Analysis of the 1980 Sydney Survey of Work Patterns of Married Women: Further Results*

Using cross-section data from the 1980 Sydney survey of the work patterns of married women, this paper contributes to the very scarce Australian stock of disaggregate econometric studies of the labour market activities of married women. Labour force participation, hours of work and wage functions (reservation wage as well as market wage) are estimated in a second-generation static labour supply framework. Unique features of the study include the availability of direct data on previous market experience, a formulation of the impact of children on the participation decision which permits testing for the presence of economies of scale in child-minding activities, estimation of the reservation wage function, and a data base which permits a clear distinction between earnings and other forms of income.     

A simultaneous discrete choice model of labor supply and wages for married women in Switzerland

A simultaneous model of female labor supply and wages is estimated. The labor supply model is formulated as a trichotomous discrete choice model in order to take into account the bimodal distribution of observed working hours. For women without observed wages the probability of choosing the observed work category is integrated over all values of the wage. The model is estimated using a sample of married women in Switzerland. The budget constraint is constructed by computing the disposable income for each hours point, taking into account the Swiss income tax system. The estimation results imply relatively modest wage elasticities of expected labor supply for working women. On the other hand the elasticity of the participation probability with respect to wages for nonworkers is twice as large. The magnitude of the income elasticities is comparable to other studies. The wage elasticities obtained with two alternative estimation procedures are considerably lower. These results show that wage elasticities crucially depend on how the problem of unobserved wages is solved.     

The Gender Wage Gap in Offered,Observed, and Reservation Wages for Spain

The literature on the gender wage gap and wage discrimination has exclusively analyzed observed wage differences, ignoring inactive or unemployed individuals. In order to obtain a more complete overview of gender wage differences, this paper analyzed inactive or unemployed individuals in terms of offered and reservation wages in Spain in the years 1994, 2000, and 2006. The results show that the observed wages give a more positive perspective of the gender wage gap than offered ones. Furthermore, the existence of an important gender wage gap for reservation wages has been noted, which is possibly because women take charge of household and family caregiving tasks to a greater degree than men. The results show that Spanish women had higher reservation wages and lower offered wages than men, which explains their lower participation in the labor market.     

零工经济如何改变性别工资差距——基于家庭与市场的双重视角

中国企业生产与性别收入分配的格局正在发生深刻变化。零工就业意味着雇佣的非正式化与收入的不稳定化,女性被大量吸纳进入零工经济的同时,参与劳动力市场和家庭的方式也发生转变,性别工资差距可能随之变化。理论分析表明,在市场领域,非正式雇佣加深了劳动后备军对工资的挤压效应,女性作为劳动力“蓄水池”,收入下降效应更为明显;在家庭领域,不稳定收入加深了劳动者的自我规训,家务劳动时间分配不均使收入差距进一步扩张。在上述两种效应下,零工经济中的性别工资差距将大于非零工经济。基于微观调查数据的经验研究结果验证了上述理论推演。劳动者“灵活性”和“安全性”的综合指标表明,只有建立灵活安全的劳动力市场机制,重视弱势群体的就业保护,才能真正推动零工经济成为“稳就业、保增长”的中坚力量。     

Creating low skilled jobs by subsidizing market-contracted household work

The paper analyses the determinants of household work contracted in the German shadow economy. The German socio-economic household panel, which enumerates casual domestic employment, is used to estimate the demand for such household work. The regressors include regional wage rates, household income and several control variables for household composition. It is found that the demand for household work in the shadow economy is very income elastic. This suggests that targeted wage subsidies, linked to household work agencies, would be very effective in raising the legal demand for domestic help. A wage subsidy of 50% of wage costs could thus establish up to 500?000 new jobs for previously unemployed or non-working low skilled workers. The net fiscal costs of such a scheme are about 6.200 Euro per full-time job. In addition, society benefits from more law enforcement and from a raised female labour supply, especially by highly qualified mothers.     

