Abstract

RAU, Víctor Horacio. The Sociology of Labor Markets in Agricultural Employment Studies. Gaceta Laboral [online]. 2006, vol.12, n.3, pp.357-386. ISSN 1315-8597.

Based on a review of previous studies on rural wage labour, this survey attempts to evaluate the relevance, contribution of, and possibilities for developing a sociology of labour markets within this area of interest. We begin by defining the main characteristics of the so called sociological theory of labour markets, recreating its developmental process within the science of economics. Then, we analyse how various rural wage labour studies have paid attention to empirical phenomena or employed theoretical ideas related specifically to the area of labour markets and, especially, to the themes posed by the sociological approach to them. We conclude that the sociology of labor markets has been present one way or another since the establishment of rural wage laborers analysis as a field of study. Among the analytical aspects involved in the conception of labor markets as social institutions, we assert that the area least tackled in specific research has so far been the historical or genetic one. Finally, we sustain that one of the principal ways available to continue developing the potential of the sociological approach is, precisely, to include it and go deeper into those aspects of analysis in studies of rural labor markets.

Keywords : Labor markets; sociological theory; agricultural wage earners; segmentation.