Labour Market Policies in Comparative Perspective

The course aims to provide students with a comprehensive and critical understanding of contemporary labour market policy across advanced capitalist countries. The jobs people have are crucial for their income, social status, and well-being. This makes labour market policy a particularly important field of government intervention. The course will help students to acquire sound knowledge of general principles of labour market policy as well as an appreciation of variation across developed countries (mostly OECD member states). This is a problem-oriented course that seeks to bridge theoretical and practical knowledge. It will equip students with a critical understanding of the major labour market challenges governments face today, their determinants, and the main policies discussed to tackle them. These challenges include unemployment, precarious employment, and labour shortage. The emphasis will be on the politics of labour market policy. As the study of labour market policy is interdisciplinary, sociological and economic perspectives will also be discussed.

Upon completion of the course students should be able to

• apply the concepts and theories of labour market policy to specific empirical examples;
• explain the basics of how labour markets function from an economic perspective and how work is analysed from a sociological perspective;
• present how labour market policy varies across developed countries;
• discuss how and to what extent various political actors shape labour market policy;
• critically discuss the extent, determinants, and possible policy solutions to major labour market challenges in developed countries today.

Fall - irregular (the course is offered in fall 2017)