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This paper aims to investigate the governance of labour standards in the less-studied yet rapidly globalising Ghanaian construction sector. While incorporation into international production networks generates several opportunities for workers, the drivers of adverse incorporation originate at multiple levels of analysis. The study offers an investigation into such drivers and their interconnections.

The authors utilise a multi-scalar framework and mixed methods of analysis. Both the qualitative and multi-level quantitative analyses rely on a primary dataset collected among 30 firms and 304 respondents, through semi-structured interviews.

A composite yet unbalanced labour standards governance configuration emerges, where the absence of social governance combined with a weak role of the State leaves labour standards subject to the variegated landscape of firms' embeddedness in the sector.

The construction industry is acquiring ever-increasing relevance in the economic trajectory of Ghana as well as that of several other African economies, not least for its large employment generation potential. Research on the governance of labour standards in the sector is, however, largely missing. The authors argue that labour incorporation dynamics represent a complex under-investigated regulatory challenge as well as a policy-making priority. The analysis is one of the first to offer a reconstruction of the governance landscape determining the challenges workers face in the Ghanaian construction sector, from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective.

Using two nationally representative data sets, we examine the wages, benefits, and social insurance of contingent workers compared with standard employees in South Korea. In addition, we measure employers’ investments in their contingent workforce. Our results indicate that contingent workers have become the dominant form of labor in South Korea after the 1998 Asian financial crisis and are faced with working conditions that are discriminative compared with those of standard employees. We also find that employers’ investments in contingent workers as human resources, as well as the upward mobility of contingent workers, are limited in the Korean labor market. Overall, our findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the working poor, including the social exclusion of contingent workers in an advanced developing economy.

The issue of labour flexibility has sparked controversy in Greece. This empirical study sheds light on workplace flexibility in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) that employ the vast majority of workers in Greece. The study tries to assess the extent to which Greek SMEs resort to external and internal labour flexibility arrangements to cope with increasing competition and the way they react to recent flexibility‐oriented legislation. The survey is based on case studies and draws heavily on face‐to‐face interviews with 16 small proprietors. It is found that SMEs make little use of external flexibility. Rather they rely on internal flexibility, which stems from extensive Webs of informal employee relations. However, the nature of “informality” varies in small enterprises leading them to adopt different modes of absorbing institutional change.

The purpose of the study is to determine the factors influencing the job choices of Indian women working in the informal manufacturing sector. The informal sector has always played a significant role in emerging and developing countries. This study investigates the effect of social cultural norms influencing women informal workers in the manufacturing sector to participate in home-based work (HBW) or non-home-based work (non-HBW) .

Both Quantitative and Qualitative methodology have been used. In accordance with descriptive statistics, a multinomial logistic regression model was employed to assess women's likelihood of participation in home-based activities. To gain a more in-depth insight, semi-structured interviews were used to collect the perspectives of both men and women workers. The data were analysed using narrative analysis.

The findings reveal that a high fixed cost is a key driver of HBW. Workers prefer to work from home when the loss of joint household production due to working outside is substantial. Social and cultural standards play a significant effect in job selection for women. These conventions limit women's employment options, and the current study demonstrates that strong social and cultural standards limit women to home-based jobs only.

Enhancing women's involvement in the public realm is critical and may be accomplished by affirmative action; but, for women to be treated equally in their homes and in society, an attitude shift is necessary. Despite the government's initiatives and regulations aimed at protecting informal women workers, many of the programmes and legislation fall short. The position of women in this environment cannot be improved until and unless the norms of society are flexible and liberal for Indian women. The first step would be to educate people and make them aware of the need to abandon outdated practices and embrace new progressive ideals. It will not be achievable just via government efforts; rather, both the government and society must work together to achieve the same goal.

The author hereby declares that this submission is their own work and to the best of their knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. The author would like to undertake the above-mentioned manuscript has not been published elsewhere or under editorial review for publication elsewhere; and that all co-authors have agreed to have seen and approved the manuscript for submission.

Using the concept of human security, the purpose of this paper is to explore the subjective perception of insecurities experienced by Thai subcontracted workers in industrial value chains and examines how they mitigate these insecurities.

This paper uses a qualitative approach and analyses the narratives from in-depth interviews with 23 female subcontracted workers in low-income communities in Bangkok, Thailand. Four male subcontracted workers were also interviewed to compare gender differences. Five key informant interviews with NGOs and academicians were conducted.

There are three main findings. First, subcontracted workers’ economic insecurities are influenced by their work and personal trajectories in the labour market. Second, many of their health and care-related insecurities are fuelled by relational rather than individual experience; that is, they are worried they will not be able to provide care for their children, to fulfil their responsibility as mothers, or they are concerned with the effects of their hazardous work environment on their family members. Third, most subcontracted workers mitigate their insecurities using their immediate relational network in the absence of formal protection.

While earlier literature on subcontracted workers’ vulnerabilities in Thailand discussed the issues from a politico-economic perspective, this paper uses the concept of human security, which enables us to better understand their insecurities as context-specific experiences in their daily lives.

