Does a free media protect labour rights?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on a sample of 47 developing economies considered over the period 1992–2012, we find that a free media reduces the legal protection of labour, taken as a whole. However, the impact differs over various aspects of labour regulation: while media freedom correlates with less stringent regulation of work time, less constraints to dismissal, and lower protection of employee representation rights, it also correlates with greater legal parity of part-time and fixed-term labour with full-time and permanent workers.