Search results

During the last ten years, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and some other international organizations, have increasingly addressed human trafficking from a “forced labour” perspective. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the terminology in relation to human trafficking and forced labour, to highlight the links between them, and to provide a critique of the ILO approach. It also aims to make the case for the implementation of a specific international instrument to address the link between trafficking and forced labour.

This paper compares the definitions of human trafficking and forced labour, the link between them in the United Nations, European and ILO instruments.

Although human trafficking is a criminal activity, the ILO identifies it as a form of forced labour. The paper concludes that, no matter what role the trafficking victims have in participating in the criminal activities, they should be viewed as victims and witnesses. They should not be viewed as “workers” or “labourers”. Any minor under the age of 18 years, in accordance with the European and international instruments, has no legal capacity to give consent to being exploited.

This paper argues that the international and European instruments do not specifically address the link between trafficking and forced labour. There is a need for a specific international instrument prescribing the link between trafficking and forced labour. In the absence of such an international instrument, there is a piece meal approach by international bodies and countries toward the regulation of trafficking and forced labour.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and review the range and quality of international epidemiological and observational studies reporting impacts of psychiatric disorders on labour force activity. This information is needed to explore the relative priority of different diagnostic groups for more intensive forms of vocational rehabilitation.

The authors provide an overview of the current literature. A systematic review of papers measuring labour force variables and psychiatric disorders across a range of countries is conducted. These results are compared to OECD background unemployment rates during the same period. The results for each diagnostic category included are aggregated and compared to the other diagnostic categories.

The proportions of people employed decreased with the more severe disorder categories, indicating that severe psychiatric illnesses are contributing to employment struggles for people with these illnesses, across countries.

This review is exploratory and shows that there is little consistency in reporting of labour force variables. Future research should endeavour to utilise internationally agreed definitions of labour force activity.

This conclusion is relevant to matching community residents with psychiatric disorders to the more intensive and costly forms of vocational rehabilitation.

To our knowledge, no previous review has examined diagnostic categories of psychiatric disorders by labour force activity internationally while taking into account background unemployment. This review found an employment gradient related to severity of diagnostic category that will be of interest to clinicians and policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the behavior peculiarities of the labor force participation in Eastern European countries.

The authors provide the analysis of nonlinearity in dynamics of economic active population and perform the econometric analysis using logistic smooth transition autoregressive models that are flexible and capture various kinds of behavior for different modes. The paper investigates labor markets of six Eastern European countries, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Croatia that are characterized by lower level of labor force participation rate (LFPR) than average level in EU.

The results of modeling quantitatively characterize smooth changes in the behavior modes of labor force activity for each country and indicate how population economic activity depends on previous labor market states. The estimated slope parameters that determine the smoothness of transition between regimes show that, in all countries, the labor force participation quite quickly reacts to changes that occurred on the labor market in the past. During recession periods, households of European countries that joint EU last decade in order to prevent the depletion of their total income increased labor supply and showed increased activity in job search.

This paper indicates the nonlinearity and asymmetry in LFPR in transition economies, discovers variety of its dynamics in the different regimes and determines the indicators that cause the change of the population economic activity behavior in each country.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the factors that influence the decision of married women (in the age group of 16‐60 years) to participate in labor force activities.

This is an empirical study employing the non‐linear maximum likelihood probability (probit) function on primary data (3,911 observations).

Besides other variables it has been observed that poverty remains an important determinant of female labor participation.

On the basis of this paper, a socio‐economic policy can be formulated for a developing country like Pakistan.

A development policy (especially considering the gender aspects) can be formulated on the basis of this research for the enhancement of human resource development for a developing and an orthodox economy like Pakistan.

This paper is beneficial to researchers, policy makers, and social scientists for the enhancement of the level of social welfare and equity through its findings.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between Kosovo remittances, migration and labor force participation and seeks to uncover how migration and remittances, often considered separately, interact to shape labor market outcomes across gender, age and education groups.

To analyze the relationship between remittances, migration and labor force participation, this study leverages multivariate probit (mvprobit) to rectify the endogeneity issue intrinsic from remittances and migration. Utilizing this robust methodological approach allows us to circumvent the limitations traditionally associated with biprobit analysis. The research is grounded in empirical evidence from the Millennium Century Corporation survey in Kosovo.

The findings indicate that remittances and migration are pivotal determinants in shaping the contours of labor force participation, particularly influencing disparities across gender, age and educational attainment. Further, this study unearthed intriguing evidence suggesting the disincentivizing effect of remittances on labor force participation, alongside the potentially disruptive influence of prospective migration plans.

The novelty of this work lies not only in the context-specific insights it provides into the socio-economic fabric of Kosovo—an area that has hitherto received limited scholarly attention—but also in its methodological innovation. The simultaneous application of mvprobit technique provides a nuanced approach to tackle the inherent endogeneity issue, thereby pushing the methodological frontiers of the field.

