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Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As of 2011-12, informal workers in India comprise 85.8 percent of the total labor force. This paper uses India's National Sample Survey data on Employment and Unemployment (2011-12) to test whether the large share of informal employment is due to labor market segmentation or a result of competitive choice. Results show that workers can freely enter informal employment. In contrast, there is no evidence of self-selection into formal employment. Based on this evidence, we cannot reject the labor market segmentation hypothesis for the Indian labor market. The wage gap decomposition results show that informal workers earn less than formal workers not only because they are less skilled, but also because they receive lower returns to their endowments compared to the formal workers. Thus, policies that focus on skill development may be necessary but are not sufficient to increase formal job opportunities and reduce the formal-informal wage gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing theories on human capital, labour market segmentation and discrimination fail to fully explain gender gaps—for example, the large gender gap in elite occupations where women apparently possess high labour market power. This article seeks to extend our understanding, through the interaction between labour segmentation, regulation content and regulation distance, the last referring to the extent to which employment of particular workers is (un)regulated, including by collective agreements, legislation or other instruments. Regulation distance encompasses a continuum from ‘regulation proximity’ to ‘market proximity’. A greater reliance on the ‘market’ does not necessarily remove pay distortions; rather, it might increase their impact through the mechanism of gendered norms. Empirical evidence is drawn from studies in several countries, most commonly Australia. This approach more clearly specifies the roles of under-valuation, labour segmentation, group norms and human and social capital; illuminates public sector and union effects; explains why the gender gap is greatest for a group of women with the most labour market power; and illustrates some non-pay aspects of gendered experience at work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study differentiated groups of Ohio tree farmers through multivariate clustering of their perceived needs for forest management outreach. Tree farmers were surveyed via a mailed questionnaire. Respondents were asked to rate, on a 1-7 scale, their informational needs for 26 outreach topics, which were reduced to six factors. Based on these factors, three clusters were identified-holistic managers, environmental stewards, and pragmatic tree farmers. Cluster assignment of individuals was dependent upon a tree farmer's age, acreage owned, and number of years enrolled in the American Tree Farm System. Holistic managers showed a greater interest in the outreach topics while pragmatic tree farmers displayed an overall lesser interest. Across clusters, print media and in-person workshops were preferred over emails and webinars for receiving forest management information. In-person workshops should be no more than 1 day events, held on a weekday, during the daytime, at a cost not exceeding $35. Programming related to environmental influences, which included managing for forest insects and diseases, was concluded to have the greater potential to impact clientele among all outreach factors due to the information being applicable across demographics and/or management objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including effects of physical appearance on electoral outcomes in Germany, theory of dualization to explore diverse labor market segmentation and safety measures of natural gas pipeline.

Previous research onhukou-based stratification in China’s urban labor market has either exclusively focused on inequalities between urban residents and rural migrants or neglected the segmented structure of urban economy. In this paper we analyze whether and how individuals’hukoustatus affects their labor market outcomes in urban China’s segmented economy, by simultaneously examining the effects of twohukoucharacteristics––the type of registration and the place of registration. Based on a sample of the 2005 population mini-census in Shanghai, we have found that, in addition to urban-ruralhukoudivide, the distinction between localhukouand nonlocalhukoualso plays an important role in determining workers’ entry into different sectors, occupational attainment, and earnings. We also showed that industrial segmentation matters more than ownership segmentation in the process ofhukou-based stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the reform to legal framework of the European Union on modernization of labor policy focusing on the segmentation of employees' status in context to soft law. Topics discussed include the significance opf the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions on labor rights such as freedom of association, role for workers representation in collective bargaining, and the role of labor contract in development of labor rights.

The article offers information on the challenges and problems with segmentation of workers' rights as identified by professor Hugh Collins under the theories of labor law in Canada. It informs that the labor law addresses various labor rights related issues such as collective bargaining, human rights, health and safety standards of labor and workplace.

The article offers information on the concept of segmentation of workers' rights under the approach of the labor law systems in Great Britain. It analyzes the theory of personal work relations with reference to the employment discrimination law or employment equality law. It discusses the rights of employees in different types of employment such as full-time employment, long-fixed-term or permanent employment, and direct employment.

The article offers information on the significance of segmentation of the public employment statute of countries in the European Union in the light of austerity policies. It informs that the Court of Justice of the European Union had implemented the elements of causality in the fixed-term employment contracts in order to avoid conflicts in public employment. It analyzes the importance of labor law reforms to mark the changes in public employment regulations.

