Abstract The scholarship on informal domestic work remains heavily dominated by the marginalization discourse, describing this form of work as being an exploitative and abusive endeavour. In contrast, drawing on the relational work perspective from economic sociology, we conceive of informal domestic work as embedded in a relational infrastructure of social ties and reciprocal favours. In doing so, our article addresses the following overarching question: to what extent are the informal domestic work relations reciprocal instead of [or in addition to] being only exploitative and abusive? Drawing on in-depth interviews with 90 paid domestic workers and their employers, our findings reveal that while these domestic workers typically operate within the constrained opportunity structures, their work relations comprise a tacit sociological element of reciprocal benefits. However, we also conclude that by infusing these work relations with reciprocal elements, the domestic workers indeed gain something but also ultimately reinforce their unequal position.
{"title":"An economic sociology perspective on informal domestic work relations: a study of domestic workers and their employers in Pakistan","authors":"Muhammad Shehryar Shahid, Jawad Syed","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad030","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The scholarship on informal domestic work remains heavily dominated by the marginalization discourse, describing this form of work as being an exploitative and abusive endeavour. In contrast, drawing on the relational work perspective from economic sociology, we conceive of informal domestic work as embedded in a relational infrastructure of social ties and reciprocal favours. In doing so, our article addresses the following overarching question: to what extent are the informal domestic work relations reciprocal instead of [or in addition to] being only exploitative and abusive? Drawing on in-depth interviews with 90 paid domestic workers and their employers, our findings reveal that while these domestic workers typically operate within the constrained opportunity structures, their work relations comprise a tacit sociological element of reciprocal benefits. However, we also conclude that by infusing these work relations with reciprocal elements, the domestic workers indeed gain something but also ultimately reinforce their unequal position.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134891946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The ‘Added Worker Effect’ (AWE) theory posits that partners of the unemployed provide intra-household insurance by increasing their earnings. However, estimates of the AWE are small. Popular explanations include lacking need (e.g. due to generous unemployment benefits), capacity or willingness to increase earnings, though these explanations are seldom tested systematically. Using Swiss administrative data and difference-in-differences estimates, we find an overall AWE among only non-working women. We find no systematic differences in AWEs between couples with differing needs or capacities, but aspects related to willingness like marriage, long marital duration and shared biological children are associated with higher AWEs. Men’s overall slight reduction in earnings upon their partners’ unemployment is driven by young, childless, cohabiting men. Overall, compared to unemployment insurance, in all studied subgroups, the AWE is a minimal source of insurance.
{"title":"What limits intra-household insurance or the ‘Added Worker Effect’?","authors":"Debra Hevenstone, Dorian Kessler, Larissa Luchsinger","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad025","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The ‘Added Worker Effect’ (AWE) theory posits that partners of the unemployed provide intra-household insurance by increasing their earnings. However, estimates of the AWE are small. Popular explanations include lacking need (e.g. due to generous unemployment benefits), capacity or willingness to increase earnings, though these explanations are seldom tested systematically. Using Swiss administrative data and difference-in-differences estimates, we find an overall AWE among only non-working women. We find no systematic differences in AWEs between couples with differing needs or capacities, but aspects related to willingness like marriage, long marital duration and shared biological children are associated with higher AWEs. Men’s overall slight reduction in earnings upon their partners’ unemployment is driven by young, childless, cohabiting men. Overall, compared to unemployment insurance, in all studied subgroups, the AWE is a minimal source of insurance.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44554936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: Structural adjustment and the political economy of capital flight","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad032","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135601620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The adoption of statutory minimum wages (MWs) has been accompanied by institutional innovations in the relationship between governments, employers and unions. In the UK and Germany, MW commissions were created to recommend or determine the MW. Their memberships are dominated by trade unionists and employers. Structures that engage the social partners ‘in the shadow of hierarchy’ can be efficient as well as politically expedient. They will be stable if, first, the social partners can establish a consensual basis for decisions and, second, this consensus position is near enough to the government’s position not to trigger intervention. The first condition has been met but not the second: both in the UK and Germany, governments have overridden employers and unions in order to introduce higher MWs. The article explores why this has happened and draws out the implications for MW fixing and the stability of shadow-of-hierarchy arrangements.
