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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Claudia Olivetti (Boston University); Barbara Petrongolo (London School of Economics CEP, CEPR and IZA Bonn) |
| Abstract: | Gender wage and employment gaps are negatively correlated across countries. We argue that non-random selection of women into work explains an important part of such correlation and thus of the observed variation in wage gaps. The idea is that, if women who are employed tend to have relatively high-wage characteristics, low female employment rates may become consistent with low gender wage gaps simply because low-wage women would not feature in the observed wage distribution. We explore this idea across the US and EU by estimating gender gaps in potential wages. We recover information on wages for those not in work in a given year using alternative imputation techniques. Imputation is based on (i) wage observations from other waves in the sample, (ii) observable characteristics of the nonemployed and (iii) a statistical repeated-sampling model. We then estimate median wage gaps on the resulting imputed wage distributions, thus simply requiring assumptions on the position of the imputed wage observations with respect to the median, but not on their level. We obtain higher median wage gaps on imputed rather than actual wage distributions for most countries in the sample. However, this difference is small in the US, the UK and most central and northern EU countries, and becomes sizeable in Ireland, France and southern EU, all countries in which gender employment gaps are high. In particular, correction for employment selection explains more than a half of the observed correlation between wage and employment gaps. |
| Keywords: | median gender gaps, sample selection, wage imputation |
| JEL: | E24 J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1941&r=lab |
| By: | Johnson, Anick; Morissette, René |
| Abstract: | Using hourly wage data from the Labour Force Survey as well as previous household surveys covering the 1981-2004 period, we assess whether the relative importance of low-paid jobs and well-paid jobs has changed over the last two decades. Since it is unclear whether trends in wage levels obtained from all the aforementioned surveys are unbiased, we refrain from making definitive statements regarding the evolution of low-paid and well-paid jobs over the 1981-2004 period. When assessing whether well-paid jobs are disappearing in Canada, we focus our attention on recent trends, i.e. on changes in the fraction of jobs falling in certain (real) wage categories during the 1997-2004 period. We find little evidence that the relative importance of well-paid jobs - however defined - has fallen over the last two decades or since the second half of the 1990s. We also find little evidence that the relative importance of low-paid jobs, those paying less than $10.00 per hour, has risen during these two periods. We show, along with numerous previous studies, that the wage gap between young workers and their older counterparts has risen substantially over the last two decades but that the wage gap between university graduates and other workers has shown little change. More important, we show that, within age groups, wages of newly hired male and female employees - those with two years of seniority or less - have fallen substantially relative to those of others. Second, in the private sector, the fraction of new employees employed in temporary jobs has risen substantially, increasing from 11% in 1989 to 21% in 2004. Among employees with one year of seniority or less, the incidence of temporary work rose from 14% in 1989 to 25% in 2004. Third, pension coverage has fallen among men of all ages and among females under 45. Taken together, these findings suggest that Canadian firms (existing or newly-born) have responded to growing competition within industries and from abroad by re |
| Keywords: | Labour, Employment, Salaries and wages |
| Date: | 2005–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2005239e&r=lab |
| By: | Raquel Vale Mendes |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the role of occupational segregation in explaining the overall gender wage gap in the Portuguese economy. The objective is to investigate to what extent wage disparities between male and female workers can be explained by differences in occupational distributions. The Brown et al. wage differential decomposition method is used, based on 1999 micro data gathered by the Portuguese Ministry of Social Security and Employment. This method decomposes the total earnings gap into occupational segregation and within-occupation wage differences. Results reveal that a substantial portion of the gender wage differential in the Portuguese labor market is explained by within-occupation wage differences. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p130&r=lab |
| By: | Christophe Muller (Universidad de Alicante); Christophe Nordman (DIAL, París) |
| Abstract: | From Tunisian matched worker-firm data in 1999, we study the returns to human capital for workers observed in two leading manufacturing sectors. Workers in the mechanical and electrical industries (IMMEE) benefit from higher returns to human capital than their counterparts in the Textile-clothing industry. In the IMMEE firms, low wage workers experience greater returns to labour market experience than high wage workers. The wage premium for on-the-job training is substantial for both sectors. However, taking into account whether formal training is still ongoing at the time of the survey, our results clearly indicate that workers bear heavy costs for their training. Our analysis shows that on-the-job training (OJT) and education can be efficient channels of policies aiming at raising earnings for low wages as well as high wages workers. However, careful consideration of the industrial sector should accompany these policies since specific impact of education, experience, OJT are found in the studied sectors. |
| Keywords: | wage, returns to human capital, matched worker-firm data, quantile regressions, Tunisia |
| JEL: | J24 J31 O12 |
| Date: | 2005–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2005-07&r=lab |
