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feat: Move existing reviews above inequality typology

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concepts.md
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@ -855,5 +855,3 @@ TS=(
::: {#refs}
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scoping_review.qmd
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@ -89,73 +89,6 @@ An exemplary typology of general policy area, related specified policy focus and
Source: Authors' elaboration based on @ILO2022b.
## The world of work
These policy areas and their respective focus perspectives are based in the conceptual understanding of the world of work, following the definition of work being "any activity performed by persons of any sex and age to produce goods or to provide services for use by others or for own use" [@ILO2013, p.2].
This is the broader understanding of work which specifically separates itself from the more narrow conception of those in employment who are "of working age [and] who, during a reference period, were engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit" [@ILO2013].
The key concepts for this differentiation are founded on an understanding of the production of goods or provision of services, as well as the distinctions between use by others for ultimate own-use and that of working for pay and/or profit – that is, as part of a market transaction in exchange for remuneration or in the form of profits derived from the goods or services.
Whether these services or goods are produced in what is defined as the informal economy, the formal economy or under informal employment outside the informal sector is, for the general encapsulation of no importance – they occur in the world of work.
Here, conceptually, it should be captured under one of the five mutually exclusive forms of work understood as: own-use production work, performing "any activity to produce goods or provide services for own final use" [@ILO2013, p.5]; employment work comprising those performing work for others in exchange for pay or profit introduced above; unpaid trainee work, performing "any unpaid activity to produce goods or provide services […] to acquire workplace experience or skills" [@ILO2013, p.7]; and volunteer work, that being "any unpaid, non-compulsory activity to produce goods or provide services for others" [@ILO2013, p.8].
Any activity falling under work as defined above on the one hand, but not under any of these forms of work on the other, is instead designated as other work activities in the following considerations. The key concepts between these categories come down to a varying intensity of participation, the distinction of working for pay and/or profit mentioned above, whether it is for ultimate own-use or the use by others, and its compulsory nature.
## Inequalities in the world of work
Inequalities in the world of work have to be fundamentally conceptualized along two axes: On the one hand, vertical inequality captures the "income inequality between all households in a country" [@ILO2021].
Measurements of vertical inequalities is a perspective which focuses primarily on incomes as data, with debate of top income percentiles versus the remaining body of people often posing the primary area of debate [@ILO2021a].
Horizontal inequalities, on the other hand, occur when "some groups within the population find themselves disadvantaged and discriminated against on the basis of their visible identity, for example their gender, colour or beliefs, among others" [@ILO2021a].
Importantly, these inequalities do not act in a vacuum but create an interplay through overlaps and accumulations which take on their own driving dynamics for people belonging to multiple disadvantaged groups, captured in the idea of inequality’s intersectionality [@ILO2022b].
Here, especially horizontal inequalities may be hard to disentangle for impact finding, an important aspect of effective rigorous analysis in quantitative studies.
Thus, for a study on inequalities, or in turn a study on policies aimed at reducing inequalities in the world of work to be one of rigorous analysis, it must clearly define the type of policy taken as its object of analysis (its independent variable) as well as the types of inequalities targeted for reduction through the respective policy and measured as channels of impact.
Ultimately, then, the individual outcome measures need to be clearly specified and disentangled, most clearly reflecting in labour market outcome measures (dependent variables).
Only then can the targeted inequality be delineated as a clear channel.
In targeting an increase in equality, there are then two approaches to take: either levelling the playing field so that characteristics beyond an individual’s control can not influence their future perspectives, nor limit the potential of the powers they possess, through achieving equality of opportunity; or strive for an equality of outcomes, in factual observed resulting (in-)equalities.
As the ILO established, such a focus on equality of outcomes can be of great importance since "high levels of inequality today tend to reduce social mobility tomorrow" [@ILO2021a], making it that much more difficult to ultimately ensure equality of opportunity for following generation.
The key concepts here are thus the distinction of within-group and between-group inequalities, their overlapping characteristics, as well as policies enabling an equality of opportunity or of outcome.
Income inequality is still the primary lens of inequality that many approaches target, as well as the main focus point of many inequality measurements such as the Gini coefficient or ratios such as the Palma ratio [@DFI2023].