{"title":"In the shadow of hierarchy: minimum wage commissions in the UK and Germany","authors":"D. Mabbett","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad027","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The adoption of statutory minimum wages (MWs) has been accompanied by institutional innovations in the relationship between governments, employers and unions. In the UK and Germany, MW commissions were created to recommend or determine the MW. Their memberships are dominated by trade unionists and employers. Structures that engage the social partners ‘in the shadow of hierarchy’ can be efficient as well as politically expedient. They will be stable if, first, the social partners can establish a consensual basis for decisions and, second, this consensus position is near enough to the government’s position not to trigger intervention. The first condition has been met but not the second: both in the UK and Germany, governments have overridden employers and unions in order to introduce higher MWs. The article explores why this has happened and draws out the implications for MW fixing and the stability of shadow-of-hierarchy arrangements.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45102891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We conceptualize recruitment partnerships between higher education institutions (HEIs) and accounting firms as a social network. While elite closure is known to be typical of such relationships, we posit that commitments to improving organizational diversity should curtail this tendency. Yet, whereas diversity in employee recruitment is culturally institutionalized, there are no imperatives encouraging HEIs to partner with diverse firms, what we call ‘downstream diversity’. We hypothesize this differentiation should lead elite companies to form more diverse partnerships with HEIs than HEIs do with firms. Our analysis confirms elite HEIs mostly partner with prestigious companies. The latter partner across the status spectrum, but recruitment from lower-status HEIs is for less desirable jobs. We also find elite establishments in both fields are unlikely to partner with organizations with high representation of Black persons. We conclude that (a) recruitment partnerships reproduce status distinctions, (b) firms are failing to meet diversity commitments and (c) downstream diversity needs to be incorporated into HEI diversity management toolkits.
{"title":"In search of the suitable candidate: the role of status, upstream and downstream diversity in recruitment partnerships","authors":"Kristen Tzoc, Neha Gondal","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad024","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We conceptualize recruitment partnerships between higher education institutions (HEIs) and accounting firms as a social network. While elite closure is known to be typical of such relationships, we posit that commitments to improving organizational diversity should curtail this tendency. Yet, whereas diversity in employee recruitment is culturally institutionalized, there are no imperatives encouraging HEIs to partner with diverse firms, what we call ‘downstream diversity’. We hypothesize this differentiation should lead elite companies to form more diverse partnerships with HEIs than HEIs do with firms. Our analysis confirms elite HEIs mostly partner with prestigious companies. The latter partner across the status spectrum, but recruitment from lower-status HEIs is for less desirable jobs. We also find elite establishments in both fields are unlikely to partner with organizations with high representation of Black persons. We conclude that (a) recruitment partnerships reproduce status distinctions, (b) firms are failing to meet diversity commitments and (c) downstream diversity needs to be incorporated into HEI diversity management toolkits.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46560813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
D. Sarpong, George Ofosu, David Botchie, D. Meissner
Some African countries’ premier industries, such as textiles, garments and agro-processing, which floundered in the face of market liberalization and stiff competition from cheap imports, are now going through regenerative changes, with some beginning to tell a cautionary tale of a leap upwards. Focusing on the Ghana garment and textile industry, we draw on a framework that integrates social practices and everyday general-purpose technologies to explore the rise, decline and regeneration of the industry. Explicating a fine analysis of how the performative reconfiguration of social practices and functional sources of innovation and technologies may combine to support innovation-driven growth, our study sheds light on how loosely connected actors within a hitherto floundering industry can learn to transform their situated practices to drive their ‘industrial regeneration’. Implications for the theory and practice of industrial regeneration are outlined.
{"title":"A phoenix rising? The regeneration of the Ghana garment and textile industry","authors":"D. Sarpong, George Ofosu, David Botchie, D. Meissner","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad022","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Some African countries’ premier industries, such as textiles, garments and agro-processing, which floundered in the face of market liberalization and stiff competition from cheap imports, are now going through regenerative changes, with some beginning to tell a cautionary tale of a leap upwards. Focusing on the Ghana garment and textile industry, we draw on a framework that integrates social practices and everyday general-purpose technologies to explore the rise, decline and regeneration of the industry. Explicating a fine analysis of how the performative reconfiguration of social practices and functional sources of innovation and technologies may combine to support innovation-driven growth, our study sheds light on how loosely connected actors within a hitherto floundering industry can learn to transform their situated practices to drive their ‘industrial regeneration’. Implications for the theory and practice of industrial regeneration are outlined.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47939330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bruno Latour, when we were young","authors":"Luc Boltanski","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61621356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Less-educated workers have the lowest participation rates in job-related further training across the industrialized world, but the extent of their disadvantage varies. Using data on 28 high- and middle-income countries, we assess different explanations for less-educated workers’ training disadvantage relative to intermediate-educated workers, with a focus on the role of labor market allocation (i.e. job tasks, other job features and firm characteristics). Shapley decompositions reveal a broadly similar pattern for all countries: differences in labor market allocation between less- and intermediate-educated workers are more important for explaining the training gap than differences in individual learning disposition (i.e. cognitive skills and motivation to learn). Our analysis further suggests that the training gap is related to educational and labor market institutions and that labor market allocation processes play a key role in mediating any institutional ‘effects’. Strong conclusions regarding the role of institutions are hampered by the small country-level sample, however.