| By: | Christophe Muller (Universidad de Alicante); Christophe Nordman (DIAL, París) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the return to human capital variables for wages of workers observed in Tunisian matched worker-firm data in 1999. This reveals us how returns to human capital in a Less Developed Country like Tunisia may differ from the industrial countries usually studied with matched data. We develop a new method based on multivariate analysis of firm characteristics, which allows us most of the benefits obtained by introducing firm dummies in wage equations for studying the effect of education. It also provides a human capital interpretation of the effect of these dummy variables. Moreover, in the studied data, using three firm characteristics easily collectable yields results close to those obtained by using the matched structure of the data. The workers with low wages or low conditional wages experience greater returns to human capital than workers belonging to the middle of the wage distribution, while their return to schooling is significantly lower than that of high wage workers. The estimates support the hypothesis that human capital is associated with positive intra-firm externality on wages. Therefore, a given worker would be more productive and better paid in an environment strongly endowed in human capital. However, the low wage workers do not take advantage of the human capital in the firm. Conversely, the low wage workers benefit from working in the textile sector in terms of wages unlike the middle and high wage workers. Finally, the low wage workers and high wage workers benefit from an innovative environment, while the middle wage workers do not. |
| Keywords: | Wage, returns to human capital, matched worker-firm data, quantile regressions, factor analysis, Tunisia |
| JEL: | J24 J31 O12 |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2005-30&r=lab |
| By: | Daniel Traca (Centre Emile Bernheim, Solvay Business School, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the notion that a rise in job insecurity, due to rising labor market uncertainty, leads to wage moderation - the ‘wage restraint hypothesis’. It begins by finding only mixed theoretical support for this hypothesis, as an increase in uncertainty generates an ambiguous effect on wages, although it raises job insecurity. Then, using industry data, it finds evidence of wage restraint, as volatility significantly lowers the share of(production) wages in value added. |
| Keywords: | Job-insecurity, Globalization, Wage Contracts, Volatility. |
| JEL: | E24 |
| Date: | 2005–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:05-001&r=lab |
| By: | Morissette, René; Picot, Garnett |
| Abstract: | We examine the evolution of low-paid work and the position of economically vulnerable families in Canada over the last two decades. Despite substantial growth in workers' educational attainment and experience, the proportion of jobs paying less than $10.00 per hour has remained fairly stable since the early 1980s. However, union coverage in low-paid jobs has dropped, especially for males. The risk of job loss has changed little but the proportion of newly hired employees who hold temporary jobs has increased markedly, thereby indicating important changes in the employer-employee relationship. Despite their rising educational attainment, most low earners (except women aged 25 to 29) have not seen their chances of escaping low earnings improved between the 1980s and the 1990s. Of all full-time employees, 5% were low-paid and lived in low income families in 1980 and 2000. In 2000, individuals with no high school diploma, recent immigrants, unattached individuals, lone mothers and persons living alone accounted for fully 71% of all full-time workers in low-paid jobs and in low-income, but only 37% of all full-time workers. While members of these five groups account for the majority of low-paid workers in low-income families, two of these groups have seen their economic position declined significantly: low-educated couples and recent immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Labour, Personal finance and household finance, Business enterprises, Salaries and wages, Income, Business conditions |
| Date: | 2005–04–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2005248e&r=lab |
| By: | Vincent Bodart; Olivier Pierrard; Henri R. Sneessens |
| Abstract: | RBC models with search unemployment and wage renegotiation generate too much wage volatility and too stable unemployment rate. Shimer (2004) shows that it is possible to reproduce a volatility of unemployment similar to that observed in actual economies by imposing full real wage rigidity. We use a similar model but with Calvo wage contracts. The models with full wage flexibility or full wage rigidity are obtained as particular cases. We show that a contract length of about six quarters fits best the observed cyclical properties of wages and unemployment. |
| Keywords: | search unemployment; Calvo wage; cyclical properties. |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J30 J41 |
| Date: | 2005–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:068&r=lab |
| By: | Christophe Muller (Universidad de Alicante); Christophe Nordman (DIAL, París) |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship of wages and education and training practices in Morocco in a context of trade and liberalisation reforms in a matched worker-firm data of eight exporting firms in two industrial sectors: Metallurgical-Electrical industries and Textile-Clothing. We find that the specific characteristics of the surveyed firms little affect worker wages. Moreover, the textile sector does not appear to be a significant channel for promoting skills in the economy. The minimal wage legislation is found to exert a positive pressure on wages. Also, some evidence of gender wage gap exists in the data. In these data, the effects of education and experience on wages are quite limited below the third quantile of wages, as well as the role of apprenticeship. In contrast, On-the-Job Training (OJT) much contributes to labour productivity as measured by wage levels. Most of the OJT is concentrated in the Metallurgical-Electrical industries. Education is positively correlated to OJT. Moreover, estimates of explanatory relationships of task organisation (chain gangs, teams, supervision and executive workers) show the powerful sector and educational determinations of job organisation in the firms. Then, our results suggest that the impact of worker education may take indirect routes and not only appear through education coefficients in wage regressions. |
