High non-standard employment rates in the Republic of Korea and Japan: Analyzing policy configurations with fuzzy-set/QCA

Abstract

The paper investigates policy conditions for high rates of non-standard employment in Korea and Japan exploiting fs/QCA (fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis). We first review the previous literature on labor market risks and discuss the advantages of taking a configurational approach in investigating policies related to increase of non-standard workers. Secondly, non-standard employment in Korea and Japan are examined more closely in comparison with other OECD countries. In case of Korea, a low level of statutory minimum wage in combination with strict employment protection legislation for permanent workers is suggested as the sufficient condition for high rate of non-standard employment rate. In case of Japan, a low level of statutory minimum wage in combination with weak employment protection legislations for temporary workers is suggested to lead to a high level of non-standard employment rate. We empirically test which policy configurations cause high rate of non-standard employment and discuss (i) the importance of examining multiple policies together and (ii) that there can be different pathways to the same outcome.

Discounted labour? Disaggregating care work in comparative perspective

“…Japan's proportion of non-permanent high-status care workers is five times higher than Canada's (the only two countries where data are available). Japan's high rates of non-standard employment and weak protective legislation for temporary workers help explain its relatively lower mean wages in high-status care work as compared to the other countries examined (Lee, 2013). Overall, table 2 thus shows that high-status care workers are primarily in the public/non-profit sector, with minimal proportions of part-time or self-employed workers, thereby fitting the "standard employment" model (see Vosko, Zukewich and Cranford, 2003).…”

“…All results are presented using the appropriate rescaled sample weightings. 4 This finding may be due, in part, to the smaller sample size for Japan, but also to the high levels of non-standard employment in the Japanese labour market(Lee, 2013).…”

¿Trabajo no productivo? Desglose del sector del cuidado desde una perspectiva comparada

“…Las altas tasas de empleo atípico que presenta el Japón, unido a la escasa protección que brin-Cuadro 2. Trabajo del cuidado de categoría superior: profesionales de los sectores de la salud y la educación (en porcentajes) da la legislación japonesa a los trabajadores temporales, permiten explicar los salarios relativamente bajos en esta categoría superior del cuidado en comparación con los demás países examinados (Lee, 2013). En conjunto, el cuadro 2 muestra que estos trabajadores desempeñan ocupaciones principalmente en el sector público/sin fines de lucro, con bajos porcentajes de empleo a tiempo parcial o por cuenta propia, por lo que se ajustan al modelo de «empleo estándar» (véase Vosko, Zukewich y Cranford, 2003).…”

QCA is of questionable value for policy research

“…Substantive focus Type of QCA Befani and Sager (2010) Environmental impact assessments csQCA Balthasar (2006) Evaluation use mvQCA Lee (2013) Employment policy fsQCA Pennings (2005) Welfare expenditures fsQCA Warren et al (2013) Health policy csQCA questions, (iii) systematic project management by the relevant public agency, (iv) early integration of all stake-holders, (v) socio-political sensitivity to environmental concerns, and (vi) the size of the project. The authors find that the 15 cases can be completely accounted for by the 12 distinct causal paths listed below.…”

“…Lee (2013) employs this algorithm to compare employment policy in 18 OECD countries, particularly focusing on South Korea and Japan. She explores what combination of policies cause a high rate of non-standard -temporary or otherwise unreliable -employment.…”