Making work more equal

Abstract

This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, thanks to the support of The University of Manchester, which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ PrefaceThis book is inspired by, and dedicated to, Jill Rubery. Jill is a major figure in international debates on inequalities in work and employment. Her intellectual contributions are renowned for both their critical questioning of mainstream theoretical approaches, whether in economics, management, industrial relations or comparative systems, and their attention to real-world empirical detail. Jill's intellectual roots are with the influential Cambridge economics group researching labour market segmentation in the late 1970s and 1980s during a period when Keynesian economic thought was being eclipsed by neoclassical economics modelling. The research was inter-disciplinary, grounded in data (mostly involving case studies of firms) and driven by an ambitious intellectual agenda that developed theory while also illuminating practical matters of relevance to policy-makers and practitioners. During these Cambridge years, Jill developed a very important network of international friends and colleagues who formed the backbone of the International Working Party on Labour Market Segmentation, which Jill co-founded in 1979, and who provided the impetus for Jill's intellectual interest in comparative employment systems. Collaboration was an important characteristic of Jill's work then and continued following her move to Manchester in 1989 where for nearly three decades many colleagues have benefited enormously from working with her on high-profile research projects, publications and policy advisory work. This book has therefore been a rather strange experience for many of us because we are so used to talking through ideas and our writing with Jill. Her absence, dictated by the tradition of the Festschrift, feels wrong! We would like to say thank you to the 33 friends and colleagues of Jill who have contributed to this volume. We are very conscious that we were unable to invite many others due to MUP page-length restrictions, in particular many younger colleagues and ex-PhD students. We were able to expand the numbers somewhat by suggesting to several colleagues that they co-authored chapters in order to bring a greater number of Jill's friends into the book. These suggestions were generously accepted and we believe they have in fact proven very fruitful, especially in expanding the cross-national comparative scope of chapters. 1A new labour market segmentation approach for analysing inequalities: introduction and overview Damian Grimshaw, Colette Fagan, Gail Hebson and Isabel TavoraThere is a real need for a new multi-dimensional approach to understanding inequalities in work and employment. Face...

Nordic Relief Packages and Non-standard Workers: Towards Expanded Universalism and Institutional Inequalities

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“…Other work emphasizes supply-side factors like gender, demograpic variables, education, individual's work-life balance situation, etc., as contributing to labor market inequalities with individuals' preferences, past work trajectories, etc., impacting their opportunities to enter distinct segments (Burchell & Rubery 1990). Yet, other segmentation approaches stress the role of the institutional setting like social protection systems, which are considered instrumental for shaping labor market inequalities by influencing both companies' employment practices and worker behavior through distinct rules and regulations (Grimshaw et al 2017;Rubery & Piasna 2017). The institutional setting may both hinder and contribute to labor market (in)equality, as access to income protection typically depends on distinct eligibility criteria like past earnings, working hours, membership, etc.…”

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