Some Concepts with Which to Start

Abstract

This chapter is aimed at presenting and discussing certain key concepts that will appear throughout the book. First, of course, there is a need to define the main institution under scrutiny: the labor market. People use the words labor market in their daily conversations and probably have no difficulties at all to convey what they mean or to understand what others mean by it. When pursuing theoretical work, however, we should make our concepts as distinct as possible, avoiding the kind of vagueness that often accompanies daily language. We must therefore take a closer look at the notion of labor market and the purpose is to provide a definition that can be of use both in the treatment of various theoretical issues and in empirical analysis. In this elaboration I also run into several related concepts — such as labor power, job, occupation, and employment contract — and they all need to be specified.