The Sociological and Economic Approaches to Labor Market Analysis

Abstract

This chapter reviews recent economic and sociological work on labor markets, concentrating on studies whose comparison is particularly revealing of differences in strategies and underlying assumptions between the disciplines. The sociological studies reviewed are especially those stressing the embeddedness (Granovetter, 1985) of labor market behavior in networks of social interaction and demographic constraints. Most of these studies share with microeconomics the stance of "methodologica individualism" (see Blaug, 1980:49-52) that attempts to ground all explanations in the motives and behaviors of individuals, but they differ in emphasizing social structural constraints and in avoiding the functionalist arguments now common in neoclassical work.