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The world of work is changing and creating challenges and opportunities for the employment inclusion of young people with disabilities. In this article, the perceptions held by young adults with disabilities regarding participation in the future of work are examined.

One-on-one interviews were conducted with Canadian young adults (ages 18–36 years) living with a disability. Participants were asked about their thoughts regarding the impact of the changing nature of work on their labor market involvement and career aspirations. A thematic analysis was performed to identify and examine emergent salient themes.

In total, 22 young adults were interviewed; over half held secure employment. Career aspirations and work-related decisions were primarily shaped by a participant's health needs. The future of work was seen as a more proximal determinant to employment. Digital technologies were expected to impact working conditions and create barriers and facilitators to employment. Participants who indicated being securely employed held positive expectations regarding the impact of digital technology on their work. Participants working precariously held negative appraisals regarding the impact of digital technologies on employment opportunities. The role of technological and soft skills was critical to participating in a labor market reliant on advanced technology. Participants reported barriers to developing job skills related to their disability and their work arrangements.

This research highlights the importance of considering changes in the future of work, especially the digital transformation of the economy, in the design of initiatives which promote the employment inclusion of young adults with disabilities. Despite the significance of the changing nature of work, supporting health needs and encouraging access to secure work arrangements also remain paramount.

The ideal-typical entrepreneur presents him/herself in the neoliberal iconography as an autonomous and pro-active individual who is highly engaged with his/her vocation. Nevertheless, empirical research on the actual work engagement of the self-employed is scarce. In addition, phenomena like “necessity self-employment” and “economically dependent self-employment” raise concerns about the potential eudaimonic well-being outcomes of these self-employed. In this study, it was therefore investigated to what extent necessity self-employment and economically dependent self-employment are associated to work engagement and whether this relation is mediated by intrinsic job resources.

The authors used data from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) involving 5,463 solo self-employed participants. For analyzing the data, structural equation modeling (SEM) with the Lavaan package was used.

Both necessity self-employment and economically dependent self-employment were linked to poor work engagement, however, intrinsic job resources mediated both effects.

While previous studies have shown differences in hedonic well-being between opportunity/necessity entrepreneurs, and economically (in)dependent entrepreneurs, this study considers their distinct profiles regarding eudaimonic well-being. Eudaimonic well-being was deemed particularly relevant because of its implications for other outcomes such as life satisfaction, psychological well-being, ill-health, business performance and persistence in self-employment.

This paper evaluates how the first job when individuals entered the labor market affects the probability of youth being currently employed in formal or informal work in Bangladesh.

The analysis is based on data from the ILO School-to-Work Transition Surveys. The authors use a full-information maximum likelihood approach to estimate a two-equation model, which accounts for selection into the labor market when estimating the impact of entry status on current work outcomes. The main equation outcome follows a multinomial distribution thus avoiding a priori assumptions about the level of individual’s utility associated with each work status.

The authors find that entering the labor market in a vulnerable employment position (i.e. contributing family work or self-employment) traps into vulnerable employment and prevents the transition to both informal and, especially, formal paid work. This finding holds when accounting for endogeneity of the entry status and it is valid both in the short and in the long run. Young women are less likely to enter the labor market, and once entered they are less likely to access formal paid wok and more likely to being inactive than young men. Low education anticipates the entry in the labor market, but it is detrimental for future employment prospects.

The findings indicate the presence of labor market segmentation between vulnerable and non-vulnerable employment and suggest the endpoint quality of the school-to-work transition is crucial for later employment prospects of Bangladeshi youth.

This paper aims to explore how environmental employment can promote desistance among criminalised children. Research demonstrates that being immersed in and interacting with the natural environment has a positive impact upon well-being and behaviour, including reduced aggressive and violent behaviours. However, how exposure to the natural environment might promote desistance amongst children with persistent criminal involvement is unclear.

This paper examines, through semi-structured interviews and participant observations, the experiences of n = 23 criminalised children aged 16–18 employed in outdoor work at a UK social enterprise.

The findings demonstrate how working in the natural environment can provide a safe space for children, where they can build positive relationships, learn valuable skills and reconnect with the world outside of the high-pressure, conflict-driven spaces in which they typically occupy.

This research highlights the relevance of the setting in which child rehabilitation takes place and the potential role of natural environments in providing places and opportunities which support pro-social identity development and desistance for children.

This study attempts to investigate the interrelationship between choice-based educational achievement and employability prospects across the skill-based occupations amongst the youth in India.

This study relies on the use of National Sample Survey (NSS) data on employment and unemployment for the 68th round (2011–2012) and the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) (2017–2018). To estimate the relative contributions of choice-based educational attainment affecting the skill-based employment of youth in a different category of occupations ( high/medium/low skilled), the multinomial logistic regression and its marginal effects have been used.

The study finds educational attainment both as an opportunity (improvising employability in the high and medium skill occupation) and a challenge (highest unemployment amongst the educated) while ensuring skill-based youth employability. Despite the growing enrolment of youth in education, youth from a general education background does not find sustained employability prospects in high-skill occupations.

Vocational education highlights a brighter employability prospect but the acceptability of the same amongst the youth needs a policy intervention.

Educational choices need an intervention based on market-driven apprenticeships and training.

The decline of overall employability in the low-skill occupation raises a threat to inclusive development as such youth results to Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET), better identified as the unproductive economic youth.

This study attempts to investigate that “how far the choice of educational attainment (general/technical/vocational) is able to make youth a fit in the world of work?” in the Indian context, where the youth constitute the highest share in the population.

In a country that is marred by an excessively high unemployment rate, there is a need for policymakers to prioritise entrepreneurship in South Africa. The study aims to explore the determinants of self-employment among the youth in South Africa and in the process answer the following question: Who are the self-employed youths in South Africa?

