Several recent studies across the social sciences show that the spatial agglomeration of employment in a local labor market benefits both firms and workers in terms of better firm performance and higher wages. Drawing from the organizational ecology perspective, we argue that workers receive higher wages in large industrial clusters and urban…

This study examines the economic returns to schooling acquired in the country of origin and the country of destination. It uses large-scale survey data on Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and Antillean immigrants in the Netherlands, which contain direct measures of pre- and post migration schooling. It is studied whether the returns to origin-country…

We use a life course framework to examine how the "new risk economy" has left middle-age professionals, managers and executives more vulnerable to job loss and unemployment despite high levels of human capital. Using in-depth qualitative data from 77 recently-unemployed white-collar workers, we examine perceptions of macro-economic…

I examine patterns of joblessness among immigrant men and women from 33 countries of origin now living in Britain, Germany and Sweden. Access to welfare, access to the labor market, job segregation and institutional support for women's employment define distinct policy configurations in these three destinations. Findings show that gaps in…

We examine how the shift from state socialism affects gender inequality in the labor market using multivariate models of employment exit, employment entry, job mobility and new job quality for 3,580 Russian adults from 1991 through 1997. Gender differences changed in a complex fashion. Relative to men, women gained greater access to employment,…

This paper compares men's career opportunities and intra-generational class mobility across periods with markedly different development strategies in Mexico. Despite its significance for social stratification and inequality in Mexico, research on mobility has been relatively scant in recent decades. Using data from the National Retrospective…