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We expect to provide a complete theoretical framework and large sample evidence on the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the efficiency of labor investment. We also hope to provide micro-evidence based on labor investment behavior for the two-sided impact of corporate CSR behavior.

This paper measures labor investment efficiency by estimating the difference between actual and expected net hiring of enterprises. CSR is measured on the basis of the CSR score of Chinese listed companies published by Hexun.com. A regression model is constructed to analyze the relationship between CSR and labor investment efficiency. Possible endogeneity problems are controlled by lagging independent variables, propensity score matching method and difference-in-difference method.

Results show that CSR can improve labor investment efficiency by reducing over-hiring and under-hiring in emerging markets. The existence of the mediating effect of agency cost, information disclosure quality and employment fluctuation confirms that CSR improves labor investment efficiency through two mechanisms of corporate governance and labor market friction. The improvement effect of CSR on labor investment efficiency is more significant in non-state-owned, high CEO shareholding ratio and high-average urban wage enterprises.

In conclusion, our study is an important supplement to the existing research on the factors affecting labor investment efficiency. Our research conclusions will be helpful for enterprises in developing countries or enterprises in labor-intensive industries to improve labor investment inefficiency. The conclusion of the mechanism analysis in this paper provides more complete and reliable microscopic evidence for accurately identifying the specific path of CSR's impact on labor investment efficiency. This paper verifies the positive impact of CSR from the perspective of labor investment efficiency in the context of a developing country, which provides evidence for the theoretical conflicts related to CSR based on the effectiveness of enterprise labor investment decisions.

Our work adds to the debate regarding higher education graduates’ skills required in the labour market in Germany and beyond.

Using Q-methodology and the accompanying narrations, we explore German employers’ and employees’ views (N = 26) on characteristics required at the entry level.

Our findings show three areas of the labour market with different skill requirements. Whereas the first area, “The world of rules”, applies more likely to the professions and academia, the two other areas, “The middle field” and “The people-oriented and critical market”, can be found throughout the labour market. The disciplinary affiliation does not play a role. In all three areas, soft skills are crucial and specialised knowledge is only highly valued in the area of “The world of rules”.

In contrast to previous findings, we do not focus on singular skills. Instead, we focus on skill sets and discuss their relevance from the background of their usability.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the gender wage gap (GWG) in Spain adopting a labour market segmentation approach. Once we obtain the different labour segments (or idiosyncratic labour markets), we are able to decompose the GWG into its observed and unobserved heterogeneity components.

We use the data from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives for the year 2021 (matched employer–employee [EE] data). Contingency tables and clustering techniques are applied to employment data to identify idiosyncratic labour markets where men and/or women of different ages tend to match/associate with different sectors of activity and occupation groups. Once this “heatmap” of labour associations is known, we can analyse its hottest areas (the idiosyncratic labour markets) from the perspective of wage discrimination by gender (Oaxaca-Blinder model).

In Spain, in general, men are paid more than women, and this is not always justified by their respective attributes. Among our results, the fact stands out that women tend to move to those idiosyncratic markets (biclusters) where the GWG (in favour of men) is smaller.

It has not been possible to obtain remuneration data by job-placement, but an annual EE relationship is used. Future research should attempt to analyse the GWG across the wage distribution in the different idiosyncratic markets.

Our combination of methodologies can be adapted to other economies and variables and provides detailed information on the labour-matching process and gender wage discrimination in segmented labour markets.

Our contribution is very important for labour market policies, trying to reduce unfair inequalities.

The study of the GWG from a novel labour segmentation perspective can be interesting for other researchers, institutions and policy makers.

This study aims to test the Kuznets curve between economic growth and child labor, along with the influence of exports, household size and rural population in the context of Pakistan.

To achieve the research objective, this study applied the unit root test, bound co-integration test, and autoregressive distributive lags (ARDL) method for the period of 1972–2021.

The findings show an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and child labor indicating that at the beginning stage of economic development, child labor increases due to lower per capita household and subsequently, in the long-run of economic development, child labor decreases due to the higher per capita households. Moreover, the results also show that exports, household size and rural population have a positive influence on increasing child labor.

The policymakers and government of Pakistan need to focus on long-term economic growth policies, ensure free quality education and cheap equipment which practices minimum manpower to reduce the threat of child labor.

Having long-run economic growth, the government of Pakistan need to equally benefit the households and the poor population to reduce child labor and enhance the social welfare of society.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the Kuznets curve relationship between economic growth and child labor in the context of Pakistan. Moreover, this study contributes to the reduction in child labor through long-term economic growth in the context of Pakistan.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2023-0387

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of labour force participation and the factors affecting labour supply among older persons in Ghana. Both the extensive and intensive margins of older persons’ labour supply were analysed.

The paper uses nationally representative samples of household and individual data in 2016–2017 – Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 7) data – for the analysis. Heckman’s sample selection model is used to analyse both the extensive and intensive margins of older persons’ labour supply.

