The paper presents a partial evaluation of employment and factors related to the labour markets in European countries in 2007-2016. The interconnectedness of these determinants in the context of GDP dynamics per capita for each country was examined. The quoted partial subject literature and empirical research allowed to formulate the most important conclusions, among others: in the context of GDP dynamics per capita, at least four groups of countries can be distinguished in Europe, each of them has completely different (...) characteristics having an influence (in the Granger causality sense) on change in GDP per capita of these countries for various time steps. (shrink)

The research aims to identify the trends of Palestinian higher educational institutions in Gaza Strip as learning organizations from the perspective of senior management in the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip. The researchers used descriptive analytical approach and used the questionnaire as a tool for information gathering. The questionnaires were distributed to senior management in the Palestinian universities. The study population reached (344) employees in senior management is dispersed over (3) Palestinian universities. A stratified random sample of (182) employees (...) from the Palestinian universities was selected and the recovery rate was (69.2%). Statistical analysis (SPSS) program was used for analysis and processing the data. The study found the following results: There is an agreement about: the importance of the focus of "organizational structure" with an average approval, the importance of "technological infrastructure" axis with high approval, and the importance of "strategic" with an average approval. The results concluded that the study sample agree on the importance of "organizational dimension" highly. The results showed that the sample believe that the "strategic leadership" level in the universities got medium-approval. There is a fair level agreement about the axis of interest "teams / committees". There is an agreement about the importance of the "human dimension" moderately. The results showed that the sample is highly agreed about the importance of focus of the "knowledge management", and the focus of the "continuing education". They agreed weakly to somewhat about the importance of the focus of "scientific research", moderately agree about the importance of the center of "institutional culture", agree moderately on the importance of "cognitive dimension". The results showed that the sample largely agree on the importance of the focus of "strategic partnerships and alliances". They agree highly on the axis "keep up with the labor market" and on the focus of the importance of "technology incubators". The results showed that the sample moderately agree about the importance of the theme on "consulting and training", the importance of the focus of "social responsibility", and the focus of the "Community dimension". The study found a group of recommendations including: there is a need to provide suitable environment that achieve learning organizations. There is a need to develop the technological infrastructure (hardware, software, networks, databases, and human skills) because of the great advantages that they offer. The universities need to adopt knowledge management in the academic and administrative departments because knowledge is the core of the work of these departments. The establishment of technology incubators in universities to adopt outstanding university research projects, to protect, to supports, and to market them; furthermore, to develop the capabilities and skills of employees in the field of information technology. (shrink)

Temporary labor migration constitutes a significant trend of migration movements within the European Union, especially after the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements. However, compared to other forms of TLM, intra-EU TLM has received scant attention from normative theorists. By drawing on Iris Marion Young's conception of structural injustice, this article analyzes the injustice of TLM within the EU. It argues that purely rights-based approaches are deficient and that a structural injustice approach is needed. The latter sheds light on the formal (...) and informal processes that place EU temporary migrants in a condition of vulnerability and reveals the multiple individual and collective agents participating in such processes. Moreover, such an approach offers important insights into the agency of migrants by showing how they themselves reinforce structural processes that put not only individual temporary migrants but also similarly positioned migrants and other members of the sending and receiving countries in a vulnerable position. A structural injustice approach does not deny that intra-EU temporary labor migrants should enjoy the rights and entitlements that they currently have in the host country as European citizens. Nor does it dispute that reducing the vulnerability of temporary migrants may require “special rights” accommodating the specific nature of their life plans. Instead, though such rights may be necessary, a structural injustice approach demonstrates how they are insufficient to tackle the injustice of intra-EU TLM and other forms of temporary labor migration more broadly. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed the rise of digital platforms that allow economic agents to arrange ever more fine-grained contracts. This article zooms in on labour-based platforms that permit the hire of labour in a just-in-time fashion (and are part of the broader trend towards on-demand work). Its principal contribution comes in three parts. First, exposing the frequently overlooked diversity of labour-based platforms, the article proposes to distinguish platform companies, which directly sell services and then purchase the (...) class='Hi'>labour needed to provide them, and broker platforms, which act merely as intermediaries. Second, it examines how platforms of each type pose distinct threats to labour justice, thereby extending Daniel Halliday's (2021) analysis. Drawing on empirical studies of the experiences of platform workers, it identifies a power imbalance as the root cause of these threats across all platforms. Finally, the article assesses three strategies to counter these threats: introducing stricter regulation, turning platforms into worker-run co-ops, and improving outside job opportunities. In exploring how each strategy could be implemented for specific platforms, it makes the case for always discussing labour-based platforms with one eye to their specific structural features and the other eye to the broader labour market. (shrink)