Following the ILO, "labour income is the main source of income for most households in the world [thus] unequal access to work and working poverty are major drivers of inequalities" [@ILO2021].
Income inequality, here, can be affected by a wide set of factors: status in employment, forms of work, the sector of activity, the respective occupation, type of enterprise, type of contract for those in waged work, and the status of formality among others [@ILO2019].
Income inequality should also not be seen as separate from, nor standing above, other inequalities, but closely linked to other inequalities.
As the ILO states, "income inequality, inequality of employment outcomes more generally and inequality of opportunities are intimately related" [@ILO2022b].
At the same time the exact linkages of these factors remain under-analysed, which is the reason why the channels of inequalities and the policies to reduce them will pose a fruitful space of analysis for this research.
While income inequality holds a primary position of importance for many analyses from a perspective of quantity, it should not be understood as carrying more importance qualitatively for itself compared to other inequalities but rather be understood "like a prism, which reveals many other forms of inequality, including those generated in the world of work" [@ILO2021a, p. 13].
It is the primary measure of vertical inequality, however, with other inequalities describing primarily the concept of horizontal inequality.
Here, of primary focus for the ILO, and many studies on inequality in the world of work, is gender inequality.
It describes the inequalities that arise because of an individual’s gender.
Generally, while the type and extend of other inequalities does vary substantially by global location and country, "gender inequalities, despite some progress over the past decades, remain persistent and pervasive" [@ILO2021].
Following a report on the gendered make-up of work globally, women are making up a larger part of those in underemployment, they primarily make up the service sector – a rising trend – while suffering a persistently substantial wage gap, tend to work shorter hours in employment but in turn have longer working days when including unpaid work, as well as contributing disproportionally to family work [@ILO2016].
The domestic area of work is also dominated by women, who make up 76.2 per cent of it, in addition to domestic work being overwhelmingly informal labour globally [@ILO2023a].
These inequalities in the world of work in turn also reflect in women being hindered in accessing adequate education, training, as well as the possibility for lifelong learning, and furthermore access to quality jobs, housing, mobility, capital, land, and adequate social protection – disparities which, on the basis of deeply rooted inequalities of gender roles, education and places of residence remain largely static if not on the rise.
These channels and outcomes, viewed intersectionally, must thus represent the primary lens through which to disentangle the gender inequality in the world of work today.
There are additional socio-demographic inequalities beyond gender which are based on the innate, most often visible, identification of a person.
These are made up of, though not limited to, ethnic and racial inequalities, those based on religion and beliefs, based on a person’s status as a migrant, a person’s age, sex, or disabilities [@ILO2021a].
For example, young people generally fare significantly worse in labour markets shown through outcomes such as a higher incidence of temporary employment throughout youth and the young labour force [@ILO2023b; @ILO2019].
As a report on the global conditions of work established, over "7% of workers felt they had been discriminated against in the 12 months prior to the survey on grounds of sex, race, religion, age, nationality, disability or sexual orientation" [@ILO2019] in the EU alone, making socio-demographic inequalities a prevalent and important to tackle angle of horizontal inequality.
Here, it will be especially important to correctly disentangle individual sources or contributing characteristics from each other in finding their linkages to relevant outcomes.
Another form of inequality are spatial inequalities, those that arise because of an individual’s location relative to other.
These inequalities exist primarily between different regions of a country: those between urbanity and rurality or more peripheral areas, but also between richer and poorer regions and, as the ILO established, can even lead to a ‘growing sense of fractured societies’ [@ILO2021].
One of the channels this can manifest itself is through an unequal access to decent work opportunities or economic opportunities more generally, an unequal access to financial resources, quality public services or even overall access to an essential social service infrastructure and digital infrastructure, as well as quality access to education or relevant training.
For spatial inequalities it will be especially important to take note of locally bound differences versus more generalizable results, with the dimensions and contributing factors to its outcomes potentially varying widely between different geographies and national contexts.
In mentioning unequal access to quality education or public infrastructure another important dimension of inequalities becomes highlighted: the dimension of pre-existing inequalities, that is, inequalities which exist prior to an individual’s interaction with the labour market and, though closely intertwined with socio-demographic inequalities, will prove useful to analytically differentiate between.
