Willingness to pay and the demand for lotto

The way that unemployment duration affects employment prospects, is investigated using Norwegian micro transition data encompassing detailed accounts of 14 807 unemployed adults. A generalized non-proportional Weibull model is estimated, with two possible exits from the unemployment pool: a job or a labour force exit. On average the probability of obtaining a job is fairly constant at the individual level, while the probability of exiting the labour force increases significantly as unemployment duration is prolonged. For some particular groups of unemployed, there is also a marked negative duration dependence in the probability of obtaining a job.     

A synthetic cohort analysis of female labour supply: the case of Thailand

This study analyzes trends and patterns in employment, hours worked, and women’s wages for Thai women, and relations among these variables in models of female labour supply. Labour supply behaviour of Thai women is investigated with synthetic cohort data defined by age, year of birth, and level of educational attainment, constructed from annual labour force surveys from 1985 to 2004. According to pseudo-panel estimates, wage increases lead to a reduction in hours worked, but also an increase in the employment/population ratio, with elasticity estimates that are robust across a variety of specifications. Estimates based on disaggregation by marital status show that marriage provides protection against wage decreases, allowing married women greater choice between hours of work and other household activities. Alternative disaggregations find that younger cohorts of women and those with the highest education show the greatest (positive) response of the employment rate to wage changes, leading to a future Thai labour force with more women and higher educational attainment.     

A better job thanks to personal networks? An evaluation for migrants who arrived in France before age 18

It is more difficult for migrants than natives to find a job in their host country, so many of them have to accept, at least temporarily, a job that is below their level of qualification. This represents a waste of human capital for society and can undermine social cohesion. Relying on social relationships might help them to bypass some of the obstacles that prevent them from finding a job that matches their skillset. We focus on migrants who arrived in France before the age of 18 years, who were educated entirely or partially in France. We use the rich French Trajectories and Origins dataset for 2009 to study the impact of personal contacts on the quality of the current employment. We measure the job quality using an indicator based on the educational requirement for a given occupation. To address the endogeneity between our dependent variable (holding a suitable job or not) and the variable of interest (employment found through a personal contact or not), we use the variable ‘sibling(s) in France’ as an instrument: this variable influences an individual’s probability of finding a job through contacts but does not influence directly the quality of the employment. Our results indicate that for these migrants, finding a job through personal contacts strongly and positively impacts the occupational status attained: it raises both women’s and men’s probability of holding a suitable job by more than 0.40 points.     

Do family resources matter? Educational attainment during transition in Poland*

We analyse the relationship between family background and children's educational attainment in the 1990s in Poland. If parental poverty affects children's educational prospects, the increase in social inequalities observed in the Polish transition process will be transmitted between generations. We apply an ordered probit model of educational attainment on longitudinal data from the Polish Labour Force Survey. Surprisingly, parents’ income and their labour market status have only a weak impact on children's education. Parents’ schooling, however, is strongly related to children's, and so are household structure, city size, and region of residence. We conclude that, if transmission of inequality takes place between generations, this seems to be primarily caused by the inheritance of human capital rather than by pure wealth effects.     

Tied Down Or Room To Move? Investigating The Relationships Between Housing Tenure,Employment Status And Residential Mobility In Britain

Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we investigate the relationships between labour market dynamics, housing tenure and residential mobility. Panel data allow the study of the sequence of household moves and individual labour market status changes, enabling unique analysis of the relationship between job and residential mobility. Our findings suggest that the unemployed are more likely to move than employees. A desire to move motivated by employment reasons has the single largest positive impact on the probability of moving between regions.     

Employment Status Persistence in the Japanese Labour Market

The growth of non‐standard employment has become a cause for concern for policy‐makers trying to boost output and keep unemployment low while also maintaining job security. This paper estimates a dynamic unobserved effects model using the Keio Household Panel Survey, an individual‐level panel data set, to investigate the effects on future employment opportunities of employment in Japan's non‐standard employment and regular employment sectors. I find strong evidence of persistence within the labour market, suggesting that past employment experience has a significant impact on future labour market outcomes.     

LABOUR MARKET ACTIVITY OF FOREIGN SPOUSES IN TAIWAN: EMPLOYMENT STATUS AND CHOICE OF EMPLOYMENT SECTOR

The present study examines the employment status and choice of employment sector of female foreign spouses from Southeast Asia and Mainland China in Taiwan. The conceptual framework is based on the family labour supply model, human and social capital theory, and immigrant assimilation theory. Our findings indicate that in regard to employment status, family background variables, including the presence of small children and husbands' characteristics, play a more significant role in determining the employment probability for these foreign spouses than do human capital variables. In particular, for spouses from Southeast Asia, each additional child is correlated with a decrease in working probability of 11.3%, whereas college education has an insignificant effect on their employment probability. Employment assimilation for these marriage immigrants may be confirmed by the finding that the employment probability of foreign spouses rises rapidly with the number of years that have elapsed since migration. As for the choice of employment sector, a strong linkage between the employment sector of the foreign spouses and their husbands' employment sector is found in this study.     

