Part-time workers doing full-time work in Japan

This paper is concerned with the phenomenon of part-time workers performing similar types of jobs to full-time workers in the same workplace. We use data from Japan's Survey on Diversified Types of Employment to answer two questions. First, why are firms increasingly employing part-time workers in jobs traditionally offered to full-time workers? Second, what are the characteristics of the workers taking these jobs? As for the former, it is primarily service sector firms using this new work relationship. Interestingly, there is evidence that manufacturing firms are outsourcing in lieu of hiring domestic part-time workers. On a positive note, we find evidence that part-time workers are screened by firms for full-time jobs. As to the second question, the workers are primarily professionals working long hours. As an aside, based on our data we find no evidence that part-time workers are more likely to be involuntarily employed in full-time jobs than in non full-time jobs. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (4) (2007) 435–454.     

Do Nutrition and Health Affect Migrant Workers＇ Incomes？ Some Evidence from Beijing,China

Migrant workers have become a major element of the labor force in Chinese cities, making important contributions to the economy while forming a socially disadvantaged group. Existing research on the relationship between the level of nutrition and health and income in China mainly focuses on farmers living in rural areas. Based on a Mincer equation and using a survey in Beijing, this paper examines the relationship between migrant workers＂ nutrition and health levels and their monthly incomes. We find that the nutrition intake and the body mass index have positive effects on income while duration of illness and daily working hours have negative effects. These conclusions imply that the Chinese Government should put more emphasis on improving migrant workers＇ well-being, including offering educational programs on nutrition and health, and enhancing medical insurance and the old-age insurance system.     

Working hours and job satisfaction in China: A threshold analysis

This study utilizes a threshold model to examine the nonlinear relationship between working hours and job satisfaction, using the open-access data of the 2018 China Family Panel Studies. We address the endogeneity of working hours utilizing an instrumental variable-based two-stage residual inclusion approach. The threshold model shows that the effects are indeed different. Working more than 9 h reduces workers' job satisfaction, and these reductions are even greater among those working more than 12 h. Heterogeneous analysis reveals that working long hours reduces the job satisfaction of female employees more than that of their male counterparts; the job satisfaction of unmarried individuals is unaffected by how long they work, whereas that of married workers declines when they work longer hours. Also, although the job satisfaction of wage-employed workers falls with an increase in the number of hours worked regardless of how long they work, that of self-employed workers falls only when they work more than 12 h. Poor physical health mediates the adverse effects of long working hours on job satisfaction. Finally, working long hours reduces individuals' short-run hedonic well-being but does not affect their perceptions and feelings towards various facets of life in the long run.     

Where Do the Sick Go? Health Insurance and Employment in Small and Large Firms

Small firms that offer health insurance to their employees may face variable premiums if the firm hires an employee with high-expected health costs. To avoid expensive premium variability, a small firm may attempt to maintain a workforce with low-expected health costs. In addition, workers with high-expected health costs may prefer employment in larger firms with health insurance rather than in smaller firms. This results in employment distortions. We examine the magnitude of these employment distortions in hiring, employment, and separations using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey from 1996 to 2001. We find that workers with high-expected health costs are less likely to be new hires in insured small firms and are less likely to be employed in insured small firms. We find no evidence that state small group health insurance reforms designed to restrict insurers' ability to deny coverage and restrict premium variability have reduced the extent of these distortions.     

Re-employment Rates of Older Unemployed Workers: Decomposing the Effect of Birth Cohorts and Policy Changes

In many European countries, re-employment probabilities of older unemployed workers are relatively low. While there is evidence that financial incentives and search obligations are effective to increase the job prospects of older workers, recent research also stresses the importance of birth cohort effects. These cohort effects may in turn stem from higher educational attainment levels and better health conditions of future generations of older workers. This paper empirically assesses the relative importance of both explanations, using a registered data set of unemployment insurance spells between 1999 and 2008 for the Netherlands. Using a Linear Probability Model, we decompose the effects of birth cohorts, age, calendar time and two policy measures that were targeted at older unemployed workers—i.e. increased job search obligations in 2004 and shorter potential benefit durations (PBD) in 2006. We find that policy effects predominantly explain the increased job return rates of unemployed of 55 years and older from 1999 to 2008. The introduction of search requirements has increased the one-year re-employment probability of eligible older men with about 5 % point, while the reduction in PBD has caused the one-year re-employment probability of eligible men to increase with 3 % point.     