Child participation,nature of work,and fertility demand: a theoretical analysis

A model of utility maximization with home production of children and standard of living is used to analyze the fertility behavior of a subsistence farming household in an agricultural lesser developed country. Assuming children as both consumer and producer goods, and assuming a prestige cost of their participation in labor force, the author derived alternative levels of fertility demand. The following different conditions of child participation were identified depending upon the size of the prestige cost and the resultant net gain from child work: (1) participation in wage-labor, if marginal child income from the family farm is less than marginal wage income; (2) participation in family farm works only, if the larger wage income is neutralized by a higher prestige cost, implying a lower child contribution; (3) participation in family farm works only, if its marginal child income is greater than wage income, thus providing the largest child contribution; and (4) no participation in labor force at all, implied by a very high prestige cost and resulting in no child contribution. The household demands a larger number of children under conditions (1) and (3) than under conditions (2) and (4). The results are then used to draw inferences regarding fertility behavior across different landholding households. It appears that landholding reduces fertility initially, increases it at the intermediate levels, and then decreases it when the household becomes a non-cultivating rental income earner. The nonmonotonic landholding-fertility relationship explains the contradictory empirical evidence which exists in the literature while also suggesting important implications for fertility regulation policy.     

最低工资对中国工人收入及分配的影响*——基于CHNS数据的经验研究

本文运用微观调查数据,研究最低工资政策对工人收入及分配结构的影响。首先分析最低工资对工人收入水平的整体影响,然后应用倍差法和比例法分析最低工资政策对不同类型工人收入增长率的影响,以考察最低工资的收入分配效应。分析结果显示,总体而言最低工资对工人收入不具有显著影响,仅仅对部分低收入群体如女性群体有一定正面影响;对于收入水平位于上一期最低工资150%～250%区间内的工人收入,最低工资具有显著负向影响。这些显示该政策可能会对收入分配结构产生一定轻微影响。     

Marx Inside the Circuit: Discipline device,wage bargaining and unemployment in a sequential monetary economy

The aim of this paper is to show that Marxian labour theory of value can be consistently interpreted in terms of the monetary circuit model, where firms need initial finance to start production and where the money supply is endogenous. In contrast to the recently revived Marxian monetary models, in particular the New Interpretation, it is argued here that although the money wage is bargained for on the labour market, the real wage is determined by firms' choices, since firms autonomously determine the structure of production and hence real consumption for the working class as a whole. This does not mean that firms are able to set the real wage without economic and social constraints. Starting from our circuitist reading of the labour theory of value and distribution, a model is developed in order to determine the level of employment and income distribution, on the assumptions that (i) the industrial reserve army affects wage bargaining and labour effort and that (ii) workers react to the failure of their expectations on the real wage by reducing their work intensity. In this context, it is shown that firms may increase their share of profits over time only be means of innovations.     

HOUSEHOLD INEQUALITY AND THE LABOR MARKET IN SOUTH AFRICA

There has been very little detailed exploration of the relationship between wage income and household inequality in South Africa despite the relevance of this issue for many contemporary growth and development policy debates. This article is directed at such an analysis. It uses a decomposition of household income inequality by income components to highlight the dominance of wage income in driving overall income inequality. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the distribution of the unemployed across different wage-earning household categories. Many of the unemployed are seen to depend on wage earners within their households, but a significant percentage of the unemployed, especially in rural areas, have no direct link to labor market earners. In such cases, the creation of employment is essential. The conclusion explores policy implications by linking our empirical findings to South African debates over the quality versus the quantity of employment.     

Unpaid household work and the distribution of extended income: The Norwegian experience

Measurement of unpaid household work is important in order to better understand income distribution as well as to give visibility to women's work and achieve more comprehensive estimates of the level of economic activity. This article surveys estimates of unpaid household work in Norway for use in national accounts and analysis of consumption possibilities. The latter are measured by extended income, defined as income after tax plus the value of unpaid household work. We find that extended income appears to be more evenly distributed than money income.     

AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE SOURCES OF CHANGES OVER TIME IN THE JOB FINDING RATE USING RESERVATION WAGES AND REJECTED WAGE OFFERS*

We consider a structural dynamic job search model where nonstationarity originates from the change over time in the benefit level, the job offer arrival rate, and the wage offer distribution. The model is estimated on the French sample of the ECHP taking advantage of direct observation of reservation wages, rejected job offers, and associated rejected wages. We find that the offered wages deteriorate rapidly (13.8% over six months, 19.2% over one year, and 30% over two years) and that changes in the wage offer distribution are the unique source of negative duration dependence in the hazard.     