Youth labor market expectations and job matching in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from school-to-work transition surveys

In this paper, we investigate the factors that influence youth labour market expectations and outcomes. We also perform a job matching exercise to understand youth labour market dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our results show that youth education is an influential factor of youth employment expectations and employment, ceteris paribus. Higher educational attainments have a great impact on expecting and securing better jobs, particularly in the technical and professional fields. Youth with low educational attainments, particularly primary education and lower, have a higher tendency to expect to be employed in occupations with low job complexity. Our results indicate a severe job-skill mismatch in all occupational categories, both before and after the youth’s transition into the labour market. Using education as the only selection criterion, we found that less than 10 per cent of employment expectations match with skills required while 55 per cent and 34 per cent are under or over-educated for the jobs expected, respectively. Over and under education is a notable feature in youth labour markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. About 47 per cent of employed youth in the sample are overqualified for their respective jobs while 28 per cent are under qualified.     

The role of child health and economic status in educational, health, and labour market outcomes in young adulthood

Abstract .  The Ontario Child Health Study provides the first opportunity in Canada to assess directly the relationship between socio-economic and health status in childhood and levels of completed schooling, health status, and labour market success in young adulthood. We find that childhood health problems are negatively associated with educational attainment, especially the probability of a university degree, and the health status of young adults. Our results also imply that childhood health problems influence adult labour force outcomes, especially for males, mainly through adult levels of schooling and health.     

Career, experience and returns to human capital: is the dual labour market hypothesis relevant for the UK?

This paper investigates the relationship between career status, labour market experience and returns to human capital accumulation in the context of a two-tier, career and non-career labour market. Using micro data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), this study detects wage and employment mechanisms that differ between these two tiers of workers. The paper finds no support for the hypothesis of strict duality, by which the returns to education are expected to differ across labour market segments, with the returns in career employment being high and positive and the returns in the non-career sector being close to zero. The paper, however, finds support for significant returns to current tenure only in the career sector and also for the scarring hypothesis, according to which part-time employment and unemployment experience have a negative effect on participation and earnings in the career sector. Finally, there is evidence that only non-career earnings are significantly affected by local demand conditions, in contrast to earnings in the career sector. Career status is modelled as an endogenous variable subject to an initial job choice.     

Flexible Labour,Firm Performance and the Dutch Job Creation Miracle

Unlike internal (‘functional’) forms of flexibility of labour, external (‘numerical’) forms of flexibility (i.e. high shares of people on temporary contract or a high turnover of personnel) yield substantial savings on a firm’s wage bill. Savings on wage bills lead to higher job growth, but do not translate into higher sales growth. Externally flexible labour appears to be related to lower labour productivity growth, the effects being different for innovating vs non‐innovating firms. We discuss these findings from firm‐level and worker‐level data against the background of the Dutch job creation miracle during the 1980s and 1990s. Modest wage increases and flexibilization of labour markets may indeed create lots of jobs. However, this is likely to happen at the expense of labour productivity growth, raising serious doubts about the long‐run sustainability of a low‐productivity–high‐employment growth path.     

Occupational Attainment and Immigrant Economic Progress in Australia*

Using data from the 2001 Australian Census of Population and Housing, on adult men in full‐time employment, this paper augments a conventional human capital earnings function with information on occupations. It also estimates models of occupational attainment. The results from both the earnings function and model of occupational attainment indicate that the limited international transferability of human capital skills results in immigrants entering into relatively low status occupations when they first enter the Australian labour market. Comparison with similar research for the USA suggests that the different immigrant selection regimes (primarily family reunion in the USA, skill‐based immigration in Australia) do not impact on the negative association between current occupational status and pre‐immigration labour market experience.     

INACTIVITY AND LABOUR MARKET ATTACHMENT IN BRITAIN

This paper examines the transitions between the labour market and inactivity in Britain between 1995 and 2004. A substantial degree of behavioural heterogeneity exists between inactive individuals, and the social security system appears to influence both the timing and probability of moving between labour market states. The results presented here suggest that policy makers should not be misled by the term ‘hidden unemployment’, into thinking that substantial spare capacity exists on the periphery of the labour force. In light of recent proposals to reduce the number of Incapacity Benefit claimants, it is important to note a high degree of detachment among the long‐term sick and disabled, reinforced by duration dependence and poorer educational attainment.     

