The spatialization of decent work and the role of employability empowerment for minority ethnic young people in emerging economies

Abstract

Global rises in precarious labour conditions have prompted further empirical work in Decent Work, a special category of employment characterised by equitable pay, treatment, and healthy working conditions. Despite this, research has tended to be conducted in developed countries with privileged groups such as those with typical working arrangements and rely on psychologically framed individual characteristics to explain marginalising factors. We propose a more sociologically framed, spatialised perspective on Decent Work which posits that marginalising factors are spatially variable and determined but moderated by employability empowerment. We measure our propositions across three spatially different sites of Vietnam through (1) a survey of minority ethnic students and graduates (N = 1071) and (2) a survey of stakeholders involved in the recruitment and employment of this group (N = 204). We find support for most of our propositions and call for more spatialised empirical work in the field of Decent Work.