As Bhaskar (1989:1) argues, we need to take philosophy seriously because it underwrites both what constitutes science and knowledge and which political practices are deemed legitimate. At present, the field of educational research internationally is witnessing a pragmatist trend, whereby practical education research is carried out without reference to ontological and epistemological concerns. For David Reynolds, a leading UK school effectiveness academic, '[p]recisely because we did not waste time on philosophical discussion or on values debates, we made rapid progress' (1998:20). (...) Equally, for Teddlie, '[t]he orientation of many in the US is to do rather than to reflect […] In reality many practitioners are currently interested in what could work at their school […rather…] than in ruminations about social inequalities associated with different socioeconomic classes' (Teddlie and Reynolds 2000:27). The purpose of this chapter is not only to reclaim critical realist social philosophy for educational research, but also to reclaim reality from the positivist and statistical methodology that underpins School Effectiveness Research (SER) and to make clear the difference that realism makes by virtue of its critical explanatory power in unmasking the ideological nature of SER and its adoption by New Labour. (shrink)

This article examines four leading multi-stakeholder labour monitoring organizations. All operating in the maquiladora industry, these organizations are viewed in light of the growing global trend toward industry self-regulation, or what has been referred to as the 'global out-sourcing of regulation'. Their Board compositions, codes of conduct and monitoring and enforcement strategies are all examined as a means of tentatively positioning these organizations along an 'egoist-instrumentalist-moralist' ethical culture continuum. Such a framing provides insights into the perceived salience of these (...) organizations' broader stakeholders, the effectiveness of codes of conduct on workplace practices more generally, and the role that ethics plays in the governance and accountability of these increasingly important types of organizations. (shrink)

This discussion focuses on two important trends in American childbirth that have emerged in the past 30 years, the demand for a perfect baby and the desire for a perfect birth. These two trends are particularly important in the subgroup of middle-class women who have decided on delayed childbearing. Tremendous technological innovations, such as ultra-sound, prenatal genetic analysis, and fetal monitoring, have promoted the perception that physicians can control the prenatal environment and predict the pregnancy outcome. This expectation (...) may lead to bitterness and anger in the event of an adverse pregnancy outcome. In contrast, women and their families have also come to desire more control over the birth experience. If the parents’ birth plan is not achieved and their expectations not fulfilled, many parents feel they have not performed well. When the physician acts as a guide in the birth process, parents and physicians together may transcend the conflict to achieve a more satisfactory birth experience. (shrink)

In this essay Bryan Warnick examines two recent analyses of the practice of paying students for grades, with a focus on educational justice. Philosopher Derrick Darby argues against cash-for-grades programs on the grounds that such programs leave educational inequality intact. Warnick contends that Darby's arguments are incomplete. Increasing levels of educational “adequacy” is morally desirable, Warnick argues, even if inequality remains unchanged. There is also an obligation to engage in “localized practice reforms” that benefit small groups of disadvantaged students, even (...) if such reforms do not change the structural problems that lead to inequality. At the same time, engaging in a close analysis of “cash” as an incentive does reveal specific reasons why the inequality that persists under cash-for-grades might be particularly troublesome. In contrast to Darby, Alexander Sidorkin argues that paying students for learning is not only allowed, but ethically obligatory. Schooling, for Sidorkin, is a form of labor and labor demands fair compensation. Warnick challenges the idea that schooling is a form of exploited labor by looking across a range of issues, including the nonpecuniary benefits of schooling. At the same time, it seems that schooling could become a form of exploited labor, given current trends. Overall, the justice of cash incentive programs remains an open question. The essay concludes with a discussion about how we can move forward with a philosophical analysis of cash-for-grades programs. (shrink)

Within the polemic work which was developed by Eastern Christians it is necessary to underline the transmission of the whole of the religious conceptions, the kinds of argumentation and defence of the dogma, the elaboration of the discourse, the debate techniques used, the vocabulary which was adapted and generated, the rewriting developed from the Biblical material and Quranic criticism, as well as the refutations of the Muslim ideas, and the huge information which is inside the intrachristian polemics. Theology is the (...) most important element to describe the abridged knowledge which is in all of the treatises which make whole the polemic typology. This element allows us to rebuild the rich and involved tram which forms the 'theological knowledge' of the different Ch1istian churches and the several Muslim trends too. This, polemics help to clarify the processes which shape the ideology of the different human groups in conflict. (shrink)

