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This article focuses on strategies adopted by British trade unions to promote education to their members and their impact on attempts to organize among migrant workers. The relationship between this activity and broader debates around union revitalization is analysed, particularly in terms of how union involvement in learning intersects with broader organizing and community focused union activity. A diverse range of approaches to education provision for migrant workers can be identified from this research. The influence of internal union politics on attempts to organize migrant workers, work in conjunction with state policy and improve access to education among their members is also analysed. The study highlights a diverse range of outcomes, raising important issues regarding union organizing strategies and their relationship to union provision of education for their memberships.

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The concept of global value chains (GVCs) has been developed to explore the changing nature of the insertion of economies in global production and distribution processes. This literature contributes to the understanding of how globalisation can lead to the upgrading of capabilities of firms and countries as a result of knowledge flows within global networks but does not provide insights into processes of skill formation that to a large degree determine how firms and countries are inserted into the global economy. The authors argue that perspectives on national social institutional systems need to be incorporated into the analysis of GVCs so that their implications for upgrading and skills development in different economies and nodes of the value chain can be understood, making connections across these discrete areas of debate and analysis, across disciplinary boundaries, and with research conducted in different parts of the world.

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There is a widely held assumption that product market strategies, skill and pay are linked. Supportive evidence is typically drawn from manufacturing and using quantitative analyses. Emergent research of the link in services is ambivalent and has methodological limitations. This article addresses this weakness. It compares the skills and pay of room attendants in upper and mid-market hotels using qualitative research. It finds that the link is weak, even decoupled. The findings suggest a reconceptualization is needed of the link in services and that interventions other than product market re-positioning are needed to deliver higher skills and better pay.

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This article investigates whether the increase in the labour force participation of mothers in western Germany has been accompanied by growing social inequalities in maternal employment. The focus is on education-related differences in full-time, part-time and marginal employment, and, in particular, changes therein over time. It is assumed that worsening labour market opportunities for the less educated and a 'familialistic' social policy context have resulted in growing differentials in mothers' employment by education. Data from the scientific use files of the German micro-censuses for the years 1976 to 2004 show that the part-time and marginal employment rates of mothers have increased, while full-time employment rates have declined. Reductions in full-time employment are most pronounced among less educated mothers, resulting in growing educational differences in the employment of mothers.

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Older employees' wages and earnings declined over the period 1991-2006, when compared with younger employees. The overall fall in relative wages was about 18 per cent, and for relative earnings 21 per cent. The article argues that this change was predictable in view of the pressures of 'globalization' resulting in increased competition, and intensified technological and organizational change, for many employers from the 1990s onward. The relative fall in older female and male employees' pay had set in by the mid-1990s and it proceeded over the whole period to 2006.

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This article uses data from various waves of the British Household Panel Survey (1993-2003) to examine the associations of housework hours with relative income and gender-role attitudes. In particular, it tests the hypothesis that the effect of relative income on housework time will be diminished due to one’s gendered expectations. Findings show both men’s and women’s housework hours are significantly decreased with increases in their amount of income relative to their partners’.Traditionalism in gender-role attitudes is associated with longer housework hours in the case of women and shorter hours in the case of men.Women holding traditional attitudes spend longer hours on housework than other women with the same level of economic independency. Apart from this, there is no conclusive evidence to support the claim that highly economic independent women and highly economic dependent men tend to resort to a gender-traditional form of domestic division of labour.

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Given that 60 per cent of the global workforce is in the informal sector, this article develops a typology that classifies economies according to, firstly, where different countries sit on a continuum of informalization and, secondly, the character of their informal sectors. This is then applied to the economies of the 27 member states of European Union (EU-27). Finding a clear divide from east to west and south to north in the EU-27, with the more informalized and wage-based informal economies on the eastern/southern side and the less informalized and more own-account informal economies on the western/Nordic side, it is then revealed that formalization and more own-account informal sectors are significantly correlated with wealthier and more equal (as measured by the gini-coefficient) countries in which there is greater labour market intervention, higher levels of social protection and more effective redistribution via social transfers. The article concludes by discussing the implications for theory and practice.

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The gender imbalance in senior medical positions is often attributed to an alleged lack of motivation on the part of female doctors, especially those with young children. Some researchers argue that an unsupportive work-home culture in the medical workplace also plays a role. This study investigates whether having children (and the age of the youngest child) affects female doctors’ career motivation and whether this relationship is mediated by views on motherhood and the supportiveness of the work-home culture. Cross-sectional data collected on 1070 Dutch female doctors in 2008 indicates that neither having children nor the age of the youngest child significantly affects the career motivation of female doctors. However, views on motherhood and a supportive work-home culture do affect female doctors’ career motivation. Governmental and organizational policies aimed at maternal employment and improving the work-life balance are discussed in terms of their effectiveness in supporting highly educated working women.

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With the rise in women's part-time work in many Western industrialised countries, a better understanding of women's employment decisions necessitates the distinction between different employment levels and varying structural opportunities that facilitate or hinder female employment. This article analyses for Switzerland how structural factors affect women's decisions to work marginal part-time, substantial part-time, full-time or to stay out of the labour force. The analyses are based on the Swiss Labour Force Survey. The logistic regression findings show that labour market and firm-related opportunity structures affect the three types of employment levels differently. They also play a much larger role in the probability of working marginal part-time than in that of working substantial part-time or full-time.

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This article assesses the extent to which employers displaying the Positive About Disabled People ‘Two Ticks’ symbol adhere to the five commitments they are expected to uphold and whether adherence to these commitments is greater in Two Ticks than non-Two Ticks workplaces. It also assesses levels of employer support for and dialogue with Disability Champions in Two Ticks workplaces. These issues are explored in the public and private sectors separately. The analysis finds only limited adherence to the five commitments in Two Ticks workplaces, no consistent evidence that adherence is higher in Two Ticks than non-Two Ticks workplaces and limited evidence of support for and dialogue with Disability Champions in Two Ticks workplaces. It also finds little evidence of variation between public and private sector workplaces.

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