Firms’ demand for work hours: Evidence from matched firm-worker data in Japan

Using information on Japanese males’ work hours and the matched firms’ characteristics, this paper investigates whether the number of hours worked is determined by demand-side factors and tries to offer a possible explanation of why Japanese males tend to work longer on average, than their counterparts in other countries. Based on an empirical framework in which each firm sets a minimum boundary of work hours and where workers hired by the firm are required to put in at least the minimum hours, we found that the minimum requirement depends on each firm’s fixed costs of labor. Specifically, firms that tend to hoard labor during recessions, presumably because of higher fixed costs, require incumbent workers to work longer hours during normal times. Since Japanese firms have long been considered as incurring high fixed costs to train workers, we interpret the long work hour requirement as a rational strategy for Japanese firms in protecting high-skill-accumulated workers from dismissal. In other words, the long work hours of Japanese males reflect firms’ long-term employment practices, a typical feature of the Japanese labor market.     

Reasons for college major-job mismatch and labor market outcomes: Evidence from China

Almost a quarter of recent college graduates in China are working in jobs that are not related to their college major—mismatched—due to various reasons. In this study, combining administrative records with survey data on a large sample of college graduates from the class of 2019 in a central province of China, we provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first evidence on the effects of different types of mismatches on a variety of labor market outcomes among recent Chinese college graduates. To address the endogeneity problem associated with mismatch, we use a variety of proxies for individual ability and resources, employ the propensity score matching strategy, and use the bounding analysis to examine the extent to which our estimates are sensitive to unobserved influences. Results show that workers who are mismatched due to personal interests (interest-mismatched) have better labor market outcomes than other types of mismatched workers, as well as matched workers, in terms of higher probabilities of getting promoted and receiving on-the-job training. Of all mismatched workers, skill-mismatched workers (mismatched due to a lack of skills) and demand-mismatched workers (mismatched due to jobs in related fields being unavailable) are associated with lower probabilities of job satisfaction, promotion, and job stability. Results from identification strategies reveal some evidence of selection on observed variables and some evidence of sample selection, but our findings remain consistent and most estimates are robust to a potentially relatively large influence of unobserved heterogeneity. Further analysis demonstrates some gender differences in the estimated effects of different types of mismatches on labor market outcomes.     

Is There Job Lock? Evidence from the Pre-HIPAA Era

We estimate discrete time hazard models of employment duration and standard logarithmic wage equations using the 1987 and 1990 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine the phenomenon of job lock. We lest for job lock using differences-in-differences approaches among those with and without employer-provided health insurance and family members with and without health problems. We find no statistically significant evidence of job lock on employment duration or wages using this approach. We do find some evidence of shorter employment spells for those with employer-provided health insurance and spouse-provided health insurance, and longer employment spells for those with employer-provided health insurance and large families. Others have interpreted these findings as evidence of job lock. However, the wage equation results using these measures are not consistent with job lock. Although anecdotal evidence makes it clear that some workers have been locked into less-than-optimal jobs because of the combination of health problems and employer-provided health insurance, our results do not suggest that this phenomenon is pervasive in the U.S. economy.     

