Gender Effect in Explaining Mobility Patterns in the Labor Market: A Case Study of Turkey

This paper examines the importance of gender for different job mobility patterns using an extensive household survey data from İzmir, the third largest city in Turkey. The determinants of job‐to‐job and job‐to‐nonemployment transitions are analyzed with the help of a multinomial logit estimation method. The results indicate that there is a distinction regarding the probability of job mobility patterns based on gender. It is more likely for women to be engaged in job‐to‐nonemployment transition, whereas men tend to change jobs more often. Although gender plays a significant role in job mobility patterns, traditionally imposed social constraints associated with childcare and household duties provide us with mixed results considering the behavior of women in the job market. On the other hand, having highly paid and secure jobs decreases the probability of both patterns of job mobility.     

Sex,Race, and Job Satisfaction Among Highly Educated Workers

There has been a considerable amount of work focusing on job satisfaction and sex, generally finding that women are more satisfied than men despite having objectively worse job conditions. But there is little evidence on whether job satisfaction differs by race or ethnicity. We use data from the 2010 National Survey of College Graduates to examine the relation between job satisfaction and race and ethnicity among Asian, black, Hispanic/Latino, and white workers. Overall job satisfaction does not differ by sex among college graduates. Relative to white workers of the same sex, Asian and black workers are far less satisfied. The lower satisfaction of Asian and black workers relative to white workers is not explained by immigrant status, job match, or other individual or job characteristics.     

Employment and Earnings: A Case Study of Urban Detroit

This paper investigates the roles of manufacturing employment, neighborhood poverty, and family structure in determining wages among Detroit, MI workers, just prior to the current economic crisis. Employment in manufacturing has been crucial for blacks and whites: 39% of black and of white men in the Detroit metropolitan area worked in manufacturing in 2000. Regression analysis in this paper estimates employment in manufacturing raised wages 15.8% for all workers in the metropolitan area, 24.4% for blacks and 13.8% for whites. It finds a higher wage penalty (4.7%) for blacks in non-manufacturing industries than is found when manufacturing sector jobs are included (2.6%). Wage returns to education were greater in the non-manufacturing employment sector, especially for blacks. Residence in the poorest central city neighborhoods reduced wages significantly for white manufacturing and non-manufacturing workers. Its coefficient was insignificant for black workers. Gender and marital status effects on wages differed between blacks and whites in magnitude: White women suffered a larger penalty for their sex than black women (22.6 versus 9.6%) yet black men enjoyed a greater return to marriage than white men (27.5 versus 25.0%). Controlling for manufacturing reduced the gender wage gap and the returns to marriage for men. These findings suggest greater accessibility for women; and lower returns to marriage in non-manufacturing sectors. Among employed blacks access to manufacturing jobs has been their main source of decent wages. The adverse effects of the industry??s job loss in the 1980s and 1990s impacted all Detroit residents. Other high wage industries have employed relatively few blacks, have not paid them well; and have suffered job loss and slow growth over the period. Education could have raised wages for non-manufacturing workers, but not as much as access to manufacturing jobs. Today as in 2000, Detroit??s residents desperately need job creation or relocation to the central city; and job training and anti-discrimination policy enforcement throughout the metro-area. All of these would be necessary to offset job loss and reduce inequality and poverty in Detroit. The extent to which blacks will benefit from 2010?C11 improvements in manufacturing employment in Detroit depends upon whether private companies and the state provide equal access to the jobs and the training new technologies require.     

Labour market inequality between men and women: Allocational differences versus wage rate differences

Summary This article discusses the question to what extent there are differences between men and women concerning the allocation of workers to jobs on the one hand and the remuneration for a given allocation on the other. Human capital variables do not only affect the allocation of men and women to job levels and job categories differently, they also have different effects on wage rates for men and women in given job levels and job categories. The wage gap between men and women partly stems from the fact that men and women have different personal characteristics, and partly from the different allocation of men and women to job levels and job categories. Besides, wage rate inequality stems from the different rewards for men and women with given characteristics. By decomposing the average wage rate difference between men and women it can be established that 40 percent of this difference can be attributed to differences concerning education, experience, and age; 28 percent to differences in the allocation of men and women to job levels and job categories, and 32 percent to higher rewards for men than for women with given characteristics.Economic Institute/Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Labour Market and Distribution Issues (CIAV) Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht; Economic Institute/Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Labour Market and Distribution Issues (CIAV), ijksuniversiteit Utrecht, and Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI), Den Haag. The authors wish to thank the Dutch Wage Bureau for making available the data, and Frank Kalshoven, Ingrid Plas and Yolanda Grift for their computational assistance.     