| Keywords: | wage, returns to human capital, matched worker-firm data, quantile regressions, Tunisia |
| Date: | 2005–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2005-14&r=lab |
| By: | Abigail Wozniak (University of Notre Dame and IZA Bonn) |
| Abstract: | It is unclear whether educational disparities in internal migration levels reflect important economic differences or simply different consumption choices. I answer this question empirically by testing for educational differentials in the likelihood that young workers undertake and succeed at arbitrage migration. I find that young college graduates are two to five times more likely than less educated workers to reside in a state with high labor demand at the time they entered the market. Among college graduates, cross-state migration by college graduates equalizes the wage impact of early career labor demand shocks in their home states. This is not true for less educated workers. The lack of wage convergence is most severe for cohorts who entered the labor market during periods of high spatial variation in state conditions and low national employment growth. My results are consistent with theories of educational differences in migration that assume less educated workers are credit constrained, and cast doubt on several other explanations for the difference. |
| Keywords: | internal migration, local labor markets, education |
| JEL: | J6 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1954&r=lab |
| By: | Coral del Río (Universidade de Vigo (Spain)); Carlos Gradín (Universidade de Vigo (Spain)); Olga Cantó (Universidade de Vigo (Spain)) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the advantages of taking into account the distribution of the individual wage gap when analyzing female wage discrimination. The limitations of previous approaches such as the classic Oaxaca-Blinder and the recent distributive proposals using quantile regressions or counterfactual functions are thoroughly discussed. The new methodology presented here relies on Jenkins' (1994) work and proposes the use of poverty and deprivation literature techniques that are directly applicable to the measurement of discrimination. In an empirical application, we quantify the relevance of the glass ceiling and sticky floor phenomena in the Spanish labor market. |
| Keywords: | children distributive analysis, economics of gender, wage discrimination, glass ceiling, sticky floor. |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J71 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2006-25&r=lab |
| By: | Helen Levy |
| Abstract: | Estimates of labor market inequality usually focus only on wages, even though fringes account for almost one-third of total compensation. Using data from the Current Population Survey, I analyze coverage by own-employer health insurance coverage among full-time workers for women versus men, blacks versus whites and Hispanics versus whites. I find significant gaps in coverage for each of these groups. About two-thirds of the gap for blacks or Hispanics is explained by differences in observable characteristics (primarily education and occupation). The gap for women is not explained by controlling for observables. Looking over the 20 year period from 1980 to 2000, I find that the adjusted gap in own-employer coverage for women has been relatively flat over this period and is consistently much smaller than the male/female wage gap (about half as large), so that measuring inequality in wages plus health insurance would result in a smaller estimate of male/female compensation inequality than measuring wages alone. The same is generally true for blacks although their health insurance gap is much closer in magnitude to their wage gap. For Hispanics, the health insurance gap is nearly identical to the wage gap and both are increasing over time. |
| JEL: | I1 J3 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11975&r=lab |
| By: | Yolanda Pena-Boquete |
| Abstract: | The wage discrimination by gender in the Galician region is one of the highest in Spain, although it presents one of the smallest wage gaps between men and women. The aim of this paper is to extend wage discrimination analysis in Galicia through two complementary theories. First, we approximate global discrimination with the Oaxaca decomposition. This method calculates the discrimination using women and men median characteristics, providing a measure based on the wage distribution average. After that, considering individual discrimination experiences, we approximate wage discrimination by using indicators based on poverty literature, as the Generalised Lorenz Inverse (discrimination curve), and the family of indexes such as Foster´s, Greer´s or Thorbecke´s. These indexes have the property of decomposability, which allows to do an exhaustive analysis of the wage discrimination distribution in Galicia that can be the source of the differential behaviour observed at the aggregate level. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p668&r=lab |
| By: | Andrea Weber (Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna and IZA Bonn); Helmut Mahringer (Austrian Institute of Economic Research, Vienna) |
| Abstract: | Job seekers can influence the arrival rate of job offers by the choice of search effort and the search methods they use. In this paper we empirically investigate the contribution of the use of different search methods on the outcome of search. We use unique data on the search behavior of job seekers sampled from the inflow into employment during the year 1997 in Austria, which matches survey information with administrative records. We analyze the quality of job matches in terms of wages and job durations for employed and unemployed workers. Our main finding is that the public employment service specializes in the support of low quality workers. For these workers it is equal in efficiency to the other search channels. |