How does economic integration influence employment and wages in border regions? The case of the EU enlargement 2004 and Germany’s eastern border

This paper considers the (short-run) employment and wage effects of the 2004 EU enlargement on firms located close to Germany’s eastern border. We use a 50% sample of Germans plants and apply difference-in-differences estimators combined with a matching approach. We evaluate changes in total employment, the employment shares of low-skilled and East European workers and the wages for low-skilled, skilled and high-skilled workers in various sectors. Our results suggest basically no short-run employment effects of the EU enlargement except for firms active in wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants. We also find some evidence for a stronger employment of East European workers in almost all border firms, although the effects are quantitatively small. Negative wage effects are only found for skilled workers in consulting, research and related activities.     

The Return to Hours and Workers in U.S. Manufacturing: Evidence on Aggregation Bias

Reliance on overtime or part-time work is contested by organized labor and suggests employers exploit trade-offs between workers and hours. Worker-hour models predict return to hours and workers' estimates are crucial in evaluating the trade-off between them. This paper uses data that vary by industry to test and reject a common production structure across industries used in prior work; this aggregation is shown to yield an upward bias in return-to-hours estimates. Contrary to prior evidence, the industry-specific return-to-hour estimates are lower than return-to-worker estimates and are generally less than one, suggesting that trade-offs between workers and hours may be cost effective.     

Vulnerability of households to health shocks: an Indonesian study

We examine the effect of illness and injury shocks on work hours and household consumption in Indonesia. Using indices of activities of daily living to measure health shocks, we find that both labour hours and household consumption are influenced by health shocks to household heads. Further, farm households seem to be more seriously affected than non-farm households by health shocks. However, the magnitude of the health effect on household consumption is small, implying that even farm households are well protected on average by the presence of formal and informal risk-coping mechanisms.     

The Trade-Off Between Supervision and Wages: Evidence of Efficiency Wages from the NLSY

Standard efficiency wage models suggest that workers employed in places with lower probabilities of identifying shirking will earn more, as will workers who have better alternative opportunities. This paper provides new empirical evidence in support of efficiency wage theory using the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth data. The empirical results support the prediction of the model that workers employed in larger work groups are paid more, a finding consistent with a supervision-wage trade-off. Additional evidence supports the prediction that workers with better alternative opportunities earn more.     

我国的信贷资源配置是有效的吗——基于我国上市公司投资效率视角的经验证据

作为我国企业最主要的资金来源,信贷资金在我国的国民经济中扮演着极其重要的角色,因此信贷资源配置质量的高低无疑将对我国的经济发展产生重要影响。本文以我国上市公司为研究对象,从企业投资效率的角度研究了我国的信贷资源配置效率问题。本文发现,处于过度投资状态的企业获得了更多的长期贷款;而且过度投资程度越大,它们获得的长期贷款越多。进一步的研究结果表明,企业的过度投资或投资不足的程度越大,企业价值越低。上述结果表明,我国的信贷市场是低效的,更多的信贷资源流向了处于过度投资状态的企业,而这类企业的价值较低,说明我国银行的资源配置功能较差。本文的研究丰富了信贷配给研究领域的文献,同时也为我国银行的信贷决策和我国的银行改革提供了参考依据。     

What happens to Japan if China catches a cold?: A causal analysis of Chinese growth and Japanese growth

In this paper, we conduct an empirical study to investigate the directionality of the dependence between the Chinese economy and the Japanese economy. Taking a probabilistic causal approach, we infer the causal dependence among the Japanese economy and the Chinese economy based on observed data. We find evidence that the Chinese growth has both contemporaneous and temporal causal effects on Japanese growth, though the effect is very small. We did not find any evidence that the Japanese growth might have temporal or contemporaneous causal effect on Chinese growth.     

The Scope for Increasing Total Hours Worked

Dutch women who work long hours mostly prefer to work shorter hours whereas women who work short hours mostly prefer to work longer hours. This paper shows that the point where preferred and actual working hours are on average equal depends on individual characteristics. This heterogeneity is of interest to policy makers who are aiming to increase the total number of hours worked by women. The tool this paper develops is informative in two ways. First, it shows in what hours range we find individuals of a certain type who want to work longer or shorter hours. Second, it calculates the relative sizes of these groups to examine the scope for policy.     