There has been widespread emphasis on the importance of trust amongst parties to the employment relationship, associated with a call for increased "integrative bargaining". Trust is bound up with ethical action, but there has been some debate about the ethics of deception in bargaining. Because it is possible for cooperative bargainers to be exploited, some writers contend that deceptive behavior is ethical and established practice. There are several problems about that view. It is questionable how clear and uniform such a (...) practice has been. An appearance of deceptive bluffing can often be explained as exchange of genuine concessions. Recent trends have seen increased devolution of bargaining from professionals to non-professionals, which dilutes any shared understandings there have been in the past, while practices that do exist may not be freely or voluntarily accepted and the existence of such practices is not enough to compensate for inequalities of power and skill. It is questionable to what extent bluffing and deception are necessary for self-defense. There other techniques available by which parties can guard themselves against exploitation. (shrink)

International political economy identifies declining nominal interest rates, securitization, and financial liberalization as drivers of rising housing prices. Despite witnessing these common credit shocks, however, developed economies experienced divergent trends in housing inflation since the 1980s. We offer a comparative political economy explanation of variation in house prices, arguing that by restraining household incomes, wage-setting institutions can blunt financial liberalization’s inflationary impact on housing markets. Employing quantitative analysis and a comparative study of Ireland and the Netherlands, we uncover two (...) findings. First, countries where political coalitions in the export sector held veto powers over those in the nontraded sector in national wage setting realized lower housing inflation. Second, the impact of sectoral coalitions on housing prices in OECD countries is similar to that of financial variables. Our results suggest that the organization of labor politics continues to play an important role in mitigating the destabilizing effects of global finance on developed economies. (shrink)

This article explores the effect of women’s movement into the labor market on the gender segregation of work, using the Current Population Survey from 1972 to 1993. The author includes as working those respondents who were “keeping house” and codes keeping house as an occupation. The results show higher estimates of gender segregation, and slightly steeper declines over time, than were seen in previous studies. Analysis of one-year longitudinal changes reveals less movement out of female-dominated occupations when keeping house is (...) included as an occupation. Finally, a decomposition of the segregation trend shows that the movement of women away from keeping house contributed as much to the overall decline in gender segregation as did the desegregation of paid occupations. The author concludes that the movement of women’s work from the household to the labor market has been a driving force in the changing nature of gender inequality. (shrink)

The feminization of care migration in transnational contexts has received a great deal of attention. Scholars, however, have been slow to investigate a similar trend in intranational contexts. This article expands existing research on global care chains by examining the gendered emotional labor of migrant domestic workers pertaining to China’s intranational care chains. While the former often foregrounds “racial or ethnic discounting,” the latter is characterized by “citizenly discounting” whereby migrant domestic workers are subject to an overarching system of alienation, (...) subordination, and exploitation owning to their second-class rural hùkŏu status. Drawing on a participant-observation study of nannies, this article highlights how the intersection of gender and rural-urban citizenship is the key to grasping China’s migrant domestic workers’ experiences of extensive alienation at the nexus of work, family, and wider society. By delving into a particular set of political, economic, and cultural forces in the Chinese context, the article makes a distinctive contribution to a more nuanced and context-sensitive understanding of the interface of gender, emotional labor, and care migration. (shrink)

In West Germany, there is a good deal of disagreement among leading political groups, economic decision makers and scientific experts concerning both the future of the labor market and the role of labor in society. This disagreement bears on all of the three relevant points: the prognosis of the likely future development, the policy most suited to this development, and the criteria and objectives that determine whether, in fact, a development could be judged as positive or indeed desirable. In this (...) discussion, the first of these three points is the least controversial. Quite a number of contemporary publications in Germany feature the famous graph, developed in 1982 by the Federal Labor Agency's Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research, which depicts labor market trends for the years 1965 to 2000. (shrink)

Executives, professionals, educators and labour leaders are requesting an update on corporate ethical trends. This article presents an examination of why the interest in corporate ethics is growing both in society and in corporations. An analysis follows of how corporations are responding to this interest, and of how that response might be enhanced through improved second-generation codes of ethical performance.

