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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Stephan Humpert; Christian Pfeifer |
| Abstract: | This paper takes a labor supply perspective (neoclassical labor supply, job search) to explain the lower employment rates of older workers and women. The basic rationale is that workers choose non-employed if their reservation wages are larger than the offered wages. Whereas the offered wages depend on workers' productivity and firms' decisions, reservation wages are largely determined by workers' endowments and preferences for leisure. To shed some empirical light on this issue, we use German survey data to analyze age and gender differences in reservation and entry wages, preferred and actual working hours, and satisfaction with leisure and work. |
| Keywords: | Age, family gap, gender, job search, labor supply, reservation wages |
| JEL: | J14 J22 J64 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp449&r=lma |
| By: | Hanel, Barbara (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research); Kalb, Guyonne (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research); Scott, Anthony (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) |
| Abstract: | Many countries face a continuing shortage in nurses' labour supply. Previous research suggests that nurses respond only weakly to changes in wages. We estimate a multi-sector model of nursing qualification holders' labour supply in different occupations. A structural approach allows us to model the labour force participation decision, the occupational and shift-type choice, and the decision about hours worked as a joint outcome following from maximizing a utility function. Disutility from work is allowed to vary by occupation and also by shift type in the utility function. Furthermore, we allow the preference parameters in the utility function to vary by certain family characteristics and personality. Our results suggest that average wage elasticities might be higher than previous research has found. This is mainly due to the effect of wages on the decision to enter or exit the profession, which was not included in the previous literature, rather than from its effect on increased working hours for those who already work in the profession. We find that the negative labour supply elasticities with respect to income are higher for nurses with children, while the positive elasticities with respect to wages are higher for low-qualified, older and childless nurses. Elasticities do not appear to vary by personality trait. |
| Keywords: | nursing, labour supply, shift work, wage elasticities |
| JEL: | J22 J24 I10 I11 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6573&r=lma |
| By: | Chzhen, Yekaterina (University of Oxford); Mumford, Karen A. (University of York); Nicodemo, Catia (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | We use quantile regression and counterfactual decomposition methods to explore gender gaps across the earning distribution for full-time employees in the Australian private sector. Significant evidence of a self selection effect for women into full-time employment (or of components of self selection related to observable or unobservable characteristics) is, interestingly, not found to be relevant in the Australian context. Substantial gender earnings gaps (and glass ceilings) are established, with these earnings gaps found to be predominantly related to women receiving lower returns to their observable characteristics than men. |
| Keywords: | gender, earnings, selection, quantile distribution |
| JEL: | J3 J7 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6558&r=lma |
| By: | Eric Delattre; Jean-Baptiste Combès; Bob Elliott; Diane Skatun (THEMA, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise; Health Economics Research Unit, University of Aberdeen; Health Economics Research Unit, University of Aberdeen; Health Economics Research Unit, University of Aberdeen) |
| Abstract: | Research has shown that where nurses’ wages are regulated but wages in other sectors are not this results in spatial variations in the competitiveness of nurses pay and that in England these are correlated with spatial differences in nurses’ labour supply. In France there is general regulation of wages and public hospitals compete with the private hospital and non hospital sectors for nurses. We construct and employ a unique dataset on nurses pay and the characteristics of hospitals in France. We undertake the first study of the impact of spatial wage differentials on nursing supply to French public hospitals. We show that nurse assistants’ labour supply is sensitive to spatial wage differentials, the more competitive their pay the smaller the shortage of nurse assistants, and that registered nurses and nurse assistants labour supply are interdependent, the greater the supply of nurse assistants the greater the supply of registered nurses. |
| Keywords: | Wage regulation, local pay, standardised spatial wage differentials, nursing shortage, nursing labour supply |
| JEL: | I12 I18 J31 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2012-35&r=lma |
| By: | L.G. Deidda; Dimitri Paolini |