DISTRIBUTION OF LABOR INCOMES IN URBAN ZAIRE

The author addresses himself first to the problem that summary measures of wage income inequality, computed for Kinshasa, the main urban area in Zaire, tend to overstate the degree of total labor income inequality among sharing units of comparable size. It is argued that this is true for two main reasons: (1) earnings from female commercial activity are not recorded in the available statistics; and (2) the 1960 UN definition of household upon which the measures of inequality are based understates the size of the actual sharing unit. Data taken from the 1967 Socio-Demographic Survey of Kinshasa and the 1970 household budget study are used to test these hypotheses regarding short-run income inequality.
The policy observation is made that, while modernization of the commodity distribution system may provide a disincentive for sharing and a reduction in opportunities for female employment, investment in non-service sectors may equalize the secular income distribution for a given migration cohort. Evidence of unskilled migrants moving from service to non-service sector employment in response to increased labor demand is presented. This is accomplished by supplementing sample survey data with time series on aggregate employment by sector for Kinshasa.     

The impact of home production on economic inequality in Germany

Using representative income and time-use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate non-monetary income advantages arising from home production and analyze their impact on economic inequality. As an alternative to existing measures, we propose a predicted wage approach that relaxes some of the strong assumptions underlying both the standard opportunity cost approach and the housekeeper wage approach. We also propose a method of adjusting the number of hours spent on home production to reduce the bias arising from multi-tasking and joint production in time-use data. Sensitivity analyses comparing results among different approaches provide indications of method effects. Although this study supports the evidence that considering home production leads to a reduction in inequality, we show that the size of this effect differs according to the variations in the mean and distribution of the estimated monetary value of home production across the three approaches. This finding underscores the need for a harmonized approach in cross-national comparative research.     

INCOME AND CONSUMPTION DISTRIBUTION TRENDS IN THE PHILIPPINES, 1950–70*

Unlike most developing countries, the Philippines has had several (four) reasonably comparable family income and expenditure surveys, covering a reasonable period of time (15 years). This study draws on those surveys and on wage data in an attempt to judge how, if at all, the distribution of income has been changing. The household survey data shows a declining share of both income and consumption for the top income groups; for the bottom quintile the share of recorded income fell while that of recorded consumption rose. When possible biases of the data are allowed for, it is hard to argue that either a narrowing or widening of income differentials occurred over these years. Real wages of a number of important occupations appear to have fallen, however. Only a partial reconciliation of the trends indicated by these wage series and the income trends for various occupational groups implicit in the household survey data was possible, indicating either data problems or the need for more subtle interpretations of the data. Since structural change in the labour force has been rapid (an increasing share being found in the high income occupations as time passed), declining wage rates for certain lower income groups cannot be taken to imply a general worsening of distribution. Our final conclusion is that distribution has probably changed little, and is about as likely to have changed one way as the other.     

SIZE-DISTRIBUTION OF EARNINGS AND HOUSEHOLD INCOMES IN SMALL SOCIALIST COUNTRIES

Part I: Availability and meaning of East European distributional statistics are discussed. Part II: Measures of inequality to be used in this study are examined: the Gini coefficient of concentration, though superior to some other single indicators, is found to be an unreliable comparative measure of inequality, and is therefore supplemented by a set of ratios of selected percentiles to the median. Part III: Inequality of full-time gross monthly earnings is measured for (almost) the whole civilian working population and for some subpopulations (selected industries, men, women) in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia through 1970, in Hungary through 1968: the observed inequality appears to be less than in small capitalist countries, in spite of the reversal of the socialist egalitarian trend in the 'sixties. The main factor of equalization of socialist earnings are small interoccupational and interregional differentials and a very flat age profile. Part IV: The socio-economic structure of households, the size of samples underlying the distributional statistics, and the composition of household “revenues” (wage and salary earnings, agricultural incomes, social security payments, relatively unimportant property incomes, as well as non-income cash flows) are examined. Inequality coefficients are estimated for per capita revenues of all households as well as subpopulations of households in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and some information is given on the distribution of household incomes in Yugoslavia. Part V: Limits of desirable equalization of earnings are discussed. With very narrowly dispersed short-term earnings, lifetime earnings tend to be rather unequally distributed because of the variation of earning years among occupations. With largely equalized primary incomes, per capita household incomes tend to be more unequally distributed, in spite of massive transfers, because of the varying ratio of earners to dependents within households. The need of income differentials as incentives to work, the probable trade-off between income equality and economic growth, and socialist distributive principles are outlined.     

