The abstract of the project:
The aim of this project is to analyse to what extent the organizational (firm-level) and regional labour market context influence the likelihood of escaping low-wage employment and finding better-paid jobs. Specifically, we focus on the skill content of the organisations’ workforce, its sociodemographic diversity as well as youth embeddedness in the organisations’ social networks. We also examine the moderating role of the economic conditions on the regional labour markets.
The evidence on the role of the organizational and regional context for chances of making a transition out of low-wage jobs is scarce, in spite of its policy relevance in lieu of increasing diversity of European population and growing polarization of labour markets. This project will provide new, original evidence on the role of organizational and regional mechanisms that facilitate transition from low-wage jobs to better-paid jobs among youth. To this end, we will use register data available at the Umeå SIMSAM Lab, which (1) provide reliable longitudinal data on individual wages, (2) match employee-employer records and hence provide information on the characteristics of the organisations employing young low-wage workers and (3) combine individual data on wage dynamics with the socio-economic context of the region. The research group has well-documented expertise in research on youth labour market integration, income inequalities, regional dynamics and knowledge on cutting-edge statistical methods.
Members of the research team:
Anna Baranowska-Rataj (PI)
Daniel Larsson
Rikard Eriksson
Xavier de Luna