Employmentweb_low

EMploYMEnt, work, And hEAlth inEquAlitiEs - a global perspective
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Labour markets are historical social subsystems, hence they are dynamic.
Therefore, we want to emphasise that a "one size fits all" approach to
understanding and meliorating their health effects is bound to fail. Labour
markets reflect the history of uneven economic and political development
around the globe, and, most importantly, the pattern of colonisation and
post-colonial relations between wealthy and middle or low income
countries in the last centuries. This is why in this section we briefly
describe the social evolution of labour markets in wealthy and middle or
low income countries separately, emphasising their interdependency.
5.1. WEALTHY COUNTRIES
Although it is difficult to capture a period of rapid structural change with
a single sentence, it is widely held that the apogee of certain forms of
industrial production (Taylorism-Fordism), social provision (welfare
states), and public economic intervention (Keynesianism) moulded the
socio-economic order of the so called "Golden Age of welfare capitalism"
of the second half of the XX century. Within these shared patterns of
industrial production and state intervention, wealthy countries pursued
similar development goals through a variety of means.
As the literature on welfare state regimes and varieties of capitalism
has stressed, historical market-state interactions varied in every country,
creating a diversity of labour markets (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Hall &
Soskice, 2001). Such divergence among capitalist economies has been
explained by a variety of driving forces, such as: (1) the bargaining power
associated with social relations of production, (2) the way in which
industrialisation developed as the result of different areas of specialisation,
privileging some economic sectors over others, (3) the adoption of different
strategies for coordinating firms with other socio-economic actors in order
to prosper, and (4) the differences in the degree of citizens' dependency
upon market vs. state resources (Esping-Andersen, 1990).
The expression "Mid-Century Compromise" has been used to
describe the socio-economic order that took hold in Europe from the
implementation of the Marshall Plan after WWII (late '40s, early '50s) until
the oil crises of the '70s. With high aggregate demand and sustained
productivity growth, workers could benefit from relatively abundant and
stable jobs with acceptable wages and social benefits for a large portion
of the labour force, including low-skilled workers (Esping-Andersen &
Regini, 2001). In this context, employers sought to create a loyal and
attached labour force. The goal of the labour unions during this period
was to protect wages and jobs (Sengenberger, 1981). These overlapping
interests between the male labour force and the owners of capital
facilitated labour legislation, entrenching the prevalence of secure full-
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