Are their any priorities within the decent work agenda?If data on links between indicators of decent work across national income are any guide to the significance of dimensions of decent work, then it would appear that in low income countries employment and security are connected in predictable ways, while expected links involving dimensions of rights and representation are weaker. In middle income countries all four dimensions are likely to be more generally connected. This is also consistent with the more generalised empirical observation in the literature that in the development process social dimensions improve in a certain sequence: with conditions of life directly affecting individuals improving first (and fast) and structural or social organisational components changing more slowly and unevenly. In our context employment and security dimensions arguably fall more in the first classification of conditions of life affecting individuals, and rights and representation fall more readily in the second classification of structural or social organisational components. One implication of these results is that emphasising social organisational dimensions (rights and representation) more than individual life affecting dimensions (employment and security) in low income countries may lead to a policy imbalance. |
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in Employment Paper 2001/19
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