Compensating wage differentials for job stress

Recent medical studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between mental stress and cardiac events such as myocardial infarction and stroke. In the workplace, stress once accounted for less than 5% of all occupational disease claims, but it now accounts for over 15%. Although research on the effects of mental stress is increasing, few studies offer an economic perspective. In this paper, we examine the effects of job stress on weekly wages and explore the possibility that stress commands a compensating wage differential. Our findings suggest that, ceteris paribus, a wage differential does exist between workers experiencing mental stress and their ‘non-stressed’ cohorts. After controlling for other demographic and occupational factors, we found a statistically significant wage premium ranging from 3 to 10% attributable to mental stress. In addition, the magnitude of the differential varies by gender.     

The assimilation of Australian immigrants: does occupation matter?

This paper utilises the occupational attainment approach to investigate immigrant labour market assimilation, complementing other assimilation approaches such as employability, earnings, skills-match and job satisfaction. Our results show that all immigrant groups suffer from initial occupational attainment disadvantage. Worryingly, no ‘catch-up’ over time is evident – even when disaggregated to reflect different cultures and backgrounds. Nor is there much evidence that the occupational status of younger arrivals matches those of Australian born residents, despite being immersed in local mores and institutions while undertaking schooling in Australia. Newer cohorts of immigrants (those who arrived between 2000 and 2014) are also more prone to suffering an occupational penalty. We recommend policymakers subsidise bridging courses to aid recognition of overseas-obtained qualifications and encourage immigrants to obtain local qualifications that can complement their overseas-obtained work experience. This will increase their ‘Australian-ready’ skill-set and occupational attainment in their new host country.     

ECONOMIC VOTING AND ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR: HOW DO INDIVIDUAL,LOCAL, AND NATIONAL FACTORS AFFECT THE PARTISAN CHOICE?

What impact do income and other demographic factors have on a voter's partisan choice? Using post‐election surveys of 14,000 voters in 10 Australian elections between 1966 and 2001, I explore the impact that individual, local, and national factors have on voters' decisions. In these 10 elections, the poor, foreign‐born, younger voters, voters born since 1950, men, and those who are unmarried are more likely to be left‐wing. Over the past 35 years, the partisan gap between men and women has closed, but the partisan gap has widened on three dimensions: between young and old; between rich and poor; and between native‐born and foreign‐born. At a neighborhood level, I find that, controlling for a respondent's own characteristics, and instrumenting for neighborhood characteristics, voters who live in richer neighborhoods are more likely to be right‐wing, while those in more ethnically diverse or unequal neighborhoods are more likely to be left‐wing. Controlling for incumbency, macroeconomic factors do not seem to affect partisan preferences – Australian voters apparently regard both major parties as equally capable of governing in booms and busts.     

Occupational skill attainment in Canada: the role of gender,nativity status and ethnic origin

This paper examines how ethnic origin and gender interact to shape the occupational skills attainment of native and foreign born workers in Canada. Of special interest is how the occupational profile of the foreign-born evolves over time relative to that of the native-born, by gender and ethnic origin. We estimate multinomial logit models from 1991 and 2006 census data, and then simulate occupational profiles of the native and foreign-born of different ethnic origin, controlling for human capital characteristics. We find that native and foreign-born women display the ‘glass-ceiling’ and ‘sticky-floor’ syndrome in that they are significantly underrepresented in management positions and overrepresented in clerical positions relative to men, more significantly if their education was not acquired in Canada. There is variation by ethnic origin, and all groups display significant occupational mobility over time. But even after 15?years, foreign-born occupational distributions differ substantially from those of the native-born.     

Terms-of-Trade Shocks, Labor-Market Adjustment, and Safeguard Measures

This paper explores a simple model of labor-market adjustment where intersectoral transfer in response to terms-of-trade shocks involves both sector-specific skill acquisition and workplace disruption. Externalities arise because the marginal migrant does not consider the congestion costs imposed on intramarginal migrants or the disruption costs imposed on the incumbent workers in both sectors. While these externalities give rise to a case for temporary adjustment assistance, the analysis does not support the use of trade measures such as tariffs.     

