From 2333925211f0dd8b75f180e34c80edf7acaf3f62 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marty Oehme Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2024 16:52:38 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] chore(script): Clean script whitespaces --- scoping_review.qmd | 74 +++++++++++++++++++++++----------------------- 1 file changed, 37 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-) diff --git a/scoping_review.qmd b/scoping_review.qmd index 2e36519..8dd093b 100644 --- a/scoping_review.qmd +++ b/scoping_review.qmd @@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ This study presents a systematic scoping review of the current literature concer It attempts to trace the main mechanisms and channels of the interventions employed in the global world of work to reduce its inequalities, while simultaneously investigating the methodologies and indicators used in evidence-based research on them to systematically elaborate the current state of the art on inequalities in the world of work. -The following section presents a typology of policies that directly or indirectly tackle inequalities in the WoW both within the labour market and outside this domain (e.g. education policy). +The following section presents a typology of policies that directly or indirectly tackle inequalities in the world of work both within the labour market and outside this domain (e.g. education policy). The section also makes an attempt to clearly identify the theoretical mechanisms and channels through which policies are expected to impact inequalities in forms of work and ultimate labour market outcomes. The ILO has a policy approach to reducing inequalities in the world of work segmented into five major focus areas: @@ -126,8 +126,8 @@ Each of these areas in turn rests on a variety of more specific emphases which f The rest of the study is structured as follows: Section 2 will introduce the world of work, as well as the ILO's approach to inequalities within it, and provide a variety of other recent approaches to make sense of inequalities in the world of work. -Section 3 will then introduce the method applied in the scoping review of this study, before introducing the initial identified literature as a coherent sample. -Section 4 will synthesize findings on a variety of intervention found in the literature, organized by general policy area of intervention pursued. +Section 3 will then introduce the method applied in the scoping review of this study, before introducing the initial identified literature as a coherent sample. +Section 4 will synthesize findings on a variety of intervention found in the literature, organized by general policy area of intervention pursued. Section 5 will then provide a brief discussion on these findings from the perspective of individual inequalities, the interventions found to reduce them, and resulting policy implications, before Section 6 briefly concludes. # The world of work @@ -343,7 +343,7 @@ Its purpose, clearly mapping a body of literature on a (broad) topic area, is th With an increasingly adopted approach in recent years, with rigorous dichotomy of inclusion and exclusion criteria it provides a way of charting the relevance of literature related to its overall body that strives to be free of influencing biases which could affect the skew of the resulting literature sample [@Pham2014]. -The search protocol will be carried out based on the introduced areas of policies as well as the possible combination of definitions and outcomes in the WoW. +The search protocol was carried out based on the introduced areas of policies as well as the possible combination of definitions and outcomes in the world of work. For each dimension of definitions, a cluster containing possible utilized terms will be created, that is for: definitions of work and labour, forms of work, definitions of inequality, forms of vertical and forms of horizontal inequalities, labour market outcomes, and definitions of policy. Each of the clusters contains synonymous terms as well as term-adjacent phrase combinations which are in turn used to refine or broaden the search scope to best encapsulate each respective cluster, based on the above definitions. @@ -546,7 +546,7 @@ plt.show() ``` Second, while such a decrease is visible the changes between individual years are more erratic due to strong changes from year to year. -This suggests, first, no overall decrease in academic interest in the topic over this period of time, +This suggests, first, no overall decrease in academic interest in the topic over this period of time, and second, no linearly developing concentration or centralization of knowledge output and dissemination, though it also throws into question a clear-cut increase of *relevant* output over time. @@ -593,7 +593,7 @@ by_intervention = None ``` @fig-intervention-types shows the most often analysed interventions for the literature reviewed. -Overall, there is a focus on measures of minimum wage and education interventions, +Overall, there is a focus on measures of minimum wage and education interventions, as well as collective action, subsidies, trade liberalization changes and training. This points to a spread capturing both institutional, as well as structural and agency-driven programmes. @@ -741,7 +741,7 @@ It also finds significantly positive impacts on the human capital of the childre This suggests childcare costs being removed through a quasi-subsidy reducing the required childcare time burden on mothers, increasing parental agency and employment choices. Some limitations to the study include a relatively small overall sample size, as well as employment effects becoming insignificant when the effect is measured on randomization alone (without an additional instrumental variable). -### Unionisation & collective action +### Unionisation & collective bargaining @Alexiou2023 study on the effects of both political orientation of governments' parties and a country's trade unionization on its income inequality. It finds that, generally, strong unionization is strongly related to decreasing income inequality, most likely through a redistribution of political power through collective mobilization in national contexts of stronger unions. @@ -761,18 +761,18 @@ It also finds that collective negotiation practices targeting especially manager The primary channel for only marginal significance stems from internal heterogeneity in that only the median part of wage distributions is significantly affected by the measures. Instead, the authors recommend a stronger mix of policy approaches, also considering the human-capital aspects with for example active labour-market policies targeting it. -@Dieckhoff2015 undertake a study on the effect of trade unionization in European labour markets, with a specific emphasis on its effects on gender inequalities. -It finds, first of all, that increased unionization is related to the probability of being employed on a standard employment contract for both men and women. -It also finds no evidence that men seem to carry increased benefits from increased unionization, although in combination with temporary contract and family policy re-regulations, men do seem to experience greater benefits than women. +@Dieckhoff2015 undertake a study on the effect of trade unionisation in European labour markets, with a specific emphasis on its effects on gender inequalities. +It finds, first of all, that increased unionisation is related to the probability of being employed on a standard employment contract for both men and women. +It also finds no evidence that men seem to carry increased benefits from increased unionisation, although in combination with temporary contract and family policy re-regulations, men do seem to experience greater benefits than women. At the same time women's employment under