Career Employment and Job Stopping

Career jobs typically end well before retirement and are followed by a period of postcareer employment. Although the most financially successful transitions occur when new positions are obtained in the same industry and occupation as the career job, mobility usually involves a change in industry andlor in occupation. Pension-covered career jobs last longer and more frequently end in retirement than noncovered positions. Pensions may also reduce the probability that retirements occur at very young ages and delay retirements when coverage is first obtained in postcareer employment.     

Permanent Jobs,Employment Protection,and Job Content

Using Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data for twenty‐one countries, I study the impact of employment protection laws (EPL) on job content. I find that workers’ use of influence, reading, writing, planning, numeracy and information and computer technology skills, and their task discretion, were higher in permanent than in temporary jobs. Moreover, stricter EPL on permanent jobs raised the gap in job content for influence, reading, writing, and planning skills used in permanent jobs versus temporary jobs.     

Initial Responses to the Statutory Recognition Provisions of the Employment Relations Act 1999

We report how trade unions and employers initially reacted to the introduction of the statutory recognition procedure in the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA). Interview data indicate that the ERA and the drift of EU influence have acted to shift employer attitudes towards greater approval of unions and have accelerated the rate at which employers are redesigning their relationships with unions. Although they are restricting unions’ influence over traditional issues such as pay‐setting, employers are increasingly seeking their assistance in implementing organizational changes. We explore the impact of these developments on union activity and on collective representation more broadly.     

Measuring Employment Security in Europe Using Surveys of Employers

Using results from surveys in which employers were questioned about their freedom to shed staff, we develop a measure of employment security in Europe. We seek to identify which institutional factors are correlated with the responses of employers and find that they appear to reflect the strength of legal restrictions and trade unions and the prevalence of atypical employment. Our results are used to compile an index of employment security that has both a temporal and a cross‐country dimension.     

Non‐Standard “Contingent” Employment and Job Satisfaction: A Panel Data Analysis

Contingent forms of employment are usually associated with low‐quality jobs and, by inference, jobs that workers find relatively unsatisfying. This assumption is tested using data from a representative household panel survey covering a country (Australia) with a high incidence of nonstandard employment. Results from the estimation of ordered logit regression models reveal that among males, both casual employees and labor‐hire (agency) workers (but not fixed‐term contract workers) report noticeably lower levels of job satisfaction, though this association diminishes with job tenure. Negative effects for women are mainly restricted to labor‐hire workers.     

农民工返乡生存状态及其就业保障网研究

由于深受金融危机的影响,返乡农民工处于家庭生活贫困化、社会保障权益缺失、就业状况边缘化的境地。要改变其这种受排斥、受剥夺的现状,重获职业地位,应该构建一个为返乡农民工提供物质、行为、精神等支持的就业保障网,包括正式就业保障网（政府主导失业预防、失业补救和失业保险政策、社会保障制度健全）和非正式就业保障网（社会团体合作参与、社会工作者提供专业化服务及关系网资源有效利用）。     

Job Disamenities, Job Satisfaction, Quit Intentions, and Actual Separations: Putting the Pieces Together

We analyze the role of adverse working conditions in the determination of employees' quit behavior. Our data contain both detailed information on perceived job disamenities, job satisfaction, and quit intentions from a cross-section survey, and information on employees' actual job switches from longitudinal register data that can be linked to the survey. We show that job dissatisfaction that arises in adverse working conditions is related to job search and this in turn is related to actual job switches.     

Job Gendering: Occupational Choice and the Marriage Market

Existing theories of occupational segregation appeal to family-related responsibilities, employer discrimination, and socialization to explain why women and men occupy such different jobs. We suggest that occupational segregation is perpetuated because women (and men) may be penalized in the marriage market for making nontraditional occupational choices. As an empirical test, we asked students to rate personal ad-like vignettes. Holding all else equal, having a gender-nonconforming occupation reduced the attractiveness of both men and women.     

Job Satisfaction and Promotions

This paper estimates the impact of promotions and promotion expectations on job satisfaction using the 1996–2006 waves of the NLSY79 dataset. Having received a promotion in the past 2 years leads to increased job satisfaction, even while controlling for the worker’s current wage, wage rank within her peer group, and wage growth. Workers who believe a promotion is possible in the next 2 years also report higher job satisfaction. Additionally, past promotions have a lingering, but fading impact on job satisfaction.     

Theorizing the Employment Relationship: Materialists and Institutionalists

Books reviewed: Paul Blyton and Peter Turnbull. The Dynamics of Employee Relations.
Bruce E. Kaufman, editor. Theoretical Perspectives on Work and the Employment Relationship.
Reviewed by Peter Ackers Harry C. Katz, Wonduck Lee and Joohee Lee, editors. The New Structure of Labor Relations — Tripartism and Decentralization.
Reviewed by Lorenzo Bordogna Ian Fitzgerald and John Stirling, editors. European Works Councils: Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will?.
Reviewed by Richard Hyman John McIlroy, Alan Campbell and Keith Gildart, editors. Industrial Politics and the 1926 Mining Lockout: The Struggle for Dignity.
Keith Gildart. North Wales Miners: A Fragile Unity, 1945–1996.
Reviewed by Richard Croucher Massimo Florio. The Great Divestiture — Evaluating the Impact of the British Privatisations 1979–1997.
Reviewed by Michael G. Pollitt Elizabeth C. Dunn. Privatizing Poland — Baby Food, Big Business, and the Remaking of Labor.
Reviewed by Tatjana Thelen Jonathan Brock and David B. Lipsky, editors. Going Public: The Role of Labor‐Management Relations in Delivering Quality Government Services.
Reviewed by Rebecca Kolins Givan William J. Baumol, Alan S. Blinder and Edward N. Wolff. Downsizing in America — Reality, Causes, and Consequences.
Reviewed by John Schmitt D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick and L. Putnam, editors. The Sage Handbook of Organizational Discourse.
Reviewed by Barbara Townley     

Unions and Employment Growth: The Canadian Experience

Using panel data from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey, the union effect on employment growth is examined. In line with previous North American findings, private sector unions are found to slow employment growth by approximately 2.2 percent per annum. This study is modeled after two recent articles published in this journal; one using the Australian Workplace and Industrial Relations Survey and a subsequent article using the British Workplace and Industrial/Employee Relations Survey.