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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how active labour market policy (ALMP) training programmes and hiring subsidies increase or decrease differences in the unemployment risk between lesser and higher educated people during an economic downturn. A focus is put on potential job competition dynamics and cumulative (dis)advantages of the lesser and higher educated.

The paper uses multi-level data. The fifth wave (2010) of the European Social Survey was used and combined with macro-level data on labour market policies of the OECD. The sample consisted of 18,172 observations in 19 countries.

The results show that higher levels of participation and spending on training policies are related to a smaller difference in the unemployment risks of the educational groups. Higher training policy intensity is associated with a lower unemployment risk for the lesser educated and a higher unemployment risk for the higher educated. This implies that the lesser educated are better able to withstand downward pressure from the higher educated, thereby, reducing downward displacement during an economic downturn. Hiring subsidies do not seem to be associated with the impact of education on unemployment.

The paper adds to the discussion on ALMP training and hiring subsidies that are primarily rooted in the human capital theory and signalling theory. Both theories ignore the social context of labour market behaviour. The job competition theory and cumulative (dis)advantage theory add to these theories by focussing on the relative position of individuals and the characteristics that accompany the social position of the individual.

This paper tests whether employers responded particularly negatively to African American job applicants during the deep U.S. recession that began in 2007. Theories of labor queuing and social closure posit that members of privileged groups will act to minimize labor market competition in times of economic turbulence, which could advantage Whites relative to African Americans. Although social closure should be weakest in the less desirable, low-wage job market, it may extend downward during recessions, pushing minority groups further down the labor queue and exacerbating racial inequalities in hiring. We consider two complementary data sources: (1) a field experiment with a randomized block design and (2) the nationally representative NLSY97 sample. Contrary to expectations, both analyses reveal a comparable recession-based decline in job prospects for White and African American male applicants, implying that hiring managers did not adapt new forms of social closure and demonstrating the durability of inequality even in times of structural change. Despite this proportionate drop, however, the recession left African Americans in an extremely disadvantaged position. Whites during the recession obtained favorable responses from employers at rates similar to African Americans prior to the recession. The combination of experimental methods and nationally representative longitudinal data yields strong evidence on how race and recession affect job prospects in the low-wage labor market.

Black women have traditionally occupied a unique position in the American economic structure – at the very bottom. The year 1920 is a unique historical moment to examine how this came to be. Economic prosperity immediately following World War I, the first wave of Black migration, and accelerating industrialization created occupational opportunities that could have enabled Black women to escape working poverty, as the majority of Black men did, but they were actively constrained. Historical narratives have extensively described Black women’s occupational restriction across regions to dirty work, such as domestic service, but not often in conjunction with a comparison to the expanding opportunities of Black men and White women. While intersectionality studies have honed in on the unique place of Black women, little attention has been devoted to this from a historical vantage point. This chapter examines the role that race, gender, and place played in shaping the experience of working poverty and integrates a consideration of queuing theory and Black population size to examine how variations might shape racial outcomes in the labor market in 1920.

Given South Africa's apartheid history, studies have primarily focused on racial discrimination in employment outcomes, with lesser attention paid to gender and context. The purpose of this paper is to fill an important gap by examining the combined effect of macro- and micro-level factors on occupational sex segregation in post-apartheid South Africa. Intersections by race are also explored.

A multilevel multinomial logistic regression is used to examine the influence of various supply and demand variables on women's placement in white- and blue-collar male-dominated occupations. Data from the 2001 Census and other published sources are used, with women nested in magisterial districts.

Demand-side results indicate that service sector specialization augments differentiation by increasing women's opportunities in both white-collar male- and female-dominated occupations. Contrary to expectations, urban residence does not influence women's, particularly African women's, placement in any male-type positions, although Whites (white-collar) and Coloureds (blue-collar) fare better. Supply side human capital models are supported in general with African women receiving higher returns from education relative to others, although theories of “maternal incompatibility” are partially disproved. Finally, among all racial groups, African women are least likely to be employed in any male-dominated occupations, highlighting their marginalization and sustained discrimination in the labour market.

An analysis of women's placement in white- and blue-collar male-dominated occupations by race provides practical information to design equitable work policies by gender and race.

Sex-typing of occupations has deleterious consequences such as lower security, wage differentials, and fewer prospects for promotion, that in turn increase labour market rigidity, reduce economic efficiency, and bar women from reaching their full potential.

