ILR offers a Doctor of Philosophy in ILR (PhD) with a concentration in International and Comparative Employment Relations. Our multi-disciplinary faculty work on a wide range of topics relating to global employment and labor issues, with regional expertise spanning China and East Asia, India and South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, North America, Australia, and Europe.

Some current research interests of the faculty include:

  • labor mobilization and labor movements
  • international and comparative employment relations
  • cross-national workplace dispute systems
  • job quality and inequality
  • financialization and corporate governance in global firms
  • labor practices in global supply chains
  • international migration and immigration policy
  • union responses to precarious work
  • job creation in developing countries
  • labor, development, and education
  • globalization and human resource management
  • state-labor relations

Please see individual faculty websites for more detail.

Current PhD students:

Our current doctoral students work on a range of topics. Examples include:

Matt Fischer Daly. Collective Action Confronting Precarious Employment: Comparative Labor Regimes in the Global Strawberry Industry

Nick Krachler. Institutions, HRM, and Inter-occupational coordination in Healthcare: A Comparison of the Implementation of the Care Coordinator Role in Low-Income Communities in New York City, USA and London, UK

Laura Carver. Mixed signals: The impact of lawyers on H-1B employer strategies in a shifting regulatory environment

David Blatter. The Politics of Solidarity in Japan and South Korea: Power Resources of Marginalized Unions in Dualized Societies

Former PhD Students:

Our former PhD students have gone on to successful careers in both academia and government. Some of our recent graduates include:

Omar Manky (2017) Assistant Professor at Universidad del Pacífico (Peru)

Hao Zhang (2017) Assistant Professor at Renmin University (China)

Tamara Lee (2015) Assistant Professor at Rutgers University (USA)

Tashlin Lakhani (2013) Assistant Professor, Ohio State University (USA)

Maite Tapia (2013) Assistant Professor, Michigan State University (USA)

Find out more information on ILR’s MS/PhD degree programs and how to apply.