New evidence of the interdependence in the labor-supply behavior of white couples

A logit technique is used to estimate couples' joint probabilities of various labor-force statuses, given their personal characteristics. Conditional probabilities of the labor-force status of spouses are inferred. An analysis of these probabilities suggests that, while spouses appear to be complementary in participation decisions, there is also evidence of substitutability in spouses' work hours, ceteris paribus.     

The times they are not changin’: Days and hours of work in Old and New Worlds, 1870–2000

This paper brings a historical perspective to debates on worktime differences across OECD countries, exploiting new data sets on hours of work per week, and days and hours of work per year between 1870 and 2000. We contest the popular view that the divergence in worktimes between Europe and North America and Australia is a recent phenomenon. Since 1870 the decline in weekly and annual hours was consistently greater in the Old World; the New World has had fewer days off for the last 130 years. Labor power and inequality, held to be important determinants of worktime after 1970, had comparable effects in the period before 1913. We find that given their levels of income in 1870 New World workers supplied relatively too many hours of work.     

Investing in Health: A Macroeconomic Exploration of Short-Run and Long-Run Trade-Offs

This paper aims to unravel the competing effects of health investment. It explores, both analytically and numerically, the equilibrium shift and transitional dynamics after a one-time policy of health investment. We find that such a policy improves health status in the long run, but harms economic growth in both the short- and long-term. The relative sizes of these competing effects depend on the specific health parameters. Within the plausible range for the value of health relative to consumption, households gain welfare in the long run as long as the effectiveness of labor in health production is large. The expanded health sector policy makes households worse off only if labor is rather unproductive in producing health and if households value health relatively little. Nevertheless, the findings challenge the policy recommendations of the World Bank (1993) and World Health Organization (2001) in that good health does not necessarily increase the productivity of workers and the economic growth rate. We hope that the relative simplicity of our model, compared to the existing theoretical literature, can help close the gap between formal academic work on this topic and actual debates among policy makers in both developed and developing countries.     

The Contribution of Associate's Degree Holders to U.S. Earnings,Labor Quality,Productivity, and Overall Economic Growth

There is substantial evidence on the importance of education as a driver of earnings, productivity, and economic growth. However, knowledge of the specific role of associate's degrees in U.S. economic growth is limited. We analyze the sources of U.S. economic growth and identify the contribution of associate's degree holders to improvements in earnings, labor quality, productivity, and overall economic growth. We find evidence that substitution toward workers with associate's degrees has increased U.S. earnings, aggregate labor quality, and productivity, and that these effects are concentrated in the health care, trade, and government sectors. While the average educational attainment of people entering the labor force has plateaued, our results suggest that shifting workers from some college to associate degrees could improve earnings, the quality of the workforce, productivity, and growth, potentially without more time spent in school.     

Unemployment and Health Behaviors over the Business Cycle: A Longitudinal View

We examine the first-order internal effects of unemployment and nonemployment on a range of health behaviors during the most recent recession using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979. Ours is the first study to analyze the effect of own-unemployment on energy intake, energy expenditure, and the net effect (body mass index) using longitudinal records. Exploiting information enveloping the recent steep recession and prolonged recovery is valuable since recent job losers will modify their behavior little if they expect soon to be re-employed, whereas if they expect joblessness to last, they will adjust to a possibly prolonged decline in income and increase in nonwork time. We find that becoming unemployed is associated with a small increase in leisure-time exercise, a moderate decrease in smoking, and a substantial decline in total physical activity. We also find that unemployment and nonemployment are associated with a decline in purchases of fast food. Together, these results imply that both energy consumption and expenditure may decline in the United States during recessions, the net result being essentially no change in body weight. There is considerable heterogeneity in these effects across specific health behaviors, across the intensive and extensive margins, across the outcome distribution, and across gender.