A differentiation which becomes especially important with a view on the inter-generational effects of inequality, highlighted in recognizing the difference between equality of opportunity and outcome.
The level of education, an individual’s poverty, productivity on the labour market and similar inequalities in opportunities are often the result of long-running pre-existing inequalities such as unequal access to health services, education, lacking property rights or clear ownership of assets, the lack of formal recognition as an individual, no access to formal banking [@ILO2021a].
Understanding such channels becomes difficult if not taking pre-existing inequalities into account as a separate category of inequality and long-term impacting channel.
Addressing these inequalities, in turn, is just as important to reducing inequalities within the labour market (as well as beyond) since they do play such a role for intergenerational social mobility and their impacts can be seen, once again, reflecting in the prism of subsequent income inequality.
For pre-existing inequalities, it will be especially important to understand the often delayed and more opaque nature of the roots of many outcomes, with channel being more difficult to identify and clearly label – especially in an intersectional context.
## Existing reviews
These five dimensions of inequalities – income inequality, gender inequality, socio-demographic inequality, spatial inequality and pre-existing inequalities – will thus provide the categorical anchors along which the reviewed studies will be analysed for their policy effects, each with a slightly different focus in linkages between inequality, policy and outcome.
@ -193,11 +126,11 @@ This in turn can, in combination with food-based coping strategies such as food
<!-- gender -->
@Chang2021 use a qualitative systematic review to look at the linkages of breast-feeding and returning to paid employment for women and identify multiple barriers provided through inequalities discouraging continued breast-feeding after return to employment --- an experience often experienced as physically and emotionally difficult and potentially providing a barrier to full labour force participation.
Aside from individual motivation and support from employers, colleagues, and family members, women highlighted the importance of having workplace legilsation in place to facilitate breast-feeding during employment, as well as access to convenient child care.
Aside from individual motivation and support from employers, colleagues, and family members, women highlighted the importance of having workplace legislation in place to facilitate breast-feeding during employment, as well as access to convenient child care.
The review concludes indicating remaining gender and employment inequalities in accessing and receiving the support needed: gender role expectations viewing women as responsible for domestic work or childcare, with shorter maternity leave further discouraging breast-feeding especially of women not in managerial roles.
<!-- disability -->
Undertaking a systematic review to find the effects of brain tumors in individuals on their labour market outcomes, @Silvaggi2020 find an impact of neuropsychological functioning on work productivity, issues for their process of returning to work, and often an exit from employment (job loss) for long-term survivors of brain tumors.
Undertaking a systematic review to find the effects of brain tumours in individuals on their labour market outcomes, @Silvaggi2020 find an impact of neuropsychological functioning on work productivity, issues for their process of returning to work, and often an exit from employment (job loss) for long-term survivors of brain tumours
While the channels are primarily viewed as stemming from the high short-term mortality and depressive symptoms or cognitive deficits, environmental barriers are identified as one channel as well, with the review ending in the policy recommendation of increased vocational rehabilitation for affected persons.
<!-- basic income -->
@ -251,6 +184,75 @@ In a systematic review looking at the effectiveness of workplace accommodations
They do find moderate evidence that employment in disability can be increased through workplace accommodations such as vocational counselling or guidance, education, self-advocacy, positive perception and help by others.
There is also low evidence for return to work being increased by education, work aids and techniques and cooperation between employers and other professionals (such as occupational health care, or service providers).
## The world of work
These policy areas and their respective focus perspectives are based in the conceptual understanding of the world of work, following the definition of work being "any activity performed by persons of any sex and age to produce goods or to provide services for use by others or for own use" [@ILO2013, p.2].
This is the broader understanding of work which specifically separates itself from the more narrow conception of those in employment who are "of working age [and] who, during a reference period, were engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit" [@ILO2013].
The key concepts for this differentiation are founded on an understanding of the production of goods or provision of services, as well as the distinctions between use by others for ultimate own-use and that of working for pay and/or profit – that is, as part of a market transaction in exchange for remuneration or in the form of profits derived from the goods or services.
Whether these services or goods are produced in what is defined as the informal economy, the formal economy or under informal employment outside the informal sector is, for the general encapsulation of no importance – they occur in the world of work.
