Social partnership in ensuring decent labor remuneration

Almost all human activity spheres, from the health care system to the education system, were unprepared for the pandemic. This, in turn, has slowed down the progress in achieving sustainable development goals. The Sustainable Development Goals 4 “Quality Education” and 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth” were particularly vulnerable. In addition, the widespread concern was caused in the context of the transition to a “knowledge-based economy”. This paper analyzes the readiness of the scientific community to provide preconditions for the acceleration of these SDGs achievements. To do this, a meta-analysis of the academic literature on SDG 4, SDG 8, and the knowledge-based economy during 2015–2021 was conducted. Several special methods and instruments were used, including Scopus, WoS, VosViewer, Publish or Perish, Google Trends, and Google Books Ngram Viewer. The results show the inability of the modern academic community to provide a theoretical and empirical framework for a successful transition to a knowledge-based economy, taking into account the need to achieve sustainability. This is partly due to the relative subject novelty and the lack of academic attention. The challenges posed by the pandemic (lockdowns, unemployment, closing of educational institutions, financial flows reorientation, etc.) together with potential threats (new pandemic, climate change, population displacement, armed conflicts, etc.) necessitate a radical intensification of academic activity in economics to achieve SDGs.

Sustainable development of the national economy is impossible without the creation of conditions for safe, high-quality, efficient work. The relevance of the study is explained by the need of methodological substantiation and development of theoretical and applied instruments for ensuring decent work. The scientific and practical significance of the study is to distinguish the forms of manifestation, to establish the causes of decent work deficit within the new economy and to determine the vectors of its overcoming in Ukraine. The results of the study are focused on generalization of the modern trends in the development of social and labor sphere in Ukraine and improvement of the concept of decent work to be used in practice in order to achieve progress in the social and labor sphere. The subject of the study is theoretical and applied principles of the concept of decent work as a basis for the development of mechanisms and instruments to overcome the deficit of decent work. The methodological platform of the study is formed by the general scientific and special methods: theoretical generalization; abstract and logical synthesis; induction and deduction; classification and typology; comparative and structural analysis that would allow carrying out multidirectional research of the progress (regress) in the sphere of work on different levels. The methodological basis for achieving this goal is the systematic and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of socio-economic indicators of decent work deficit. The purpose of the study is a scientific and theoretical substantiation of the decent work deficit and determination of strategic guidelines for its overcoming in Ukraine. In the article the authors present their view on the institute of decent work. Forms of manifestation and causes of decent work deficit are presented. The content of the article shows the relationship of the deficit of decent work and the precariat phenomenon. The authors present their vision of the concept of decent work as a strategic development of social and labor sphere and a major road towards elimination of the deficit of decent work in Ukraine.

In spite of the large number of normative and legal documents dealing with gender issues, a problem of ensuring equal rights of men and women does still exist in Ukraine. The article is mainly devoted to the gender inequality of payment for labor. The purpose of the study is to highlight the peculiarities of gender asymmetry of payment for labor, to outline directions for reducing it, and to make proposals on achieving gender equality of payment for labor. The labor market analysis in 2013-2017 showed that gender gap of payment for labor depends on the type of economic activity. The study also found the largest gender-based payment gap in the highest legislative body, the Ukrainian parliament, due to the small number of women in its composition, which in some way affects all social sectors. In conclusion, a number of gender differentiation features in payment for labor were singled out. The authors had proposed ways to overcome the gender gap and suggested appropriate measures to be taken. It is necessary to establish gender quotas in the parliament and to impose fines for their non-compliance, a similar proposal applies to senior positions of state institutions. There is also a need to inform society about the topic under study, to develop programs for women in rural areas, and to introduce indicators of gender inequality in enterprise reporting.