Dual Labor Market

Dual labor market refers to a theory and description of employment in which the labor market is divided into two largely separate segments: a primary sector offering high pay, job security, good conditions, and opportunities for advancement, and a secondary sector characterized by low pay, instability, poor conditions, and few prospects. Peter Doeringer and Michael Piore developed the theory in Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis, building on earlier work by Clark Kerr on the balkanization of labor markets and by Richard Edwards, David Gordon, and Michael Reich on segmented labor markets. Piore argued that migrant workers are drawn into the secondary sector because native workers avoid jobs that offer little status or mobility. Radical economists linked segmentation to employers’ strategies of dividing workers, while William Julius Wilson and others examined how deindustrialization pushed disadvantaged groups into insecure work. Guy Standing’s analysis of the precariat describes the growth of insecure employment, and Arne Kalleberg has documented polarization of good and bad jobs. Women, minorities, and migrants are disproportionately concentrated in the secondary sector, and movement between segments is limited. Critics argue that the boundary is blurred and that the theory underplays worker choice and human capital. Dual labor market remains central to research on inequality, migration, employment, and precarity.