The proposed research is driven by an existing need to develop a master programme in enterprise system engineering (ESE) to the Arab Universities. The main objective of the project is to ensure the development of a top-notch curriculum that comprises the latest technology and teaching methods while integrating the local labour market needs of the target countries. To achieve that, a labour market analysis in the ESE domain is conducted in this proposed research. The study is divided into two main parts, one is qualitative to uncover several issues in the labour markets of the target Arab countries relevant to ESE and the second part is quantitative designed to measure the skill gaps prevalent in those countries to which the master programme is exported. Besides the business problem calling for this research, its importance is leveraged by the strong evidence in the literature showing that supply and demand skills rarely match. This research is expected to explore and measure potential gaps between employment and education in ESE, a point that is crucial for more efficient education and employment in the Arab countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary labor markets are suffering from the recession and structural shifts, which can cause various mismatches through processes of search friction. A lack of informational transparency among worker- and job characteristics is the common denominator of these search frictions. In this paper, the potential of the career ePortfolio, which consists of information beyond what is typically found in a jobseeker's resume, in reducing these mismatches and search frictions is explored. The career ePortfolio, it is argued, leads to better worker-to-job matches, increased worker mobility, and reduced unemployment levels and transaction costs. By exploring mismatches and search frictions theoretically, the required features of such a career ePortfolio were identified. A multi-disciplinary approach was used, drawing from literature on labor market economics as well as human resource management. It was concluded that the career ePortfolio should consist of competence-based information on both the aggregate and individual levels in order to facilitate workers and firms in their career and personnel planning and help government and educational institutes devise appropriate labor market policies and curricula. Major challenges include the required shared understanding of competences among workers and firms, given their heterogeneity, as well as the need for credible information, given the asymmetrical nature of labor market information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper contributes to the continuing debates on the mechanisms driving labor market informality in developing countries by proposing an innovative way to discriminate between segmented and competitive markets. An empirical analysis is applied to Egyptian paid employment in the highly dynamic context of 1998–2006. The study is based on recent nonparametric methods applied to estimate the model with essential heterogeneity. The model is extended to decomposing the treatment effects into unobserved and observed components. The results show triple heterogeneity of workers on the Egyptian labor market, offering support to both segmented and competitive views on informal labor. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Empirical research on the family cites the tendency for couples to relocate for husbands' careers as evidence against the gender neutrality of household economic decisions. For these studies, occupational segregation is a concern because occupations are not random by sex and mobility is not random by occupation. I find that the tendency for households to relocate for husbands' careers is better explained by the segregation of women into geographically dispersed occupations rather than by the direct prioritization of men's careers. Among never-married workers, women relocate for work less often than men, and the gender effect disappears after occupational segregation is accounted for. Although most two-earner families feature husbands in geographically clustered jobs involving frequent relocation for work, families are no less likely to relocate for work when it belongs to the wife. I conclude that future research in household mobility should treat occupational segregation occurring prior to marriage rather than gender bias within married couples as the primary explanation for the prioritization of husbands' careers in household mobility decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labor market segmentation theory and new career theory differ in their appraisal of the long-term consequences of career mobility. In this article we examine career outcomes of different career types and review their correspondence to both theories. The analysis is carried out in two steps. First, we construct a career typology using Optimal Matching Analysis, utilizing data covering entire individual careers. Second, we compare these career types on a set of measures pertaining to objective and subjective career success. The results indicate that neither of the two theories is fully able to explain the data. Instead, they can be combined to provide a more adequate model of career mobility outcomes in the context of flexibilizing labor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After advocating flexibilisation of non-standard work contracts for many years, some European and international institutions and several policy makers now indicate the standard employment relationship and its regulation as a cause of segmentation between the labour market of ‘protected’ insiders, employed under permanent contracts with effective protection against unfair dismissal, and the market of the ‘non-protected’ outsiders, working with non-standard contracts. Reforms of employment legislation are therefore being promoted and approved in different countries, supposedly aiming to balance the legal protection afforded to standard and non-standard workers. This article firstly argues that this approach is flawed as it oversimplifies reasons for segmentation and concentrates on an ‘insider–outsider’ discourse that cannot easily be transplanted into continental Europe. After reviewing current legislative changes in Italy, Spain and Portugal, I argue that lawmakers have focused on ‘deregulation’ rather than ‘balancing protection’ when approving recent reforms. I question the mainstream approach to segmentation and some of its derivative proposals, such as calls to introduce a ‘single permanent contract’, on the grounds that they neglect the essential role of job protection in underpinning the effectiveness of fundamental and constitutional rights at the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research analyzes the rapid decline in Mexico-U.S. migration by investigating the argument that educational and economic changes in Mexico are significant contributing factors. Using a transnational labor market ethnography from Milwaukee, U.S. and Atotonilco El Bajo, Mexico, this paper reveals that increasing educational attainment and a diversifying labor market in Atotonilco El Bajo are indeed contributing to migration decline. However, increasing educational levels in Atotonilco do not appear to be driven by real economic opportunity in the Mexican economy; rather, a host of national and transnational factors are contributing to cumulative changes in the local culture of educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the higher stage of economic development, employee will be more concerned about non-economic factors. This increasingly highlights the importance of human capital heterogeneity, which is reflected on individual characteristics by differences in skills,education and social status,and on regional characteristics by differences in quantity,quality and