How Do Education and Skill Development Affect the Transition from “Good-Enough” Job to “Decent” Job?

Abstract

In the arena of economic literature, it is now well established that economic growth is a necessary but insufficient condition for development (Sen 1999). In addition, increasingly, there is a consensus among academicians that employment creation as such does not guarantee social, economic, and political inclusion or basic human rights as chartered by the UN system. Within this context, the focus of the policy exercise has shifted from mere economic growth approach toward a broader approach of inclusive growth. The International Labor Office’s “Decent Work” agenda replicates the importance of such a context. Although the decent work agenda has been initiated since 1999, the ongoing current literatures are highly concentrated either on policy implications or depict the decent work agenda from a macro point of view. Majority of the studies conducted on decent job primarily focused on the demand-side issues. However, there is a need to explore the supply-side issues as the composition of labor supply itself can be a determining factor for the status of the decent job. This article follows the definitions of “good-enough” job, “good” job, and “decent” job from Raihan (2014) where it is argued that there could be three stages for moving toward “decent” job. The first stage is the “good-enough” job which shows the transition from no job to job or from unpaid family job to paid job. The second stage is the ‘good’ job which shows the transition from ‘good-enough’ job to job with better return, formal job security, and enhanced workers’ rights. The third stage is the “decent” job, which is the transition from “good” job to a state of productive employment in compliance with agreed international standards of working environment and workers’ rights.