Older Married Workers and Nonstandard Jobs: The Effects of Health and Health Insurance

We examine the effects of health and health insurance coverage on older married workers' decisions to work in temporary, contract, part-time, self-employment, and regular full-time jobs. We model the behavior of older married workers as interdependent, showing that one spouse's health and insurance status affects the employment of the other. In general, we find that men and women are less likely to be employed in regular full-time jobs when they are in fair or poor health and are more likely to be in regular full-time employment when their spouses are in poor health.     

Gender Differences in Involuntary Job Loss: Why Are Men More Likely to Lose Their Jobs?

Empirical studies have consistently reported that rates of involuntary job loss are significantly lower among female employees than among males. Only rarely, however, have the reasons for this differential been the subject of detailed investigation. In this article, household panel survey data from Australia are used that also find higher rates of job loss among men than among women. This differential, however, largely disappears once controls for industry and occupation are included. These findings suggest that the observed gender differential primarily reflects systematic differences in the types of jobs into which men and women select.     

Why Do Employers Give Discretion? Family Versus Performance Concerns

Using a large data set of Western European employees, I examine two sets of reasons behind employers' decisions to give discretion: performance concerns (firms give discretion in order to improve performance) and family concerns (firms wish to improve the employees' work–family balance). I find more support for the former than for the latter. Discretion is positively related to the use of "high-performance" work practices and to employee position and ability, and is smaller in larger establishments, which suggests that loss of control matters to employers. Evidence about family concerns is less compelling. Female participation in the labor force has a positive effect on discretion over work schedules, but women have less discretion than men, and employees with small children do not have more discretion than other employees. Large and governmental organizations, which are expected to care more about work–family balance, do not offer more discretion over work schedules than other types of organizations.     

Job Satisfaction in Britain: Coping with Complexity

Claims for a growth of despondency in the British workforce in the 1990s, based on job satisfaction data, are questioned by an evaluation of: (i) the bases of comparison, (ii) features of job‐satisfaction measures, (iii) the properties of key data sets and (iv) inferences drawn from the data. A more complex situation is presented showing significant falls in satisfaction with the job facets, the work itself, and hours worked; significant rises in satisfaction with total pay and security of job; a steep decline in overall job satisfaction among women and stable or slightly rising overall job satisfaction among men. Trends in job quality, workforce composition, the economic cycle and changing work values among women, rather than generalized despondency, are proposed as sources for hypotheses for future research. The latter should include a review of data requirements, and research on the performance of measures of job satisfaction.     

Union Membership and Job‐Related Training: Incidence,Transferability, and Efficacy

This study examines the relationship between union membership and (i) the incidence of training, (ii) the degree to which training is transferable to firms other than the one providing the training and (iii) the degree to which workers perceive that training improves job performance. Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I find that union members are more likely to receive employer‐sponsored training than their non‐union counterparts. I also find that male union members are more likely than non‐members to report that training improved job performance. Union membership was not related to transferability of skills between employers.     

Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?

This article presents and explores a rich new data source to analyse the determinants of pay and job rank among academic economists in the UK. Characteristics associated with individual productivity and workplace features are found to be important determinants of the relative wage and promotion structure in this sector. However, there is also a substantial unexplained gender pay gap. Men are considerably more likely to work in higher paid job ranks where there are also substantial within-rank gender pay gaps. We show that the nature of the gender pay gap has changed over the last two decades; but its size has not, suggesting a role for suitable policy intervention.     

Who’s Displaced First? The Role of Race in Layoff Decisions

We test empirically the proposition that race significantly affects an employee's layoff chances. Using data from a financial firm (N = 8918), we find that whites are less likely to be laid off than nonwhites and that, among nonwhites, Asians are less likely to be laid off than blacks or Hispanics. These findings are statistically significant after controlling for structural factors (business unit, occupation, and job level) and individual characteristics (tenure and performance rating). A similar pattern of racial differences exists in other employment practices more actively monitored by the firm, including promotions, pay raises, and performance ratings. Yet these differences are smaller than those in layoffs and are significant for blacks only, not for Hispanics. Our findings suggest that monitoring personnel decisions can reduce racial inequality. Furthermore, our findings highlight that racial differences in employment outcomes vary among minority groups.     

The role of the workplace in ethnic wage differentials

Using linked employer–employee data for Britain, we examine ethnic wage differentials among full-time employees. We find substantial ethnic segregation across workplaces. However, this inter-workplace segregation does not contribute to the aggregate wage penalty in Britain. Instead, most of the ethnic wage gap exists within the workplace, between observationally-equivalent co-workers. Lower pay satisfaction and higher levels of skill mismatch among ethnic minority workers are consistent with discrimination in wage-setting on the part of employers. The presence of recognized trade unions and the use of job evaluation schemes within the workplace are associated with a smaller ethnic wage gap. These findings indicate that more attention should be placed on ensuring fairness in wage determination.     

Overskilling,Job Insecurity,and Career Mobility

This paper uses longitudinal data from Australia to examine the extent to which overskilling—the extent to which work‐related skills and abilities are utilized in current employment—is a transitory phenomenon. The results suggest that while overskilled workers are much more likely to want to quit their current job, they are also relatively unconfident of finding an improved job match. Furthermore, some of the greater mobility observed among overskilled workers is due to involuntary job separations, and even where job separations are voluntary, the majority of moves do not result in improved skills matches.     