Regulatory Federalism and Workplace Safety: Evidence from OSHA Enforcement, 1981–1995

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) gives states the option to enforce federal occupational safety and health standards on their own instead of relying on the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). This legislative provision provides an opportunity to analyze a homogenous set of regulatory standards enforced by heterogeneous agents engaged in interjurisdictional competition. This study finds important differences in the effectiveness of enforcement options measured by occupational mortality. State-administered OSHA programs are associated with fewer workplace fatalities than states regulated at the federal level. This finding is consistent with regulatory federalism and government-as-facilitator models of OSHA enforcement.     

Delinquency,schooling, and work: time allocation decision of youth

This paper examines the possible factors that affect the time allocation decision of youth between delinquency, schooling, and work. Based on a joint decision model, evidence from Montreal shows that influences from different social institutions such as family, church, school, peers and the workplace are important determinants of how young people decide to spend their time on various activities. The findings provided here take into account the joint decision nature of the problem and therefore provide more precise estimates than those of the existing literature.     

What drives the perception of health and safety risks in the workplace? Evidence from European labour markets

Worker perceptions of job-related health risk are a little-studied dimension of heterogeneity in the labour market. According to information from the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), one out of three European workers considers that her health and safety is at risk because of work. Not surprisingly, risk perceptions are influenced by objective risk factors such as hazardous working conditions, onerous job characteristics and by the probability to be affected by occupational accidents and illnesses. This paper explores also the role played by personal characteristics and household structure for the explanation of risk perceptions. After controlling for job characteristics, workplace hazards, job satisfaction and health outcomes, I find that risk perceptions are strongly correlated with gender, age, and household structure. Lone parents as well as older and more experienced workers have a higher propensity than other categories to consider their health at risk because of work. The same seems to hold true for better educated workers, especially for those who have completed tertiary education. Further results suggest that the relationship between household structure and risk perception is stable across gender.     

工作场所地位对员工越轨创新的影响：能力面子压力与地位关心水平的作用

基于面子观与地位观整合视角，通过对多时点收集的340份有效数据进行实证分析，探讨了能力面子压力和地位关心水平在工作场所地位对员工越轨创新行为影响机制中的作用。研究结果表明，工作场所地位正向影响员工越轨创新行为;能力面子压力在工作场所地位与员工越轨创新行为间起中介作用；员工的地位关心水平正向调节工作场所地位对能力面子压力的影响，同时调节能力面子压力在工作场所地位与员工越轨创新行为间的间接影响效应，即地位关心水平越高，能力面子压力的中介效应越显著。     

Nerves of steel? Stress,work performance and elite athletes

There is a notable shortage of empirical research directed at measuring the magnitude and direction of stress effects on performance in a controlled environment. One reason for this is the inherent difficulties in identifying and isolating direct performance measures for individuals. Additionally, most traditional work environments contain a multitude of exogenous factors impacting individual performance, but controlling for all such factors is generally unfeasible (omitted variable bias). Moreover, instead of asking individuals about their self-reported stress levels, we observe workers’ behaviour in situations that can be classified as stressful. For this reason, we have stepped outside the traditional workplace in an attempt to gain greater controllability of these factors using the sports environment as our experimental space. We empirically investigate the relationship between stress and performance, in an extreme pressure situation (football penalty kicks) in a winner take all sporting environment (FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Cup competitions). Specifically, we examine all the penalty shootouts between 1976 and 2008 covering in total 16 events. The results indicate that extreme stressors can have a positive or negative impact on individuals’ performance. On the other hand, more commonly experienced stressors do not affect professionals’ performances.     

Seasonal adjustment,demography, and GDP growth

Seasonal adjustment removes the predictable seasonal variation in GDP. If there is seasonal variation in factor inputs, then seasonal adjustment factors may be correlated with those inputs. This correlation can obscure statistically the importance of those inputs for GDP. This effect is apparent for the demographic composition of the labour force for Canada. Seasonal adjustment also changes the time‐series properties of GDP. Accounting for the seasonal pattern and trend change in demography suggests that the period of reduced volatility in GDP growth for Canada, the ‘Great Moderation,’ can be traced to the changing demographic structure of the labour force.     

What is behind low wages in central and eastern Europe?