{"title":"Explaining the training disadvantage of less-educated workers: the role of labor market allocation in international comparison","authors":"Carla Hornberg, J. Heisig, Heike Solga","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad023","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Less-educated workers have the lowest participation rates in job-related further training across the industrialized world, but the extent of their disadvantage varies. Using data on 28 high- and middle-income countries, we assess different explanations for less-educated workers’ training disadvantage relative to intermediate-educated workers, with a focus on the role of labor market allocation (i.e. job tasks, other job features and firm characteristics). Shapley decompositions reveal a broadly similar pattern for all countries: differences in labor market allocation between less- and intermediate-educated workers are more important for explaining the training gap than differences in individual learning disposition (i.e. cognitive skills and motivation to learn). Our analysis further suggests that the training gap is related to educational and labor market institutions and that labor market allocation processes play a key role in mediating any institutional ‘effects’. Strong conclusions regarding the role of institutions are hampered by the small country-level sample, however.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43873113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article provides a comparative analysis of three central policies to regulate low wages: statutory minimum wages, state support for collective bargaining and topping up low wages with public transfers (in-work benefits). We map the variation of these policies across 33 OECD countries and analyze the incidence of low-wage employment they are associated with. We find three approaches to regulating low wages. In the first, ‘wage scale protection’, states put most emphasis on supporting collective bargaining. In the second, ‘bare minimum’, there is not much else than the statutory minimum wage. In the third, ‘state pay’, the statutory minimum wage is supplemented by sizeable public financial support for low earners. When analyzing policy outcomes, ‘wage scale protection’ is associated with least low-wage employment. For ‘bare minimum’, much depends on the level of the statutory minimum wage. Although ‘state pay’ props up workers’ disposable income, many workers receive low gross pay.
{"title":"Regulating low wages: cross-national policy variation and outcomes","authors":"Siri Hansen Pedersen, G. Picot","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article provides a comparative analysis of three central policies to regulate low wages: statutory minimum wages, state support for collective bargaining and topping up low wages with public transfers (in-work benefits). We map the variation of these policies across 33 OECD countries and analyze the incidence of low-wage employment they are associated with. We find three approaches to regulating low wages. In the first, ‘wage scale protection’, states put most emphasis on supporting collective bargaining. In the second, ‘bare minimum’, there is not much else than the statutory minimum wage. In the third, ‘state pay’, the statutory minimum wage is supplemented by sizeable public financial support for low earners. When analyzing policy outcomes, ‘wage scale protection’ is associated with least low-wage employment. For ‘bare minimum’, much depends on the level of the statutory minimum wage. Although ‘state pay’ props up workers’ disposable income, many workers receive low gross pay.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43787839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. Nosrati, Andreas Kern, B. Reinsberg, Dilec Sevinc
The financial haemorrhaging of lower income countries in the form of capital flight is a leading cause of global economic inequality. On an annual basis, trillions of dollars bypass the already starved fiscal spaces of nations mired in poverty, making their way instead to lucrative offshore bank accounts governed by secrecy jurisdictions. The present article relates this phenomenon to the institutional architecture of the global financial system and provides causal evidence that structural adjustment programmes implemented at the behest of international financial organizations amplify such capital flight. In particular, by isolating exogenous variation in policy conditionalities through the use of instrumental variables, we find that trade liberalization, financial sector reforms and privatization measures mandated by the International Monetary Fund in developing contexts substantially increase financial outflows occurring via current and capital account transactions. Our findings thus document the contribution that structural adjustment makes to an underappreciated facet of contemporary global inequality.
{"title":"Structural adjustment and the political economy of capital flight","authors":"E. Nosrati, Andreas Kern, B. Reinsberg, Dilec Sevinc","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad010","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The financial haemorrhaging of lower income countries in the form of capital flight is a leading cause of global economic inequality. On an annual basis, trillions of dollars bypass the already starved fiscal spaces of nations mired in poverty, making their way instead to lucrative offshore bank accounts governed by secrecy jurisdictions. The present article relates this phenomenon to the institutional architecture of the global financial system and provides causal evidence that structural adjustment programmes implemented at the behest of international financial organizations amplify such capital flight. In particular, by isolating exogenous variation in policy conditionalities through the use of instrumental variables, we find that trade liberalization, financial sector reforms and privatization measures mandated by the International Monetary Fund in developing contexts substantially increase financial outflows occurring via current and capital account transactions. Our findings thus document the contribution that structural adjustment makes to an underappreciated facet of contemporary global inequality.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41718360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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