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This chapter focuses on labor migration. An overview of countries’ “visa mix” reveals that countries today emphasize labor migration over family reunification and humanitarian entries. Distinctions are made between high-skilled migrants and low-skilled migrants; there is also a division between temporary and permanent labor migration. A closer look reveals that these definitions are highly contested. Explanations of states’ policy choices include a focus on labor market actors—corporations; sectoral employers organizations and labor unions, and their relative power; these explanations emphasize competition among different interests. On the other hand, some researchers look to cross-class coalitions of labor market actors as the source of policy. A third group of researchers focuses on the structure of labor markets, differentiating between liberal market economies and coordinated market economies. Finally, researchers also explore the role of public opinion in state policy choice. Labor migration raises both theoretical and ethical issues. The chapter points to new avenues of research as well as the exploitative nature of many labor market policies that also raise issues of discrimination against marginalized groups.

Claims that low-skilled young people, and especially the men among them, are being excluded from the labour market have been influential over recent decades, contributing to an increasing concern over the issue of early school leaving. In this study, we use high-quality administrative data and sequence analysis to investigate the school-to-work trajectories of three birth cohorts of early school leavers in Norway between the ages of 16 and 26. Our observation period (from 1994 to 2015) covers several structural transformations of the Norwegian economy, such as increased migration, labour market polarisation and automatisation, widely held to have worsened the prospects of low-skilled young people. In accordance with expectations, we find some signs of increased labour market exclusion among early school leavers, relating to changes in welfare policy. However, the majority still follow trajectories characterised by employment and/or further education. Contrary to discourses on low-skilled men as losers, but in accordance with previous research, we find that male early school leavers consistently predominate in trajectories leading to middle and high incomes. Even in the comparatively gender equal country of Norway, the gender-segregated labour market consistently appears to be providing low-skilled men with more economically rewarding life course trajectories. publishedVersion

A skilled workforce is a prerequisite for productivity and a stepping stone for innovation. This is the reason why education and investment in skills have been made the foundations of Europe 2020, ...

Part-time work has been increasing in OECD countries but its incidence remains highly variable. This growth is often attributed to the growth of service work, employers' need for flexibility and women's increasing participation but these apply to all OECD countries. Different institutional arrangements, social norms and gender relations account for more of the variable incidence. Part-time work in some contexts offers convenient hours for those with caring responsibilities but much part-time work is driven by employers' flexibility requirements, resulting in highly variable hours that are difficult to combine with childcare. Part-time work opportunities are not a prerequisite in all societies for a high female participation rate, even among mothers. However, where work is organized on a part-time basis it tends to be done mainly by women. Options to work part-time may enable women to have more continuous employment careers but often at the cost of low pay and reduced training and career opportunities. Improving the employment conditions of part-timers may require both higher minimum employment rights such as minimum wages and rights to work reduced hours within all standard employment contracts, to avoid the concentration of part-time opportunities in low skilled jobs and low paying organizations. Keywords: part-time; flexibility; women; reconciliation; services