Documents Rafferty, Anthony 6 results

"Despite much legislative progress in gender equality over the past 40 years, there are still gender gaps across many aspects of the labour market. Inequalities are still evident in areas such as access to the labour market, employment patterns and associated working conditions. This report explores gender differences across several dimensions of working conditions, examining relevant country differences, analysing the different occupational groups of both men and women, and comparing the public and private sectors. It also looks at the impact of the crisis on gender segregation in employment. Based on findings from the fifth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), conducted in 2010, the analysis offers a striking picture of women and men at work across 34 European countries today"

"Vulnerable workers can be expected to be more subject to direct managerial control over the work process and have little opportunity for participation in shaping their work environment. Opportunities for participation not only are in themselves desirable, but also may have beneficial effects on job quality. However, there has been little exploration of either the extent to which vulnerable workers have access to employee participation or whether such access is equally associated with improved job quality for both vulnerable and non-vulnerable groups. These issues are explored using the fifth wave of the European Working Conditions Survey. We define vulnerable workers by the labour supply characteristics of low education and being female. Consistent with our predictions, regression analyses reveal that, although vulnerable workers have considerably less access to participatory human resource management practices, for those that do have access, similar improvements are found when compared to non-vulnerable groups on all four dimensions of job quality included in the analysis. Some variations were found depending on gender and level of education, but overall, our analysis suggests that increasing access to employee participation practices could provide an important means of improving job quality for vulnerable workers."

"In earlier work (Rubery, 1988), the extent to which women might act as a flexible reserve over the business cycle was argued to depend on three main factors: the pattern of gender segregation and its relationship to employment change; women's commitment to labour market participation; and state policy and support for women's employment. This article revisits these factors in the context of the 2008/9 recession and the follow-on austerity policy to explore how gender segregation is associated with employment change by gender, how far reduced demand is influencing women's labour market participation, and the implications of changes in public policy associated with austerity and reduced labour demand for women's future employment position."

"Although access to higher education has helped many minority ethnic men and women improve their labour market position compared to prior generations or the less qualified, it remains unclear to what extent higher level qualifications facilitate an equalization of labour market outcomes with comparably educated white UK born men and women. This article critically examines ethnic differences in graduate level over-education, unemployment and wages as potential markers of discrimination or broader ‘ethnic penalties', defined as the differences in labour market outcomes persisting after accounting for observable human capital and demographic characteristics. To estimate ethnic penalties a novel approach using covariate matching is applied. The findings reveal that despite their levels of educational attainment penalties persist among several minority ethnic groups. The implications of pre-labour market social disadvantages for explaining patterns of over-education are highlighted."

" This article examines the effects of discrimination based on race, ethnic background, nationality, religion, sex, age, disability and sexual orientation on skill underutilization and under-skilling in 30 European countries. People who experienced a variety of forms of workplace discrimination were more likely to report over-skilling, defined as having skills for more demanding roles than required for their job. Paradoxically, some forms of labour market discrimination were also linked to under-skilling, where people report requiring more training to fulfil their job role. The findings are explained in terms of how discrimination in the labour market can have differential impacts on access to career progression and training opportunities across organizations. Differences between self-report and statistical estimates of discrimination are observed. Broader implications for the interpretation of statistical models in discrimination research are discussed"