Book

Regulating for Decent Work. New directions in labour market regulation

This book advances the academic and policy debates on post-crisis labour regulation by identifying new challenges, subjects and theoretical perspectives. It identifies central themes in the contemporary regulation of labour, including the role of empirical research in assessing and supporting labour market interventions, the regulation of precarious work and the emergence of new types of labour markets.

Regulating for Decent Work is an international and interdisciplinary response to the neoliberal ideologies that have shaped labour market regulation in recent decades. It draws on contributions by leading experts across a range of disciplines, including economics, law, political science and industrial relations. International in scope, it includes chapters on both advanced economies (Canada, Europe, United States) and the developing world (Brazil, China, Indonesia, Tanzania).
The volume identifies central themes in the contemporary regulation of labour, including the role of empirical research in assessing and supporting labour market interventions, the regulation of precarious work and the emergence of new types of labour markets. Each theme is explored through key contributions by leading experts. Chapters cover issues that include labour market uncertainty, the effectiveness of legal norms and methodologies for evaluating the intersection of various levels of regulation.
The book advances the academic and policy debates on post-crisis labour regulation by identifying new challenges, subjects and theoretical perspectives. In contrast to the dominant deregulatory approaches, it calls for labour market regulation to be reinvigorated.

Co-published with Palgrave Macmillan.

Advances in Labour Studies is a wide-ranging series of research titles from the International Labour Office, offering in-depth analysis of labour issues from a global perspective. The series has an interdisciplinary flavour that reflects the unique nature of labour studies, where economics, law, social policy and labour relations combine. Bringing together work from researchers from around the world, the series contributes new and challenging research and ideas that aim both to stimulate debate and inform policy.

Table of contents

Preface

1. New directions in labour regulation research

Sangheon Lee and Deirdre McCann

Part I: Theories and perspectives

2. The evidence-based case for labour regulation research

Simon Deakin

3. Precarious employment and the problem of SER-centrism in regulating for decent work

Leah F. Vosko

4. The growth of extended “entry tournaments” and the decline of institutionalized occupational labour markets in Britain

David Marsden

Part II: Recent country experiences

5. Laws or luck?: Understanding rising formality in Brazil in the 2000s

Janine Berg

6. Labour market regulations and the welfare of Indonesian workers

Iyanatul Islam

7. The enactment of three new labour laws in China: Unintended consequences and emergence of “new” actors in employment relations

Fang Lee Cooke

Part III: Old challenges, new techniques

8. Short time compensation as an employment stabilization policy

Robert M. LaJeunesse

9. Gender and the minimum wage

Jill Rubery and Damian Grimshaw

10. Decent work for domestic work: An achievable goal or wishful thinking?

Manuela Tomei

Part IV: Elements of effective regulation

11. The impact of labour regulations: measuring the effectiveness of legal norms in a developing country

Sangheon Lee and Deirdre McCann

12. Governing regulatory discretion: Innovation and accountability in two models of labour inspection work

Roberto Rocha C. Pires

13. A diagnostic methodology for regulating decent work

Diane F. Frey

Index