INVESTIGATING THE GENDER GAP IN SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP: A DECOMPOSITION ANALYSIS

This paper investigates the gender difference in trade union membership among African men and women in South Africa. Using labour force survey data for 2001 and 2007, we show that at least two thirds of the gender gap is explained by differences in union‐related characteristics. When compared with gender differences in personal, household‐ and job‐related characteristics, disparities in job characteristics account for a larger proportion of the gender gap. These findings imply that women would have had higher unionisation rates than men if they possessed male endowments of union‐related characteristics, especially access to unionised jobs.     

Gender differences in job search among young workers: A study using displaced workers in the United States

This article investigates gender differences in job search, job tenure, and wages, whether these differences vary over the early part of the life‐cycle, and whether they are associated with fertility decisions. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youths on highly attached displaced workers aged 20 to 45, we find that 20‐ to 29‐year‐old women and women older than 40 experience longer spells of displacement than comparable men, but that time to a new job is similar by gender for those between 30 and 39 years of age. The age pattern in male–female wage differences in the post‐displacement job is similar, with the largest differences occurring at ages 20 to 29 and over 40. We find no gender differences in tenure in the post‐displacement job. We interpret the differences for the younger ages to be related to fertility and we provide evidence that supports this view.     

Inter-industry labor reallocation and task distance

This paper investigates factors preventing inter-industry labor reallocation by estimating the determinants of inter-industry worker flow and earnings change after a job change. We find that the difference in required tasks is an important reason for earnings reduction after an inter-industry job change, and thus, workers may hesitate to move to industries requiring a different set of tasks for fear of losing the wage premium acquired by task-specific human capital. In addition, more workers switch to industries with which their previous industry had larger transactions, although it affects earnings changes only marginally. On the other hand, industry performance does not affect labor inflow or wage changes significantly for inter-industry job changes. Young men, less educated women, and those quitting previous jobs for family or health reasons are more likely to move to industries requiring a different set of tasks, and young individuals who lost their jobs involuntarily are less likely to do so. Individuals more likely to move are not necessarily those whose earnings loss associated with the move is small: earning losses associated with task distance are relatively small among younger and less educated workers and are uncorrelated with the reasons for quitting the previous job.     

Multiple job holding as a strategy for skills development

This study investigated the training effect of multiple job holding on the activity of main jobs. First, we developed a dual-labor supply model by adding the training effect of working second jobs. The theory showed that workers with unconstrained hours hold second jobs when they develop skills via the experience of second jobs. To verify the hypotheses from the theoretical model, the causal relationship between holding a second job and the wage rate of a main job was estimated using the Keio Household Panel Survey. Difference generalized method of moments was adopted to remove time-invariant individual effects and endogenous bias. Moreover, the estimations showed heterogeneity of main jobs in terms of length of working hours, tasks, and job turnover. Full-time workers engaged in intelligent tasks and those who did not change their jobs secured training effects from second jobs but only when the comparison group was the workers allowed to hold second jobs by their employers. It was presumed that employers paid to restrict employees’ activities. On the contrary, part-time workers engaged in physical tasks were exhausted by second jobs, which decreased the wage rate of their main jobs.     