The purpose of this paper is to examine key factors affecting the economic involvement of women in Bangladesh and women’s involvement with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) particularly in microcredit operating in that country.

The study uses nationally representative data set. Quantitative analysis was utilised to explore data contained in the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys 2007 and 2011.

The findings indicate that age, marital status, number of children living in the household, place of residence, geographical location, education, partner’s education and the wealth index are important factors in enabling women’s involvement in economic activities. In other words, the key findings emerged from the study are first, the low level of women’s economic activities in Bangladesh with a majority involved in farming, agriculture and poultry; second, those women involved in the labour market generally tended to come from poor backgrounds, have very little education, live in the Northwest geographical region and have a large family living in the same house; and finally, age, currently married, having a higher number of children, living in rural areas, from the Northwest region with almost no education and belonging to the poor wealth index quintile are found to be associated more with NGO activities in Bangladesh.

The findings indicate there are potential barriers that are preventing Bangladeshi women from engaging in the labour market that could reinforce the case for reshaping the government’s labour policies. The study reveals that the recent economic crisis has no significant impact on the women labour force participation as well their involvement in NGO activities in Bangladesh. It is generally understood that enhancing women’s economic participation and NGO activities has a positive impact at family, community and country levels. The study concludes that investing in women, particularly in creating employment opportunities including NGO sectors can help the country as a safeguard even during the economic crisis. It is anticipated that the findings will help policy-makers in enhancing female labour force participation as well as encouraging them to engage in NGO activities in Bangladesh.

The research paper is original in terms of conceptual framework, research design and statistical analysis.

Prior to 1982, work life tables in the United States could be viewed as the labor force counterpart of life tables. Most work in this area emanated from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and was based on the assumptions that men entered and left the labor force only once in their lives and women only entered and left the labor force as a result of a change in their marital or parental status. The work life model for men especially was demographic in nature since departure from the labor force was akin to death in a life table in the sense that labor force reentry was not possible, just as reentry into a life table cannot occur after death. We now refer to this type of construct as the conventional model of work life. Tables produced by Fullerton and Byrne (1976), using data from 1970, illustrate this approach to work life expectancy (WLE).

The purpose of this paper is to examine female labour force participation (FLFP) and their employment choice between the formal and informal sectors after several institutional and social reforms such as Millennium Development Goal 3 aimed at promoting gender equality and empowerment of women by 2015, using data from Ghana’s 2010 Population and Housing Census.

In this paper, logit regression and multinomial logit techniques were employed.

The results show that FLFP has declined marginally from the 2005 figures; education remains the important factor in determining women’s participation in the formal sector. Strikingly 91 per cent of the FLFP is engaged in the informal sector of the Ghanaian economy, a sector with a very low contribution per head.

Interventions such as encouraging female education and retraining of self-employed females to improve upon their efficiency ought to be pursued vigorously; whiles developing rural areas for females to get equal labour opportunities and many others aimed at enhancing the efficiency and by inference earning per head of the informal sector is highly recommended.

The literature on the FLFP is thin in Ghana. The current study uses a census data unlike the previous studies and as such employed a huge sample size that reflects the reality in Ghana. The study contributed immensely to policy having established that 91 per cent of the female labour force is engaged in the informal sectors of the economy, and therefore any intervention targeting at reducing poverty and meeting the MDG 3 should be targeted at the informal sector of the Ghanaian economy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore associations between children's and mothers” work.

Brazilian household survey data are used to examine characteristics of children's and mothers' work in tandem.

Children are more likely to be in the labor force if their mothers are working, especially girls, younger children and rural children. There are strong connections between mothers' and children's employment characteristics, including industry and sector, location, commute times and whether paid. Employed children are more likely to work long hours if their mothers do, or if their mothers are not employed.

Connections between women's and children's work imply that changes in women's employment can change the work activities of their children. Policies and programs designed to influence women's labor force participation, such as micro‐credit programs, should consider their effects on children's time. Moreover, programs, laws, and international conventions that address only child labor ignore the family context of child work, limiting their potential impact.

The paper uses quantitative techniques and survey data to examine a topic usually investigated through small qualitative studies.

Antecedents The development of labour supply over the next fifteen years has its roots firmly implanted in the past. This dynamic characteristic of labour supply changes extends to labour force participation rates as well as to changes in labour supply attributable to purely demographic changes, so we shall initially examine both of these components of labour force change over the post‐war period. Changes in the size of the labour force which would occur as a result of changes in the age/sex structure of the population and the propensity of women to many if age/sex/marital status‐specific labour force participation rates were constant is denoted as demographic, and Table I shows its contribution to labour force growth in the post‐war period. The primary force behind the demographically‐induced change in the male labour supply is earlier movements in fertility, but both past fertility and contemporary marriage behaviour affect the magnitude of the demographically‐induced change in the female labour supply. In particular, up to the early 1970s the increase in the proportion of women under the age of 70 who are married restrained labour force growth because of the generally higher labour force participation rates of unmarried women; the size of this negative impact did, however, decline over time.