High non-standard employment rates in the Republic of Korea and Japan: Analyzing policy configurations with fuzzy-set/QCA

The paper investigates policy conditions for high rates of non-standard employment in Korea and Japan exploiting fs/QCA (fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis). We first review the previous literature on labor market risks and discuss the advantages of taking a configurational approach in investigating policies related to increase of non-standard workers. Secondly, non-standard employment in Korea and Japan are examined more closely in comparison with other OECD countries. In case of Korea, a low level of statutory minimum wage in combination with strict employment protection legislation for permanent workers is suggested as the sufficient condition for high rate of non-standard employment rate. In case of Japan, a low level of statutory minimum wage in combination with weak employment protection legislations for temporary workers is suggested to lead to a high level of non-standard employment rate. We empirically test which policy configurations cause high rate of non-standard employment and discuss (i) the importance of examining multiple policies together and (ii) that there can be different pathways to the same outcome.