Search results

Recent policies designed to promote profit sharing in Great Britain are surveyed. Evidence on the extent of profit sharing in Britain is presented, and the economic impact of such schemes is assessed. It is found that there is little strong evidence to support the notion that profit sharing significantly improves either employment, profitability, productivity, investment or remuneration.

Focuses on the approach to interpreting earnings equality found in the writings of a variety of economists and in particular, technological change and its effects on the demand skill resulting in earning inequality. Argues that the evidence in favour of the technological effect is weak and presents some alternatives for further consideration.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the wage gap between men and women who seek self-employment in Brazil, whether because they want to become entrepreneurs out of necessity or because of the flexible hours.

The data used are from the 2015 National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) and the methods are the ordinary least squares (OLS) for the Mean and the unconditional quantile regression (RIF-regression) for the distribution of gains of both genders, both associated with the Oaxaca–Ransom decomposition in order to separate the differential between the part explained by attributes and the unexplained part.

The main results show that women earn less than men in the mean and throughout the distribution. The average difference is 27.79%, varying between 19.24 and 48.26% in the distribution. The inclusion of occupational variables shows that the glass door phenomenon exists even in self-employment, that is, women choose occupations with lower incomes.

Stimulating self-employment has been an alternative policy for the insertion of women in the labor market. This is the first study on the wage gap in self-employment in the Brazilian labor market. The presence of wage differentials among self-employed men and women throughout the distribution may point to the need for specific policies that not only target the mean. These policies would be related to sticky floor and to the glass ceiling. Another potential problem concerns the so-called glass door–women access the labor market via professions that pay less, otherwise, the problem points to occupational segregation against women.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2019-0312

We argue that claims of an entrepreneurial miracle as a description of private sector development in post-communist Europe conflates entrepreneurship with self-employment. The difference between the two hinges on the Weberian distinction between enterprise- and household-centered businesses. We then present two paradigms, the entrepreneurial that emphasizes the first and the post-Fordist that stresses the importance of the second business type, and provide data on businesses and individual motivation of business owners. We find more support for the post-Fordist approach. Then we show that business forms, primarily associated with self-employment have different recruitment patterns and rewards than other, more entrepreneurial forms. We end with a plea to disaggregate the various forms of independent, private sector activity in future research.

Nations with high levels of economic inequality tend to have high rates of entrepreneurial activity. In this paper, we develop propositions about this relationship, based upon current research. Although we provide some descriptive analyses to support our propositions, our paper is not an empirical test but rather a theoretical exploration of new ideas related to this topic. We first define entrepreneurship at the individual and societal level and distinguish between entrepreneurship undertaken out of necessity and entrepreneurship that takes advantage of market opportunities. We then explore the roles that various causes of economic inequality play in increasing entrepreneurial activity, including economic development, state policies, foreign investment, sector shifts, labor market and employment characteristics, and class structures. The relationship between inequality and entrepreneurship poses a potentially disturbing message for countries with strong egalitarian norms and political and social policies that also wish to increase entrepreneurial activity. We conclude by noting the conditions under which entrepreneurship can be a source of upward social and economic mobility for individuals.

Changes in British industrial relations over the last decade are surveyed and their impact on economic performance is analysed. The evidence on the economic effects of unions – on wages, employment, working conditions, negotiations and profits – is reviewed. Finally, comments are offered on likely future trends.

This chapter considers young people’s experiences of inequality as being unemployed in a small seaside town in the United Kingdom which has high levels of deprivation. It draws upon qualitative data from a study undertaken with 52 young people aged between 16 and 24, undertaken in 2015, to examine the impact of the economic recession on their lived experiences of seeking work and poverty. All the young people who participated in the study stated that they wanted to work but that there simply were not jobs available for them to do. What work they could find was often poorly paid, temporary and involved travel which they could not afford. The financial sanctions imposed on them by the Job Centre resulted in extreme hardship, hunger and homelessness. Often the young people talked about various forms of crime including drug-dealing and drug-taking as a way of dealing with the consequences of unemployment.

Purpose – East European ex-communist countries have now experienced nearly two decades of turbulent economic conditions and challenges resulting from the market transition. Since the early 1990s, there has been considerable decline in unionization throughout the region. This study uses information on union membership provided by four waves of the World Values Survey (WVS) to explain trends in unionization in East European ex-communist countries from 1990 to 2006.

Methodology/approach – We use random-effects and fixed-effects models to test predictions for three sets of explanations for cross-national and historical variation in unionization: industrialization, globalization, and institutions.

Findings – We find a degree of support for all three explanations of union decline. Overall, our analyses reveal the strongest support for industrialization and business cycle explanations. Inflation, unemployment, and urban population growth are all significant factors in shaping patterns of unionization in ex-communist East Europe. Our analyses show that aspects of economic and financial globalization have had significant, negative effects on unionization in the region. Manufacturing imports and foreign direct investment inflows appear to have undermined the position of domestic labor and contributed to declines in union membership.

Originality/value of the chapter – Successor and newly independent unions face the twin challenges of gaining public confidence as representatives of workers' interests, and withstanding increasing market pressures and conditions unfavorable for unionization. We provide evidence that without strong institutions to serve as buffers to external economic conditions, unionization levels in East European ex-communist countries are more open to market forces.

In this chapter, the authors will examine turnover in Turkey. In the first section, the authors will briefly describe the legal, institutional, and cultural context with a particular emphasis on their implications for employment conditions and turnover in Turkey. In the second section, the authors will review the academic literature on turnover that originated from Turkey. The authors divide the reviewed studies into two groups: generalizability studies, which are primarily replications of the mainstream literature with no focus on any specific characteristics of Turkey, and contextual studies, which emphasized the role of the economic, legal, or cultural background in formulating or interpreting their research. In the final section, the authors will discuss the findings of the review vis-á-vis the mainstream literature as well as practical implications and conclude with potential future research directions in the Turkish context.