Labour market segmentation theory

Jason Heyes and Ed Yates

Chapter 11 in Theories and Concepts in Work and Employment Relations, 2025, pp 99-106 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter examines developments in labour market segmentation theory (LMST) and compares different theoretical approaches. It begins by examining important early developments by US scholars, such as Doeringer and Piore, who sought to explain the emergence of internal and ‘dual’ labour markets, and Gordon, Edwards and Reich, who attempted to relate the structure of the US labour market to forms of control that employers exerted over workers. The chapter goes on to discuss a further strand of LMST developed in the UK by researchers associated with the University of Cambridge's ‘Labour Studies Group’. This approach, which combines attention to employer behaviours and labour demand with analysis of factors influencing labour supply, has also been influential in HRM and employment relations research. The chapter then discusses theoretical developments in the economic mainstream, which has sought to explain unequal labour market outcomes between groups in terms of labour market imperfections, such as information asymmetries, job crowding or the extraction of ‘rents’ by labour market ‘insiders’. Finally, the chapter discusses recent developments in LMST, highlighting the development of a ‘new labour market segmentation approach’ which combines insights from the institutional and radical analyses that emerged in the 1970s with insights from other bodies of theory, in particular feminist theory and comparative institutionalist theory. The chapter concludes by arguing that segmentation theory continues to have clear contemporary relevance, given the increasing incidence of precarious work and experiences of employment that continue to differ markedly between groups within society.

Keywords: Dual labour markets; Internal labour markets; Labour markets; Labour market segmentation; Segmented labour markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035316199
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