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false | true | true | false | en | Scoping review on 'what works' | Addressing inequalities in the World of Work |
Introduction
This section will introduce the reader to the concern of inequality in the World of Work (WoW), and present a discussion on why policy interventions are needed to address these disparities.
Labour market policies: concepts, functions, typologies and actors
This section will present 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). In order to define the typology of policy areas, it will be critical to review previous ILO work, in particular de documents outlined by the ToR. Based on this typology, we will then develop a theory of change to depict policy objectives, components, inputs and functions of distinct types of interventions outlined in the typology. The section will also identify the theoretical mechanisms and channels through which policies are expected to impact inequalities in forms of work and labour market outcomes.
The ILO has a policy approach to reducing inequalities in the world of work segmented into five major focus areas: employment creation, access to education, labour rights protection, formalization, gender equality and diversity, and social protection. Each of these areas in turn rests on a variety of more specific emphases which further describe the potential implemented policy measures. An exemplary typology of general policy area, related specified policy focus and related focus if any can be found in @tbl-policy-areas.
| area of policy | focus | related |
|---|---|---|
| employment creation | pro-employment framework | |
| gender-transformative framework | ||
| promotion of business sustainability | productivity increases | |
| reduction in productivity gaps | ||
| promotion of digital infrastructure | technology for decent work | |
| reducing digital divide | ||
| access to education | quality of education/training/skills development | green transition |
| relevance of education/training/skills development | digital transition | |
| gender-transformative career guidance | ||
| improvements of public services/social protection | ||
| work-life balance | juggle paid work and family care | |
| targeted support for disadvantaged groups | targeted education | |
| labour rights protection | promotion of rights for all workers | collective bargaining systems |
| minimum wage | ||
| inclusive labour market institutions | ||
| equal pay for work of equal value | ||
| wage transparency | ||
| formalization | equality-driven approach to formalization | gender-responsive |
| increase decent work in formal economy | country-tailored | |
| absorb informal workers / economic units | comprehensive | |
| non-discriminatory | ||
| gender equality | removal of discriminatory practice | removal of stereotypes |
| diversity | promotion of equality of treatment | removal of discriminatory law |
| promotion of equality of opportunity | ||
| data collection improvements | gender-focus | |
| occupational gender segregation | age-focus | |
| unequal pay for work of equal value | disability-focus | |
| gender-based violence | race-focus | |
| gender-based harassment | ethnicity-focus | |
| gender unequal division of unpaid care work | migrant status-focus | |
| social protection | extend reach of social protection schemes | |
| reach those not adequately protected | ||
| ensure access to social protection | comprehensive social protection | |
| adequate social protection | ||
| sustainable social protection |
: ILO focus areas for inequality reduction {#tbl-policy-areas}
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. Unlike systematic reviews, which typically focus on specific policy questions and interventions, systematic scoping reviews focus on a wider spectrum of policies, where different study designs and research questions can be investigated. Since scoping reviews allow both broad and in-depth analyses, they are the most appropriate rigorous method to make a synthesis of the current evidence in this area.
The search protocol will be carried out based on the typology of policies as well as the possible combination of definitions and outcomes in the WoW. 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.
The search protocol then follows a three-staged process of execution: identification, screening and extraction. First, in identification, the above categorizations are combined through Boolean operators to conduct a search through the database repository Web of Science.
The search istelf is conducted with English-language search queries only.
Relevant results are then complemented through the adoption of a 'snowballing' technique, which analyzes an array of published reviews for their reference lists to find cross-references of potentially missing literature.
The execution of queries results in an initial sample of 2169 studies after the identification process. The majority of studies result from the 'income' inequality cluster of the boolean search, with horizontal cluster terms used often but rarely on their own.
Second, in screening, duplicate results are removed and the resulting literature sample is sorted based on a variety of excluding characteristics based on: language, title, abstract, full text and literature supersession through newer publications. Properties in these characteristics are used to assess an individual study on its suitability for further review.
Narrowing criteria are applied to restrict the sample to studies looking at i) the effects of individual evidence-based policy measures or intervention initiatives ii) attempting to address a single or multiple of the defined inequalities in the world of work. iii) using appropriate quantitative methods to examine the links of intervention and impact on the given inequalities.
To facilitate this screening process, a system of keywords is used to tag individual studies in the sample with their reason for exclusion, such as 'excluded::language', 'excluded::title', 'excluded::abstract', 'excluded::superseded'. This keyword-based system is equally used to further categorize the sample studies not falling into an exclusion criteria, based on primary country of analysis, world region, as well as income level classification. To that end, a 'country::', 'region::' and 'income::' are used to disambiguate between the respective characteristics, such as 'region::LAC' for Latin America and the Caribbean, 'region::SSA' for Sub-Saharan Afraca; as well as for example 'income::low-middle', 'income::upper-middle' or 'income::high'. These two delineations follow the ILO categorizations on world regions and the country income classifications based on World Bank income groupings [@ilo22countrygroupings].
Similarly, if a specific type of inequality, or a specific intervention, represents the focus of a study, these will be reflected in the same keyword system, through for example 'inequality::income' or 'inequality::gender'. The complete process of identification and screening is undertaken with the help of the Zotero reference manager, ultimately leaving only publications which are relevant for final full-text review and analysis.
Last, for extraction, studies are screened for their full-texts, irrelevant studies excluded with 'excluded:full-text' as explained above and relevant studies then ingested into the final sample pool. All relevant information concerning both their major findings and statistical significance are then extracted from the individual studies into a collective results matrix.
The results to be identified in the matrix include a study's: i) key outcome measures (dependent variables), ii) main findings, iii) main policy recommendations, iv) study design and sample size, v) dataset and methods of evaluation, vi) direction of relation and level of representativeness, vii) level of statistical significance, viii) main limitations.
Synthesis of Evidence
This section will present a synthesis of evidence from the scoping review. The evidence will be presented by type of policies and world regions. The section will also present a discussion on the implications of the current evidence base for policy and underscore key knowledge gaps.
Conclusion
The section with conclude with reflections on the implications of findings for policy.
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