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Immigrants are vital to agricultural production in the United States, and nearly half the crop workforce is unauthorized. Previous attempts to reform the immigration system have not successfully legalized the farm workforce or caused substantive rise in farmworker incomes. Current proposed legislation would legalize unauthorized farmworkers, streamline the H‐2A agricultural guest worker program, and provide a pathway to citizenship for H‐2A workers while simultaneously requiring agricultural employers to check the immigration status of workers using E‐Verify. This paper discusses proposed farm labor legislation in the context of current farm labor market conditions, outcomes of historical farm labor and immigration policies, and ongoing immigration trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada has recently emerged as a hotspot in a burgeoning global surrogacy bio‐economy. On the grounds that any commercial trade in reproductive capabilities would result in the exploitation of marginalised women willing to sell their eggs and wombs, Canada's Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA) bans commercial surrogacy, allowing only for altruistic arrangements. Drawing together analysis of the AHRA and related legal, regulatory, and policy documents, feminist political economic theory, and a growing body of critical social scientific scholarship on surrogacy, this paper troubles altruism as a means of insulating surrogacy from market‐based exploitation. It contributes to the extant literature an explicit focus on the law as a key site in the reproduction of the gendered division of labour. Acknowledging the serious concerns that dog commercial markets in reproductive biology, it argues that the legal constitution of gestational work as altruistic is part of a broader juridico‐economic apparatus that has systematically devalued reproductive labour under capitalism. Efforts to insulate surrogacy from the market by legally designating it as a gift freely given facilitate the ongoing appropriation of reproductive labour, which is assigned, once again, to the realm of non‐value. A feminist political‐economic critique of altruism, this paper does not forward an argument in favour of commercialisation. Rather, its aim is to upend the commercial/altruistic binary that has circumscribed so much of the thinking and legislating around surrogacy. This paper explores the role of the law in devaluing reproductive labour under capitalism. It does so via an examination of Canada's burgeoning surrogacy bio‐economy and the legislation – the Assisted Human Reproduction Act – designed to regulate it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign workers holding H‐1B visas gained recourse to federal employment rights under the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA) for the very first time when Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT90). This paper examines H‐1B employment rights enforcement under the INA as it has intersected with broader features of the American legal system: what political scientists call judicial retrenchment and the quasi‐judicial state. I first show how H‐1B rights, already limited by the domestic politics that shaped the IMMACT, became subject to judicial retrenchment when the federal courts confined H‐1B disputes under the INA to the quasi‐judicial state at the Department of Labor (DOL). I then use published data on DOL investigation outcomes, published and unpublished administrative case records, and judicial cases reviewing agency action to examine the extent to which and how H‐1B workers can use the quasi‐judicial state to solve workplace problems. My empirical findings contribute to a new understanding of the relationship between rights retrenchment, the judiciary, and the rise of alternatives to court in immigration and employment law and point to possible fine‐grained changes for future immigration reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housekeeping and sanitary workers are crucial for the functional efficiency and hygiene of healthcare facilities. In India, women from oppressed castes and backward classes are predominantly recruited in these occupations. The work, regarded as "polluting," is stigmatized, devalued, and lies at the historical and sociocultural intersections of caste, class, and gender. In the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic, this paper utilizes the concepts of "feminization of labor" and "care ethics" to read caste into an intersectional theoretical analysis of the organization of marginalized women's labor in such essential, yet invisibilized healthcare work. An exploratory narrative review of literature focusing exclusively on marginalized healthcare housekeepers and sanitation workers in India is undertaken and supplemented with a critical analysis of labor laws and policies to trace the sustained reproduction of the caste‐based sexual division of labor in these occupations. I propose that their exploitative terms and conditions are sustained by what I refer to as the "feminine caste contract" – a complex sociopolitical and legal arrangement of precarious, casteist, and gendered work conditions. Recognizing the exploitation inherent in this contract, recommendations are made for social work education and practice to play a key role in restructuring marginalized women's labor in essential care work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are markets in developing and transition economies overregulated or under-regulated? This is a perennial question in the development discourse, but one for which answers appear to come more from preset ideology than from context- specific analysis and evidence. These issues become even more pressing when the debate turns to the links between regulation, deregulation and inequality. The recent experience of rising inequality in many countries has also brought to the fore predictable policy positions. A key aspect of labor regulation in developing countries, and one becoming more prominent in the era of rising inequality, is the minimum