Job Allocation Rules and Sorting Efficiency: Experimental Outcomes in a Peter Principle Environment

An important issue in personnel economics is the design of efficient job allocation rules. Firms often use promotions both to sort workers across jobs and to provide them with incentives. However, the Peter Principle states that employees' output tends to fall after a promotion. Lazear (2004) suggests that self‐selection may improve job allocation efficiency while preserving incentive effects. We reproduce this Peter Principle in the laboratory and compare the efficiency of a promotion standard with subjects self‐selecting their task. We find no evidence of effort distortion, as predicted by theory. Furthermore, we find that when the Peter Principle is not severe, promotion rules often dominate self‐selection efficiency of task assignment. Results are consistent with imperfect appraisal of transitory ability and a lack of strategic behavior.     

Did the Great Recession Affect Fertility? Examining the Impact of Job Displacements on the Timing of Births in the United States

We examine the impact of job losses during the Great Recession on fertility in the United States. We find that for married/cohabiting couples, job losses of males during the recession decreased the likelihood of birth. In contrast, job losses of married/cohabiting females had no impact, on average, on fertility because of opposing age-specific effects. Although younger women were reducing fertility after job losses to cope with the loss of income, older women, aged 40 and above, were more likely to have a child following their job loss. Moreover, we find that job losses of single/noncohabiting females decreased the likelihood of birth, particularly for women below the age of 25. This negative effect on fertility persisted in the medium-term, up to three years following the job losses. Overall, these results suggest that job losses during the recession may be partly responsible for the recent decline in the U.S. birth rates.     

The moonlighting decision of unmarried men and women: Family and labor market influences

This paper investigates the moonlighting behavior of unmarried adults. Moonlighting theory hypothesizes that individuals who face labor supply constraints may possess an enhanced incentive to work for more than one employer at a time, but previous research in moonlighting literature has not investigated the influence of labor market constraints empirically. Unmarried men and women, an increasingly prevalent demographic group, face somewhat unique familial and economic circumstances. Unlike married individuals, they do not have access to intra-household income sources and, yet, they may have children present in their household. Empirical results suggest a relationship between labor market constraints and moonlighting likelihood that is consistent with theory and suggest that a larger immediate and extended family may be associated with a lesser probability of moonlighting.This research was assisted by a grant provided by the Research Institute, University of Alabama in Huntsville. Helpful comments were provided by David Blau, Bruce Dixon, Al Wilhite, and participants in the Young Faculty Research Symposium, University of Alabama in Huntsville. A special debt of gratitude is owed to Howard Hayghe, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for providing access to several unpublished labor force statistics. The author assumes responsibility for any errors.     

Alternative Work Arrangements and Job Satisfaction

The pressures of traditional jobs on working families, along with an aging population facing financial need, have contributed to heightened interest in the percentage of workers participating in alternative work arrangements. These include working as an independent contractor or self-employed, and those employed by others on-call, through temp agency, or as contractors. Examining job satisfaction across work arrangements by occupation and gender is one way to investigate a potential increase in the supply of such workers. Higher job satisfaction may indicate that more workers will select into these work arrangements and away from traditional jobs in the future. If this is particularly true for women, it has important implications for firms that would like to retain more women. Moreover, changes in how individuals earn a living may impact the social safety nets of such workers and their families given the nature of how such benefits are provided in the U.S. economy. This study utilizes recent waves of the General Social Survey to explore job satisfaction for workers in disaggregated alternative work arrangements, while controlling for both occupation and gender. The study finds that female workers who are independent contractors and self-employed are more satisfied with their jobs than those in regular salaried jobs, even those in nonprofessional occupations. Job satisfaction for those who work in temp agencies, do on-call work or work for contractors is no different than for those in regular jobs, regardless of occupation and gender.

     

Trends in Job Quality for African-American Workers, 1979–2011

Economists expect that increases in education and work experience will increase workers’ productivity and translate into higher compensation. We use data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) to show that over the past four decades, the “human capital” of the employed black workforce has increased enormously, yet the share of black workers in a “good job” --one that pays at least $19 per hour (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars), has employer-provided health insurance, and an employer-sponsored retirement plan-- has actually declined. The CPS data show that black women saw a modest increase in access to “good jobs,” but the share of black men in good jobs decreased. Despite improvements for black women, they were consistently less likely to be in a good job than black men in every year in our sample. Black workers at every age and education level were also less likely to be in a good job in 2011 than they were in 1979.     

