Industrial Relations最新文献

Jianan, L., H. Cai and C. Lin. 2025. “Competition in the Labor Market: The Wage Effect of Employer Concentration in China.” Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 64, no. 3: 343–379.

In the original publication, Figure 4 did not include appropriate source attribution for the underlying map and may not have accurately reflected official territorial representations. We have updated the figure using an official standard map that clearly delineates national boundaries and includes proper source citation. The updated version is provided as below.

We regret the unintentional omission in the initial figure and have revised it to ensure accuracy and compliance with official mapping guidelines.

We study the relationship between offshoring and labor market imperfections at the firm level in Belgium and the Netherlands. In both countries, wage-markup pricing stemming from workers' monopoly power is more prevalent than wage-markdown pricing originating from firms' monopsony power. Offshoring is associated with a higher prevalence and intensity of wage markdowns, driven by an increase in productivity that is only imperfectly passed through into an increase in wages. The lower firm-level productivity-wage pass-through in Belgium, attributed to its more centralized bargaining structure, makes wage markdowns more responsive to offshoring.

This paper draws on qualitative fieldwork on the Starbucks Workers United campaign and a comprehensive database of strike activity to better understand how workers organize strikes in the United States. By analyzing multiple types of strikes, this study challenges more conventional understandings of work stoppages as predominantly indefinite conflicts to resolve bargaining impasses. Strikes organized by workers with limited structural power resources may not always compel an immediate settlement, but union activists interpret strike effectiveness according to a range of indicators beyond whether they achieve material demands. These findings demonstrate the diverse ways that workers organize strikes and how they can leverage different power resources through industrial action.

Based on a large, representative, and original survey of French establishments that hired in 2015, we analyze the extent to which the recruitment process of candidates whose first and last names suggest Arab-Muslim origin differs from that of workers from the majority group at each stage of the process. We identify many influential factors among which are characteristics of the people involved in the recruitment process, the recruitment criteria, the hiring channel, and the selection methods. We discuss and test the endogeneity of several of these factors, drawing on the wealth of information provided in the survey.

We hypothesize that trade unions assist their members in avoiding situations of educational mismatch. We test this hypothesis using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and find that trade union membership is negatively associated with overeducation and positively associated with the likelihood of being educationally matched. These correlations are especially pronounced among core groups of members. Our findings suggest that a strong trade union presence within these groups helps avert the adverse consequences of overeducation and educational mismatch. We observe no systematic linkage between union membership and undereducation.

The impact of strikes in higher education institutions remains understudied. This paper investigates the impact of education strikes in UK universities from 2018 to 2022, primarily due to pension disputes. Using data from the Guardian University Guide and the UK's Research Excellence Frameworks and leveraging a difference-in-differences approach, our findings suggest significant declines in several student-related outcomes, such as student satisfaction, and a more mixed picture for student attainment and research performance. These results highlight the substantial, albeit indirect, cost unions can impose on university employers during strikes.

Ways of leaving the labor force have been an understudied aspect of labor market outcomes. Labor market institutions such as occupational licensing may influence how individuals transition to retirement. When and how workers transition from career jobs to full retirement may contribute to pre- and post-retirement well-being. Previous investigations of retirement pathways focused on the patterns and outcomes of retirement transitions, yet the influence of occupational licensing on retirement transition has not been analyzed. In this study, we use the Current Population Survey to investigate how occupational licensing influences American later-career workers' choice of retirement pathways. Our results show that older licensed workers are less likely to choose to make career transitions but more likely to reduce work hours in transitioning out of the labor force. These results are consistent with the findings that licensed workers receive more benefits in the form of preferable retirement options, suggesting that these workers tend to have higher wages, benefits, and flexibility even toward the end of their careers.

Using panel data from the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2019, we study how substantial increases in the real and relative value of the minimum wage impacted on the wage progression of covered workers. We find that progression out of minimum wage jobs is frequent, although most workers remain low paid. Using hazard rate models, we find a short-lived negative effect on progression associated with the introduction of the National Living Wage in 2016. In subsequent years, we find no evidence of significant adverse effects. We find similar results when we model wage growth directly.