This paper presents selected findings from a historical analysis of change in the discursive construction of social identity in UK education policy discourse from 1972–2005. My chief argument is that through its linguistic forms of self-identification the government construes educational roles, relations and responsibilities not only for itself, but also for other educational actors and wider society. More specifically, I argue that New Labour's distinctive mode of self-representation is an important element in its hegemonic project, textually manufacturing consent over (...) its policy decisions, and helping to articulate its self-styled ‘enabling’ model of governance. As evidence for these claims I discuss two prominent trends in New Labour's education policy rhetoric, which I characterise as ‘personalisation’ and ‘managerialisation’. Respectively, these relate to the discursive representation of social identity and social action. (shrink)

Studies of creative industries typically contend that creative work is profoundly precarious, taking place on a freelance basis in highly competitive, individualized and contingent labour markets. Such studies depict creative workers as correspondingly self-enterprising, self-reliant, self-interested and calculative agents who valorise care-free independence. In contrast, we adopt the ‘ethics of care’ approach to explore, recognize and appreciate the communitarian, relational and moral considerations as well as interpersonal connectedness and interdependencies that underpin creative work. Drawing on in-depth interviews with creative (...) workers in a range of marginal socio-cultural contexts, we argue that creative workers cultivate and sustain a diverse array of practices of care arising from an affective concern with the well-being of others. Far from being merely individualistic and crudely competitive actors, creative workers enact practical ethical responsibilities and affectivities towards a range of human and non-human others, including families, local communities and neighbourhoods, colleagues, artistic scenes and their adjacent genres, and surrounding national and linguistic cultures. In emphasizing the fundamental and structuring role of care in contingent labour markets our approach accords with recent trends in the social sciences that ‘affirmatively’—as opposed to ‘negatively’ and ‘suspiciously’—recognize that mutuality, solidarity and affectivity are powerful drivers of action on a par with or even exceeding market-driven self-centredness. (shrink)

Today, more and more attention is paid to self-employment, when, in the face of an exacerbated situation related to the spread of coronavirus, the authorities recommend people to work remotely. An important feature of self-employment is that such a form of social protection appears when the unemployed can overcome the crisis and find a new place to live with state assistance provided by employment services. The main focus of this article is to search for a comprehensive way to solve employment (...) problems at the state level through the use of self-employment, taking into account the economic and social aspects due to a change in a person's attitude to work. At the same time, the transition from passively dependent expectations in work to active creative work is carried out. The study used data from a sociological survey conducted jointly by the International Labor Organization and the International Organization of Employers. 127 organizations from 115 countries took part in the survey. To determine the portrait of the self-employed population, it was decided to use the results of a survey of the target group and a focus group conducted by the Center for Applied Economic Research. (shrink)

The paper assesses labour market integration opportunities for the groups of country’s population that are highly contrasting in social terms, i.e. young people and older adults, and their dependence on demographic changes. Since the beginning of the 21st century up to 2050 in the future, demographic changes have demonstrated and will continue to have an increasing impact on the social and economic development of European countries. In this context, it is particularly appropriate to monitor the demographic prospects and (...) class='Hi'>labour market situation of young people and older adults. These marginal social groups of economic activity are the best reflection of the overall labour market prospects of an individual country. The paper provides a detailed analysis of the situation in Lithuania. Transformations of the situation of young people and older adults in the Lithuanian labour market are closely linked to highly dynamic changes in demographic structures. Using a variety of labour market indicators, the paper identifies trends characterising the situation of the target groups at issue, with a particular emphasis on the observed changes in unemployment and employment (economic activity) during crisis periods. The results of the analysis help to highlight weaknesses and strengths of the labour market situation of the target groups. The strengths include the positive dynamism of most of the observed labour market indicators in Lithuania in the long term and the fact that the situation is, in many cases, relatively better than the average for EU countries. The weaknesses in the labour market situation of young people and older adults are related to the relatively higher vulnerability of these social groups during economic downturns; they appear to lose jobs faster and need longer time to find a suitable job during economic recoveries. (shrink)

This article focuses on the role of unions and their influence on economic inequality. Section 2 reviews the literature regarding the union effect on wages and wage inequality. Section 3 considers the separate contributions of union power, membership composition, bargaining coordination, and wage policy. Section 4 introduces the distinction between membership and coverage, while the following two sections discuss the impact of union power on earnings inequality when coverage is either exclusive or inclusive. Section 7 discusses the rationale for unions (...) aiming for wage compression while Section 8 estimates how the presence of trade unions has influenced the extent and dynamics of earnings inequality across advanced economies during the 1980s and 1990s. For this purpose indicators have been developed for trends in equality and union presence from different sources. Section 9 concludes. (shrink)