| Abstract: | We model a competitive labor market populated by workers who are heterogeneous in wealth and skills, in which education plays a signaling role. We show that whenever the accumulation of factors of production such has technology results in a wider wage premium for skills over time – as it might happen under skill biased technological progress – the investment in education needed to sustain a talent separating equilibrium, in which skilled workers are able to perfectly signal their skills, also increases. Hence, increases in the wage skill premium induce an education race as skilled individuals try and invest more to signal themselves. However, if due to imperfect capital markets, the borrowing capacity of poor individuals is lower than that of rich ones, such race will eventually come to an end as poor and skilled individuals are no longer able to finance the amount of investment needed to signal their talent, and end up pooled together with unskilled and rich at a lower level of education. Hence, the behavior of the long run supply of skills with respect to an increase in the wage-skill premium is sluggish. Such mechanism supports a supply side explanation –which complements the skill bias technological change hypothesis – for the long run trends of (i) The wage-skill differentials and (ii) The relative supply of postgraduates and college graduates in the US labor market. |
| Keywords: | Signaling; Wage-skill premium; supply of skills |
| JEL: | D8 D4 L15 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201206&r=lma |
| By: | Fingleton, Bernard; Longhi, Simonetta |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates individual wage equations in order to test two rival non-nested theories of economic agglomeration, namely New Economic Geography (NEG), as represented by the NEG wage equation and urban economic (UE) theory , in which wages relate to employment density. The paper makes an original contribution by evidently being the first empirical paper to examine the issue of agglomeration processes associated with contemporary theory working with micro-level data, highlighting the role of gender and other individual-level characteristics. For male respondents, there is no significant evidence that wage levels are an outcome of the mechanisms suggested by NEG or UE theory, but this is not the case for female respondents. We speculate on the reasons for the gender difference. |
| Keywords: | urban economics, new economic geography, household panel data, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edn:sirdps:276&r=lma |
| By: | Anabela Carneiro (Universidade do Porto and CEF.UP); José Varejão (Universidade do Porto and CEF.UP) |
| Abstract: | We consider the determinants of the evolution of wage inequality in the context of the literature on entry and exit of establishments. Using several measures of wage inequality (overall, within-group, and between-groups), we conclude that shutdowns reduce overall and within-group inequality because they eliminate low-pay jobs. Startups increase wage inequality between age and, especially, education groups, because newly-created establishments make staffing choices that are different from those made by continuously-operating establishments and establishments that shut down. |
| Keywords: | Wage Inequality; Labor Demand; Establishment Turnover. |
| JEL: | J23 J31 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:cetedp:1202&r=lma |
| By: | Mine Hancioglu; Bastian Hartmann |
| Abstract: | To explore single mothers' labor market participation we analyze specific circumstances and dynamics in their life courses. We focus on the question which individual and institutional factors determine both professional advancement and professional descent. Due to dynamics in women's life course identifying and analyzing restrictions and interruptions of employment requires a longitudinal research design. The German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2009) provides all necessary information identifying episodes of single motherhood and employment during life courses. Since family statuses of single mothers are partially endogenous and can end in multiple ways, we use semi-parametric survival models. Competing risks estimations offer a detailed view by analyzing single mothers' transition from not being employed to full-time or part-time work and vice versa simultaneously. Estimates show that occupational careers of single mothers are influenced by both individual factors and institutional circumstances. Whereas specific problems occur shortly after becoming a single mother, these problems seem to be dealt with over time. Enhancing labor market participation or maintaining full-time employment as a single mother can be achieved when certain challenges are met such as appointed and reliable working hours. Single mothers that do not have to rely on public childcare arrangements, but are capable of finding individual solutions are more likely to balance work and family life. Among institutional determinants welfare benefits have a negative effect on the market labor participation of women in low-paid jobs. |
| Keywords: | Single mothers, labor supply, event history analysis, Cox-regression |
| JEL: | C14 C23 J12 J13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp446&r=lma |
| By: | James Ted McDonald; Casey Warman; Christopher Worswick |
| Abstract: | We analyze the process of immigrant selection and occupational outcomes of International Medical Graduates (IMGs) in the US and Canada. The IMG relicensing model of Kugler and Sauer (2005) is extended to incorporate two different approaches to immigrant selection: employer nomination systems and point systems. Consistent with the predictions of our model, we find that, in Canada where a point system has been in place, IMGs are less likely to be employed as physicians than are IMGs in the US, where employer nomination is a more important entry path for IMGs. |
| Keywords: | Physicians, immigration, occupation, skills, human capital |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J61 J62 J71 J80 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:sedapp:293&r=lma |