Human Development and Decent Work: Why some Concepts Succeed and Others Fail to Make an Impact

Abstract

Artículo de publicación ISIThis article examines the impact of the International Labour Organization’s concept of Decent Work on development thinking and the academic literature. We attempt to answer the question of what makes a development initiative successful by comparing the decent work approach to the United Nation Development Programme’s Human Development concept (in conjunction with the human development indicator). We consider that the latter has been one of the most successful development concepts ever to have been launched, while the impact of decent work by comparison has been limited. Our hypothesis relating to the question of what makes a development initiative successful has three fundamental components: first, a solid theoretical foundation has to justify the launch of a development concept. A second vital factor is the availability of sufficient national and internationally comparable data that enables researchers and policy makers alike to apply the concept, preferably by means of a synthetic indicator. Third, the political will and institutional structure of the development institution that launches a concept is a key factor, particularly if data availability is limited as countries then have to be persuaded to generate new data

Conceiving, designing and trailing a short‐form measure of job quality: a proof‐of‐concept study

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Discussing the Notion of Decent Work: Senses of Working for a Group of Brazilian Workers without College Education

“…Burchell et al (2014) and Sehnbruch et al (2015) emphasize that the term “decent work” has not been used in the academic literature and that psychology has focused more on studying working as employment, often without including multiple coexisting forms of working. Thus incorporating the concept of decent work into the psychological literature constitutes a great opportunity to investigate, assess, and understand phenomenon like informality or the informal economy, which are characteristic of the Brazilian reality (Amin and Singh, 2002; Sato, 2013).…”

International labour standards and decent work: a critical analysis of Thailand's experiences, with suggestions for theory, policy, practice and research

“…The decent work concept is multifaceted, and therefore, difficult to measure. There is controversy over the measurement of the extent of decent work between countries (ILO 2008, Nizami andPrasad 2017;Sehnbruch et al 2015). Nonetheless, the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization recommends that member states may consider 'the establishment of appropriate indicators or statistics, if necessary with the assistance of the ILO, to monitor and evaluate progress of the decent work agenda' (ILO 2008).…”