Wages in Global Perspective: AIAS 2017 Conference Presentations

Abstract

This year the Yearly Conference of AIAS is entitled ‘Wages in Global Perspective’, referring to the achievement and potential of a global data tool with which AIAS is closely connected, that is, the WageIndicator. This Internet-based tool of comparing and sharing wages resulted from a joint initiative of WageIndicator Foundation director Paulien Osse and AIAS research coordinator Kea Tijdens back in 1999. Over the years, AIAS has played its role in the Foundation’s Supervisory Board. Currently, WageIndicator has websites in 92 countries, and in 2016 nearly 40 million unique visitors consulted these websites. The sites present detailed information on various kinds of wages and salaries, putting them in their national context: real wages, bargained wages, minimum wages, living or decent wages. The response of the thousands of visitors filling out the related, continuous WageIndicator web survey allows a massive amount of analyses of the connection between wages on the one hand and personal and structural characteristics on the other, such as union membership, industry, occupations, skills, migration patterns, and much more. Such analyses have already resulted in over 450 books, reports and journal articles. At the conference a range of researchers will present outcomes of WageIndicator-based research. Improving the representativeness of a voluntary web survey like that of WageIndicator represents a challenge in itself, and presentations will also deal with this issue. Finally, a forum of internationally reputed researchers will question ‘What’s next for WageIndicator-based Research?’, focusing on research perspectives and challenges. During the conference techniques will be used as to optimize audience participation, such that presenters and forum members can consider questions and remarks from the audience at an early stage. The 2017 AIAS conference will in particular be of interest for graduates and students in the social sciences, in particular in labour economics, sociology of labour markets and labour relations, organisation studies, international law, international strategy, and political science. be English.