The end of the twentieth century in the religious life of the Ukrainian people was marked by dramatic changes: the network of religious organizations rapidly increased, the number of believers increased, the Church with the persecuted and followed by the institution of the institution became an active element of society, seeking to find a new place in the relationship with the state. The national uplift has coincided with complex transformation processes related to the globalization of the world economy, finance, natural (...) and labor resources, culture, the spiritual sphere, and population migration. All this is extremely relevant to the problem of self-identification of Ukraine as a state and every single Ukrainian as its citizen in different coordinates, especially spiritual ones. (shrink)

Today, more and more attention is paid to self-employment, when, in the face of an exacerbated situation related to the spread of coronavirus, the authorities recommend people to work remotely. An important feature of self-employment is that such a form of social protection appears when the unemployed can overcome the crisis and find a new place to live with state assistance provided by employment services. The main focus of this article is to search for a comprehensive way to solve employment (...) problems at the state level through the use of self-employment, taking into account the economic and social aspects due to a change in a person's attitude to work. At the same time, the transition from passively dependent expectations in work to active creative work is carried out. The study used data from a sociological survey conducted jointly by the International Labor Organization and the International Organization of Employers. 127 organizations from 115 countries took part in the survey. To determine the portrait of the self-employed population, it was decided to use the results of a survey of the target group and a focus group conducted by the Center for Applied Economic Research. (shrink)

The article describes the evolution of problems in the Lithuanian labour law and labour law science since the re-establishment of independence in 1990. Three periods of evolution are presented: the Soviet period (lasted until 1990), the transitional period (1990- 2004) and the period of the Labour Code (2003 and onwards). During the Soviet period, the Code of Labour Laws regulated employment relationship in strict detail as the main employer was the state itself. Good reflections of that (...) period can be pointed out: active (but forced) collective bargaining, single tariff system that implemented equal treatment in the field of remuneration for work and fluent performance of enforcement of labour laws (legal clarity). During the transitional period, new labour laws were introduced and tuned-up with international labour standards (ILO), but in general there were no essential changes in practice. During all that period, the Lithuanian Labour Code was drafted and came in force in 2003. The period of the new Labour Code started together with the European integration and had to bring new trends of the European labour market into Lithuanian practice. The government and academics brought few initiatives for the liberalisation of labour laws but most of them were stuck in the stage of consulting with social partners (Tripartite Council). Nevertheless, 22 years after the collapse of command economy labour laws incompatible with free labour market still dominate. It is obvious that the Lithuanian Labour Code is outdated and needs general reconstruction. Scientific researches and the EU Council recommendations call for the introduction of flexibility, implementation of flexicurity aiming for full integration into the single European labour market. Some strict labour code rules are prevented from functioning in practice. The courts are forced to derogate from disproportionate and improper articles of the Labour Code. The author brings some of the existing problems of labour law into light and proposes their possible solutions. The existing crisis of labour law could be solved by drafting a new Labour Code with the help of academic researchers and by introducing it directly to the Parliament for adoption. (shrink)

A substantial expansion of migration and labor mobility in the rich industrial countries currently seems outside the Overton window, the range of acceptable political discourse. If anything, the general political mood seems to favor even greater restrictiveness of immigration. I argue that five trends that are already well underway could, within a decade or less, bring much larger flows of migrants and labor mobility—including a major expansion of time-limited labor mobility—squarely onto the domestic political agenda in rich industrial countries.

The effects of socioeconomic factors on secular trends in suicide rates in Japan for the periods 1953–72 and 1973–86 were investigated using twelve socioeconomic indicators. Multiple regression analysis showed that the socioeconomic indicators affecting suicide rates were not identical in the two periods. The rates in both sexes in 1953–72 were closely related to unemployment rate and the labour force but between 1973 and 1986, divorce rate and the proportion in tertiary industry were most influential. The changes reflect (...) the socioeconomic changes in industrial structure in Japan in transition from an industrial to a service economy. (shrink)

