The Decent Work Agenda calls for fair incomes for all. These imply universal living wages, especially during a cost-of-living crisis. Living wages have the further potential to help address climate action, by enabling people to afford dearer but often more environmentally friendly, sustainable goods, products and services. Nonetheless there is an inconvenient truth in this theoretical win-win - in practice, living wages in one part of a supply chain may leave less of the wage fund available to pay people working elsewhere in the same chain, e.g., in the informal economy.
People go to work not for decent work but to make a sustainable livelihood. These livelihoods are inter-connected and inter-dependent. Your livelihood is connected to mine, as mine is to yours. Our wage is connected to your wage, and we all share - and depend on - the same ecosystem for keeping all livelihoods sustainable. In research work, this focus on sustainable livelihoods shifts our gaze, from single jobs in single organizations, toward inter-organizational dynamics. Applied research then stands shoulder-to-shoulder with working groups of all denomination, and defends inter-connected human rights and social inclusion along whole supply chains.
To what end? Livelihoods become sustainable when they protect people from crises (like the cost-of-living and climate change). Historically, and pre-historically, making livelihoods sustainable has necessitated diversification of income streams. Livelihoods were made sustainable though multiple activities, because if one fell over, or under-delivered, another took over. When single jobs do not or cannot be made to pay a decent living wage, with living hours, and decent work conditions in general, diversification may become necessary. Options for diversification include for example basic income, social enterprise, and the harnessing of AI. Each of these has the potential to help deliver livings that are comparatively sustainable, for people and planet.This presentation explores their applied psychology.