wage. The range of issues around regulation, minimum wage and informality was addressed by papers presented to a conference held in New Delhi on December 17-18, 2014. The conference was co-sponsored by the World Bank, UK Department for International Development, Cornell University and Columbia University. The organizers of the conference were Kaushik Basu, Stefan Dercon, Ravi Kanbur and Jan Svejnar. A selection of papers from the conference which passed the usual review procedures of the Review of Development Economics, and a further selection of papers from those submitted to the journal, form this symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have largely interrogated the challenges of workforce casualisation in Nigeria with sparse attention to the reactions of the trade unions to this work arrangement. The paper, therefore, explores the survival strategies of trade union to employment casualisation in the Nigerian beverage sector. It explores the narratives of trade union relevance amidst increased informalisation, and the efficacy of its strategies. The Marxist conflict theory was employed as a theoretical leaning to understand labour unions' position in contending with management exploitations in the workplace. A total of 12 trade union officials were selected for interviews through purposive and convenient sampling. The study found a diminishing trade union relevance with the increasing spate of informalisation, while the collective bargaining strategy of the union was hardly utilised in addressing employment casualisation, although education and (re)training programmes show a positive outlook. The study takes the position for a review of the Nigerian labour laws, specifically the Trade Union Act of 2005 as amended, as no provisions in this legislation give recognition to casual employment, an act that is further hampering trade unions' strategic effort in ensuring a decent workplace for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: La negociación colectiva del trabajo doméstico es un fenómeno infrecuente y poco estudiado, pese a su importancia para la regulación y formalización del sector. Italia es uno de los países europeos con mayor número de trabajadores domésticos y uno de los pocos con convenio colectivo nacional. Los sindicatos y las asociaciones de familias empleadoras negocian convenios desde 1974. Los resultados de este estudio cualitativo basado en entrevistas a expertos ponen de manifiesto retos y limitaciones, pero también una formalización en curso del trabajo atípico en este sector pujante, dominado por trabajadoras migrantes, gracias a la negociación colectiva y al compromiso de los interlocutores sociales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: Child labour persists in the global South. After ratifying the International Labour Organization's Convention No. 138, on "the minimum age for admission to employment and work," many southern countries have legislated minimum age criteria to fulfil their International Labour Organizations obligations. Often, however, making law has neither significantly reduced child labour nor boosted school attendance—largely because of states' inability to ensure compliance. Purpose: We investigate, using the case of Nepal, whether legal knowledge about minimum age standards among parents supplying, and employers demanding, child labour makes a difference to child labour. Methods and approach: Drawing on data from communities in the Terai of Nepal, we use mixed methods to find correlations between legal knowledge, compliance with child labour laws, and prevalence of child labour. We draw on two novel data sets: a large household survey of parents and children, and a small census of owners of brick kilns, where child labour is often seen. We also make use of qualitative interviews with citizens in one community in the Terai. Findings: We show that when parents and employers know the law on child labour, they are more likely to comply with it. Perceptions of the law also matter, independently of legal knowledge. When individuals know the legal working age and believe it is appropriate, we see even more compliance. Policy implications: These findings suggest that, even when enforcing the law may be difficult and costly, informing and educating parents and employers may be a less costly way to reduce child labour. Such measures would be even more effective if paired with efforts to change perceptions of the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploiting the staggered passage of labour protection laws in the United States, we find that higher labour adjustment costs increased the likelihood of observing zero leverage firms by 22%. This effect is significantly larger in states with stronger unionization, in industries with higher volatility and concentration, and in firms with higher labour intensity. Both within‐firm changes in debt policies and higher propensity of newer firms to be debt‐free are important in explaining these patterns. Overall, our work contributes to the literature on the relation between financial and labour markets by highlighting the role of labour laws in explaining the zero‐leverage puzzle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the contentious political dynamics of the largest workfare program in the world, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of India? Combining quantitative analysis with a close reading of government documents and a survey of the existing literature, we suggest that the Indian government's counter‐insurgency strategy against the Maoist unrest is a significant dynamic shaping the distribution of MGNREGA benefits. In our empirical analysis, we examine the effect of Maoist incidents on household income due to MGNREGA by merging a nationally representative household survey (Indian Human Development Survey‐II) and a Maoist incidents dataset. Controlling for relevant household and district characteristics, we show that higher intensity of violent conflicts is associated with higher MGNREGA benefits. This result is robust to using a variety of alternative specifications and estimation methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of who falls within the 'personal scope' of employment law is of fundamental importance to the field but remains highly contested. This article makes a novel contribution by examining the implications of human rights in this context and advocating a fundamental shift in the courts' approach to personal scope. It suggests that where employment legislation functions to protect human rights the scope of these statutes should, at the level of normative principle, be construed inclusively with any exclusions needing to be justified. The article then argues that the effect of the Human Rights Act 1998 is to introduce a new human rights approach to employment status into English law which closely reflects this proposal. It sets out the frameworks that domestic courts should apply, and critically assesses a line of recent cases which illustrate the emergence and significance of this human rights approach to personal scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the problem of questionable consent in contracts of employment. We suggest that in the context of employment, consent should be understood as a continuum that includes some level of coercion and some level of choice. We show that despite labour law's assumption of inequality of bargaining power, consent is still legally valid in various contexts of employment. We propose some solutions: procedural rules increasing the chance of free and informed consent, and substantive standards restricting recognition of consent due to public policy considerations. The 'menu' we put forward includes some solutions already recognised by law (in some specific contexts) and we also propose some new ones. We then demonstrate how the proposed solutions, both procedural and substantive, can be applied in common contexts where employee consent might be put into question: variation of contractual terms, waiver of access to courts, waiver of legislated rights, waivers related to human rights, and implicit waivers of employee status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coerced work on parole occurs when people are required to work under the threat of criminal legal repercussions. In the face of barriers to "good" work for people after prison, coercion helps to funnel parolees into positions at the bottom of the labor market. Parolee workers in these positions experience issues common to precarious, low‐wage work (low pay, hazardous working conditions, and labor law violations), as well as heightened vulnerability to predatory employers and exposure to parole‐prohibited activities. Because of the threat‐backed requirements to work, however, parolees must choose to either accept this "bad" work or face potential sanctions. Using mixed‐methods, including a novel form of respondent‐driven sampling I call "Hybrid‐RDS," this article documents the prevalence of coerced work for people on parole in Los Angeles County, identifies the mechanisms through which coercive work operates, and illustrates the problematic employment conditions of coerced work after prison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: Urbanization and the increasing number of double‐income households has led to a rise in demand for domestic workers in many African countries. With a population of over 75% people below 30 years of age, young people's unemployment is a major challenge for Uganda. Approximately 90% of young people work in the informal economy. Domestic workers' informal employment is unregulated and precarious. Purpose: The article examines the role of social and gender norms in voicing and formal reporting of sexual harassment. It demonstrates the intersecting risk factors that create exposure to sexual harassment, challenges relating to voicing, as well as how restrictive norms are reproduced by other actors. Methods and approach: The study adopted a qualitative research approach; desk review, qualitative, and visual methods. Primary data collection included safety audits and body mappings with groups of live‐in domestic workers and firm workers, and in‐depth individual interviews with domestic workers. Safety audits discussed forms of harassment and response mechanisms while the body mappings focused on language. Findings: Isolated working conditions increase the risk of experiencing sexual harassment and limit avenues for reporting. Social and gender norms undermine domestic workers' ability to report it formally. The culture of silence and notions of victim blaming, stigmatization, and lack of a language that raises matters of sexual harassment all hinder women's voice towards self‐care and justice. Social and gender norms contribute to the persistence of sexual harassment through its normalization. Policy implications: Domestic work should legally be recognized as work and labour laws need to extend to domestic workers. Workplace sexual harassment policy needs to extend to all workspaces, regardless of the number of employees. Domestic workers need better access to information, co‐workers, and associations, for instance through information technology. Advocacy for the rights of domestic workers and network building are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: La perspectiva insider‐outsider, dominante en el discurso sobre la regulación laboral, sostiene que las disposiciones protectoras se mantienen vigentes en interés de sus beneficiarios (insiders), aunque perjudican a otros trabajadores menos acomodados (outsiders). Si la contraposición entre ambas categorías fuera tal como se formula en el modelo, los outsiders se opondrían rotundamente a la regulación. Sin embargo, nuestras evidencias de que los outsiders en los países en desarrollo están mayoritariamente a favor de las medidas regulatorias obligan a replantear la tajante dicotomía insider‐outsider. Sugerimos distintas líneas de investigación, como los procesos redistributivos, las transiciones, la equidad y el poder del empleador en los mercados de trabajo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the interaction of legal norms and social norms in the regulation of work and working relations, observing