Trends in worker displacement penalties in Japan: 1991–2005

We examine the period from 1991 to 2005 to document the effects of a changing Japanese labor market on the consequences of job change for workers, focusing on the change in the wages between initial and subsequent employment. During this period, job changes caused by separations from the initial job that were involuntary from the workers point of view increased and the wage losses from job change grew. As well, while age-earnings profiles for continuously employed career workers remained the same in 1993 and 2003, the age-earnings profiles of newly hired workers grew flatter during the period. Hence, an erosion in the earnings of newly hired workers relative to incumbent workers occurred and the effect was to increase the job change wage losses for older workers. Thus, while the losses from changing jobs grew in general, they also grew more age-related over the sample period.     

Labor Market Dynamics and Structural Change: Evidence from China

Structural change theories usually assume agents are homogeneous. However, because of demand‐side or supply‐side heterogeneities, the probability of switching among sectors differs across people. This paper reveals these differences through restoring a long‐period, individual‐level panel dataset from China's Urban Household Survey for 1986–2009. We find that both for people who started working for the first time and those who switched jobs, the sector choice depends on personal characteristics. In particular, women and people with higher educational attainment or a previous white‐collar job are more likely to join the tertiary sector and less likely to join the primary sector. These effects are substantial even if the macroeconomic variables used in conventional structural change theories are controlled. They are also robust in various periods and at more detailed industry levels. Our research suggests that it is important to pay greater attention to the labor composition when making policy related to economic structural change.     

The Impact of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills on Professional Salaries in An Emerging Economy,Chile

Professional salaries in Chile are here explained on the basis not only of traditional human capital variables but also of variables indicative of other cognitive and noncognitive skills. As might be expected, college entrance scores (SAT), our measure of advanced cognitive skills, are found to impact strongly and nonlinearly on salaries. More surprisingly, ranking in one's high school graduation class raises one's salary 10 years later by the equivalent of one year of additional experience, suggesting that ranking stands for a more permanent noncognitive skill such as effort or self‐discipline. As is typically found, women earn less than men, but, to our surprise, they also have lower asking salaries than men.     

The Changing Benefits of Early Work Experience

We examine whether the benefits of high school work experience have changed over the last 20 years by comparing effects for the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Our main specifications suggest that the future annual earnings benefits of working 20 h per week in the senior year of high school have fallen from 17.4% for the earlier cohort, measured in 1987–1989, to 12.1% for the later cohort, in 2008–2010. The gains have diminished by similar amounts for men and women but much more substantially for those who do not later attend college than for those who do. We further show that most of the differential between cohorts can be attributed to the way that high school employment is related to subsequent adult work experience and occupational attainment.     

Job Creation and Destruction in South Africa

Analysts of the South African labour market have mainly used household surveys to analyse the labour market. It has been more difficult to explore the labour demand of firms, as a result of limited data availability. We use the Quarterly Employment Statistics survey, an enterprise survey conducted by Statistics South Africa, to explore how South African firms create and destroy jobs, thereby shedding light on many of the policy questions that are relevant in a high unemployment society like South Africa. We find that job creation and destruction rates are similar to those found in Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries. There is little evidence that labour legislation creates rigidities that prevent firms from hiring or firing workers. We also find that larger firms are better net creators of jobs than small firms and that net job creation rates are negative in manufacturing. Our research has important policy implications – particularly for the South African National Planning Commission's 2030 plan, in which new jobs are envisaged to come mainly from small‐ and medium‐sized firms. Our research suggests that this scenario is not likely without changes to policy or legislation.     

Academic Wage Structure by Gender: The Roles of Peer Review,Performance, and Market Forces

We focus on understanding the role of productivity in determining wage structure differences between men and women in academia. The data arise from a pay equity study carried out in a single midwestern U.S. university over the 1996–1997 academic year. Econometric results confirm that external market forces exert influence over both male and female salary. But peer review ratings play a significant role in male but not female earnings determination, with similar results for objective measures of research, teaching, and service.