People,Space and Place: a Multidimensional Analysis of Unemployment in Metropolitan Labour Markets

It is becoming increasingly apparent that, in order to understand a range of socio-economic outcomes, research needs to be focused on a multi-dimensional approach that accounts for individual characteristics and behaviours together with locality and activity within space and place. Within labour market analysis there is a need to situate empirical analysis within a conceptual framework that considers both the assets of individuals within the labour force and the social and local labour market contexts in which they find themselves. Using a broad notion of employability, this paper develops an analysis of unemployment in Australia's metropolitan labour markets. Specifically it uses a combination of individual survey data and aggregate labour market data to consider the associations between these multi-level factors. It finds that, while individual characteristics are important in understanding unemployment in metropolitan areas, it is equally the case that the strength of spatially distinct labour markets also plays a role. The paper reaches the conclusion that, while contemporary labour market policy tends to focus on individual characteristics, there is a need to widen the policy understanding of labour market outcomes so that other broader contexts, including the impact of space and place, are also seen as being influential.     

Neoliberalism and Suburban Employment: Western Sydney in the 1990s

During the past 15 years metropolitan planning strategies of the NSW state government have done little to address the spatial distribution of either employment or labour market equity within the metropolis. In the fast‐growing outer western suburbs, the government has focused on attracting business investment to increase the stock of local jobs and to improve employment ‘self‐sufficiency’— a dominantly neoliberal policy framework. This paper explores a widening gulf between the reality of outer urban change and this policy framework by considering changes in the location of jobs and in the employment experiences of residents in Greater Western Sydney (GWS). Evidence is drawn from census journey‐to‐work data (1991–2001). While holding a majority of manufacturing jobs in Sydney, GWS also experienced continued growth of jobs in service industries during the 1990s. Yet the relative importance of employment in the city's fast‐growth finance and business services sector still lags well behind that of inner and northern parts of the city. The focus on growing the regional stock of jobs has not addressed problems of labour market access faced by residents of particular localities and the goal of employment self‐sufficiency has not delivered greater equity to outer suburban labour markets. A focus on sufficiency of access to employment for residents of GWS draws attention not only to regional stocks of jobs but also to the provision of social infrastructure and state‐provided services to outer suburban populations as they continue to expand.     

Economic Policy and Women’s Informal Work in South Africa

This article examines the gender dimensions of the growth in informal and flexible work in South Africa and the government’s policy response to this. It outlines the growth in informal and flexible work practices and, as illustrative examples, analyses how trade and industrial policies and labour market policies are impacting on the growth of informal and flexible work. It is argued that the South African government’s trade and industrial policies are shifting the economy onto a path of capital intensification. Allied to this, firms are undergoing a process of extensive restructuring. These developments are further promoting the growth of flexibilization and informalization, and thereby disadvantaging women. The article demonstrates that whilst the government offers a vast package of support measures to big business, its policy is largely irrelevant to the survivalist segment of small business, where most women in the informal economy are to be found. The picture for labour policy is more diverse. Aspects of the labour legislation are promoting the growth of a dual labour market, whilst there seems to be some tightening up of practices aimed at bypassing aspects of the protection provided to workers.     

Constrained Labour Agency and the Changing Regulatory Regime in China

Using the concept of ‘constrained agency’ introduced by Neil Coe and David Jordhus‐Lier, this article attempts to evaluate the possibilities and constraints facing labour agency in the Pearl River Delta in China. By reviewing the social, economic and political background of the changing labour market and labour regulations in China, and through an intensive case study of a workers’ strike and its consequences, the author argues that Chinese migrant workers have begun to challenge the state's regulatory regime on labour, which is based on individual rights. However, the introduction of a regulatory framework based on collective rights is being impeded by the party‐state's manipulation of trade unions and the strong influence of global capital on local labour policy.     

Engendering New Labour's Workfarist Regime: Exploring the intersection of welfare state restructuring and labour market policies in the UK

This article deconstructs New Labour's emerging workfarist regime to reveal the complex and contradictory gender relations embodied in and through its work–welfare policy. Starting from the decline of manufacturing employment within the UK, it traces the deregulation of the labour market and the range of structural and social changes initiated by this process. Noting, in particular, how the ‘feminisation of the economy’ is connected to the changing characteristics of employment and women's socio-economic positions, the article identifies the manner in which the growing labour market participation of women is serving to (further) entrench gender inequality. Against this background, it proceeds to raise issues regarding the increased expectation to enter the labour market observed within programmes such as the New Deal for the Unemployed, which stipulates that the receipt of state benefits ought now to require a labour input. The crux of analysis is on the policy and political discourses that award priority to paid work in the formal labour market, whilst simultaneously neglecting the gendered divisions of labour around unwaged care work and domestic tasks. In suggesting that gender remains a key form of political-economic organisation in the contemporary period of after-Fordism, this article argues that (further) attention must be given to the ways in which its socially constructed properties are manifest within work–welfare policy and the ramifications of this embedding for social and economic equality.     