standard contracts does not decrease, such that there is no absolute detrimental effect for either gender. -It does, however, pose the question of the allocation of relative benefits between the genders through unionization efforts. +It does, however, pose the question of the allocation of relative benefits between the genders through unionisation efforts. The study is limited in that, by averaging outcomes across European nations, it can not account for nation-specific labour market contexts or gender disaggregations. @Ahumada2023 on the other hand create a study on the effects of unequal distributions of political power on the extent and provision of collective labour rights. It is a combination of quantitative global comparison with qualitative case studies for Argentina and Chile. It finds that, for societies in which power is more unequally distributed, collective bargaining possibilities are more limited and weaker. -It suggests that, aside from a less entrenched trade unionization in the country, the primary channel for the its weakening are that existing collective labour rights are often either restricted or disregarded outright. -Employers were restricted in their ability to effectively conduct lobbying, and made more vulnerable to what the authors suggest are 'divide-and-conquer' strategies by government with a strongly entrenched trade unionization, due to being more separate and uncoordinated. +It suggests that, aside from a less entrenched trade unionisation in the country, the primary channel for the its weakening are that existing collective labour rights are often either restricted or disregarded outright. +Employers were restricted in their ability to effectively conduct lobbying, and made more vulnerable to what the authors suggest are 'divide-and-conquer' strategies by government with a strongly entrenched trade unionisation, due to being more separate and uncoordinated. A limit is the strong institutional context of the two countries which makes generalizable application of its underlying channels more difficult to the overarching quantitative analysis of inequality outcomes. ## Structural @@ -960,10 +960,10 @@ Some limitations of the study include its limited generalizability, having a sam It finds, foremost, that initially both the hours worked and the income of people with disabilities are lower on the Australian labour market in general and this reflects in the results for the disability group of participants, which have significantly lower weekly incomes and hours worked than the control group. Over time, hours worked increase for the disability group to no longer be significantly different but still lower than for the control group (from 3.1 hours to 1 hour difference per week), however there are large fluctuations in the control group. -Similarly, the wages of the disability group are initially substantially lower than of the control group, +Similarly, the wages of the disability group are initially substantially lower than of the control group, which increases to be non-significant though still lower over time, more so for the earnings of female participants and participants which received a disability pension. -Relevant limitations of the study include the use of a non-representative sample for the national representativeness, -and the overall generalisability being low due to an increased labour force participation bias and attrition bias of the surveys, +Relevant limitations of the study include the use of a non-representative sample for the national representativeness, +and the overall generalisability being low due to an increased labour force participation bias and attrition bias of the surveys, as well as only having access to a small control sample size. Thus, findings should be understood as guiding policy directions, while generalisations should be done with care as some of the larger changes may be due to those limitations, such as the increased survey response of those with positive wage outcomes. @@ -998,7 +998,7 @@ working time reductions significantly decrease aggregate demand through lower in It also finds that through these channels of changing aggregate demand, the environmental outcomes are oppositional, with work time reduction decreasing and UBI increasing the overall ecological footprint. One limitation of the study is the modeling assumption that workers will have to accept both lower income and lower consumption levels under a policy of work time reduction through stable labour market entry for the results to hold. -### Microfinance +### Strengthening social inclusion and norms @Al-Mamun2014 conduct a study on the impacts of an urban micro-finance programme in Malaysia on the economic empowerment of women. The programme introduced the ability for low-income urban individuals to receive collateral-free credit. @@ -1084,7 +1084,7 @@ Policy interventions undertaken either with the explicit aim of reducing one or To make further sense of the studies shining a light on such approaches, it makes sense to divide their attention not just by primary approach, but by individual or overlapping inequalities being targeted, as well as the region of their operation. -As can be seen in @fig-inequality-types which breaks down available studies by targeted inequalities, +As can be seen in @fig-inequality-types which breaks down available studies by targeted inequalities, income inequality is the type of inequality traced in most of the relevant studies. This follows the identified multi-purpose lens income inequality can provide, through which to understand other inequalities --- many studies use income measurements and changes in income or income inequality over time as indicators to understand a variety of other inequalities' linkages through. @@ -1117,7 +1117,7 @@ plt.show() by_inequality = None ``` -With income inequality on its own often describing vertical inequality within a national context, +With income inequality on its own often describing vertical inequality within a national context, the remaining inequalities gathered from the data rather form horizontal lenses to view their contexts through. The second most analysed inequality is that of gender, followed by spatial inequalities, disabilities, generational inequalities, inequalities of migration, education and age. The following sections will dive deeper into each predominant identified inequality, discuss what the main interventions analysed in the literature are and where gaps and limitations lie. @@ -1144,7 +1144,7 @@ The effects on low-skill income share under a system of minimum wage are thus pr Ultimately, the author also suggests the institution of low-skill worker training programmes either targeting enhanced productivity for their existing tasks ('deepening skills') or enabling their capability for undertaking tasks previously only assigned to high-skill workers ('expanding skills') which would respectively counteract the negative automation effects on both margins. Thus, for the current state of the literature on analyses of policy interventions through the lens of inequality reduction within the world of work, there are strong gaps of academic lenses for generational inequalities, age inequalities, education inequalities and inequalities of non-ethnic migration processes going purely by quantity of output. -Care should be taken not to overestimate the decisiveness of merely quantified outputs --- +Care should be taken not to overestimate the decisiveness of merely quantified outputs --- multiple studies with strong risk of bias may produce less reliable outcomes than fewer studies with stronger evidence bases --- however, it does provide an overview of the size of evidence base in the first place. @@ -1153,8 +1153,8 @@ as well as providing a comparative view of the respective intersection with inco ## Gender inequalities -