Cross-border Labour Markets
Research Training Group - RTG 2951
Transnational Market Makers, Infrastructures, Institutions
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Ursula Mense-Petermann (Bielefeld University)
Co-Speaker: Prof. Karen Shire, Ph.D. (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Cross-border labour mobility and migration have developed into key issues within globalization research. Remarkably, however, ‘cross-border labour markets’ have not yet been addressed as a phenomenon sui generis in this context. Global structures and dynamics are largely scrutinized as factors impacting national labour markets, and the terms ‘emigration’ and ‘immigration’ that dominate the relevant literature underscore this focus on national labour markets as units of analysis.
The Research Training Group (RTG) 2951 takes a different approach, putting cross-border labour markets centre stage in its research programme. The emergence of cross-border labour markets can be observed in multiple sectors: in low-skilled labour (e.g. in domestic work or meat packing) as well as among highly-skilled workers and professionals (e.g. academics, consultants, medical doctors), or in sports, the arts, and the entertainment industry at large.
Against this background, the Research Training Group (RTG) 2951 puts cross-border labour markets centre stage in its research programme. The particular focus of the RTG is on investigating what makes it possible for cross-border labour markets to emerge and be consolidated, i.e., how are the coordination problems that are amplified in border crossing markets ‘solved’?
The RTG 2951 is jointly run by Bielefeld University’s Faculty of Sociology and the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, and by the University of Duisburg-Essen’s Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Business Administration and Economics. For further information on the DFG Funding Programme “Research Training Groups”, please consult the DFG Webpage.