This paper compares wages across Europe in relation to the characteristics of workers and firms, with a particular focus on wage levels in central and eastern European countries. Worker and workplace endowments can be taken as a proxy for labour productivity. We estimate the extent to which wage differences observed at an aggregate level can be related to the different compositions of workforces and workplaces, as well as the types of jobs conducted in separate countries. We also decompose the observed differences in returns on endowments by identifying the sectors and occupational categories that contribute most to the wage gaps observed at the aggregate level. The wage gaps in low-wage countries actually appear larger once differences in worker, work and workplace characteristics are controlled for. In contrast, the differences in wages between high-wage countries diminish when we control for these endowments. The wage gap between East and West thus seems to be explained by a much lower return on skills and other characteristics rather than by differences in the composition of workforces and firms. Sectoral and occupational analysis suggests that central and eastern European countries have developed a generalised low-cost and low-wage model, with relative returns particularly low on higher skills. There is much less wage disparity across European countries in more labour intensive and lower-paid services sectors, such as accommodation and food service activities. The magnitude of the wage gap seems to be driven by the relative position of sectors and occupations in high-wage countries.     

Workplace problems,mental health and substance use

Little is known about how workplace problems may influence diagnosable mental health and substance use (MHSU) disorders. We examine the associations between three common workplace problems (experiencing problems with co-workers, job changes and perceived financial strain) and three MHSU disorders (mood, anxiety and substance abuse/dependence). The analysis utilizes longitudinal data on a sample of working-age adults from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. These data are well suited for our research objective as the survey was specifically designed to study MHSU disorders. Results show that experiencing these workplace problems is associated with an increased risk for mental health disorders, but not substance use disorders. Importantly, various robustness checks and sensitivity analyses demonstrate that our findings cannot be not fully explained by omitted variables, reverse causality or sample attrition.     

Occupational mobility in Australia: A quantitative approach

The major aim of this paper is to formulate and estimate a model to explain occupational mobility in Australia. The main hypotheses advanced in the development of the theoretical model are that occupational mobility varies with excess demand (or supply) in the aggregate labour market, that segmentation occurs within individual markets for specific occupations, and that net mobility between occupations is responsive to changes in relative occupational wage rates after adjustment for differential risks of unemployment. The empirical results support the hypothesis that net mobility is a function of changes in relative occupational certainty equivalent wage rates. Further, the statistical properties of the estimates suggest that the structural approach can be highly successful in comparison to previous reduced-form studies in this area.     

Labour segregation and immigrant and native-born wage distributions in Spain: an analysis using matched employer–employee data

This article carries out an empirical examination of the origin of the differences between immigrant and native-born wage structures in the Spanish labour market. Special attention is given in the analysis to the role played by occupational and workplace segregation of immigrants. Legal immigrants from developing countries exhibit lower mean wages and a more compressed wage structure than native-born workers. By contrast, immigrants from developed countries display higher mean wages and a more dispersed wage structure. The main empirical finding is that the disparities in the wage distributions for the native-born and both groups of immigrants are largely explained by their different observed characteristics, with a particularly important influence in this context of workplace and, specially, occupational segregation. Hipólito Simón, Esteban Sanromá and Raúl Ramos wish to thank the support received from the Ministerio de Fomento and the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia through the projects T 75/2006 (Plan Nacional de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Científica), SEJ2004-05860/ECON and SEJ2005-04348/ECON, respectively. A previous version of this paper was published as an IVIE Working Paper (WP-EC 2007-03).     