that, with the contraction of collective bargaining, this is a matter that no longer attracts the attention that it deserves. Drawing upon two concepts from sociology – Max Weber's 'labour constitution' and Seymour Martin Lipset's 'occupational community' – it focuses on possibilities for the emergence, within groups of workers, of shared normative beliefs concerning 'industrial justice' (Selznick); for collective solidarity and agency; for the transformation of shared beliefs into legally binding norms; and for the enforcement of those norms. If labour law is currently in 'crisis', then a promising route out of the crisis, we argue, is for the law to recover its procedural focus, facilitating and encouraging these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on to[pics including labor law and environmental management in the context of early modern Venetian fishermen; accounting practices in early modern India and solar eclipse of May 29, 1919.

Resumen: Los autores examinan los vínculos entre mejora económica y social en un país en desarrollo con una estricta legislación laboral y una política industrial ambiciosa, atendiendo a las estrategias de las empresas locales que participan en las redes mundiales de producción. A partir del análisis casuístico de cinco empresas textiles y de la confección de Etiopía realizado en 2015, observan que la seguridad del empleo y el bienestar físico no son resultado de las políticas de los compradores mundiales, sino de la legislación laboral negociada por empleadores, trabajadores y sindicatos, y concluyen que la mejora y el empeoramiento social pueden producirse simultáneamente en una misma empresa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of governance index and gross fixed capital formation on the economic growth of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) using annual data from 2002 to 2019. This study employs Fixed Effect Model, Driscoll and Kraay standard error with fixed effect, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square, Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) and Panel Dumitrescu Hurlin Causality test. The study has divided the variables into two models where model I includes the impact of governance index (jointly) on economic growth while model II examines the impact of governance index on economic growth individually. The findings demonstrate that the governance index, gross fixed capital formation, population, control of corruption, and governance effectiveness have a positive and significant impact on economic growth, whereas regulatory quality showed a significant and negative impact on economic growth. Furthermore, regarding the Panel test, we notice the presence of unidirectional causality among the constituent variables. Therefore, this study suggests that the government should encourage economic development in the BRICS countries and move away from outdated ideas and poor institutional quality in favor of a new comprehensive reform to achieve excellent governance, population growth control, labor law changes, and corruption control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: How large are worker flows in a country where only 43% of the working age population are in employment? Rather surprisingly, the answer is that worker flows in South Africa are relatively large. In this paper, worker and job flows are estimated using anonymised IRP5 tax certificate data from the South African Revenue Service. The data used in this paper is from the 2011–2014 tax years and contains information on more than 12 million individuals and nearly 300,000 firms. The main finding of the paper is that worker flows are substantial, around 53% per year, or 58% when employers classified as engaged in “public administration” are excluded. One interpretation of this finding, as well as the patterns of separations and hires by firm growth rates, is that the labour market is not as rigid as had previously been thought. Worker flows are declining in firm size and in median earnings in the firm, they vary substantially by industry and are very low in the public sector. There is heterogeneity in worker experiences – while flows are high on average there are many workers that have very stable employment but those workers in the bottom quintile have worker flows more than three times those in the top quintile. Heterogeneity and persistence in worker flows and churning in firms are important – some firms have high levels of churning whilst others have much lower levels. Measurement error in the data about period employed from the IRP5 tax certificates is a concern but as far as can be ascertained this does not seem to be responsible for creating higher worker and job flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first estimates of the returns to formal labor market experience and tenure in a developing country context. We take advantage of rich matched employer–employee data from Brazil and Chile, exploiting job displacement as a source of identification. We find positive returns to both dimensions in these countries, with larger returns to tenure in Brazil and larger returns to experience in Chile. Our findings suggest the more rigid Brazilian labor legislation may encourage firms to invest in young workers' specific skills. Chile's institutions, on the contrary, might promote the acquisition of general skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of UK employment and labour law is often characterised by a curious dissonance. The overarching narrative mandates that labour law is a countervailing force to the inequality of bargaining power, embedded with values and assumptions concerning the nature of employment relations and the role of labour law. And yet, labour law jurisprudence tends to treat with respect, and seeks to decipher, abstract statutory concepts and tests derived from judicial pronouncements as if they were, indeed, a 'brooding omnipresence in the sky'. This paper seeks to bridge that gap, by offering a legal realist account of the legal doctrine that governs the employment of agency workers, focusing on the 'necessity' and 