Non‐Standard “Contingent” Employment and Job Satisfaction: A Panel Data Analysis

Contingent forms of employment are usually associated with low‐quality jobs and, by inference, jobs that workers find relatively unsatisfying. This assumption is tested using data from a representative household panel survey covering a country (Australia) with a high incidence of nonstandard employment. Results from the estimation of ordered logit regression models reveal that among males, both casual employees and labor‐hire (agency) workers (but not fixed‐term contract workers) report noticeably lower levels of job satisfaction, though this association diminishes with job tenure. Negative effects for women are mainly restricted to labor‐hire workers.     

Multiple Glass Ceilings

Both vertical (between job levels) and horizontal (within job levels) mobility can be sources of wage growth. We find that the glass ceiling operates at both margins. The unexplained part of the wage gap grows across job levels (glass ceiling at the vertical margin) and across the deciles of the intra‐job‐level wage distribution (glass ceiling at the horizontal margin). This implies that women face many glass ceilings, one for each job level above the second, and that the glass ceiling is a pervasive phenomenon. In the Netherlands it affects about 88 percent of jobs, and 81 percent of Dutch women in employment work in job levels where a glass ceiling is present.     

Two paths towards job instability: Comparing changes in the distribution of job tenure duration in the United Kingdom and Germany, 1984–2014

This study provides novel evidence on trends in job stability in the United Kingdom and Germany, two capitalist economies with distinct sets of institutions and labour market reform trajectories. While we find evidence of an increase in short-term jobs for men in both countries, we also find important differences in the overall patterns of change in the distribution of job tenure duration. The United Kingdom follows a masked instability pattern with opposite job stability trends for men and women. On the other hand, we find evidence of a polarization of the job tenure distribution among men and women in Germany. These findings are partly consistent with expectations from the dualization literature, emphasizing a growing segmentation of the labour market between insiders and outsiders. More generally, this study highlights the existence of multiple paths towards increased job instability that appear to be rooted in institutional differences.     

Worker Control as a Facilitator in the Match between Education and Jobs

This article examines the relationship between worker control and subjective underemployment among workers who have more education than is needed for entry into their jobs (credential underemployment). Results indicate that social and technical controls are related to a greater sense of education–job matching. Workers who have credential underemployment are less likely to report subjective underemployment (underutilization and lack of fit between education and job) if they have higher levels of workplace control. This article contains implications for job design and the role of employers and managers in fostering the utilization of their workforces.     

External Churning and Internal Flexibility: Evidence on the Functional Flexibility and Core-Periphery Hypotheses

Functionally flexible systems for organizing work may reduce job instability and insecurity by reducing employers' reliance on job cuts or contingent work to respond to changes in their environments. Related arguments hypothesize that contingent work allows firms to adjust labor while "buffering" their core of permanent workers from job instability. We find evidence that internally flexible work systems are associated with reduced involuntary and voluntary turnover in manufacturing but that contingent work and involuntary turnover of the permanent workforce are positively related regardless of sector, in contrast to the prediction of the core-periphery hypothesis.     

The Shifting Incidence of Involuntary Job Losses from 1968 to 1992

Risks of involuntary job losses among male workers are examined with data spanning 1968 to 1992 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We find that the incidence of involuntary job losses among prime-age men with strong links to the labor market rose substantially over the period under investigation and about as much for college-educated and older workers as for less educated and less experienced workers. The only labor market group not sharing the burden of higher job-loss risks were government workers. Overall, involuntary job losses were distributed more evenly across skill groups during periods of macroeconomic expansion than during periods of contraction.     

Designing flexible work practices for job satisfaction: the relation between job characteristics and work disaggregation in different types of work arrangements

The literature on flexible work practices has not yet evaluated in detail how the characteristics of a job affect job satisfaction. This study makes a distinction between two types of flexible work practices according to their aims: the accommodation of employees’ personal lives (employment practice) and the operational reasons of a firm (work practice). Based on this distinction, we studied how the characteristics of a job, which reflect the use of ICT to support the spatial disaggregation of business processes, influence the relationship between the two types of flexible work practices and job satisfaction. We show, through a survey conducted on 987 workers, that the characteristics of a job that favour work disaggregation positively moderate the influence of flexible work as a work practice on job satisfaction, but they do not moderate the influence of flexible work as an employment practice. The implications for managers, workers and scholars are discussed.     

Gender Differences in Promotions and Wages

Results using an original data set indicate women receive more promotions than men. The frequency of promotions is linked to whether the woman had previously quit a job because of her husband's job move. Promotions significantly increase wages for men but not for women. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that joint job search constrains women to starting jobs at lower levels, providing more scope for promotions.     

How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect men's and women's returns to unionization?

Using data from the Current Population Survey for the period 2015 to 2021, I study union-nonunion differences in employment, wages and other terms and conditions before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyses are run separately for men and women. I find that, compared to non-union workers, union workers were better able to retain employment, less likely to do telework, and more likely to receive pay for the hours they did not work during the pandemic. These patterns were more evident for female workers.     

Does Homeownership Prolong the Duration of Unemployment?

We examine the effects of homeownership on individuals' unemployment durations. An unemployment spell can terminate with a job or with nonparticipation. The endogeneity of homeownership is addressed by estimating a full maximum likelihood function jointly modeling the competing hazards and the probability of being a homeowner. Unobserved factors contributing to the probability of being a homeowner are allowed to be correlated with unobservable heterogeneity in the hazard rates. Not controlling for ownership selection, there is neither a significant difference in the job‐finding hazard nor in the nonparticipation hazard of unemployed owners and renters. If we jointly model the ownership selection, we find that unemployed homeowners are more likely to find a job than renters.