Social Policy and Gender Divisions of Domestic and Care Work in France

A number of cross-national comparisons of gender divisions of paid and unpaid labour have highlighted the mismatch which exists in France between on the one hand a narrow gender employment gap due to the full-time and continuous nature of women's employment, supported by extensive state-provided or subsidised childcare, and on the other hand, the persistence of an unexpectedly traditional gender division of domestic and care work. This results in high levels of work–life conflict for French women, and particularly for mothers. In much social policy analysis, the question of how policy might influence the extent to which domestic and care work is shared within the couple has been largely overlooked in favour of discussions of how the state facilitates and encourages the employment of mothers of dependent children. This article therefore focuses on why and how state policy in France, whilst being successful in bringing women and particularly mothers into the labour market, has not brought about a fairer gender division of unpaid domestic and care work in the home.     

Politics of Social Policy in a Late Industrializing Country: The Case of Turkey

This article approaches social policy as an integral component of a capitalist society and, by drawing on the notion of the double movement introduced by Karl Polanyi, argues that social policy intervention both limits and contributes to market expansion. While this argument could be generally applied to recent social policy changes in the current context of economic globalization, these changes were shaped against different histories of social policy development in early and late industrializing countries. This article examines the increasing importance of social policy in late industrializing countries by focusing on the case of Turkey. It is argued that social policy transformation in Turkey has involved the expansion of social security coverage along with the privatization and marketization of health and pension systems. A new system of labour market regulation has contributed to the commodification of labour while the ‘state-supported familialism’, which forms an important aspect of current trends in the area of social care, has served to integrate women in the prevailing flexible employment relations by simultaneously sustaining their position in the gender division of roles within traditional family relations. The populist strategy of polarization pursued by the ruling government is discussed to show how opposition to these trends toward privatization, marketization and labour commodification has been isolated.     

Globalization Lived Locally: Investigating Kerala's Local Labour Control Regimes

This article uses the case study of a prominent electronics manufacturer in Kerala, southern India, to illuminate an approach to labour studies which focuses on local labour control regimes. Kerala was chosen for this study because of certain unusual characteristics of its labour market. Building on the theoretical base of local labour control regimes, empirical evidence from the case study reveals that local labour markets develop their own forms of labour control and worker response patterns. These are not always clearly visible and may require something more than superficial enquiry to bring their salient features into view. In this case, the Church is shown to play an unexpected role in local labour control regimes.     

Unemployment and Labour-market Policy in the New Voivodeship System in Poland

The systemic transformation process and the introduction of market mechanisms involved in the labour market have brought about changes in the state and structure of the labour market in Poland. A measurable effect of those changes has been a drop in employment and the appearance of registered unemployment, whose level soon surpassed that of frictional unemployment and became a basic social problem. The situation in the Polish labour market is aggravated by the fact that there are wide regional differences in unemployment that persist despite variations in the level of national unemployment. The administrative reform implemented on 1 January 1999 has introduced a division of the country into 16 new voivodeships in place of the existing 49. The new system of big voivodeships endowed statutorily with a combination of central government and self-government functions was supposed to create conditions for a more effective labour-market policy at the regional scale. The aim of the present article is to analyse changes in the regional differences in unemployment resulting from the transition from the 49- to 16-unit administrative system. The analysis also covers changes in the institutionalization and implementation of labour-market policy at the regional level which followed from the reform.     

Structural Change,the Social Policy Environment and Female Employment in Turkey

Since the 1970s, a series of demand and supply related changes have led to significant labour market transformations which have brought about a sustained increase in female employment throughout the world. While similar transformations have also been underway in Turkey, the country appears to be one of the rare exceptions to worldwide trends. During the last two decades both female labour force participation and female employment rates have declined at national level. In this article, two sets of questions are posed to explore the factors likely to influence female labour force participation. One set of questions pertains to the society‐specific dynamics of structural change in employment patterns in Turkey, with particular reference to the level and composition of employment in the service sector. A second set of questions is posed to examine labour market relations and the social policy environment in Turkey, and their impact on the demand for and supply of female labour. Current changes in the prevailing policy environment are considered to highlight a certain contradiction in the attitudes of decision makers who seem to be faced with a trade‐off between continuing adherence to conservative patriarchal values and the objectives of increasing labour force participation and combating poverty.     

