A Bermuda triangle of policy? ‘Bad jobs’, skills policy and incentives to learn at the bottom end of the labour market
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11487557 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ewart Keep (0000-0001-5687-7993, Cardiff University), Jame (0000-0002-1224-3830), Susan James (0000-0002-2902-0860, University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 211-230 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Education Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0268-0939 • E-ISSN: 1464-5106 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02680939.2011.595510 |
| OpenAlex | W1981203990 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 34 |
A focus of Government policy has been the need to ensure that those at the lower end of the labour market invest in their human capital through re-engaging with learning, which has been assumed to enable progress into better-paid employment. This article explores the problems created by ‘bad jobs’ and the evidence for the existence of a set of mutually reinforcing factors that reduces the incentives acting on individuals in such work, and in many cases their employers, to participate and invest in education and training. Each of these factors, on their own, would be sufficient to cause problems at the lower end of the labour market. Acting in concert, as a mutually reinforcing matrix, they produce powerful reasons why many individuals perceive that the incentives to engage in work-related learning are weak. More broadly, our argument suggests that the fundamental causes of low pay and low-quality employment have been misdiagnosed and the subsequent public policy solution of up-skilling interventions is relatively ill-fitted to achieving the desired policy goals. Imaginative re-thinking on how policy might help those in low-wage, dead-end jobs is necessary
Argument (complex analysis · Business · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Human capital · Incentive · Labour economics · Market economy · Public economics · Public policy · Quality (philosophy · Set (abstract data type · Wage · Work (physics · Higher Education and Employability · Innovative Education and Learning Practices · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics
Work satisfaction of adult educators in Singapore
Autonomy and expertise in the English workplace
The punctuation of mundane jobs with extreme work
‘I wanna die a slow death when I’m busy with that annual training report….’
Post-Fordist Illusions
Work-based learning
Shades of grey
Addressing in/equalities
Young people in the middle
Skills in the green economy
Aligning skills and lifelong learning for human-centred sustainable development
Graduates’ perspectives on effective continuing education and training
Lifelong learning, income inequality and social mobility in Singapore
Creative Contexts
The odyssey
Challenging the skills fetish
Graduates' employment and the discourse of employability
Health inequalities among British civil servants
Cities and the Creative Class
Hard Work
Education, Globalization and the Nation State
Young lives, diverse choices and imagined futures in an education and training market
Reflections on the curious absence of employers, labour market incentives and labour market regulation in English 14–19 policy
Education, meritocracy and the global war for talent
The significance of individual biography in workplace learning
Expanding innovation system and policy – an organisational perspective
Understanding Participation in Learning for Non-traditional Adult Learners
Learning Careers
Employability in a Knowledge-driven Economy
Employing discourse
Intergenerational class mobility in contemporary Britain
The Restructuring of Career Paths in Large Service Sector Organizations
Moving beyond skills as a social and economic panacea
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,23 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2025 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |