|
on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
|
Issue of 2007‒03‒17
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Hans J. Baumgartner; Marco Caliendo |
| Abstract: | Turning unemployment into self-employment has become a major focus of German active labour market policy (ALMP) in recent years. If effective, this would not only reduce Germany's persistently high unemployment rate, but also increase its notoriously low self-employment rate. Empirical evidence on the effectiveness of such programmes is scarce. The contribution of the present paper is twofold: first, we evaluate the effectiveness of two start-up programmes for the unemployed. Our outcome variables include the probability of being employed, the probability of being unemployed, and personal income. Second, based on the results of this analysis, we conduct an efficiency analysis, i.e., we estimate whether the Federal Employment Agency has saved money by placing unemployed individuals in these programmes. Our results show that at the end of the observation period, both programmes are effective and one is also efficient. The considerable positive effects present a stark contrast to findings from evaluations of other German ALMP programmes in recent years. Hence, ALMP programmes aimed at moving the unemployed into self-employment may prove to be among the most effective, both in Germany and elsewhere |
| Keywords: | Start-up subsidies, evaluation, effectiveness, efficiency, self-employment |
| JEL: | J68 C14 H43 M13 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp671&r=ltv |
| By: | Dambrin, Claire; Lambert, Caroline |
| Abstract: | Women in public accounting firms are still proportionally much fewer in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men, whereas the recruitement at a junior level tends to be more and more gender balanced. The aim of this paper is to propose ana analysis of the mechanisms that explain the barriers encountered by auditor mothers in their hierarchical progression within the Big Four in France. |
| Keywords: | case study; glass ceiling; gender; public accounting firms; motherhood. |
| JEL: | J16 O15 |
| Date: | 2007–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:0862&r=ltv |
| By: | Cathleen Kantner |
| Keywords: | European identity; European public space; identity; normative political theory |
| Date: | 2006–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:euirsc:p0179&r=ltv |
| By: | Boman, Anders (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | Displaced workers are followed for ten years in order to analyse the earnings effects from internal migration. We utilise a large dataset containing all workers in Sweden who were displaced during 1987 or 1988. Effects from migration are investigated controlling for human capital, family, and labour market characteristics. Internal migration has positive earnings effects for men, while the consequences for women are in general negative or non-existent. Positive effects for immigrant men occur several years after migration, implying that long term effects are important to migrants and showing the importance of using a long observation period in migration studies. <p> |
| Keywords: | internal migration; earnings effects; job displacement |
| JEL: | J31 J61 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–02–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0244&r=ltv |
| By: | Sîle O'DOrchai (DULBEA, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels); Robert Plasman (DULBEA, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels); François Rycx (DULBEA, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, and IZA, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | Economic theory advances a number of reasons for the existence of a wage gap between part-time and full-time workers. Empirical work has concentrated on the wage effects of part-time work for women. For men, much less empirical evidence exists, mainly because of lacking data. In this paper, we take advantage of access to unique harmonised LEE data (i.e. the 1995 ESES) to investigate the magnitude and sources of the part-time wage penalty for male workers in six European countries (i.e. Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the UK). Findings show that the raw part-time wage gap for men fluctuates substantially across countries. They also suggest that policy initiatives to promote lifelong learning and training are of great importance to help part-timers catch up. Furthermore, except for Italy, they point to a persisting problem of occupational and sectoral segregation between men working part-time and full-time which requires renewed policy attention. |
| Keywords: | work status, part-time employment, wage gap, decomposition, human capital, segregation. |
| JEL: | C13 C31 J24 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dul:wpaper:07-02rs&r=ltv |
| By: | Bernd Hayo (Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Philipps Universitaet Marburg); Hiroyuki Ono (Faculty of Economics, Toyo Universtiy) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies attitudes about who should provide for the livelihood of the elderly in two aging societies, namely Germany and Japan. Applying an ordered logit model to individual data from representative public opinion surveys, it is analysed which socio-demographic, economic or political variables help to explain people’s attitudes on whether the government or individuals should be responsible for the livelihood of the elderly. We find that while higher income makes people more inclined towards the individual option, age is found to do the opposite in both countries. We conjecture that this age effect is related to the level of knowledge about the current situation of the public pension system. We also find that the part-time work status significantly affects attitudes in both countries, but not the same way. It affects adversely the inclination towards a government-based pension system in the case of Japan but positively in Germany. Other significant influences are the pensioner status of the respondents in Japan and their political position in the case of German data. |
| Keywords: | Livelihood of elderly, pension reform, public attitudes, aging societies, Germany, Japan |
| JEL: | H55 Z10 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:volksw:200703&r=ltv |
| By: | Robert Elliott; Joanne Kathryn Lindley (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | The economic performance and a related discussion on the existence, or otherwise, of racial discrimination in the UK labour market for migrants and ethnic minorities are of great interest to policymakers. In this paper we investigate the concept of occupational clustering as an explanation for the relatively poor earnings performance of non-white migrants and non-white natives. Although occupational clustering and other human capital and socio-economic factors provide a partial explanation for the raw earnings differential, evidence of ethnic based disadvantage persists. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination, earnings, occupation. |
| JEL: | J6 J7 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2006008&r=ltv |