diff --git a/scoping_review.qmd b/scoping_review.qmd index 508deaf..af47c4d 100644 --- a/scoping_review.qmd +++ b/scoping_review.qmd @@ -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 @@ -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. @@ -940,10 +940,10 @@ 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. @@ -1064,7 +1064,7 @@ 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. @@ -1097,7 +1097,7 @@ 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. @@ -1125,7 +1125,7 @@ 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. @@ -1136,7 +1136,7 @@ as well as providing a comparative view of the respective intersection with inco Due to its persistent characteristics, gender inequality is an often analysed horizontal dimension of workplace inequality in the study sample, with a variety of studies looking at it predominantly through the lens of female economic empowerment or through gender pay gaps. -@fig-gender-regions shows that there is a somewhat higher output of research into this inequality in both East Asia & the Pacific and Europe & Central Asian regions just ahead of North America, +@fig-gender-regions shows that there is a somewhat higher output of research into this inequality in both East Asia & the Pacific and Europe & Central Asian regions just ahead of North America, though the overall sample is relatively balanced between regions. ```{python} @@ -1171,7 +1171,7 @@ plt.tight_layout() plt.show() ``` -Looking into the prevalence of individual interventions within the gender dimension, +Looking into the prevalence of individual interventions within the gender dimension, @tbl-gender-crosstab shows that subsidies, notions of unionisation and collective action, education and paid leave received the most attention. Thus there is a slight leaning towards institutional and structural interventions visible, though the dimension seems to be viewed from angles of strengthening individual agency just as well, with subsidies often seeking to nourish this approach, and training, and interventions towards financial agency being represented in the interventions. @@ -1206,7 +1206,7 @@ which they see rather generated by a polarisation between high-income and low-in ## Spatial inequalities -Spatial inequalities are less focused within European, Central Asian and North American regions, +Spatial inequalities are less focused within European, Central Asian and North American regions, as @fig-spatial-regions shows. Instead, both Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are the primary areas of interest, with studies especially into Tanzania, India and Pakistan. @@ -1243,7 +1243,7 @@ crosstab_inequality(df_inequality, "spatial").sort_values("spatial", ascending=F Additionally, education interventions target spatial inequalities, with the effects of minimum wage, interventions strengthening financial agency, trade liberalization and training all playing a more marginal role. Thus, structural interventions are the dominant approach to reducing spatial inequalities, with institutional and agency-driven interventions often not targeting them specifically. -This can pose a problem, as even non-spatial policies will almost invariably have spatially divergent effects, +This can pose a problem, as even non-spatial policies will almost invariably have spatially divergent effects, be they positive: as is the case for higher positive income effects on rural households due to unintentional good targeting of minimum wage to lower-income households [@Gilbert2001]; or negative: as seen in the further exclusion of already disadvantaged women from employment, infrastructure and training opportunities in India under bad targeting and elite capture [@Stock2021]. @@ -1258,7 +1258,7 @@ however, analyses of spatial inequalities often remain solely focused on spatial Spatial inequalities move both ways, however, as also shown by @Perez2022 in a multi-disciplinary systematic review of the association between a person's income, their employment and poverty in an urban environment. They find, similarly to the rural-urban divide, that employment plays a significant role in the poverty of urban residents, though here the primary barriers are identified as lack of access to public transport, geographical segregation, labour informality and inadequate human capital. They also agree with the potential policy interventions identified to counteract these inequalities: -credit programs, institutional support for childcare, guaranteed minimum income/universal basic income or the provision of living wages, commuting subsidies, and housing mobility programs, +credit programs, institutional support for childcare, guaranteed minimum income/universal basic income or the provision of living wages, commuting subsidies, and housing mobility programs, which largely map onto structural or institutional efforts identified by the studies. Like the study pool shows, many of the highlighted barriers can be mapped onto channels of inequality: @@ -1295,12 +1295,12 @@ Only when looking at the intersection of disability and gender is income the mor crosstab_inequality(df_inequality, "disability").sort_values("disability", ascending=False) ``` -Studies into interventions within the dimension of disabilities are predominantly focused on agency-based perspectives, with counselling and training being the primary approaches. -Structurally approached interventions are also pursued, looking at the overall effects of education, or subsidies in health care, though even here, +Studies into interventions within the dimension of disabilities are predominantly focused on agency-based perspectives, with counselling and training being the primary approaches. +Structurally approached interventions are also pursued, looking at the overall effects of education, or subsidies in health care, though even here, the individual effects of activation play a role [@Carstens2018]. -One framework which approaches the discussion from a more institutional-structural view is provided by the systems level theoretical grounding of @Gruber2014, +One framework which approaches the discussion from a more institutional-structural view is provided by the systems level theoretical grounding of @Gruber2014, separating into the exclusionary effects of disability into institutional factors at the macro level, at the meso level and factors influencing the micro level, and directly focusing on the separation or inclusion of education, recognition of eligibility for vocational rehabilitation and self-recognition as pre-condition for effective programme undertaking respectively. @@ -1369,21 +1369,21 @@ focus prevalence on individual inequalities varies widely. Research into interventions preventing income inequality are still the dominant form of measured outcomes, which makes sense for its prevailing usefulness through a variety of indicators and its use to investigate both vertical and horizontal inequalities. -However, care should be taken not to over-emphasize the reliance on income inequality outcomes: -they can obscure intersections with other inequalities, +However, care should be taken not to over-emphasize the reliance on income inequality outcomes: +they can obscure intersections with other inequalities, or diminish the perceived importance of tackling other inequalities themselves, if not directly measurable through income. Thus, while interventions attempt to tackle the inequality from a variety of institutional, structural and agency-oriented approaches already, this could be further enhanced by putting a continuous focus on the closely intertwined intersectional nature of the issue. -Gender inequality is an almost equally considered dimension in the interventions, +Gender inequality is an almost equally considered dimension in the interventions, a reasonable conclusion due to the inequality's global ubiquity and persistence. Most gender-oriented policy approaches tackle it directly alongside income inequality outcomes, especially viewed through gender pay gaps and economic (dis-)empowerment, tackling it from backgrounds of structural or agency-driven interventions. -While both approaches seem fruitful in different contexts, few interventions strive to provide a holistic approach which combines the individual-level with macro-impacts, +While both approaches seem fruitful in different contexts, few interventions strive to provide a holistic approach which combines the individual-level with macro-impacts, tackling both institutional-structural issues while driving concerns of agency simultaneously. -Spatial inequalities are primarily viewed through rural-urban divides, +Spatial inequalities are primarily viewed through rural-urban divides, concerning welfare, opportunities and employment probabilities. Spatially focused interventions primarily tackle infrastructural issues which should be an effective avenue since most positive interventions are focused on the structural dimension of the inequality. However, too many interventions, especially focused on reducing income inequalities,