Labour market segmentation in the New England region

The purpose in this thesis is to discuss the framework of labour market segmentation and provide a thorough and detailed description of the groups that are distinguished by labour market segmentation. As described by M.J. Piore, the concept of labour market segmentation depicts a labour market that is comprised of a set of three sub -markets or segments distinguished by different labour market characteristics and rules. A conspectus of the literature on the distribution of personal income and the labour market is given to outline the nature and direction of academic economic analysis that led to the development of this concept of labour market segmentation. Before an analysis of the labour market segments is conducted, it is necessary to have data that accommodate such an analysis. To this end, we transformed the 1970 New England Region Public Use Sample Data into a form suitable for our analysis. The data is used in a classification analysis of labour market segmentation. A statistical and illustrative presentation of the techniques of hierarchical classification and discriminant analysis is given. These are the techniques used in the empirical work for developing and analysing the labour market segments in terms of sixty socio- economic factors. The analysis serves to identify the socio- economic factors that distinguish the similarities and differences between the characteristics of the segments in the labour market