Global Value Chains,Industrial Policy and Economic Upgrading in Ethiopia's Apparel Sector

This article examines whether low-income countries can still benefit from participating in manufacturing global value chains (GVCs) in terms of broader industrial development in a global context of greater competition and higher requirements. It contends that developing internationally competitive local firms and domestic linkages, in addition to upgrading, is crucial for participation in GVCs to drive industrialization. The study focuses on Ethiopia's recent experience with developing an apparel export industry through strategic industrial policy. Based on original empirical data collected through firm-level surveys and interviews with government officials, industry experts and buyers, the article analyses the upgrading and localization trajectories of foreign and local apparel-exporting firms. It argues that value-capture benefits in assembly positions in apparel GVCs have become more difficult. The potential for localization benefits depends on the type of global buyers and foreign producers and their levels of embeddedness, but whether this potential is realized also depends on local firm characteristics and related industrial policy. Ethiopia's industrial policy has been relatively successful regarding national economy linkages, but less successful in developing competitive local export firms due to a weak local manufacturing tradition combined with a global context that has led to a supplier squeeze.     

Actors,Decisions and Policy Changes in Local Urbanization

Land-use policies have long been recognized as important driving forces of urbanization, but little research has been conducted on the interrelationship of actors, policy decision processes and changes in the built environment. In this paper, we use the advocacy coalition framework to analyse policy decisions that affected the development of the built environment in three Swiss municipalities between 1970 and 2007. We found that all three municipalities experienced the same major policy changes, namely a new definition of the role of urban management (1970s); the adoption of an environment- and problem-oriented approach in land-use planning (1980s) as well as an increased emphasis on public participation and intra-municipal coordination (1990s). Although national laws and actors have shaped the crucial driving forces of urban change, local actors, their coalitions and the local distribution of resources crucially determined these decisions in the study period. Our findings suggest that a stronger focus on local actors, their coalitions and resources could greatly improve our understanding of spatial development processes in Switzerland. For instance, as land ownership turned out to be a crucial resource, Swiss municipalities could benefit from engaging more actively in the land market.     

Global policy paradigms,gender equality and everyday lives in Beijing,Hong Kong,Seoul and Taipei

Focusing on the interface between gender equality, the labour market, and everyday lives in four East Asian societies – China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan – this article seeks to articulate the spatial expression and multi-scalarity of global governance and policy paradigms. It will demonstrate that whilst regions, places and people are influenced by global processes and paradigms, these move and embed in different ways across spaces, time and scales. In this context, the article seeks to develop a more nuanced appreciation of ‘the social lives’ of global policy models, engaging with the role of ideas and institutions and the interactions of transnational, national and local dynamics in the shaping of gender equality policies and everyday experiences. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei the article draws out the perceptions of individuals from different policy, sectoral, social and cultural settings of gender equality. It highlights the tensions and disjunctures between general principles and particular situations, and in embedding gender equality policies into the social imaginaries and everyday lives of women and men. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing the role of place and power relations in shaping localized responses to and experiences of gender justice.     

Transitions to Work: Masculine identities,youth inequality and labour market change

In this article, the initial transitions of white working-class male post-compulsory school leavers in two British cities are investigated. In the context of economic restructuring, the decline of manufacturing employment, and the rise in young women's educational achievements, it has been argued that poorly educated young men are increasingly disadvantaged in the labour market. Indeed, this may be the first generation of young men in the post-war period that will experience downward mobility compared to their fathers. In an earlier article, the author explored the labour market aspirations of white working-class boys living on peripheral local authority estates in Cambridge and Sheffield and in their final year at school. Despite the decline of manufacturing employment, they hoped to enter typically 'male' jobs in, for example, the car industry in both cities and in the steel industry in Sheffield. In this article, the author explores their labour market experiences in the year since they left school and their sense of themselves as masculine workers in the context of debates emphasising a growing 'crisis' of masculinity.     

Iceland and the Nordic Model of Consensus Democracy

The Nordic countries – including Iceland – have been portrayed in the political-science literature as consensual democracies, enjoying a high degree of legitimacy and institutional mechanisms which favour consensus-building over majority rule and adversarial politics. In this explorative article the author argues that consensus politics, meaning policy concertation between major interest groups in society, a tendency to form broad coalitions in important political issues and a significant cooperation between government and opposition in Parliament, is not an apt term to describe the political reality in Iceland during the second half of the 20th century. Icelandic democracy is better described as more adversarial than consensual in style and practice. The labour market was rife with conflict and strikes more frequent than in Europe, resulting in strained government–trade union relationship. Secondly, Iceland did not share the Nordic tradition of power-sharing or corporatism as regards labour market policies or macro-economic policy management, primarily because of the weakness of Social Democrats and the Left in general. Thirdly, the legislative process did not show a strong tendency towards consensus-building between government and opposition with regard to government seeking consultation or support for key legislation. Fourthly, the political style in legislative procedures and public debate in general tended to be adversarial rather than consensual in nature.     

