Employment equity in Canada Agocs, Carol
Employment equity in Canada,
2014, 20140723, 2014, 2014-07-23, 2014-07-31
eBook
More than twenty-five years after the Abella Commission on Equality in Employment, Employment Equity in Canada examines the state of employment equity in Canada today.
Šis Pārskats par Latviju ir piektais pētījums, kas publicēts šajā sērijā. Tajā ir apskatīta aktīvās darba tirgus politikas attīstība un panākumi Latvijā kopš 2012. gada, kad Latvijas darba tirgus ...sāka atgūties pēc īpaši smagajām sekām, ko bija izraisījusi globālā finanšu krīze. Ziņojumā izvērtē izvēlētu aktivizācijas pasākumu panākumus Latvijā, īpašu uzmanību veltot pasākumu izvērtējumam, kas orientēti uz bezdarbnieku apmācību, mobilitātes un uzņēmējdarbības atbalstu Latvijas reģionos un algu subsīdijām Latvijas neaizsargātākajām grupām.
Unemployment among black Americans is twice that of whites. Myriad theories have been put forward to explain the persistent employment gap between blacks and whites in the U.S. Structural theorists ...point to factors such as employer discrimination and the decline of urban manufacturing. Other researchers argue that African-American residents living in urban neighborhoods of concentrated poverty lack social networks that can connect them to employers. Still others believe that African-American culture fosters attitudes of defeatism and resistance to work. In Lone Pursuit, sociologist Sandra Susan Smith cuts through this thicket of competing explanations to examine the actual process of job searching in depth. Lone Pursuit reveals that unemployed African Americans living in the inner city are being let down by jobholding peers and government agencies who could help them find work, but choose not to. Lone Pursuit is a pioneering ethnographic study of the experiences of low-skilled, black urban residents in Michigan as both jobseekers and jobholders. Smith surveyed 105 African-American men and women between the ages of 20 and 40, each of whom had no more than a high school diploma. She finds that mutual distrust thwarts cooperation between jobseekers and jobholders. Jobseekers do not lack social capital per se, but are often unable to make use of the network ties they have. Most jobholders express reluctance about referring their friends and relatives for jobs, fearful of jeopardizing their own reputations with employers. Rather than finding a culture of dependency, Smith discovered that her underprivileged subjects engage in a discourse of individualism. To justify denying assistance to their friends and relatives, jobholders characterize their unemployed peers as lacking in motivation and stress the importance of individual responsibility. As a result, many jobseekers, wary of being demeaned for their needy condition, hesitate to seek referrals from their peers. In a low-skill labor market where employers rely heavily on personal referrals, this go-it-alone approach is profoundly self-defeating. In her observations of a state job center, Smith finds similar distrust and non-cooperation between jobseekers and center staff members, who assume that young black men are unwilling to make an effort to find work. As private contractors hired by the state, the job center also seeks to meet performance quotas by screening out the riskiest prospects—black male and female jobseekers who face the biggest obstacles to employment and thus need the most help. The problem of chronic black joblessness has resisted both the concerted efforts of policymakers and the proliferation of theories offered by researchers. By examining the roots of the African-American unemployment crisis from the vantage point of the everyday job-searching experiences of the urban poor, Lone Pursuit provides a novel answer to this decades-old puzzle.
The aims of the present study were to: 1) gain insight into reasons for working beyond the statutory retirement age from older workers' perspectives, and 2) explore how the domains of the research ...framework Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (STREAM) can be applied to working beyond retirement age.
A qualitative research design included individual interviews (n = 15) and three focus groups (n = 18 participants) conducted with older workers aged 65 years and older continuing in a paid job or self-employment. Interview participants were recruited from an existing STREAM cohort study. Focus group participants were recruited from companies and employment agencies. The data were subjected to thematic analysis.
The most important motives for working beyond retirement age were maintaining daily routines and financial benefit. Good health and flexible work arrangements were mentioned as important preconditions. The themes emerging from the categorization of the motives and preconditions corresponded to the domains of health, work characteristics, skills and knowledge, and social and financial factors from the STREAM research framework. However, our analysis revealed one additional theme-purpose in life.
This study offers important new insights into the various preconditions and motives that influence working beyond retirement age. In addition, the five domains of the STREAM research framework, including the additional domain of 'purpose in life', seem to be applicable to working beyond retirement age. This knowledge contributes to the development of work-related interventions that enhance older workers' motivation to prolong their working lives.
This lucid, hard-hitting book explores a central paradox of the Japanese economy: the relegation of women to low-paying, dead-end jobs in a workforce that depends on their labor to maintain its ...status as a world economic leader. Drawing upon historical materials, survey and statistical data, and extensive interviews in Japan, Mary Brinton provides an in-depth and original examination of the role of gender in Japan's phenomenal postwar economic growth.
Brinton finds that the educational system, the workplace, and the family in Japan have shaped the opportunities open to female workers. Women move in and out of the workforce depending on their age and family duties, a great disadvantage in a system that emphasizes seniority and continuous work experience. Brinton situates the vicious cycle that perpetuates traditional gender roles within the concept of human capital development, whereby Japanese society "underinvests" in the capabilities of women. The effects of this underinvestment are reinforced indirectly as women sustain male human capital through unpaid domestic labor and psychological support.
Brinton provides a clear analysis of a society that remains misunderstood, but whose economic transformation has been watched with great interest by the industrialized world.
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