The socio economic development of the region requires the mobilization and effective use of the necessary economic resources, in which labor resources occupy a leading position. The purpose of the study is to study the peculiarities of the formation of the labor resources of the region and the trends of their development in order to develop measures to improve the efficiency of their use. The article considers the characteristics of the labor resources of the Chechen Republic, calculates labor productivity. (...) The scientific novelty of the research lies in the substantiation of the conditions that ensure the effective use of the labor resources of the region. As a result, it is revealed that in order to increase the efficiency of the use of labor resources, it is necessary to conduct an objective assessment and analysis of the needs of the regional economy in labor; to involve the able-bodied population in economic activities through labor market regulation; to change approaches to the management of labor resources at the regional level. (shrink)

Although the prison was originally conceived for the noble purpose of rehabilitating criminal offenders, critics from its very inception worried that the prison was an inherently criminogenic institution, reinforcing the criminal behaviors of its occupants. In this article I focus on an indirect mechanism, elaborating and empirically testing the impact of a prison record/experience on ex-inmates' labor market outcomes, by which ex-inmates will face significantly higher risks of recidivism and hence future prison spells, especially when they are released into weaker (...) labor markets. Specifically, I specify and test a version of the "secondary labor market hypothesis." Because most ex-inmates were mired in secondary jobs prior to their incarceration, I consider the impact of a prison record/experience on their chances of "moving up" to good jobs with higher pay, steadier hours, and greater mobility. In the conclusion I draw out the somber implications of my labor market analyses by examining trends in recidivism rates and their social costs. The evidence suggests that the War on Drugs policies have trapped an increasing number of more marginal drug offenders in the revolving door of recidivism, conventionally defined. It also highlights a new and quantitatively important recidivism risk for released prisoners, the revocation of parole on technical violations. To break out of this vicious cycle, my analysis shows, would demand vast direct government interventions in the labor market. As a more modest first step, I consider policy innovations like drug courts that place marginal drug offenders in treatment programs rather than prison. In illustrating and elaborating my arguments, I focus on the War on Drug policies and on marginal drug offenders. My reasons are several. First, the War on Drugs constituted a true social experiment, an exogenous shift in criminal justice policy that is best understood as a "moral" panic, precipitated in part by the tragic but transitory episode of lethal gun violence in the social regulation of the crack trade. Second, the War on Drugs policies were quantitatively important in instituting the regime of mass incarceration. And finally, these policies indiscriminately incarcerated marginal, not just more serious, offenders. (shrink)

. In this part of the research process shows progress of the author´s doctoral thesis which seeks to offer from the union between practice and academy to the diagnosis of labor markets, monitoring and trend analysis and it also addresses the issue of understanding the relationships that this problem occurs in a particular moment in time when comparing the self-evaluations among recent graduates with self-assessments of people who are at a high level position in the automotive sector Guanajuato and therefore, (...) to establish the gap with those administrative economic area students, and identify which competences should be developed to reach a position with a high level of responsibility to a greater degree of certainly to which an instrument used widely tested, the results and findings until now.Keywords. Automotive sector, graduates, laboral competences.Resumen. En esta parte del proceso investigativo se presentan los avances de la tesis doctoral de la autora que pretende aportar desde la unión entre la praxis y la academia en el campo de la administración, a los diagnósticos de los mercados de trabajo, su seguimiento y análisis de tendencias ya que, resultan fundamentales para el desarrollo de los sistemas de competencias laborales. Así mismo, se aborda la cuestión de entender las relaciones que éste problema presenta en un determinado momento en el tiempo al comparar las auto-evaluaciones entre recién egresados con las auto-evaluaciones de personas que se encuentran en una posición de alto nivel en el sector automotriz de Guanajuato y por consiguiente; establecer la brecha que tienen dichos egresados del área económico administrativa, e identificar que competencias deben desarrollar para llegar a una posición con un alto nivel de responsabilidad con un alto grado de certidumbre para lo cual, se utiliza un instrumento ampliamente probado y se presentan los resultados y hallazgos encontrados hasta el momento. (shrink)