| Keywords: | job search, search channels, selectivity bias |
| JEL: | J20 J64 C31 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1939&r=lab |
| By: | Magali Beffy (CREST-INSEE and IZA Bonn); Moshe Buchinsky (UCLA, CREST and NBER); Denis Fougère (CNRS, CREST and IZA Bonn); Thierry Kamionka (CNRS and CREST); Francis Kramarz (CREST-INSEE, CEPR and IZA Bonn) |
| Abstract: | We estimate a model of the joint participation and mobility along with the individuals’ wage formation in France. Our model makes it possible to distinguish between unobserved person heterogeneity and state-dependence. We estimate the model using state of the art bayesian methods employing a long panel (1976-1995) for France. Our results clearly show that returns to seniority are small, and for some education groups are close to zero. The specification here is the same as that used in Buchinsky, Fougère, Kramarz and Tchernis (2002), where the returns to seniority were found to be quite large. This result also holds when using the method employed by Altonji and Williams (1992) for both countries. It turns out that differences between the two countries relate to firm-to-firm mobility. Using a model of Burdett and Coles (2003), we explain the rationale for this phenomenon. Specifically, in a low-mobility country such as France, there is little gain in compensating workers for long tenures because they tend to stay in the firm for most, if not all, of their career. This is true even in cases where individuals clearly possess substantial amount of firm-specific human capital. In contrast, for a high-mobility country such as the United States, high returns to seniority have a clear incentive effect, and firms are induced to pay the premium associated with firm-specific human capital to avoid losing their most productive workers. |
| Keywords: | participation, wage, job mobility, returns to seniority, returns to experience, individual effects |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J63 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1935&r=lab |
| By: | Sanna-Mari Hynninen |
| Abstract: | This study examines the matching aspects of local labour markets focusing on the status of job seekers in the matching process, on spatial autocorrelation in labour market conditions of local labour markets, and on differences in matching processes between areas with permanently deviating unemployment rates. The data set is temporally, spatially, and by labour market positions of job seekers highly disaggregate monthly data from 171 Local Labour Offices (LLOs) in Finland over 12 years. According to the results, an increase in the share of long-term unemployed job seekers decreases matches, and an increase in the share of job seekers out of labour force increases successful matches in local labour markets. The matching process does not work in the same way in all areas, but on the contrary its functioning is dependent on the unemployment conditions. Effects of increases in the number of inputs on successful matches depend on the proportional share of that input in the area as well as on the composition of the stock of job seekers. The results also indicate the labour market conditions and matching processes across neighbouring LLOs being spatially autocorrelated. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p499&r=lab |
| By: | Skuterud, Mikal |
| Abstract: | Evidence from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) reveals that the percentage of employed workers searching for other jobs more than doubled in Canada between 1976 and 1995. Comparable evidence from the Current Population Survey (CPS), Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) suggests that the U.S. experienced a remarkably similar upward trend in on-the-job search (OJS) over this period. Using U.S. data to supplement the Canadian data wherever possible, this paper attempts to explain this long-term, secular trend in Canadian OJS rates by performing decomposition and industry-level analyses, and by considering concomitant changes in employer-to-employer transition rates and the wage returns to job changing. The results from both countries suggest that an important part of the upward trend in OJS rates is not explained by compositional effects, including cohort effects. The OJS increase seems also to have occurred independently of rising job insecurity due to sector-specific demand shocks and trends in the dispersion of log wage residuals. The data are most consistent with a long-term decrease in search costs. |
| Date: | 2005–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2005250e&r=lab |
| By: | Finnie, Ross; Wannell, Ted |
| Abstract: | This paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of the gender earnings gap among recent Canadian bachelor-level university graduates. Hours of work are the single most important influence on the gap; past work experience, job characteristics, family status, province of residence, and language have smaller and more mixed effects. |
| Keywords: | Labour, Salaries and wages |
| Date: | 2004–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2004235e&r=lab |
| By: | Annette, S. Zeilstra; Linda, A Toolsema |
| Abstract: | This paper studies regional labour markets in a country with centralised wage bargaining. We use a four-stage theoretical model with two regions and one sector. In the first stage the union and employer federation engage in Nash bargaining at the national level according to a Right To Manage (RTM) model. In the second stage the individual employers determine the number of employees they want to hire given the outcome of the national wage bargaining. In the third stage individuals decide whether or not they want to migrate to another region and if they want to participate in the labour market or not. In the fourth stage the product market clears. In this model, depending on the parameters, the change in participation and the level of migration determine the distribution of unemployment over the regions. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p720&r=lab |
| By: | Wouter Vermeulen; Jos Van Ommeren |