The study found that older persons in Ghana who are pensioners, widowed, have high levels of education, poor health status and live in urban areas are less likely to participate actively in the labour market. On the other hand, being head of a household, married and owning certain assets increase the likelihood of an older person to work. Furthermore, pensions, household headship and post-secondary education have negative effects on the labour supply as having them make older persons work fewer hours per week compared to their counterparts.

This research is the first study to examine the prevalence of old age employment and factors that affect labour market decisions of older persons in Ghana. It also adds to the limited literature on pension and retirement decisions in developing countries.

This study investigates the relationships among digital transformation, technological innovation, industry–university–research collaborations and labor income share in manufacturing firms.

The relationships are tested using an empirical method, constructing regression models, by collecting 1,240 manufacturing firms and 9,029 items listed on the A-share market in China from 2013 to 2020.

The results indicate that digital transformation has a positive effect on manufacturing companies’ labor income share. Technological innovation can mediate the effect of digital transformation on labor income share. Industry–university–research cooperation can positively moderate the promotion effect of digital transformation on labor income share but cannot moderate the mediating effect of technological innovation. Heterogeneity analysis also found that firms without service-based transformation and nonstate-owned firms are better able to increase their labor income share through digital transformation.

This study provides a new path to increase the labor income share of enterprises to achieve common prosperity, which is important for manufacturing enterprises to better transform and upgrade to achieve high-quality development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, quality of life and the labour market outcome across North and Southern Nigeria.

Data was obtained from staff laid off in selected tertiary institutions in North East and South West Nigeria using a self-administered questionnaire with a total sample size of 185. Findings are shown using the heteroscedastic linear regression and descriptive statistics.

The results showed a significant negative effect of unemployment during the pandemic on mental health and quality of life. Less than half of those laid off are reabsorbed into the labour market with the majority in the South than the Northern region and most are in self-employment.

The coronavirus pandemic negatively affected the human race, with a huge socio-economic impact linked to health and well-being. This reality calls for attention to the role it played on mental health and the quality of life as well as how it has influenced the labour market. Labour empowerment during a pandemic is key to cushion the effect of pandemics on health and the labour market. This can be in the form of skill empowerment and increased access to funds for business start-ups to enable self-employment that typifies the labour market after a pandemic. This in turn will reduce mental health challenges and low quality of life associated with pandemics.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first in the literature that provides empirical evidence of the effect of unemployment during the pandemic on well-being captured using mental health and the quality of life in Nigeria. Findings on labour market outcomes due to the pandemic and across regions in Nigeria are also scarce in the literature.

This study aims to estimate the synergy effect of agricultural dual-scale management (ADM) on farmers' total household income, its heterogeneous effects and its mechanisms.

This study constructs a theoretical analysis framework based on the division of labor and synergy theory, empirically assesses the impact of ADM on farmers' income, and further discusses the heterogeneity and mechanisms using the propensity score matching (PSM) and quantile treatment effect (QTE) models. Data is collected from 1,076 households across 4 cities in Liaoning Province of China in 2021.

ADM can improve the total household income of farmers, and the impact force is greater than that of the single-scale management mode. ADM is more conducive to improving the income of farmers with low income and low labor endowment. Moreover, ADM can improve agriculture production efficiency, increase net grain production income. Nevertheless, it has no significant effect on farmers' off-farm employment income.

Previous studies have mainly focused on the income effect of land scale management or service scale management. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to identify the synergy effect of ADM on farmers' income in China. It provides new insights into the process of agricultural production and management mode transitions in rural China.

In this chapter, the author considers a three-sector general equilibrium model in the context of a developing nation to find out the impact of an increase in foreign capital inflow on the welfare level of the nation. Comparative static analysis reveals that an increase in the inflow of foreign capital causes redistribution across the factors of production and a reallocation of resources, reflected through the change in output. Moreover, the author considers the case of technology transfer and proves that an increase in foreign capital inflow makes the country better off in terms of social welfare even if the foreign capital is fully repatriated. Hence, this work shows that in the absence of any trade distortion, a partial investment liberalisation causes a welfare gain for a small open economy.

Increasing trade liberalization and financial integration with rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have an intense impact on the labor market of both the developed as well as the developing world. The restructuring of economic activity has resulted in destruction of jobs in some parts of the economy and start-ups of new firms in the other part, growing import competition with foreign firms displacing local firms, relocation of jobs from high wage to low wage nations. It is claimed that rapid globalization has also the outcome of “race to the bottom” in terms of wages and the quality of employment. As per the latest International Labor Organization (ILO) Global Employment Trends, 2022, total global number of unemployed youths is estimated to reach 73 million in 2022 but still six million above the prepandemic level of 2019. The latest press release October 2022 points out that trade growth is likely to experience a slowdown in 2023 due to multiple shocks on global economy. High energy prices due to the Russia–Ukraine war is expected to contract household expenditure and raise the cost of manufacturing. The present chapter seeks to analyze the impact of trade flows on the labor market – job creation or job loss, wage inequality, movement toward informal economy, gender inequalities, and other related issues. The data are based on various reports available from the ILO, the World Development Indicators (WDI) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and World Trade Oorganization (WTO) Trade Reports. The empirical analysis also confirms that there is a unidirectional causality from trade to employment generation.