Attitudes, Expectations and Labour Market Behaviour: the Case of Self-Employment in the UK Construction Industry

Abstract

Why do labour market participants with similar capabilities hold different attitudes and perceptions about normal and atypical forms of employment? This is a particular problem for even the most appropriate models of labour market segmentation. Despite claiming to explain variations in the quality of employment/distribution of job rewards, segmentation models have rarely paid attention to the type of labour contract and have instead drawn a contrast between well paid stable employment and poorly paid unstable employment, whether arising across entire industries or within the individual firm (Hunter and MacInnes 1991:53). Attempts to categorise the labour market by employment contract, such as a disadvantaged ‘casual’ sector, are made problematic in the face of studies which have shown workers preferring self-employment or some other temporary contractual status over direct employment throughout a wide range of employment sectors (Hunter and MacInnes 1991; Granger et al. 1995).