OCCUPATIONAL EARNINGS BEHAVIOR AND THE INEQUALITY OF EARNINGS BY SEX AND RACE IN THE UNITED STATES*

This paper examines differences in earnings by occupations, and within occupations by sex and by race, on the basis of the 1/100 Public Use Samples of the 1960 and 1970 U.S. Population Censuses. It employs interval analysis to establish 32 categories of occupations with similar characteristics. Little relation was found between mean earnings of occupational groups and the degree of earnings inequality within them. When the figures are examined by sex, it was found that men, on average, earned over twice as much as women in both years, but women's earnings were more unequally distributed (as measured by the Gini coefficient). Women are concentrated in the traditional “female” occupations, which tend to be those at the bottom of the earnings scale, and men have a monopoly of the higher paid occupations. But mean earnings for men exceeded those for women in all occupational groups except one, even in the primarily female occupations. Standardizing first for occupational distribution and then for earnings by occupation, it was found that earnings differences between males and females within occupation had a greater impact on the overall male-female earnings ratio than did differences in occupational distribution by sex. In contrast, when the figures are examined by race, the change in occupational distribution (primarily the movement of blacks out of farming and of blacks and Spanish speakers out of personal services) was the major factor. There was also a considerable degree of earnings inequality within demographic groups. The degree of inequality was in the main reduced when the demographic groups were subdivided into occupations, but it was still substantial. Additional factors like time worked, schooling, and experience must be taken into consideration in understanding this phenomenon.     

工作压力双路径视角下国防研发人员主动性行为形成机理：职场精神力的调节效应

研发人员主动性行为是实现国防科技企业创新与高质量发展的重要竞争力来源,但有关工作压力背景下主动性行为的形成机理仍缺乏实证探索。以双元工作压力理论为基础,探讨了挑战性压力与阻碍性压力对国防研发人员主动性行为的作用机制,重点考察了工作繁荣与情绪耗竭的中介作用以及职场精神力的调节效应。针对8家国防科技企业及科研院所的630名研发人员开展实证研究,分析结果表明：挑战性压力和阻碍性压力分别对主动性行为起正向与负向作用;工作繁荣和情绪耗竭分别在挑战性压力、阻碍性压力与主动性行为间起部分中介作用;职场精神力正向调节挑战性压力与工作繁荣的关系,负向调节阻碍性压力与情绪耗竭的关系;职场精神力不仅调节了挑战性压力通过工作繁荣影响主动性行为的间接效应,还调节了阻碍性压力通过情绪耗竭影响主动性行为的间接效应。     

The Trade-Off between Quantity and Quality in Family Fertility Decision: Evidence from China's Family Planning Policy

Based on the Chinese General Social Survey 2006 and 2008 data, this paper assesses the influence of the family planning policy on the qualitative development of children using education attainment and individual income of only children versus children with siblings as parameters. Our results show the following: (1) only children are better-educated than their counterparts with siblings; (2) only children earn higher income in comparison to their counterparts with siblings; (3) the income and education gaps between girls with and without siblings are greater than those between boys; (4) the education gaps between only children and children with siblings are greater for those born in the 1970s, but the income difference between only children and children with siblings is only significant for those born in the 1980s; and (5) the income and education gaps between only children and children with siblings are higher in urban regions. Results indicate that families with only one child invest more resources in children’s quality under the family planning policy, which is consistent with the “quantity–quality trade-off” theory proposed by Gary Becker.     

Factors influencing work productivity and intent to stay in nursing

The researchers document the individual and workplace characteristics associated with decreased work productivity and intent to stay in nursing for nurses employed in direct patient care in the hospital setting. Factors associated with decreased work productivity were age, total years worked as a RN, quality of care provided, job stress score, having had a job injury, and having a health problem. Nurse leaders must place additional efforts on changes needed to improve the hospital workplace environment to decrease job stress, improve RNs' ability to provide quality care, and to assure the health and safety of nurses. Reducing job stress and providing adequate staffing so quality of care can be provided will enhance job satisfaction which will also encourage RNs to stay at the bedside. Improved work environments may delay older RNs' retirement from the workforce.     

人民币汇率定价的逆周期因子：启用时间、驱动因素与实施效果*

本文对2017年5月—2019年9月期间人民币汇率定价过程中逆周期因子的使用进行了测算，并构建非限制性VAR模型分析了中国央行两次启用逆周期因子的驱动因素和实施效果。研究发现：第一，相对于官方公布时间，两次逆周期因子调节均呈现出提前开始和滞后结束的情况，且调整幅度呈现逐渐收窄的趋势；第二，第二次逆周期因子的调节幅度大于第一次；第三，人民币汇率波动是第一次逆周期因子调节的主要驱动因素，而离岸在岸汇价差和汇率政策不确定性是第二次逆周期因子调节的主要驱动因素；第四，两次逆周期因子调节均对人民币汇率波动产生了抑制作用，但加剧了离岸市场人民币贬值预期。