Work and labour markets

Governments worldwide assume that national competitiveness can be improved by developing workforce skills. This book critically examines this 'high skills' vision at both policy and practice levels. It challenges an oversimplified policy rhetoric that underestimates the complexity of the processes involved in developing a skilled workforce.

"Beyond the workfare state" explores equality, discrimination and human rights in relation to employability and 'welfare-to-work' policies bringing together a wide and distinctive range of illustrative studies that gives voice to a variety of potentially marginalised groups.

Social marginalisation due to changing labour markets in a global, knowledge-intensive economy poses a major challenge to international welfare states. Addressing the problem from a citizenship perspective, this book contributes significantly to the understanding of policy problems and the development of appropriate strategies.

Highlighting what can be learned from individual experiences, the book analyses the changing welfare and labour market policies which shape the lives of working carers in Finland, Sweden, Australia, England, Japan and Taiwan.

Drawing on extensive survey data and written accounts of citizen engagement, this pioneering book charts change and continuity in voluntary activity since 1981. Part of the Third Sector Research Series.

This report draws together the findings from 12 individual Joseph Rowntree Foundation research projects, published in the Transitions after 50 series.

This compelling book examines parental leave policies in Nordic countries, looking at how these laws encourage men towards life courses with greater care responsibilities. It considers the impact that these policies have had on gender equality and how they have led to a re-gendering of men by promoting ‘caring masculinities’.

The book offers a detailed analysis of the design and implementation of prostitution policy at the local level.

EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Led by the disability movement’s concern with the employment choices faced by disabled people, this controversial book uses sociological and philosophical approaches, as well as international examples, to critically engage with possible alternatives to paid work for disabled people.

This book brings together leading international authors from a number of fields to provide an up to date understanding of part-time work at national, sector, industry and workplace levels.

Wu integrates the current understanding of motivational factors in shaping proactive workers, through his introduction to attachment theory, and development of it as a theoretical framework. This compelling approach provides academics with a new way of thinking about employee behaviour while also acting as a guide for practitioners and managers.

This report explores the possibilities of more flexible forms of work that bridge the gap between a steady career job and retirement. It examines such jobs in the wider context of the types of transition that are being made by people leaving work early.