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The four types of employment systems shape skills and labour market structures according to the degree of functional flexibility in work assignments and whether firm internal labour markets or occupational labour markets prevail. Both of these depend on a different type of institutional support because of different collective action problems. The chapter also shows how the theory can be applied to monopsony in secondary labour markets, and to recent developments in ‘market‐mediated’ employment forms.

This chapter maps the diverse patterns of immigrants' labor market participation and career mobility. Several characteristics stand out. First, immigrants in Japan occupy diverse roles in the Japanese economy. They provide low-wage casual or disposable labor in the secondary labor market as well as work as highly skilled professionals in global businesses. Second, different national or regional backgrounds have shown uneven potential for socioeconomic mobility. Finally, the chapter shows that immigrants are creatively engaged in the Japanese economy. Not only are they needed as supplemental labor, but immigrants in Japan are also forces for bridging the Japanese economy with markets outside the country. The chapter then highlights the strategies that immigrants employ to find their niche in Japan's economy—from occupational niching to transnational entrepreneurship. Through finding niches and bridging structural holes, immigrants utilize their unique capacity to not only survive and thrive in Japan's economy but also act as the agents of globalization.

This chapter examines the case studies presented in this book and begins by assessing active social policies in the EU in general, and in the six countries that were involved in the INPART research in particular. Next, it expounds the two types of activation programmes — subsidised employment programmes for unemployed people (secondary labour market), and education and training schemes. It then explains the types of work under investigation in the case studies. The results of the case studies are then presented, followed by analysing what these findings tell about the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of various types of work.

Western European governments face a dilemma. On the one hand, their immigrant population is growing. On the other hand, the public opposes large-scale immigration and wants to restrict immigrants’ access to social benefits. We argue that in ‘reluctant countries of immigration’ such as France, Germany, and Great Britain, this tension is attenuated by reforms of social and migration policies. Firstly, migration policies are changed to encourage the arrival of ‘desired’ workers, while barriers to entry for ‘undesired’ immigrants are erected. Secondly, immigrant-specific social security schemes are reformed in order to reduce the incentive for immigrants to come in the first place. Finally, immigrants are disproportionately affected by the cutbacks in social security programs since the 1990s. These reforms contribute to the persistence of socio-economic differences between immigrants and citizens despite considerable efforts aimed at integrating the immigrants into their host societies.

The formerly incarcerated exhibit very low rates of employment, even many years after their release from prison. Low levels of human capital, distance from jobs, lack of transportation, and the stigma of a felony record explain the challenges of finding work after prison. Those who do find work do so through different strategies; applying for many jobs, leveraging social networks, and deploying cultural capital to counter the felony stigma, but many formerly incarcerated individuals do not have such resources. Their employment is concentrated in a small number of industries associated with the secondary labor market. Informal self employment is a common response. Those who found jobs outside the secondary labor market did so with material and social support from family. Yet employment is low among the formerly incarcerated also because they have high rates of job loss. Job losses stem from individual challenges like health problems, addiction relapse, family caretaking responsibilities, and transportation problems but also due to the nature of a contemporary low-skill labor market where turnover is high due to low wages and benefits few, frequent schedule changes, and abusive bosses.

This chapter examines the routes, expectations, and destinies of Muslim immigrants who came to Europe, along with their reception by host governments and communities and the plight of their children. It traces the arrival of the first generation of Muslim postmigrants in Europe as temporary workers during the postwar European economic boom. In particular, it considers these Muslims' employment as lowly labor migrants supplying what Karl Marx called “an industrial reserve army” and filling a “secondary labor market.” It also discusses the “client politics” underpinning the typical Northwest European immigration regime.