The living wage as an income range for decent work and life

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. School of Psychology, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand Abstract Purpose -A "living" wage (LW) is conventionally defined as enabling meaningful participation in society above subsistence through, for example, recreation, supporting a family, and savings. There is increasing debate over LWs due to growing inequality, rising living costs and welfare reform but this remains largely framed by the econometric cost-benefit parameters that apply to minimum wage regulation. The capabilities approach advocated by Sen (1999) offers a different perspective that is inclusive of choice, contingencies and the inter-connections between quality of (paid) work and private life. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach -The paper adopts this framework and utilises a qualitative exploration of the narratives of 606 New Zealand employees to understand perceived wage effectiveness. The results suggest that a focus on a specific LW rate might be conceptually limiting, in comparison to a LW range. Findings -First, the findings indicate that there is a pivot range in which people move from self-assessed "survival" to "decent" income. Second, a LW may have more than a simply monetary effect in better meeting employees' living costs; it can also improve well-being through subjective perceptions of valued freedoms to do with job satisfaction, equity and security. Originality/value -The results thus draw attention to a wider notion of a LW in terms of personal and family well-being, utilising a capabilities approach, with implications for organisational practice, policy and theory concerning sustainable livelihood and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

International Perspectives on Living Wages for Sustainable Livelihoods: Project Glow (Global Living Organisational Wage)

“…In conclusion, our initial findings in South Africa (and New Zealand) are consistent with poverty theory which states that employees earning below a certain threshold are trapped in poverty (Carr et al 2016). Moreover, there was a threshold range (Yao et al 2017). Below this range, workers feel trapped in working poverty, while above it there was a transformation not only in quality of work life but also in job attitudes and other human factors linked to productivity.…”

“…The research team in Thailand joined Project GLOW in 2017 and sought to explore the meaning of living wage in Thailand. Researchers have been exploring the meaning and application of living wage in diverse contexts; for this research the definition given by Yao et al (2017) set the direction as it explained it as a wage level that is perceived by employees as a "step change" for enhancement in work-related and overall wellbeing. Rooting the research in the context of local culture, the research team investigated if the living wage could be examined from the lens of applying the SEP, which was developed by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 1997.…”

Living wages, decent work, and need satisfaction: an integrated perspective

“…As a consequence, attention has been directed from minimum pay to "decent" or living wages, which focus on enabling quality of life and work life rather than merely securing economic subsistence (Carr et al, 2016). While a number of studies have shown beneficial effects of such living wages on workers' capabilities (Sen, 1999), little is known about how increased income translates into capability development (Carr et al, 2018;Parker et al, 2016;Yao et al, 2017).…”

An Employee’s Living Wage and Their Quality of Work Life: How Important Are Household Size and Household Income?

“…An intellectual context for this paper is the continuing debate between advocates of growth through everyday wages that are lower, versus higher [9]. Much of the available evidence remains inconclusive to either side, partly perhaps because it tends to rely on single data points (i.e., a specific living wage figure), rather than a variable (multiple wage values along a wage spectrum): As we have argued elsewhere, in theory the living wage is an empirically determinable point of inflexion, or pivot from along a wage and income continuum, where wage covers not only the material cost of living, such as food and shelter, but also one's quality of living, including quality of work life [10,11]. Setting "a" living wage is thereby important towards creating the possibility of escaping from working poverty traps, and for cultivating climates of work justice and work-life balance [12,13].…”