| Abstract: | The empirical wage curve literature has demonstrated that workers in high-unemployment regions earn less. At the same time, many labour markets, especially in Europe, are characterised by persistent regional unemployment differentials and a low interregional labour mobility rate. It is argued in this paper that workers in high-unemployment regions are compensated in the housing market, which discourages migration to low-unemployment regions. We derive a multiregional efficiency wage model allowing for endogenous land prices, and therefore house prices, as well as endogenous lot sizes. It is shown that in high-unemployment regions, land prices are lower and lot sizes are larger. Therefore, aggregate regional house price data misrepresent the compensating differential. Employing a Dutch housing demand survey, we show that attribute corrected house prices and rents are 10.4 respectively 2.4 percent lower when regional unemployment is one percent higher. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p204&r=lab |
| By: | Picot, Garnett; Morissette, René; Ostrovsky, Yuri |
| Abstract: | This study extends previous work on the evolution of the education premium, and investigates the existence of diverging university/high school earnings ratio trends across industries in the knowledge-based economy. The study also discusses the changing demand for high-skilled workers by comparing relative wages of university graduates holding degrees in "applied" fields to those of other university graduates (the "field" premium). |
| Keywords: | Education, Labour, Educational attainment, Salaries and wages |
| Date: | 2004–09–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2004232e&r=lab |
| By: | Antje Mertens; Anette Haas |
| Abstract: | The role of mobility is central to the debate on reducing unemployment. A further question is to what extent a lack of mobility enforces regional disparities. Using a micro data set containing information about two cohorts we analyse the impact of regional unemployment at district level to regional employment duration. As an alternative to the frequently used Logit analysis approach we focus to duration time analyses. We use Cox Regression (Breslow Method for ties) and Piece wise constant models to find out the impact of regional unemployment rate for duration working in a special region. Additionally we could differentiate between voluntary and involuntary mobility. The results of this comparison show a contrary influence of the regional unemployment rate. Our results confirm the lower mobility of woman and that the younger cohort exhibits higher mobility rates. We also compare downward/upward moves (defined as wage losses/gains after mobility) and could not find evidence for influence of regional unemployment rate to wage growth. This yields us to the conclusion that high levels of regional unemployment inhibit mobility because of a lack of vacancies. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p592&r=lab |
| By: | Heisz, Andrew; Oreopoulos, Philip |
| Abstract: | In a setting where training or promotion opportunity depend on expected initial ability, the effects of signalling initial skills on wages may last well beyond the period when knowledge of a workers' skill set is fully known. This paper proposes extending recent tests for signalling to better accommodate training differences by using firm-level characteristics and applying these tests to a large sample of MBA and law graduates from different ranked schools. |
| Keywords: | Education, Labour, Training, Employment |
| Date: | 2006–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2006236e&r=lab |
| By: | Mihails Hazans |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the evolution of the labour markets in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania since the beginning of transition until 2003, with a particular focus on labour force participation. Do the marked differences in labour market policies between the countries result in different patterns of participation? What are the obstacles to and driving forces of participation? We find that relative contribution of participation and demographic trends to the dynamics of the labour force varied substantially both over the years and across the three countries. Participation, in turn, has been shaped by sometimes complicated interaction between educational choices, pension reform, policy changes, and external shocks. Resulting differences in trends and patterns are quite substantial, indicating that there is a room for increasing participation in each of the countries. Panel data analysis of determinants of participation and discouragement suggests that increasing after-tax real minimum wage has significant positive effect on participation and reduces discouragement in Lithuania. In Estonia, by contrast, positive effect of minimum wage on participation is found only for teenagers of both genders and for young males. Members of ethnic minorities, especially females, in all three Baltic countries are less likely to be in the labour force, other things equal. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p344&r=lab |
| By: | Brigitte Madrian |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a broad and general overview of the relationship between the U.S. health care system and the labor market. The paper first describes some of the salient features of and facts about the system of health insurance coverage in the U.S., particularly the role of employers. It then summarizes the empirical evidence on how health insurance impacts labor market outcomes such as wages, labor supply (including retirement, female labor supply, part-time vs. full-time work, and formal vs. informal sector work), labor demand (including hours worked and the composition of employment across full-time, part-time and temporary workers), and job turnover. It then discusses the implications of having a fragmented system of health insurance delivery--in which employers play a central role--on the health care system and health care outcomes. |
| JEL: | I10 J3 J6 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11980&r=lab |