structure. Human capital investment and labor market segmentation are two sources of human capital heterogeneity. The role of human capital investment is to improve the skill levels of human capital. It will affect the overall structure and heterogeneity of human capital. Labor market segmentation will act on employee selection and human capital flows, which cannot be ignored in site selection of firms and regional industrial upgrading. In the framework of new economic geography, the heterogeneity of human capital reflects on the firm's cost function of production and the consumer's utility function, changing the spatial distribution of the industry, and leading to human capital intensity and industrial agglomeration. Human capital heterogeneity promotes regional industrial upgrading by technological progress and regional industrial structure optimization. Human capital level determines regional technology selection, which in turn determines the path of technology progress. Human capital has threshold effect and can be used to measure the potential of regional industrial upgrading. The higher the level of human capital, the more favorable it is for independent R&-D and industrial structure conversion. Human capital has different effects on the development of three industries. The higher the level of human capital, the faster the pace of the development of tertiary industry. Whether the type and structure of human capital dynamically match with industrial structure determines the effect of industrial structure optimization. Raising the level of human capital is bound to create more advanced types of human capital, bringing the growth of new industrial forms. Human capital structure optimization also helps industrial structure optimization. Current research on human capital heterogeneity, to be specific, its role on regional industrial upgrading is still in its infancy and therefore there is still much room for research. First, labor market segmentation brings in new heterogeneity of human capital. We should study how to eliminate labor market segmentation, and give full play to the role of different types of human capital on industrial upgrading. Second, different types of human capital maybe have different optimal proportions in the economy. There should be an optimal scale of investment for different types of human capital in the actual economic system. Third, the study of the roles of different types of human capital in regional industrial upgrading has significant value for the performance of regional human capital and the optimization of industrial structure and in the balance of different types of human capital investment as well. Finally, the effect of the spatial economy brought by different human capitals will have an impact on the economic development of adjacent areas. We should explore the mechanisms for inter-provincial coordination and interaction of human capital to achieve industry gradient transfer and industrial upgrading in the Chinese context of huge gaps between regions in their development and natural resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the financial meltdown of 2007, unemployment has consistently been above 6.0 percent. On one level, long-term unemployment can be accounted for by structural changes. But, on another level, the problem of long-term unemployment is really no more complicated than the absence of effective demand. This study looks at the demographics of the long-term unemployed for the years 2007-2010, and compares them to the years 1991-1994 to see what changes have occurred specifically among the long-term unemployed. The data shows that, in terms of structural changes, the 1991-1994 and 2007-2010 periods were not much different. Rather, the nature of this recession resulted in an altered composition of the long-term unemployed. Because long-term unemployment in this recession is a function of a particularly deep recession, a new approach is needed. Based on the data, this study argues for a wage policy that would allow for people to increase their effective demand for goods and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The employment, unemployment and participation rates are examined for Aboriginals living off-reserve in Canada from 2009 to 2013 as well as for non-Aboriginals. Employment is analyzed by educational level, gender and age, province and territory and by industry and sector. The rates of employment and unemployment for Aboriginals have continued to improve, lessening the differences with non-Aboriginals. Those in the 15 to 24 age group and women had the largest improvements in their employment and unemployment rates in 2013. The level of education obtained is directly related to the rate of employment for Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals and explains most of the difference in their rate of employment, but does not explain the differences in unemployment rates. The highest rate of employment for Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals is in Alberta. The areas in which the highest percent of those employed are in health care and social assistance followed by retail trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reassesses Marx's thought on labour exchange and illuminates its worth. In the Grundrisse and subsequent pre-Capital writings, Marx presented arguments that attached importance to worker subjectivity towards labour performance based on the distinction between labour capacity and labour. This afforded insights into the peculiarities of labour exchange that preclude market determination of wages and other working conditions and necessitate the intervention of class struggle and other socio-political factors in their settlement. The significance of Marx's perspective is further elucidated when compared with the classical tradition and the position of neoclassical economics. Although his emphasis on worker autonomy receded in Capital, his earlier arguments on labour exchange, it is posited, remain highly relevant to understanding industrial relations in today's capitalist economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the increase in research on intergenerational income mobility over the past two decades, there has been little focus on measuring intergenerational worklessness. This research is the first to present estimates of the association in workless spells across generations for two new cohorts and to consider the important role of local labour market conditions in driving the intergenerational relationship. In recent cohorts, sons with workless fathers spend 11% more time out of work than sons with employed fathers from leaving full-time education to age 23. This estimate increases to 16% when focussing on later periods of adulthood (23–29). Intergenerational worklessness increases with unemployment: sons in low unemployment labour markets have similar workless experiences, regardless of their father’s employment status in childhood, whilst sons in high unemployment labour markets spend up to 30% more time out of work if their father is workless rather than employed in childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

I use linked employer-employee data from the German Federal Statistical Office to estimate within-firm wage differentials between temporary workers with fixed-term contracts and workers with permanent contracts in the context of dual internal labor markets. Wage-tenure profiles of permanent workers are estimated separately for each firm to obtain a proxy for the prevalence of internal labor markets. Temporary workers earn significantly lower wages in firms with steeper wage-tenure profiles. This finding is consistent with the segmentation in a primary permanent workforce with high wages and a secondary temporary workforce with low wages, if internal labor markets are more prevalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]