Here, conceptually, it should be captured under one of the five mutually exclusive forms of work understood as: own-use production work, performing "any activity to produce goods or provide services for own final use" [@ILO2013, p.5]; employment work comprising those performing work for others in exchange for pay or profit introduced above; unpaid trainee work, performing "any unpaid activity to produce goods or provide services […] to acquire workplace experience or skills" [@ILO2013, p.7]; and volunteer work, that being "any unpaid, non-compulsory activity to produce goods or provide services for others" [@ILO2013, p.8].
Any activity falling under work as defined above on the one hand, but not under any of these forms of work on the other, is instead designated as other work activities in the following considerations. The key concepts between these categories come down to a varying intensity of participation, the distinction of working for pay and/or profit mentioned above, whether it is for ultimate own-use or the use by others, and its compulsory nature.
## Inequalities in the world of work
Inequalities in the world of work have to be fundamentally conceptualized along two axes: On the one hand, vertical inequality captures the "income inequality between all households in a country" [@ILO2021].
Measurements of vertical inequalities is a perspective which focuses primarily on incomes as data, with debate of top income percentiles versus the remaining body of people often posing the primary area of debate [@ILO2021a].
Horizontal inequalities, on the other hand, occur when "some groups within the population find themselves disadvantaged and discriminated against on the basis of their visible identity, for example their gender, colour or beliefs, among others" [@ILO2021a].
Importantly, these inequalities do not act in a vacuum but create an interplay through overlaps and accumulations which take on their own driving dynamics for people belonging to multiple disadvantaged groups, captured in the idea of inequality’s intersectionality [@ILO2022b].
Here, especially horizontal inequalities may be hard to disentangle for impact finding, an important aspect of effective rigorous analysis in quantitative studies.
Thus, for a study on inequalities, or in turn a study on policies aimed at reducing inequalities in the world of work to be one of rigorous analysis, it must clearly define the type of policy taken as its object of analysis (its independent variable) as well as the types of inequalities targeted for reduction through the respective policy and measured as channels of impact.
Ultimately, then, the individual outcome measures need to be clearly specified and disentangled, most clearly reflecting in labour market outcome measures (dependent variables).
Only then can the targeted inequality be delineated as a clear channel.
In targeting an increase in equality, there are then two approaches to take: either levelling the playing field so that characteristics beyond an individual’s control can not influence their future perspectives, nor limit the potential of the powers they possess, through achieving equality of opportunity; or strive for an equality of outcomes, in factual observed resulting (in-)equalities.
As the ILO established, such a focus on equality of outcomes can be of great importance since "high levels of inequality today tend to reduce social mobility tomorrow" [@ILO2021a], making it that much more difficult to ultimately ensure equality of opportunity for following generation.
The key concepts here are thus the distinction of within-group and between-group inequalities, their overlapping characteristics, as well as policies enabling an equality of opportunity or of outcome.
Income inequality is still the primary lens of inequality that many approaches target, as well as the main focus point of many inequality measurements such as the Gini coefficient or ratios such as the Palma ratio [@DFI2023].
Following the ILO, "labour income is the main source of income for most households in the world [thus] unequal access to work and working poverty are major drivers of inequalities" [@ILO2021].
Income inequality, here, can be affected by a wide set of factors: status in employment, forms of work, the sector of activity, the respective occupation, type of enterprise, type of contract for those in waged work, and the status of formality among others [@ILO2019].
Income inequality should also not be seen as separate from, nor standing above, other inequalities, but closely linked to other inequalities.
As the ILO states, "income inequality, inequality of employment outcomes more generally and inequality of opportunities are intimately related" [@ILO2022b].
At the same time the exact linkages of these factors remain under-analysed, which is the reason why the channels of inequalities and the policies to reduce them will pose a fruitful space of analysis for this research.
While income inequality holds a primary position of importance for many analyses from a perspective of quantity, it should not be understood as carrying more importance qualitatively for itself compared to other inequalities but rather be understood "like a prism, which reveals many other forms of inequality, including those generated in the world of work" [@ILO2021a, p. 13].
It is the primary measure of vertical inequality, however, with other inequalities describing primarily the concept of horizontal inequality.