| By: | Martin Kahanec (IZA Bonn) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the substitutability of labor of selected ethnic groups in the US labor market. In the generalized Leontief framework, the analysis of US census-based data reveals that labor of non-White ethnic groups is complementary to that of White ethnic group. This finding supports the view that the negative relationship between the relative earnings of an ethnic group and its relative size is a labor market phenomenon. Moreover, it implies that ethnic diversity of labor force has positive effects on aggregate output. While the estimated elasticities of complementarity are relatively small, they are shown to generate significant effects, given the very uneven distribution of ethnic groups across local labor markets, as resulting from long-run migration patterns. |
| Keywords: | substitutability, elasticity of substitution, ethnic group, labor market |
| JEL: | J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1945&r=lab |
| By: | Juan Mora (Universidad de Alicante); Antonia Febrer (Universidad de Alicante) |
| Abstract: | To investigate the trends in wages in Spain in 1994-1999, we propose a flexible estimator of conditional distributions. The estimator, based on a piecewise-linear specification of the conditional hazard function, allows us to capture almost any underlying relationship and is unaffected by the curse of dimensionality. Our results reveal that the main changes in the labor market involved graduate workers entering the labor market: the ¿overeducation¿ phenomenon intensified in Spain between 1994 and 1999, provoking a decrease in returns to schooling at higher levels of education. En este trabajo proponemos analizar la evolución de los salarios en España entre 1994 y 1999 utilizando un estimador flexible de las distribuciones condicionales. Este estimador, basado en una especificación lineal a tramos de la función de razón de fallo condicional, permite captar casi cualquier relación subyacente, y no se ve afectado por la maldición de la dimensionalidad. Los resultados que obtenemos muestran que los cambios más importantes en el mercado laboral se han producido en el grupo de los trabajadores con estudios superiores que entran al mercado laboral. En concreto, se observa que el fenómeno de “sobreeducación” se intensificó en España entre 1994 y 1999, provocando un descenso de los rendimientos de la educación en los niveles de educación superiores. |
| Keywords: | Estimación basada en la función de fallo; Distribución salarial Hazard-Based Estimation; Wage Distribution |
| JEL: | C14 J31 |
| Date: | 2005–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasec:2005-04&r=lab |
| By: | Thomas Cooke |
| Abstract: | Despite significant gains in educational attainment and attitudes toward women in the labor force, women continue to lag behind men in economic and labor market success. The role of family migration in social science and policy discussions of this gender-gap has gone unnoticed, in spite of the fact that nearly 25 years ago the noted economist Jacob Mincer proposed that “Tied migration ranks next to child rearing as an important dampening influence in the life-cycle wage evolution of women.” Decades of family migration research have concluded that migration harms the economic and labor force status of married women, that the effect of family migration on married women cannot be entirely explained by economic factors, and that family-based gender roles likely explain much of this effect. However, only three quite limited and dated analyses have directly considered how gender-related processes contribute to the observed effects of moving on women’s economic status. Thus, we are left with the conclusion that all of the empirical evidence points toward gender role beliefs as the key variable shaping family migration outcomes but without any empirical evidence to support the conclusion. This research seeks to determine if the accepted explanation for the trailing wife effect is indeed true by constructing measures of the gender role beliefs of husbands and wives and developing empirical methods for determining their effect on both the migration decision and the outcomes of migration. Data for the analysis is drawn from Waves 1 through 3 of the National Survey of Families and Households. In particular, it is expected that economically “rational” migration decisions and outcomes will only occur when both the husband and the wife share strong progressive gender role beliefs. In all other cases, the migration decision is expected to be largely dominated by the husband’s labor market characteristics and that the effect of migration will be to harm the economic status of women. The analysis will provide a new and unique perspective from which to evaluate decades of evidence regarding family migration and will have an impact on public policy debates concerning the gender-gap in economic and labor market success. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p239&r=lab |
| By: | Morissette, Rene; Ostrovsky, Yuri |
| Abstract: | We investigate how family earnings instability has evolved between the late 1980s and the late 1990s and how family income instability varies across segments of the (family-level) earnings distribution. We uncover four key patterns. First, among the subset of families who were intact over the 1982-1991 and 1992-2001 periods, family earnings instability changed little between the late 1980s and the late 1990s. Second, the dispersion of families' permanent earnings became much more unequal during that period. Third, families who were in the bottom tertile of the (age-specific) earnings distribution in 1992-1995 had, during the 1996-2001 period, much more unstable market income than their counterparts in the top tertile. Fourth, among families with husbands aged under 45, the tax and transfer system has, during the 1996-2001 period, eliminated at least two-thirds (and up to all) of the differences in instability (measured in terms of proportional income gains/losses) in family market income that were observed during that period between families in the bottom tertile and those in the top tertile. This finding highlights the key stabilization role played by the tax and transfer system, a feature that has received relatively little attention during the 1990s when Employment Insurance (EI) (formerly known as Unemployment Insurance (UI)) and Social Assistance were reformed. |
