Propuesta metodológica para el estudio de la segmentación de los mercados de trabajo localesun estudio empírico, inductivo y multidimensional

Zusammenfassung

This work defends that the development of the segmented labour market approach marks a relevant turning point in labour analysis, as it inverts the methodology analysis of the labour market structure and shows the numerous factors that take part in their structuring. The central hypothesis of this approach is that in the labour market there are different segments whose existence is not completely explained by the qualification level of the population, as stated by the human capital theory, but rather that the determining factors of this structure can be associated to factors related to demand, job offer, historical processes, or other factors traditionally considered external to the conventional model, such as the individual�s family environment, area of residence, or socio-demographic environment. This research work studies the diversity of factors that take part in the structuring of segmented labour markets and their marked territorial dimension. The territorial dimension of labour segmentation, although implicit in the empirical works starting in the 1970�s �mainly those developing under the third generation of institutionalists-segmentationists, as shown in chapters 2 and 3�, has had a low impact on the evolution of the analysis of local labour segmentation, despite the richness of its contributions. The differences observed in employment structures resulting from the different empirical works led many of these works to be considered excessively empirical and localist. This fact may have caused the slow development of the territorial dimension of employment, as it has displaced the debate among defenders and detractors of the segmentation approach more towards the supposed inability of the segmentationist model to prove in an empirical and generalized way the existence of two segments, rather that towards the study of the fundaments of market structuring as a way of tackling the problems of inequality, discrimination and poverty of the labour markets. Under the labour market conception defended by this thesis, far from reflecting the ineffectiveness of the segmentationist approach, these works showed, under an inductive and multidimensional methodology, that labour segmentation, far from being universal, is determined by specific combinations of factors of a different nature: social, economic, institutional, cultural, and even family factors. This diversity can hardly be implemented in a single model generalizable to all markets. Under these premises, the hypotheses stated in this work are that: 1) job offer participates actively in the configuration of segments �according to the principles defined by the third generation of institutionalists-segmentationists�; 2) similarly as there is an employment structure, there is also an unemployment structure. The complementary study of both hypotheses and their determining elements can be very useful not only because it helps improve the knowledge about the operation of labour markets, but also because it helps establish lines of actions that better adapt to the needs of employment creation in the territories; and 3) it is in the territory where socio-economic, personal, institutional and environmental factors are shaped, resulting in different processes of market structuring.