The paper brings Foucauldian analysis of neoliberal governmentality in the discussion on the new forms of labour control within digital labour platforms. The aim of the paper is to reveal the effect of control mechanisms employed by platforms on “entrepreneurial self” within the context of work relations.

Drawing on in-depth interviews, conducted with workers under different service categories, the author undertook an extended case study of Armut.com, a digital labour platform operating in Turkey.

The study finds that competitive mechanisms employed by the platform have a considerable effect on worker self-commercialisation and self-rationalisation. This is dependent on different control mechanisms employed by the platform, based on different platform working models.

The research brings the worker subjectivities to the discussion of control within the scope of digital labour platforms. By undertaking a rare empirical study on this issue, it contributes to the theory of entrepreneurial self within the scope of work relations.

The purpose of this paper is to compare online labor platforms (OLPs) such as Upwork, Fiverr, YoungOnes and Temper with traditional temp agencies. At a first glance, OLPs and temp agencies strongly resemble each other while they aim to meet the need for short-term labor of organizations. The authors ask the question how these labor market intermediaries differ on issues such as information technology usage, ways how labor supply and demand are matched and working conditions (e.g. status, pay and social security of workers).

Next to a review of the academic literature, the authors conducted interviews with representatives of six OLPs and temp agencies in the Netherlands as well as a legal specialist in Dutch labor law.

The authors found that OLPs and temp agencies differ on several issues. First, although OLPs rely on online marketplaces for matching labor supply and demand, temp agencies generally rely on human matchmakers. Second, although OLPs enable workers and client organizations to initiate transactions themselves, temp agencies employ representatives that do the matching for workers and clients. Third, and as a result, OLPs afford client organizations to almost instantly hire workers on-demand, whereas the flexibility and speed that temp agencies can offer depend on availability and processing capacity of human matchmakers.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to compare OLPs and temp agencies and, in doing so, offers academics and practitioners an analytical framework to compare different types of labor market intermediaries.

This research aimed to explore the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and related factors among subcontracted cleaners in a teaching hospital in Thailand.

A cross-sectional study was conducted of 393 subcontracted cleaners in a teaching hospital, from May to June 2020. Face-to-face interviews were carried out using a standard questionnaire, consisting of four parts: (1) participant characteristics, (2) stress test, (3) work characteristics and (4) standardized Nordic questionnaire, Thai version, for MSDs outcome. Multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the association between MSDs and related factors.

The prevalence of MSDs was 81.9%, involving mostly the lower back (57.7%), followed by the shoulder (52.6%). Factors significantly associated with MSDs were as follows: male gender (OR = 3.06, 95% CI [1.19, 7.87]), severe stress (OR = 2.72, 95% CI [1.13, 6.54]), history of injuries (OR = 4.37, 95% CI [1.27, 15.11]), mopping posture (OR = 2.81, 95% CI [1.43, 5.50]) and task duration (OR = 1.90, 95% CI [1.01, 3.57] for 2–4 h and OR = 3.39, 95% CI [1.17, 9.86] for more than 4 h). Sick leave due to MSDs was associated with history of injuries, Thai nationality and having another part-time job.

The study findings about MSDs in terms of prevalence and related factors contributed to limited pool of the knowledge among subcontracted hospital cleaners in Thailand and middle-income country settings. With growing popularity in outsourcing cleaning services among hospitals in these countries, the study findings could raise a concern and inform policymakers and hospital administrators the importance of the magnitude and risk factors for MSDs necessitating design of preventive strategies.

The purpose of this document is to show the effects of globalization on the workers of the electronics cluster in the state of Jalisco. It begins with the assumption that the globalization has impacted the interests of the workers in their working conditions and created the precarization of workers. The text is divided in three sections: the first section presents the characteristics of the electronics cluster; the second section outlines a profile of the workers of this industry, and the last one presents the results of the precarization of work.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of women entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector in Mauritius and to investigate the impact of women entrepreneurship on their own livelihoods and that of their families.

Using survey data on 158 women entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector, the authors analyse whether there has been an improvement in the standard of living of women entrepreneurs as a result of their informal entrepreneurial activities.

Findings reveal that the informal sector has provided a self-employment outlet for unemployed and retrenched women in Mauritius. Even if for a majority, their earnings remain low, their informal activity has indeed helped to contribute to their livelihood and household earnings.

Research on informal sector businesses is fraught with limitations, given that these firms operate on the fringes of legality and data are thus a major issue. Hence interviewing owners of informal sector businesses to get relevant data is quite challenging.

The results indicate that informal entrepreneurial activities contribute positively to women's livelihoods, hence policy should be aimed at encouraging women agency even if it is in the informal sector.

The study helps to shed light as to whether entrepreneurship even if it exists in the informal sector helps to improve the living of these women and their families.

This study is innovative as it investigates the livelihood of a vulnerable section of the population, in this case, women entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector. The authors find that the informal sector provides women with higher income when they are married and are more formally educated.