Policy decisions during and after the New Deal tied the U.S. social contract to the employment contract, by conditioning eligibility and benefit levels for core welfare-state programs on work status and performance. The resulting system of social provision, however, embodied a set of assumptions about labor-market conditions that began to unravel with the structural economic shifts that began in the mid-1970s. Work was expected to provide open doors to employment, stable floors of security and stability over time, income ladders promising (...) adequate and rising earnings, and safety nets providing public and/or private protections against unforeseen or unavoidable hardships. Each of these assumptions was undermined by fundamental changes in the market, and this, in turn, has redefined patterns of social provision. As a result, core welfare-state programs have become less effective at meeting their own objectives of providing adequate social protections for rising numbers of working Americans. These trends preceded the recent recession and weak recovery, and cannot be reversed by the return of robust growth or pre-recession employment levels, in the absence of more fundamental change in the social contract. The roots of the current dilemma lie in the 1930s-40s, when politically mobilized employers fought alongside conservative policymakers to constrain the scope of the original system of social protections during and after the New Deal. In recent decades, they have battled to keep even this limited system from reaching those it was intended to assist, by blocking or limiting reform initiatives in areas such as employment policy, the minimum wage, health and pension insurance and modernization of the unemployment compensation system. (shrink)

Community care for frail elderly people rests heavily on the work of low-status, paraprofessional home care workers. Home care workers describe their work as highly personalized caring labor that often seeps out of its formal boundaries into informal, unpaid activities. Although these activities are valued by workers, their supervisors, elderly clients, and family members, they represent uncompensated and exploited labor. Cost-cutting trends in home care management that seek to depersonalize home care labor are likely to increase its exploitative potential (...) for paid care workers and, simultaneously, to disadvantage and jeopardize elderly home care clients and their unpaid family caregivers. (shrink)

Challenging the new political-economic “mainstream” that considers trade unions to be “complicit” in labor market dualization, this article’s analysis of union strategies in Italy and South Korea, most-different union movements perceived as unlikely cases for the pursuit of broader social solidarity, shows that in both countries unions have successively moved away from insider-focused strategies and toward “solidarity for all” in the industrial relations arena as well as in their social policy preferences. Furthermore, unions explored new avenues of political agency, often (...) in alliance with civil society organizations. This convergent trend toward a social model of unionism is ascribed to a response of unions to a “double crisis”: that is, a socioeconomic crisis, which takes the form of a growing periphery of the labor market associated with growing social exclusion, and a sociopolitical crisis, which takes the form of an increasing marginalization of the unions from the political process. (shrink)

Silvia Castellazzi shows how companies can implement their corporate responsibility and support employability and access to training in an incentive-compatible manner. The study provides insights into unrealized cooperation and disincentives which prevent companies from investing in a shared pool of employable and skilled people. The research draws on the theoretical framework of the economic ethics and on in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in two European countries. Findings show that incentives for investments in training are selective and might reinforce path-dependencies and (...) exclusion, while not supporting cooperation and productive competition. The study also shows the value of conceptualizing employability as a social rather than a psychological contract to facilitate investments and the implementation of corporate responsibility. Contents Trends and Conflicts in Employability and Provision of Training Incentives Structures and Stakeholders' Strategies A Social Contract for Employability Target Groups Researchers in business ethics, employee relations, further education and training HR and training managers; CSR managers The Author Silvia Castellazzi works as account manager in the corporate education division of MIP Graduate School of Business (Politecnico di Milano). Her research interests and activities are focused on professional and executive education, corporate responsibility and decision-making, the future of work and new forms of work organization. (shrink)

Originally published in 1937 on the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of Isaac ben Judah Abravanel, this book contains six essays on his teaching and thought by a number of scholars. The authors explain key points such as the Iberian background to Abravanel's work, his differences with other philosophers of his age, and the influence of his son, Leone Ebreo, on the Renaissance. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Abravanel's life (...) and teaching or in Medieval Jewish philosophy. (shrink)

Toward evidence‐based policy decisions: a case study of nursing health human resources in Ontario, CanadaThis paper reflects how health services research ‘evidence’ was used to influence decisions in the province of Ontario, Canada. The process involved interaction among a variety of stakeholders and decision‐makers with researchers to reduce uncertainty and to substantiate emerging service provision issues in the province. The issues presented here focus specifically on an analysis of the nursing situation completed in 1998 for the Minister of Health’s Nursing (...) Task Force, which examined key issues in service delivery. The issues were: restructured work environments; nurse supply and declining enrollments; labour trends and utilization of the nursing workforce; patient acuity and complexity of work environments and the influence on workload; and the paucity of reliable and valid data bases for analysis of nursing’s contribution to the health system. Ontarians can be confident that the Task Force recommendations were born from solid research‐based evidence and now the challenge becomes to monitor the implementation of these resolutions over time. (shrink)