Call for papers

The 32nd Annual Conference of the International Working Party on Labour Market Segmentation (IWPLMS) will be held from 11th – 13th July 2011 in Bamberg (Germany). The topic of the conference is

"Education and Training, Skills and the Labour Market"

The expansion of upper secondary and tertiary education has substantial impacts on labour markets. An upper secondary certificate has increasingly become the minimum requirement for access to a good job. Since those without qualifications loose out in the competition with the better qualified for good jobs, the long-term costs of low education have increased. Indeed low educational attainment has been found not only to impede initial insertion into the labour market but also to provide an enduring barrier to good or stable employment. At the same time due to the massification of tertiary education, the labour market outcomes for graduates are becoming more diverse. The job structure has not been upgraded sufficiently to allow all graduates to secure a job appropriate to their qualification. Tendencies towards the under-utilisation of skills can be observed in many countries.

Further education and training can help employees to adjust their skills to new requirements because of structural or technological change or voluntary or involuntary job mobility. It may open up promotion opportunities or provide second chances for those who dropped out of education for varieties of reasons and at varieties of levels. Many studies have shown that participation in further education and training magnifies inequalities over the work life. Low skilled workers with low income in particular often lack resources to invest in education and training. Workers on temporary contracts often do not have access to training within companies.

To generate economic returns, education and training not only have to fit the ever changing market demands but they also have to confer bargaining power on the holders of the qualifications. Pay is negotiated by social partners or set by the employers and both sets of actors are responsive to perceived or actual bargaining power of workforce groups. Some well-qualified groups, such as women or migrants, may not be able to exercise bargaining power and may remain low earners.

The literature on the Varieties of Capitalism has shown that education and training systems are an important pillar of national employment systems and are closely interlinked with other pillars including work organization, industrial relations or the welfare state. These interlinkages may promote a low-skill-equilibrium or a high-skill-equilibrium. With globalization, cross-border labour markets are emerging as borders become increasingly permeable, through migration, posting of workers, setting up a company abroad, providing services abroad etc. Mutual recognition of qualifications is often a precondition for access to occupational labour markets abroad and consequently international agreements on mutual recognition are becoming more important. The EU is promoting these developments by the Bologna process, by subsidizing mobility during tertiary education (Erasmus Programme) or through the introduction of European Qualification Framework.

For the 32nd annual conference of the IWPLMS we invite papers concerning especially the following topics:

1. Education, skills and the life course

The impact of education and training on employment trajectories, including access to stable jobs, careers, pay, further training and social wages (health and age insurances)
The life course costs of low education and poor starts to employment careers, including long-term scar effects
Second chances in education and training and their impact on labour markets outcomes
Training policy in companies as a reaction on changing labour markets (economic crisis, skill shortages)

2. National education and training systems and national employment models

Comparison of national education and training systems and policies
Drivers of changes in national education and training systems and their impact on national employment models
Role of training in activation policies
Skill shortages and labour market policy

3. Measurement of skills

Creation of national and international level panels studies on skills
Problems of measuring skills in international comparative surveys

4. Skills and the social partners

Role of education, training and further training in collective bargaining and the social dialogue at international, national, sectoral and industry level

5. Skills and labour market segmentation

Skill and gender: Accreditation and recognition of skills in female dominated occupations; debates on how to value and recognise soft skills and emotional labour
Skills and migration: application of certificates across countries
Skills and atypical work
Skill development in external, internal and occupational labour markets

6. The impact of Europeanisation and Globalization on education and training

The impact of European agreements (Bologna Process, European Qualification Framework etc.) on national education and training policies and systems
Cross-border labour markets and mutual recognition of qualifications