Unpacking the Neoliberal Approach to Regional Policy: a Close Reading of John Freebairn's ‘Economic Policy for Rural and Regional Australia’

A close reading of a neoliberal intervention in policy debates on ‘the regional economic problem’ is used to throw light on this method. When it is compared to economic geography, the neoliberal approach advances a relatively simplified conception of regional economic and social life that pays little regard to their richness, complexity and grounded realities. Correspondingly, this approach encourages a vision of regional policy that normalises and exonerates the spatially uneven outcomes of market forces. This article argues that policy‐makers’ ends in the field of regional development should be alert to the limitations that arise from the neoliberal tendency to override the evidence of empirical complexity in favour of a more simple narrative.     

Policy Strategies for New Regionalism: Different Spatial Logics for Cultural and Business Policies in Norwegian City Regions

This article asks about differences and similarities in the way cultural policy and business policy deal with regions in Norwegian city regions. The article discusses New Regionalism as a particular spatial practice, and stresses the difference between regionalism as a bottom-up process driven by local stakeholders and regionalization as a top-down process driven by state bodies. The role and significance of New Regionalism in city-regional policy-making is investigated. Empirical findings shows that cultural policy at the city-regional level is still under strong influence from a top-down state regionalization, while business policy at the city-regional level is, to a large extent, an example of bottom-up regionalism. The spatial logic of these two policy-fields differs from each other. Business policy rests on an interpretation of region/place as a container of established networks, relations and interactions that should be coordinated in order to strengthen the region in its competition with other regions. Cultural policy rests on another interpretation that is not territorial in the same degree, but rather on a logic that place/region is created as relations between persons, groups and institutions within a geographical scope that is not predefined and fixed with borders and boundaries.     

Geographical Leadership Mobility and Policy Isomorphism: Narrowing the Regional Inequality of Social Spending in China

The link between geographical leadership mobility and policy isomorphism is rarely discussed in the extant literature. We argue that the geographical leadership mobility encourages local executives to converge their development experiences in their original working jurisdictions and their current positions. The distinct Chinese political personnel system provides an ideal environment that allows researchers to examine the isomorphic effects of geographical leadership mobility. This research builds a dataset of local social spending between 1998 and 2011 as well as a database of the leadership mobility history of provincial executives in China. Results of the spatial panel analysis (SPA) demonstrate that the geographical leadership mobility (i.e., horizontal, top-down, and bottom-up) of governors stimulates the regional isomorphism of provincial education and health care spending. The empirical findings affirm the effectiveness of the effort of the Chinese central government in narrowing the regional inequality of social welfare provision through the geographical mobility of local leadership.     

Waterfront redevelopment and urban policy: The case of Barcelona,Cardiff and Genoa

In this article, waterfront redevelopment is linked to the recent development of urban policy and to relations between port and city. This is discussed with the empirical study of three European regional capitals (Barcelona, Cardiff and Genoa) of different size, how the redevelopment was done and how the projects link with the development of urban policy. The redevelopment of Baltimore's Inner Harbour has influenced strongly the physical outcome of the projects in these three cities but it is very difficult to achieve similar success because of the differences in time, space, local culture, etc. Each case demonstrates that a strong market‐ and property‐led approach has serious weaknesses when heavy public subsidies are used for improving the infrastructure but the private sector has not been able to fulfil its part in time. The question of social justice of waterfront redevelopment is raised at the end of the article.     

‘The labour market under the iron fist of the state’: the Franco dictatorship in the mirror of Hitler,Mussolini and Stalin

This article focuses on the idea that intervention in the labour market through the suspension of labour rights and freedoms, fear and a fall in purchasing power all played a key role in achieving political and economic objectives in the regimes of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. However, in each of these cases, the success of this policy was not as had been expected. These European experiences were essential for the configuration of the labour framework in the Franco dictatorship. The iron-fisted control of the labour market came to Spain through legal texts and institutions that were in many cases a blatant copy of those applied in Italy and Germany. In spite of the ideological distance between them, we can also find some common traits with Stalin's labour policies. The results obtained were even worse for Spain, and the negative effects on the economy were more serious, due to the greater longevity of the Spanish dictatorship.