Ela Callorda Fossati

Labour and Production Relations

In this chapter, the author (Ela Callorda Fossati) first reviews the relevant literature, before introducing gender as a dimension of characterization that is crucial to understanding the functioning of labour and production relations in developing countries. The statistical analysis shows that labour-sector governing institutions are differentiated along three main lines: the extent of decommdification (versus informal labour), the degree of openness and flexibility (versus closed labour force and rigid contracts) and the range of democratic-representative (versus authoritarian-paternalistic) patterns of labour institutionalization. Five distinct labour and production relation governance models are then identified in the 139-country sample. Surprisingly, most emerging economies exhibit liberal or coordinated labour and production relations to some extent similar to what can be observed in mature liberal and coordinated market economies. By contrast, the informal type of labour market governance includes many of the poorest world economies. The other emerging economies exhibit paternalistic or idiosyncratic labour governance models.