Different potential predictors of self-employment empirically used in the literature were used in this study. A probit regression model was used with the binary self-employment variable as the dependent variable and a host of independent variables. A nationally representative survey consisting of youths was used in the analysis.

The findings show that financial literacy increases the odds of being self-employed. Secondly, the odds of being self-employed increase with age as mature people are expected to have gathered enough networks and wisdom over the years. Thirdly, being male decreases the odds of being self-employed. When it comes to education, the only category that statistically increases the odds of being self-employed compared with no schooling is the tertiary level of education. The other educational levels are all statistically insignificant. From a policy perspective, the government should promote self-employment by investing in financial literacy as well as increasing access to tertiary education among disadvantaged groups.

The study is one of the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to examine the characteristics of the self-employed using a nationally representative survey in South Africa.

As the current “one size fits all” research approach is likely to be ineffective in identifying the conditions that promote the entrepreneurial career of the solo self-employed, this paper advances the current understanding of the heterogeneity among the solo self-employed.

A person-centered approach is used to identify groups among the solo self-employed based on their starting motives and to examine their engagement in proactive career behaviors.

Using Latent Class Analysis (LCA), six groups displaying distinct motivational profiles are identified: (1) the pushed by necessity, (2) entrepreneurs by heart, (3) control-seekers, (4) occupationally-driven, (5) challenge-seekers and (6) the family business-driven. In line with the argument that starting motives affect behavior because they reflect the future work selves that individuals aim for, results show that solo self-employed with distinct motivational profiles differ in their engagement in proactive career behaviors. For future research, it is recommended to examine the role of demographic characteristics in the engagement in proactive career behaviors.

Although starting motives among self-employed people have been studied frequently, this research applies an innovative methodological approach by using LCA. Hereby, a potentially more advanced configuration of starting motives is explored. Additionally, this study applies a career perspective towards the domain of solo self-employment by exploring how solo self-employed with distinct motivational profiles differ in terms of managing their entrepreneurial careers.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of how embedding in different social networks relates to different types of action that individuals choose in the context of organizational closures, downsizing or relocations. To develop such insights, this paper focuses on three particular types of social networks, namely, intra-organizational; external professional and local community networks. These three types of networks have been frequently related to different types of action in the context of closures and relocations.

This is a conceptual paper. The authors develop the argument by integrating relevant recent literature on the salience related to embedding in different types of social networks, with a particular focus on responses to organizational closure or relocation.

The authors argue that at times of industrial decline and closure: embeddedness in intra-organizational networks can favor collective direct action; embeddedness in professional networks is likely to favor individual direct action and embeddedness in community networks can lead to individual indirect action. The authors then add nuance to the argument by considering a range of complicating factors that can constrain or enable the course (s) of action favored by particular combinations of network influences.

On a theoretical level, this paper adds to understandings of the role of network embeddedness in influencing individual and collective responses to such disruptive events; and direct or indirect forms of response. On a practical level, the authors contribute to understandings about how the employment landscape may evolve in regions affected by organizational demise, and how policymakers may study with or through network influences to develop more responsible downsizing approaches.

While only one aspect of fulfilling equal rights, effectively addressing workplace discrimination is integral to creating economies, and countries, that allow for everyone's full and equal participation.

Labor, anti-discrimination, and other relevant pieces of legislation were identified through the International Labor Organization's NATLEX database, supplemented with legislation identified through country websites. For each country, two researchers independently coded legislation and answered questions about key policy features. Systematic quality checks and outlier verifications were conducted.

More than 1 in 5 countries do not explicitly prohibit racial discrimination in employment. 54 countries fail to prohibit unequal pay based on race. 107 countries prohibit racial and/or ethnic discrimination but do not explicitly require employers to take preventive measures against discrimination. The gaps are even larger with respect to multiple and intersectional discrimination. 112 countries fail to prohibit discrimination based on both migration status and race and/or ethnicity; 103 fail to do so for foreign national origin and race and/or ethnicity.

Both recent and decades-old international treaties and agreements require every country globally to uphold equal rights regardless of race. However, specific national legislation that operationalizes these commitments and prohibits discrimination in the workplace is essential to their impact. This research highlights progress and gaps that must be addressed.

This is the first study to measure legal protections against employment discrimination based on race and ethnicity in all 193 UN countries. This study also examines protection in all countries from discrimination on the basis of characteristics that have been used in a number of settings as a proxy for racial/ethnic discrimination and exclusion, including SES, migration status, and religion.

Employment-related measures play a significant part in preventive and mitigative social policies. The importance of these actions is especially emphasised in times of crisis. This paper provides empirical insights into employment-related measures implemented in a sample of OECD countries as a response to the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. Furthermore, it addresses the continuity of the measures by July 2022.

The research applies and further develops a capability approach in the COVID-19 context to provide a theoretically informed empirical understanding of the implemented employment related measures.

The results indicate that countries expanded the coverage of previous preventive and mitigative employment measures horizontally and vertically while also introducing new schemes to protect workers. The main conclusions suggest that most employment-related measures (65.5%) were preventive aiming at saving jobs and broadening peoples capabilities with bridging measures during the crisis. The employment measures served first as an emergency aid. However, most measures were recalibrated and changed incrementally toward 2022.

The data consisted major employment-related measures and changes in social policies the studied countries. The authors focussed the examination on governmental-level measures. Thus, sub-national or sector-specific responses, for example tripartite agreements in certain employment sectors or social transfers in certain areas, were excluded.

The way in which welfare states reacted to employment problems during the COVID-19 pandemic may have an impact on how governments approach social policies in the future. The capability approach exhibits a pronounced strength by facilitating the establishment of sustainable trajectories for social policy and welfare services.

The capability approach embracing the preactive and proactive role of social policies lends a unique perspective on public policies.