MEASURING THE VALUE OF HOUSEHOLD OUTPUT: A COMPARISON OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT APPROACHES

Economists have traditionally measured household production (HP) by multiplying hours spent by a wage rate. This practice tends to misstate HP by ignoring the contribution of capital and entrepreneurship and by making questionable marginal productivity assumptions. Quantifying the HP and multiplying by the market value per unit avoids these problems and yields a value estimated by the same method as GNP. We measure HP by this direct method and find HP to be 44 percent more than that obtained by the traditional approach. We further make average productivity comparisons between firms and households for typical HP items.     

CONSEQUENCES OF MINIMUM WAGE INDEXING

During the 1980s, the minimum wage fell relative to prices and average wages in the U.S. economy. If the minimum to average wage ratio had been constant at the level maintained through the 1970s, the minimum wage would have been $5.51 in 1993. If the 1993 minimum wage had increased to $5.51, payments to minimum wage workers would have increased by an estimated $20.3 billion, and the number of people earning that wage would have risen from 2.0 million to 14.7 million. Elasticity estimates generated from other studies indicate that employment would have fallen 240,000 (4.4%) among 16–19 year olds and 349,000 (3.0%) among 20–24 year olds. Wage payments to minimum wage workers would have substantially increased, but the effect on family income distribution would have been small. Many minimum wage workers are children living with parents or adults in a family with other earners. Consequently, 75% of minimum wage workers account for less than half of their family's income.     

The Redistributive Effects of a Minimum Wage Increase in New Zealand: A Microsimulation Analysis

This paper examines the potential effects on inequality and poverty of a minimum wage increase, based on a microsimulation model that captures the details of household composition and the income tax and welfare benefit system and allows for labour supply responses. Results suggest that, largely due to the composition of household incomes, a policy of increasing the minimum wage has a relatively small effect on the inequality of income per adult equivalent person, and a money metric utility measure, using several inequality indices. Hence, the minimum wage policy does not appear to be particularly well targeted, largely due to many low wage earners being secondary earners in higher income households, while many low income households have no wage earners at all. These results are reinforced when allowing for wage spillovers further up the wage distribution. Nevertheless, a minimum wage increase can have a more substantial effect on some poverty measures for sole parents in employment.     

Household Satellite Account for France

We estimate in a household satellite account (HHSA) the value of French domestic production in 2010 and 1998, using the input method and following Eurostat's recommendations. In line with previous studies, we find that extending the system of national accounts (SNA) frontier of production to domestic activities (house chores, cooking, care …) has a sizeable effect on key macroeconomic indicators (+33 percent GDP, ?5 p.p. GDP growth, +50 percent disposable income, +58 percent consumption, and ?10 p.p. of purchasing power growth). We conduct a sensitivity analysis to various methodological issues which have not yet been settled by an international benchmark. Quantitatively, the two most important issues are the boundary of household production—we favor a relatively narrow definition—and the use of a gross or a net wage—we prefer gross wage‐. However, estimates are much less sensitive to otherwise greatly debated issues such as which substitute wage to use.     

Traditional vs. modern production systems: Price and nonmarket considerations of cacao producers in Northern Ecuador

Many factors besides profit maximization, such as nonmarket ecological and social benefits, influence smallholder households to adopt a specific agricultural production system or sell in a particular market. Thus, different analytical techniques are needed that take into consideration more than monetary income to fully capture these additional benefits to better understand the production decisions of smallholder farmers. We build on previous work on the household model and shadow wage estimation to develop a shadow wage for Ecuadorian cacao producers that includes these nonmarket benefits. We found that the shadow wage correctly indicated that, on average, these households would prefer to use an agroforestry production system instead of the more profitable modern system because of the nonmarket benefits received from the former system.