'sham' tests. It assesses the legitimacy of importing legal tests from one (commercial) context to another (employment) context; questions the courts' protestations that their use is mandated by precedent; and outlines the real implications for the status and rights of agency workers in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The domestic bases of trans‐governmental regulatory networks are controversial. While rational choice accounts expect insecure regulators to join larger networks that promise to bolster and justify their authority back home, public interest accounts expect independent regulators to join smaller networks populated by like‐minded and informative peers. Are regulatory networks more likely to attract self‐aggrandizing servants of insecure agencies or public‐spirited representatives of their independent counterparts? What are the implications for network size and orientation? I address these questions by examining the regulators who administer labour and employment law in Latin America and find that, in keeping with the public interest account, they are more likely to go abroad when they are independent bureaucrats than when they are vulnerable to political pressure, and less likely to join larger networks of powerful allies than to teach and learn from their Iberian and Latin American peers. The results suggest that trans‐governmental networks rest on Weberian foundations – themselves mediated by linguistic, cultural, and historical factors – that contribute to the reproduction of a multipolar regulatory world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature seeks to establish a relationship between India's supposedly "restrictive" labour laws and its poor performance on a range of industrial and social indicators. After providing an overview of this literature, this article shows that multiple errors were made in the foundational papers that constructed indices measuring interstate differences in labour regulation. These indices were then misinterpreted as measures of labour market flexibility. The literature is also marred by econometric problems and by difficulties involved in replicating the analysis with corrected and updated indices. The author concludes by summarizing evidence of deteriorating labour market outcomes for workers in Indian manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour markets in sub‐Saharan Africa are characterized by a gendered division between formal and informal sectors. This article argues that this division originates from a rationality introduced by racist and gendered colonial legal segmentation, produced by a variety of legal regimes in and beyond employment law. Labour market segmentation in postcolonial settings cannot be understood or overcome without analysing the specific colonial institutional origins of the commodification of labour. In sub‐Saharan Africa, the "colonial exploitative legal employment standard" that commodified labour focused on black African male employees for European employers, excluding or marginalizing women and domestic labour relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines legal segmentation in five Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay) by drawing on the employment regulation typology developed by Dingeldey et al. (2022), based on three functions – standard‐setting, privileging and equalizing. The author distinguishes between three factors of inequality and precarity: lack of coverage (namely of self‐employed workers), discrimination and the circumvention of standards. Lack of enforcement, together with an unfavourable economic environment, results in informality. The analysis identifies different forms and levels of protection under standard and non‐standard employment, as well as compensatory rules and other regulations seeking to eliminate inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue aims to enrich the discussion on individual employment re‐regulation by introducing the concept of legal segmentation from a global perspective and distinguishing between the standard‐setting, privileging and equalizing functions of employment law. This introductory article draws on a new database created by the authors that allows countries worldwide to be clustered into types of legal segmentation. It presents the authors' methodology and initial findings, which are contrasted with the regional and thematic studies in this Special Issue. Together, these contributions provide policy proposals to support the creation and enforcement of inclusive rules protecting all working people worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the impact of employment law on de facto labour market segmentation for 22 European countries from 1991 to 2014. Applying the concept of legal segmentation, the authors distinguish between the standard‐setting (protective), privileging and equalizing functions of employment law and use descriptive and multivariate statistics to indicate their effects on overall employment, and male and female standard and non‐standard employment. High privileging, in combination with high standard‐setting, is found to favour male standard employment and female non‐standard employment, while the equalizing function, aimed at improving the protection of women and other marginalized groups, actually increases male non‐standard employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how the regulative functions of labour law have been developed within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and seeks to identify instances of legal segmentation. The authors provide an overview of the demographic nature of the informal economies in SADC Member States, drawing the conclusion that the labour law mechanisms employed in the region substantially contribute to the legal segmentation of the regional economies. This has occurred despite the constitutionalization of labour law in the SADC region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article captures the shared understanding in the literature of labour law's interaction with gender, distinguishing between law's different functions – constituting labour market institutions, sustaining them, addressing unwarranted outcomes and transforming the institutions. Constituted, in part, by law, the standard employment relationship and the institutions of formal employment have segmenting gendered effects. While legal norms designed to correct these effects are important, they also sustain them. The authors argue for a transformative alternative that would follow two general principles in designing new labour standards, namely, universalization of scope and adaptive content in the interests of differently situated women and men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: El objetivo de este número monográfico es enriquecer el debate sobre la nueva regulación («rerregulación») del derecho individual del trabajo, aplicando el concepto de segmentación legal desde una perspectiva mundial y distinguiendo tres funciones de la legislación laboral: estandarización, constitución de privilegios e igualación. En este artículo introductorio se utiliza una nueva base de datos creada por los autores, que permite agrupar los países según una tipología de segmentación legal. Además de abordar las cuestiones metodológicas, se exponen las conclusiones preliminares, contrastándolas con los estudios regionales y temáticos de este monográfico, que proponen políticas destinadas a crear y aplicar normas protectoras inclusivas para todos los trabajadores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: Tras estudiar el consenso bibliográfico sobre la interacción de la legislación laboral con el género, se distinguen las siguientes funciones del ordenamiento jurídico: constituir las instituciones del mercado laboral, sostenerlas, corregir sus resultados indeseados y transformarlas. La relación de trabajo típica y las instituciones del empleo formal, constituidas en virtud de ese proceso, tienen efectos segmentadores de género. La corrección normativa de esos efectos tiende a perpetuarlos. Los autores propugnan una alternativa transformadora de formulación de nuevas normas basadas en dos principios generales: universalización del ámbito de aplicación y adaptación del contenido a los intereses de mujeres y hombres en diferentes situaciones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: En el presente artículo se examina cómo han evolucionado las funciones reguladoras de la legislación laboral en la región de la Comunidad de África Meridional para el Desarrollo (SADC) y se señalan casos de segmentación legal del mercado de trabajo. Los autores explican las características demográficas de la economía informal en los Estados miembros de la SADC y concluyen que, a pesar de la constitucionalización del derecho del trabajo, los mecanismos de legislación laboral de la región contribuyen sustancialmente a la segmentación legal de la economía. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: Siguiendo el marco de Dingeldey et al. (2021), pero con un enfoque cualitativo, se analiza la segmentación legal del trabajo en China, la India, Malasia y Viet Nam, prestando atención a los niveles de exclusión y a las jerarquías de protección otorgada. El autor observa varios factores que diferencian a estos países de los del Norte y que determinan sus mercados de trabajo: el tamaño relativo de la población activa que opera fuera de la cobertura efectiva de la reglamentación laboral; la terminología jurídica, de difícil traducción a los idiomas occidentales; y la historia jurídica, especialmente en lo que respecta al desajuste entre los marcos jurídicos y el mercado laboral resultante del colonialismo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article analyses the impact of enforcement of four labour standards (pension system enrolment, minimum wage, maximum weekly working hours and written employment contract) on compliance in Peru, where labour regulations and penalties vary according to firm size. The author uses household survey data to analyse a factor not previously studied – adjustment by firms through downsizing to benefit from lower fines and less stringent regulations. The empirical findings indicate that enforcement efforts have little effect on either the degree of compliance or the size of firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper provides difference-in-differences estimates suggesting that Latin American countries that signed a free trade agreement with the United States experienced an increase in the number of labor inspectors and inspections. We also find large heterogeneity across signers and no evidence that the North American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA) had a positive impact on Mexico. We conclude by suggesting that the stringency of content of the accord and the resources devoted by the U.S. government to increase enforcement make a difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do more flexible labor market regulations reduce informal employment in formal firms? This paper examines the effects of changes in labor regulations on the incidence of formal employment. Using the case of Egypt, we study the effects of the introduction of more flexible labor regulations in 2003 on the probability that non-contractual workers will be granted a formal employment contract. To identify the effect of the law and control for potential confounding factors, we use a difference-in-difference estimator that measures the difference in the pre- and post-law probability of obtaining a formal contract across a treatment group of non-contractual workers initially employed in formal firms and a comparison group of non-contractual workers initially employed in informal firms. The latter serve as a useful comparison group since informal firms are unlikely to formalize as a result of the law, so that the only way their workers can become formal is to move to another firm. Our findings show that the passage of the new labor law did in fact increase the probability of transitioning to formal employment for noncontractual workers employed in formal firms by about 3-3.5 percentage points, or the equivalent of at least a fifth of informal workers in formal firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governance in the developing world is fraught with problems of corruption, weak institutions, and inadequate expertise among bureaucrats. Failing to enforce laws and regulations is one way in which these problems manifest themselves. In this paper, we evaluate changes across three institutions charged with oversight or administration of labor justice in Mexico. We find that both autonomy from the executive and professionalization are necessary to improve compliance with labor law over time. Our study shows that professionalization can occur in several ways, including through training, merit hiring, and introducing experienced external administrators. The implications of the study are that reforms that increase the independence and legal authority of oversight institutions should be complemented by efforts to strengthen the professionalism of bureaucrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether a workweek reduction impacts job turnover behavior of workers, with a particular focus on female worker's turnover. To assess the causal relationship, I exploit the introduction of South Korea's workweek reduction policy as a natural experiment. Using individual longitudinal data, I estimate a job turnover model that distinguishes job‐to‐job transition from job‐to‐nonemployment transition. The estimates reveal that, for women, mandating a 40‐h workweek significantly decreases the probability of making a job‐to‐nonemployment transition and thus raises the probability of staying in the job. The impacts of a work‐hour reduction are salient among married women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper examines whether health shocks influence labour supply. Estimates rely on detailed health measures that not only are more homogeneous than commonly-used self-reported health measures, but they also can be interpreted as plausibly exogenous with respect to labour supply. Further, this paper investigates the unique role that certain fringe benefits, namely health insurance and paid sick leave, play in the link between health shocks and subsequent employment activity. Results show that, compared to commonly-used self-reported measures of health, health problems defined by the US government as 'priority' conditions correlate with smaller labour supply shifts, but non-work-related injuries lead to larger shifts. Second, the arrival of a health shock appears to reduce the probability of remaining employed full time, while also increasing the likelihood of quitting work. Relatively few full-time workers who acquire health problems switch to part-time employment. Third, in the event of a health shock, sick leave appears to facilitate reductions in employment activities, while employer-provided insurance appears to hinder such adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the narrow framing of the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, that employers cannot fire someone simply for being gay or transgender, numerous questions persist as to whether and to what extent LGBTQ Americans are protected against employment discrimination. Resolving these issues is likely to require years, if not decades, of litigation, leaving LGBTQ workers and their employers without meaningful guidance in the interim. This article contends that the most efficient means of clarifying these uncertainties is for Congress to enact a new employment statute known as the Title VII Amendments Act. As proposed, the Act would resolve each of Bostock's ambiguities in favor of affording greater protections to workers generally and LGBTQ persons specifically while avoiding the controversies that have derailed LGBTQ civil rights legislation in the past. Thus, the Title VII Amendments Act represents LGBTQ persons' best hope of attaining immediate, comprehensive employment protections and employers' best prospect of securing definitive, timely legal guidance post‐Bostock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment protection legislation (EPL) is designed to promote securityers by placing restrictions on firing, but it generates unintended consequences. With India as a setting, I argue that EPL shifts jobs from younger to older workers in two ways: by discouraging the hiring of unproven young workers and by preventing the firing of low‐productivity workers. The identification strategy is motivated by Rajan and Zingales (1998): I assume that EPL is more binding in those manufacturing sectors where the involuntary separation rate in other countries is high. The data show that older workers are more likely to have formal jobs, and the effect is strongest in high‐firing sectors, which indicates that EPL shifts jobs from young to old. Additionally, EPL reduces plant‐level total factor productivity, and this effect is seen only in plants which are large enough to fall within the purview of EPL, which provides a useful placebo test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last decade, a large contingent of manufacturing firms in developmental zones on China's coast has moved to inland provinces. What are the implications of this move inland for Chinese workers? Research on labor conditions in the current period of economic globalization and mobile capital debates the existence of a 'race to the bottom' in labor standards through the pressures of international capital mobility. These theories predict that as inland China develops and attracts a larger amount of foreign and domestic capital, inland governments will compete by offering cheap labor and lower or unenforced standards. Our argument in this paper is contrarian in that we propose the possibility of a positive relationship between the movement inland and labor conditions. We argue that the movement of manufacturing to inland China is not primarily about cheaper workers, but instead signals the beginning of a fundamental shift in the development model through the employment of a localized workforce. Having more workers from within the province, local governments in inland provinces will be more inclined to develop inclusive social policies and improve