Here, of primary focus for the ILO, and many studies on inequality in the world of work, is gender inequality.
It describes the inequalities that arise because of an individual’s gender.
Generally, while the type and extend of other inequalities does vary substantially by global location and country, "gender inequalities, despite some progress over the past decades, remain persistent and pervasive" [@ILO2021].
Following a report on the gendered make-up of work globally, women are making up a larger part of those in underemployment, they primarily make up the service sector – a rising trend – while suffering a persistently substantial wage gap, tend to work shorter hours in employment but in turn have longer working days when including unpaid work, as well as contributing disproportionally to family work [@ILO2016].
The domestic area of work is also dominated by women, who make up 76.2 per cent of it, in addition to domestic work being overwhelmingly informal labour globally [@ILO2023a].
These inequalities in the world of work in turn also reflect in women being hindered in accessing adequate education, training, as well as the possibility for lifelong learning, and furthermore access to quality jobs, housing, mobility, capital, land, and adequate social protection – disparities which, on the basis of deeply rooted inequalities of gender roles, education and places of residence remain largely static if not on the rise.
These channels and outcomes, viewed intersectionally, must thus represent the primary lens through which to disentangle the gender inequality in the world of work today.
There are additional socio-demographic inequalities beyond gender which are based on the innate, most often visible, identification of a person.
These are made up of, though not limited to, ethnic and racial inequalities, those based on religion and beliefs, based on a person’s status as a migrant, a person’s age, sex, or disabilities [@ILO2021a].
For example, young people generally fare significantly worse in labour markets shown through outcomes such as a higher incidence of temporary employment throughout youth and the young labour force [@ILO2023b; @ILO2019].
As a report on the global conditions of work established, over "7% of workers felt they had been discriminated against in the 12 months prior to the survey on grounds of sex, race, religion, age, nationality, disability or sexual orientation" [@ILO2019] in the EU alone, making socio-demographic inequalities a prevalent and important to tackle angle of horizontal inequality.
Here, it will be especially important to correctly disentangle individual sources or contributing characteristics from each other in finding their linkages to relevant outcomes.
Another form of inequality are spatial inequalities, those that arise because of an individual’s location relative to other.
These inequalities exist primarily between different regions of a country: those between urbanity and rurality or more peripheral areas, but also between richer and poorer regions and, as the ILO established, can even lead to a ‘growing sense of fractured societies’ [@ILO2021].
One of the channels this can manifest itself is through an unequal access to decent work opportunities or economic opportunities more generally, an unequal access to financial resources, quality public services or even overall access to an essential social service infrastructure and digital infrastructure, as well as quality access to education or relevant training.
For spatial inequalities it will be especially important to take note of locally bound differences versus more generalizable results, with the dimensions and contributing factors to its outcomes potentially varying widely between different geographies and national contexts.
In mentioning unequal access to quality education or public infrastructure another important dimension of inequalities becomes highlighted: the dimension of pre-existing inequalities, that is, inequalities which exist prior to an individual’s interaction with the labour market and, though closely intertwined with socio-demographic inequalities, will prove useful to analytically differentiate between.
A differentiation which becomes especially important with a view on the inter-generational effects of inequality, highlighted in recognizing the difference between equality of opportunity and outcome.
The level of education, an individual’s poverty, productivity on the labour market and similar inequalities in opportunities are often the result of long-running pre-existing inequalities such as unequal access to health services, education, lacking property rights or clear ownership of assets, the lack of formal recognition as an individual, no access to formal banking [@ILO2021a].
Understanding such channels becomes difficult if not taking pre-existing inequalities into account as a separate category of inequality and long-term impacting channel.
Addressing these inequalities, in turn, is just as important to reducing inequalities within the labour market (as well as beyond) since they do play such a role for intergenerational social mobility and their impacts can be seen, once again, reflecting in the prism of subsequent income inequality.
For pre-existing inequalities, it will be especially important to understand the often delayed and more opaque nature of the roots of many outcomes, with channel being more difficult to identify and clearly label – especially in an intersectional context.
# Scoping Review methodology
This section will discuss the systematic scoping review methodology that is proposed to conduct the review of the literature on policy interventions that are expected to address inequalities in forms of work and labour market outcomes.