa con la productividad laboral y las tasas de inflación objetivo. Para ello, aplicamos regresiones de umbral para mostrar que, después de un cierto valor, los salarios no son inflacionarios en absoluto y que, si la productividad laboral aumenta, los niveles de ocupación o empleo aumentan. Entonces, esto conlleva a un aumento en la actividad económica (considerando otras variables, a saber: los costos unitarios comparativos del trabajo en la industria manufacturera, las condiciones críticas de ocupación —precariedad—, la tasa de interés interbancaria de equilibrio y el índice de tipo de cambio real). Mostramos esto para la economía mexicana con datos mensuales del periodo 2007/01-2019/05.</p><p align="center"><strong> </strong></p><p align="center">WAGE-LED GROWTH IN MEXICO: A THRESHOLD REGRESSION ANALYSIS</p><p align="center"><strong>ABSTRACT</strong><strong></strong></p>In this article we propose that the Mexican economic activity can be boosted when there are progressive wages in direct relation to labor productivity and targeted inflation rates. To this purpose, we apply threshold regressions to show that, after a certain threshold value, wages are not inflationary at all and that, if labor productivity increases, occupation or employment levels increase. Then, this leads to an enhancement in economic activities (controlling for other variables, namely: comparative unit costs of labor in the manufacturing industry, critical employment conditions —precariousness—, the equilibrium interbank interest rate and the real exchange rate index). This is shown for the Mexican economy with monthly data during the period 2007/01-2019/05.

The forgotten ECEC staff working with birth-to-3-year-olds: The imbalances between the workforce policies and ECEC staff employment conditions in Spain

In response to an international focus on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), Spanish scholars have recently started to explore the participation of early years practitioners in their educational organisations and their views on working conditions. However, a comprehensive review of the current challenges experienced by the Under 3 s early years educators and the examination of the imbalances in workforce policy and working conditions on literature, has thus far not been conducted. Three themes are identified related to the professional developmental path within the school settings that the Spanish ECEC educators follow. The first relates to the educators’ initial ECEC education and training, who the staff caring for this age group are, and how prepared they are. The second is linked to the ECEC programs available for children from birth until they reach three years, and how and where the inclusive programs are delivered to this age group, as well as the early years educators’ working conditions and the impact of the professional roles. Whereas the third relates to in-service professional development derived from interaction and collective learning. The article concludes with suggestions on how the practitioners’ professional development could operationalise policy requirements in order to achieve more inclusive and child-centred learning.

Employer Responses to Legislation Protecting Non-Regular Workers: Evidence from South Korea

Many countries have taken steps to address employment insecurity by enacting employment protection legislation (EPL) for non-regular workers. Although the aggregate impacts of EPL reforms have been examined in the literature, less attention has been paid to the heterogeneous ways that different types of employers respond to these reforms. In this paper, we seek to shed additional light on the impact of non-regular workforce protections by investigating the response of establishments to legal changes in Korea in 2007. We employ a difference-in-difference framework to explore which establishment characteristics predict that employers will convert non-regular workers to regular status. Results indicate that, in the short term, the Korean labor reforms led to increased conversions of fixed-term workers to permanent status. Establishments that have shifted risk onto workers via the use of performance pay are more likely to extend permanent status to non-regular workers. However, establishments that provide favorable employment conditions were less likely to convert. Unions play a double-edged role. Unions in large establishments with a wide range of occupational categories are associated with relatively greater conversion of outsiders to regular status, while unions in smaller, more resource-constrained establishments with a narrower occupational focus are associated with more exclusionary behavior.