labor conditions. Local governments in coastal provinces that inherit fundamentally different demographic structures are less likely to pursue this governance style. We use audit data from Apple corporation suppliers (2007-2013), supplementary survey data, and in-depth interviews to discuss the relationship between localized production and better labor conditions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of deregulating overtime hours restrictions on women by using the 1985 Amendments to the Labour Standards Act (LSA) in Japan as a natural experiment. The original LSA of 1947 prohibited women from working overtime exceeding two hours a day; six hours a week; and 150 hours a year. The 1985 Amendments exempted a variety of occupations and industries from such an overtime restriction on women. Applying a difference‐in‐difference model to census data, we find causal evidence pointing to the positive effect of this particular piece of labour market deregulation on the proportion of female employment. We then carry out a series of sensitivity analyses to ensure the robustness of our finding. Especially, we conduct a falsification test and an event study to show that our causal inference is not threatened by the differential pretreatment trends. Finally, we use quantile regressions and find that for jobs with more rapidly growing proportion of female employment, the effect of the exemption from the overtime work restriction on women is larger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though it is widely accepted that United Kingdom (UK) surrogacy laws are in need of reform, how they should be reformed remains a matter of considerable disagreement. This article explores a new regulatory suggestion: labour law. Building on the extensive sociological and anthropological literature that has conceptualized contract pregnancy as a form of work, it considers whether and how this might translate into a new regulatory framework, drawing on the Sex Work Is Work movement for inspiration. Though recognizing that this would require substantial changes to some of the present features of UK surrogacy law, it shows that there may be significant potential in this pre‐existing set of protections, improving the position of surrogates without dramatically changing the culture of the practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous literature argues that labour employment protection influences corporate investment through three mechanisms. Using the Labour Contract Law (LCL) in China as an exogeneous shock, we analyse publicly listed companies with regression discontinuity design, and we find that production flexibility plays a mediating role among these mechanisms. On one hand, LCL increases the labour cost of labour‐intensive firms (LIFs); on the other hand, LCL increases capital spending of non‐labour‐intensive firms (NLIFs). These findings are not ascribed to industry differences, are not driven by the boom of the housing market or other contemporary shocks, and are robust to alternative measures and placebo tests. We conjecture that NLIFs can flexibly replace labour with physical capital. As for LIFs, labour and capital must be maintained at a fixed ratio and thus neither labour nor capital can be readily adjusted. Cross‐sectional analyses confirm our conjecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines union grievances dealing with the body, appearance and demeanour fought by the Canadian Air Line Flight Attendants Association, on behalf of its female and male members over a 30-year period. Taking a historical, materialist-feminist approach, we examine how workers used the grievance system to resist regulations they believed contradicted their right to dignified labour. We ask how and why bodily regulation differed for men and women, and how this changed over time, as the union merged its male and female job occupations. Using arbitrated grievances, union records and discussion of these issues in the mass media, we show how both feminism and service union activism encouraged flight attendant resistance to airlines' efforts to regulate the appropriate body and attire for male and female workers. The use of labour law offered workers some respite from regulation, but did not facilitate fundamental questions about the power of management to 'dress' its workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: El derrumbe del Rana Plaza en 2013 puso de relieve la deficiente regulación laboral en las cadenas mundiales de valor del sector de la confección. Ocho años después, en plena pandemia por COVID‐19, los autores se plantean, utilizando el concepto de sistema de gobernanza del trabajo (SGT), qué ha cambiado y con qué consecuencias para los trabajadores. Con datos de entrevistas, observan mejoras en la seguridad de los edificios, pero no en salarios, horas de trabajo y derechos procedimentales. La pandemia ha exacerbado las deficiencias, pero podría convertirse en un nuevo evento focalizador para mejorar el sistema, para lo cual se formulan propuestas de políticas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last two decades public administration and public services have undergone profound changes with far-reaching impacts on employment relations and working conditions. The paper presents the perceptions and lived experiences of workers affected by liberalization and privatization of public services. In doing so it focuses on workers' ideas of fairness and dignity at work using the concepts of distribution, recognition and the public ethos of the common good and linking them to fundamental principles of justice. It is argued that the perception of inequalities as fair, while it is shaped by custom, is also being socially constructed during far-reaching changes. The analysis is based on a series of qualitative interviews conducted in Austria, Germany and Switzerland with postal-service workers, a sector well suited for the analysis because of the far-reaching changes in terms of market regulation, ownership of organizations, labour regulation, employment and working conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]