Worker protection index

Summary

The Worker Protection Index (WPI) has been developed as a new measure for quantitative cross-national comparison of the strength of worker protection provided by law.

Researchers

• Dr Petra Mahy (Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University)
• Professor Carolyn Sutherland (Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University)
• Professor Richard Mitchell (Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University)
• Professor Peter Gahan (Department of Management and Marketing, University of Melbourne)
• Anthony O’Donnell (La Trobe University Law School)
• Professor Sean Cooney (Melbourne Law School)
• Professor Gordon Anderson (Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington)
• Professor Andrew Stewart (Adelaide Law School)
• Dr Jonathan Sale (University of South Australia)
• Dr Ha Hai Do (Melbourne Law School)
• Tvisha Shroff (Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge)
• Elisa Solomon (Independent Researcher)

Project background and aims

This project has developed the Worker Protection Index (WPI), a new measure for quantitative cross-national comparison of the strength of worker protection provided by law. Although there are a number of similar existing indices available, the Worker Protection Index includes some conceptual and methodological innovations. The WPI is wider in scope than many other comparable indices and arguably is more sensitive to variance in labour regulation systems around the world. The WPI rests explicitly on a conceptualisation of ‘worker protection’ such that its variables have been selected based on their functional role in providing economic and social security to workers across their life course. The WPI also utilizes some additional conceptual and methodological innovations to try to make the results more validly comparable across developing and developed states. In particular, it takes account of coverage of the law for particular groups of workers, and also utilises a proxy measure for legal effectiveness.

Output

• Petra Mahy, Richard Mitchell, Carolyn Sutherland, Peter Gahan, Anthony O’Donnell, Sean Cooney, Gordon Anderson, Lingfeng Mao and Andrew Stewart, ‘Measuring Worker Protection using Leximetrics: Illustrating a New Approach in Four Asia-Pacific Countries’, American Journal of Comparative Law, v. 67, 2019.
• Petra Mahy, Ha Hai Do, Jonathan Sale and Arlene Sale, ‘The Comparative Evolution of Worker Protection Regulation in Southeast Asia: A Quantitative Approach’ presented at Labour Law Research Network (LLRN) Conference, Valparaiso Chile, 23-25 June 2019, and presented at ‘Global Challenges and Local Responses: Transformation of Labour Relations and Legal Framework in Vietnam and Emerging Economies’, Ho Chi Minh City University of Law, 14-16 July 2019.
• Gordon Anderson, Sean Cooney, Peter Gahan, Petra Mahy, Richard Mitchell, Anthony O’Donnell, Andrew Steward and Carolyn Sutherland, ‘The Worker Protection Index (WPI): Coding for Australia, China, Indonesia and New Zealand’, SSRN.