| Keywords: | Social conditions, Personal finance and household finance, Families, Income |
| Date: | 2005–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2005265e&r=lab |
| By: | Jukka Petteri Lahtonen; Sanna-Mari Hynninen |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the matching process of job seekers and vacant jobs in local labour markets. We investigate how the education level of job seekers and education requirements of vacancies match together in the areas of Local Labour Offices (LLOs), and what is the role of population density in that process. The data set is temporally, spatially, by education level of job seekers and by education requirements of vacancies highly disaggregated monthly data from 146 LLOs in Finland over 14 years. We find differences in the abilities of local labour markets to form successful matches at given levels of inputs. These differences can be explained partly by population density. We control for the heterogeneity of both sides of the labour market in our models allowing different employability for job seekers with different education levels and different filling rates for vacancies with different education requirements. Our results suggest that education increases successful matches only in markets with certain characteristics. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p438&r=lab |
| By: | McBride, Stephan; Sweetman, Arthur |
| Abstract: | In Canada's federal system for economic (skilled) class immigrant selection, education is treated as if it is homogeneous and only differs in quantity. Some provinces, however, differentiate based on postsecondary field of study. This study explores the economic implications of field of study for each sex, and for two subgroups of immigrants, those educated in Canada and those educated elsewhere . Field of study is not observed to explain much of the earnings difference between immigrants and the Canadian born, though it is relatively more important for males than females in doing so. Interestingly, while there are a few exceptions, a general pattern is observed whereby the differences between high- and low-earning fields are not as large for immigrants as for the Canadian born. Similarly, social assistance receipt has smaller variance across fields for immigrants than for the Canadian born. Nevertheless, substantial inter-field differences are observed for each immigrant group. |
| Keywords: | Education, Population and demography, Labour, Fields of study, Ethnic origin, Employment |
| Date: | 2004–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2004233e&r=lab |
| By: | Roberto Bande; Melchor Fernandez; Víctor Manuel Montuenga |
| Abstract: | The existence and persistence of regional disparities is a common problem of many European economies. However, in Spain this fact exhibits a characteristic feature: a strong positive relationship with the business cycle. The analysis in this paper investigates the relationship between this distinguishing feature of the Spanish economy with the wage bargain system, and how changes in this system may have influenced the aggregate Spanish labour market performance in the recent past. The empirical findings of an important imitation effect in wage bargainings may explain both the persistence of disparities and their positive relationship with the cycle. This result has a direct implication to employment policies, which must take into account the regional dimension of the unemployment problem. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p489&r=lab |
| By: | Sylvie DEMURGER (HIEBS, the University of Hong Kong and CNRS (France)); Martin FOURNIER (CEFC (Hong Kong)); CHEN Yi (CERDI, Université d’Auvergne (France)) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impact of market liberalization on gender earnings differentials and discrimination against women in urban China at the beginning of the 90s. The observed stability in the overall gender earnings gap between 1988 and 1995 is shown to result from a complex set of evolutions across enterprises, earnings distributions and time. Our results highlight the interplay of opposing forces, economic reforms contributing to changes in managers’ behaviors in different dimensions. On the one hand, by bringing more competition, liberalization favored a reduction in discriminating behaviors in both urban collectives and foreign-invested enterprises; on the other hand, by relaxing institutional rules, it led to a loosening of the government’s egalitarian wage setting policies, leaving more space for discrimination in state-owned enterprises. |
| Keywords: | gender earnings differentials, discrimination, enterprise ownership, urban China |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J71 O53 P23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2006-23&r=lab |
| By: | Christiana Stoddard; Peter Kuhn |
| Abstract: | Beyond some contracted minimum, salaried workers' hours are largely chosen at the worker's discretion and should respond to the strength of contract incentives. Accordingly, we consider the response of teacher hours to accountability and school choice laws introduced in U.S. public schools over the past two decades. Total weekly hours of full-time teachers have risen steadily since 1983 by about an hour, and after-school instructional hours have increased 34 percent since 1987. Average hours and the rate of increase also vary widely across states. However, after accounting for a common time trend in hours, we find no association between the introduction of accountability legislation and the change in teacher hours. We conjecture that the weak link between effort and compensation in most school reforms helps explain the lack of such an association. |
| JEL: | I21 I28 J22 J44 J45 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11970&r=lab |
| By: | Leslie S. Stratton (Virginia Commonwealth University and IZA Bonn); Dennis M. O’Toole (Virginia Commonwealth University); James N. Wetzel (Virginia Commonwealth University) |