Very few empirical studies have examined occupational sex segregation (using detailed three-digit data) in developing countries, including South Africa. Methodologically, the paper uses multilevel techniques to correctly estimate ways in which context influences individual outcomes. Finally, it contributes to the literature on intersectionality by examining how gender and race sustain systems of inequality.

An analysis is made of the effect of YTS participation on the subsequent employment and earnings of participants. It uses data from the first cohort of the England and Wales Youth Cohort Studies. These focus on a cohort of young persons who reached the minimum school‐leaving age in 1984 and were eligible for entry into the original one‐year version of YTS. The results indicate that participation is positively associated with subsequent employment and negatively associated with subsequent earnings.

As a “fictitious commodity” (Polanyi), that cannot be separated from the human being who is its owner, labor has a special moral significance. However, this moral quality is not a given but must be asserted in struggles over the value of labor. With the example of disabled workers in Switzerland, this chapter examines the moralization of labor as a means to revalue a category of workers who range far down the labor queue. Moralization mediates the tension between the normative societal goal of inclusion for disabled people and the freedom of employers to select the most “productive” workers. Drawing on the theoretical approach of the Economics of Convention the chapter analyzes the valuation frames proposed by economic and welfare state actors in political debates over the establishment of the Swiss disability insurance and the role of employers regarding occupational integration. A core concept used in negotiations of the value of disabled labor in the public arena and within individual businesses is the “social responsibility” of employers. Historically, employers’ associations successfully promoted the liberal principle of voluntary responsibility to prevent state interference in the labor market. In contrast, disability insurance argues predominantly within the market and the industrial convention to “sell” its clientele in the context of employer campaigns and case-related interactions with employers. Only recently, both sides started to reframe the employment of disabled people as a win–win affair, which would reconcile economic self-interest and the common good.

This chapter examines the dynamics of occupational segregation by gender in the German vocational training system (VET) and explores the validity of two hypotheses regarding the causes of changes in the sex composition of occupations. According to the first, the ‘job growth hypothesis’, feminisation of occupations occurs when women increasingly enter growing employment sectors that are experiencing a shortage of (preferred) male candidates. According to the second, the ‘exit hypothesis’, the movement of men out of selected occupations is the main mechanism driving the changes. Using official data from enrolment into the VET of skilled crafts for the period of 1997–2013, we find a very high level of occupational segregation, a very modest trend toward desegregation and a substantial increase of female representation in a group of selected training occupations. Our analysis implies that the rising share of female apprentices within these fields cannot be explained by an increased entry of young women into growing employment sectors, but that it mainly results from a disproportionate reduction of male participation in select occupations.

Purpose – I suggest that we conceptualize labor markets as observable social networks, in which workplaces are the nodes and people moving between workplaces are the edges. The movement of people delivers the actionable information as to what the supply, demand, and going wage for labor might be. Labor market networks are hypothesized to be quite thin thus leading to substantial wage setting autonomy within workplaces, consistent with contemporary observations in both economics and sociology as to the weakness of labor market signals.Method – This paper reviews theoretical and empirical work in economics, sociology, and network science and develops a network image of labor market structure and function. Hypotheses derived from economic, sociological, and network theories are proposed to explain workplace-level wage setting.Findings – Information flow, trust in information, information variance, collusion, and status beliefs are all proposed as important network properties of labor markets. The paper outlines an observational strategy to make labor markets scientifically observable.Originality – Economists and sociologists often refer to labor markets as mechanisms setting the price of labor but rarely observe them. This paper outlines a strategy for making the invisible hand of the market scientifically observable.

Reports a study of a Canary Island “internal labour market” (a transnational cigarette manufacturer) analysing its promotion ladders and ports of entry. Results reflect the importance an employee attaches to years of service in a firm and describes the general characteristics of the internal components of the internal labour market.

This paper presents some simulation‐oriented techniques, particularly the resource allocation point (RAP) heuristic rule, for an activity‐based construction (ABC) simulation that requires only one kind of element to model construction operations. RAP heuristic rule provides the simulation with the decision‐making ability for allocating limited resources during simulation. Predefined entity management strategies control the movements of simulation entities so as to model some complex features of construction operations. An activity object‐oriented (AOO) simulation strategy based on object‐oriented approach for the implementation of the ABC simulation by regarding activities as objects controls the mechanism of the ABC simulation by checking only relevant activities at certain time, other than checking all activities for each simulation time unit. An easy‐to‐use animation aims at enhancing understanding of simulation and assisting modellers in verifying and validating model.