Research project

Bringing in the state: The politics of wage regulation and low-wage employment

Photo:

Jeanne Menjoulet

Main content

This project analyses state policies to deal with low-wage employment. In particular, it seeks to explain why states differ in the tools they use to regulate low pay.

Working for very low wages has become more common in many developed countries. States have three main tools to address this situation. They can introduce minimum wages by law, they can pay public benefits to top up low wages, or they can try to strengthen the collective bargaining between trade unions and employers. This project compares to what extent developed countries use these tools and how they combine them. Further, we seek to explain the policy differences between countries and analyse the politics behind regulation of low wages. In doing so, the project develops a new understanding of how states influence wage-setting and the wage distribution.

We use quantitative methods, examining 33 developed countries, as well as qualitative methods to study a few European countries in more detail (currently United Kingdom and Norway).

The project is led by Georg Picot and funded by the FRIHUMSAM Young Research Talents scheme of the Research Council of Norway. It started in December 2018

News

Project end

This project has formally ended at the end of 2023. Several papers are still in the process of getting published, but this page will no longer be updated.

New publications

Siri Hansen Pedersen and Georg Picot published an article in Socio-Economic Review about different state approaches to low-wage employment. Socio-Economic Review is the leading journal for comparative political economy research. It has a 5-year Impact Factor of 5.2.

Georg Picot has published a handbook chapter on minimum wages. The chapter presents how advanced democracies establish wage floors by minimum wage laws, by collective bargaining, or various combinations of the two. The chapter is available open access here: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800880887.00026

Research dissemination

Georg Picot and Siri Hansen Pedersen have published a policy brief with the European Trade Union Institute. The policy brief can be found here: https://www.etui.org/publications/what-are-governments-doing-about-low-wage-employment-and-how-successful-it

Siri Hansen Pedersen and Georg Picot have written about their joint research for Agenda Magasin. They outline three different approaches that states in developed countries take to regulate low pay. The approach associated with least low-wage employment is when governments prioritize to support collective bargaining between labour unions and employer associations. Their article was reprinted in Fri Fagbevegelse

Invited presentation in Milan

On 6^th October 2022 Georg Picot will present a paper on the politics of minimum wages (co-authored with Michal Kozak) at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan. More information and a link to join the seminar here.

Newspaper citation

WAGEREG research was prominently cited in NRC, one of the three major quality newspapers in the Netherlands. The NRC article discusses the new EU directive on minimum wages and refers to a paper by Siri H. Pedersen and Georg Picot in which they map differences in low-wage policies across European countries and assess the effectiveness of different policy approaches. (The linked article is unfortunately behind a paywall.)

International research workshop on wage regulation and labour market policy

The WAGEREG project hosted an international research workshop at Bekkjarvik Gjestgiveri in June 2022. The workshop featured participants from Norway, Denmark and the UK, and provided productive feedback on ongoing research.

Op-ed

Georg Picot wrote an op-ed in Klassekampen about the EU Minimum Wage Directive.

Tilknyttet innhold

Portrait of Georg Picot from the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen (UiB), photographed in June 2017.

Research for the worst off in the labour market

Georg Picot has long done research on temporary employment. For his next project he wants to study low-wage employment and how the state influences wages.

05.02.2024