| Abstract: | We use data from the 1990/94 Beginning Post-Secondary Survey to determine whether the factors associated with long-term attrition from higher education differ for students who initially enrolled part-time as compared to for students who initially enrolled full-time. Using a two-stage sequential decision model to analyze the initial enrollment intensity decision jointly with attrition, we find no evidence of correlation in the unobservables that necessitates joint estimation, but substantial evidence that the factors associated with attrition differ by initial enrollment status. The timing of initial enrollment, academic performance, parental education, household characteristics, and economic factors had a substantially greater impact on those initially enrolled full-time, while racial and ethnic characteristics had a greater impact on those initially enrolled part-time. The results of our study suggest that separate specifications are necessary to identify at-risk full-time as compared with at-risk part-time students. |
| Keywords: | college enrollment, college dropout, part-time enrollment |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1951&r=lab |
| By: | Marius Thériault; Paul Y. Villeneuve; Marie-Hélène Vandersmissen; François Des Rosiers |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to assess differences on homeworking and teleworking behaviour among genders considering age groups, professional statuses, household structures and car access. The analysis is based on a sample of more than 30,000 workers responding to the 2001 origin-destination (O-D) survey data in Quebec City (Canada). Moreover, this paper puts specific emphasis on linking those differences in behaviour to the location of workplaces related to living places of the respondents. During the O-D survey, every worker was asked to disclose the frequency of homeworking and teleworking he/she was experiencing during the preceding weeks. Answers were later aggregated into six categories: never working at home (88.4% of respondents), working at home 1 day per two weeks or less (4.8%), 1 day per week (1.7%), 2 or 3 days per week (1.2%), 4 days or more per week (0.7%), always working at home (3.2% – homeworkers). However, those patterns show significant differences among genders (higher proportion of females are working entirely at home; higher proportion of males are occasionally working at home), age groups (younger workers seldom work at home and the proportion of teleworker increases with age – about 16% among the 55-64 years old and 27% among the elderly) and professional status (proportion of teleworkers is strongly related to qualifications and decisional status of the person, yielding higher levels of teleworking for managers, self-employed persons, professors and lawyers than for office clerks, technicians and non-qualified workers). This last relationship is very strong suggesting that job empowerment (especially ability to control time schedule) is of paramount importance for the development of teleworking. However, having higher family constraints, lone parents are seeking more flexibility on their work agenda: 12% are experiencing some level of teleworking on top of 3% of them which are homeworkers. Again, the difference appears more significant among male than among female workers, suggesting again a better control of the first group on their work schedule. Moreover, owning a driver license or holding a bus pass does not have the expected effect on teleworking: car drivers are working at home more frequently than other people; conversely 92% of bus users are going to their work place every weekday, leaving a mere 8% to teleworking and homeworking. Significant differences appear when considering workplaces and home locations within the city. People working near the city centre are more willing than others to consider teleworking, people living in the suburban areas show higher levels of homeworking. Finally, significant differences of travel time from home to work were found among various categories of teleworkers and homeworkers. Preliminary results suggest that the development of teleworking could be highly rooted to labour market and household structures as well as to the urban form. Urban sprawl is probably impeding development of teleworking, at least for Quebec City. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p141&r=lab |
| By: | Ines Murillo; Fernando Núñez; Carlos Usabiaga |
| Abstract: | The objective of the present paper is to contribute to the study of the labour markets of two Spanish regions that have mantained over the last few decades a persistent unemployment differential with respect to the remainder of the country: Andalusia and Extremadura. To this end, a brief descriptive analysis is given of the most important variables of these regional labour makets, together with the corresponding shift-share and virtual economy analysis. To study the degree of persistence of the unemployment rate in these two regions, the behaviour of their labour markets in response to specific shocks in employment is examined by means of a VAR analysis, following the method proposed by Blanchard y Katz (1992). One of the most noteworthy aspects brought out by the descriptive analysis was that, although the labour markets of Andalusia and Extremadura share many characteristics - indeed most of those that were analyzed- they also present differenciated patterns of behaviour in some important variables. For example, in the case of Andalusia economy, there is a notably strong growth of the labor force. This contrasts whit the weakness of employment growth in the Extremadura economy. Also worthy of note is the greater wage flexibility in Extremadura compared to Andalusia. From the VAR analysis applied to each of these two regions, one can conclude that a specific demand shock in Andalusia and Extremadura has permanent effects on the participation rate - especially in Andalusia- and on the unemployment rate - especially in Extremadura-, with the migratory movements in these regions being too low to return these variables to the level they had prior to the demand shock. In sum, the present paper points to a set of factors that could contribute to explaining the unemployment differentials of Andalusia and Extremadura relative to the rest of Spain. More specific analyses would be required to evaluate the explanatory capacity of each of these factors in accordance with the underlying methodology and theories corresponding to each case. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p278&r=lab |