Modelling labour market dynamics with on-the-job search

A flow model of the Dutch labour market is used to calculate the effects of policy options which aim to enhance employment, especially at the lower end of the labour market. The model distinguishes between good and bad jobs, allows for endogenous wage formation and job creation, and describes the flows between these jobs so that job-to-job mobility and the vacancy chain is made endogenous. In the matching process employed job seekers with bad jobs compete with short-term and long-term unemployed for the filling of vacancies for good jobs. In each period part of the good and bad jobs are destroyed which results in inflow into unemployment. The model explicitly describes the flow of unemployed through the various duration classes of unemployment and it allows for negative duration dependence so that the escape probability from unemployment for long-term unemployed is smaller than for short-term unemployed. The model is used to simulate the effects of external shocks, such as structural productivity shocks. An impulse response analysis using the model is also conducted considering labour market policies which aims especially to enhance employment at the lower end of the labour market. In particular, the effects are analysed of measures subsidising the opening of bad jobs (jobs at the lower end of the labour market) and a rise in the productivity of a bad job as compared to a good job which can be achieved by changes in the tax system.     

THE IMPACT OF INTERNATIONAL OUTSOURCING ON LABOUR MARKET DYNAMICS IN GERMANY

Using an administrative data set containing daily information on individual workers' employment histories, we investigate how workers' labour market transitions are affected by international outsourcing. In order to do so, we estimate hazard rate models for match separations, as well as for worker flows from employment to another job, to unemployment, and to nonparticipation. Outsourcing has a positive but small impact on overall job stability in the manufacturing sector, and considerably increases job stability in the service sector. However, the effect of outsourcing varies strongly across skill levels and age groups, with negative effects for some workers. This is especially the case in the manufacturing sector, where the hazard of transiting to nonemployment rises with international outsourcing for medium‐skilled and older workers.     

Economic Progress in Australia: An Analysis of Occupational Mobility*

Educational attainment and gender are firmly established in the labour economics literature as key determinants of an individual's economic standing at a given point in time. The concern of the present paper is to determine the impact of these characteristics on economic progress over time. A multinomial logit approach to estimating occupational attainment at various career points is employed. The use of this method of analysis in conjunction with the intertemporal linking of occupations enables us to provide a number of important insights into economic progress in the Australian labour market. Additional years of education are shown to increase the probability of employment in better jobs at the time of labour market entry and also to enhance career mobility. Analysis of male-female differences highlights the sizeable gap between the occupational distributions of these groups. Part of this difference may reflect inequality of opportunity between males and females in the Australian labour market.     

Determinants of Labor Market Participation and Wages of North Korean Female Refugees in South Korea

This paper uses data from a survey on 289 North Korean female refugees who arrived in South Korea in 2007 to understand the determinants of their economic adaption in the South Korean labor market. More specifically, we look at the effects of job finding channels and government policies on the labor market participation and wages of these women. We find that job finding through both personal contacts and public employment networks increases the probability of finding employment, but the former, especially job finding through contacts with South Koreans, is the most effective route to finding employment. In addition, jobs with higher wages are acquired in employment attained from South Korean referrals, followed by South Korean government agencies and those from North Korean refugee contacts. We further find that labor market participation is negatively affected by both public benefits and private transfers possibly because of increases in the reservation wages of job seekers.     

The Effects of Disability on Labour Force Status in Australia

Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics 1998 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, this study examines the effects of disability on four labour market outcomes: not in the labour force, unemployed, part‐time employed and full‐time employed. The detailed information on health available in the dataset also facilitates investigation of the dependence of effects on the characteristics of the disability, including severity, impairment type and age of onset. Disability is found to have substantial effects on labour force status, on average acting to decrease the probability of labour force participation by one‐quarter for males and one‐fifth for females. For males, the decrease in fulltime employment accounts for almost all of the decrease in labour force participation associated with disability; for females, disability has negative effects on both full‐time and part‐time employment. Analysis of disability characteristics shows that adverse effects on labour force status are increasing in the severity of the disability and are also worse for those with more than one type of impairment and for those who experience disability onset at older ages. There is evidence that the adverse effects of disability are lower for males who completed their education after the onset of the disability.     

Trade,educational costs,and skill acquisition

A model of heterogeneous agents is built to study the effects of trade and educational costs in shaping individual educational outcomes and their aggregate distribution. In a two‐country model, trade has nonmonotonic impacts on individual education choices and causes education and job polarization for both countries. We use this model to evaluate the effects of reductions in educational costs. A reduction in educational cost has no impact on occupational choice in a closed economy. In the open economy, however, it creates an expanded middle class in the home country, whereas the opposite happens in its trading partner.     

Labour quality in Taiwan: measurement and contribution to economic growth

This article compiles labour input indices that capture both employment changes and quality improvement of labour in Taiwan, from 1994 to 2011. Up to 77.19% of average annual labour input growth is from quality improvement. Further decomposition reveals that the most important source of growth is educational attainment, followed by age structure. Moreover, we find that Taiwan’s average annual GDP growth rate does not result from capital investment but from the contribution of a stable labour input to economic growth. Taiwan is a newly industrialized country, but because of the diminishing returns to capital, the catch-up effect has been slower than hoped. Additional capital investment has a relatively small effect on productivity, and the main source of the continuous economic growth rate is from labour quality, especially from highly skilled human capital. Making good use of these human resources creates a stable source of sustained economic growth.