Sex Discrimination in the Reward for Skills and Experience in the Australian Labour Force*

Human capital equations are estimated for males and females in Australia, which express earnings as the product of endowments and the return on these endowments. The results are used to examine the effect of discrimination on the difference in the average earnings. The effect of occupational segregation on the earnings of women is also examined.     

Undereducation and Overeducation in the Australian Labour Market*

This paper uses data from the 1996 Census of Population and Housing Household Sample File (HSF) to study the incidence of mismatch between workers' educational attainments and the requirements of their jobs, and the earnings consequences of this mismatch. It also examines whether mismatch contributes to the explanation of the gender wage differential in the Australian labour market. It is found that approximately 15.8 per cent of men and 13.6 per cent of women are overeducated, whereas approximately 18.5 per cent of women and 13.7 per cent of men are undereducated. Substantial earnings consequences are found to be associated with this mismatch, with surplus schooling yielding relatively low returns. The results suggest that mismatch does not account for the gender wage gap in the Australian labour market; rather the gender wage differential is entrenched in the fundamentals of pay determination.     

Sex Differences in Labour Turnover in the Australian Public Service*

This paper reports the use of a large data set of Australian government employees in an analysis of the influence of sex on voluntary labour turnover. Estimates derived from a conventional quit model are used to obtain ceteris paribus sex specific quit probabilities. These suggest that once other relevant variables are held constant, the expected quit differences between men and single women are significantly reduced. The analysis indicates clearly that the use of aggregate statistics may substantially exaggerate turnover differences attributable to sex.     

The Sources of Changes in the Occupational Segregation of Australian Women*

Earlier studies have shown that Australian women are concentrated in a narrow range of occupations and that although occupational segregation has declined during the 20th century, the rate of decline is diminishing. This study uses census data from 1891 to 1981 to analyze the sources of changes in the Duncan and Duncan segregational index. It distinguishes changes in the index due to shifts in the occupational mix of the economy, and shifts in the sex composition within specific occupations. Both effects contributed to the general decline in segregation although the composition effect was quantitatively more important.     

Occupational Prestige and Labour Market Behaviour in Papua New Guinea*

‘Underdevelopment economics is a vastly important subject, but it is not a formal or theoretical subject. It is a practical subject which must expect to call upon any branch of theory (including non-economic, for instance, sociological, theory) which has any relevance to it’ [17].     

Immigrant Unemployment in the First Year of Australian Labour Market Activity*

Analysis of data from a 1983 Manpower Programs Survey shows that the relatively high unemployment rates experienced by overseas-born labour market entrants are reasonably widespread across immigrant groups. One exception is refugees, who are more likely to be unemployed than non-refugees. Consistent with prior research, additional years of education are associated with only modest reductions in the unemployment rates of immigrants. However, immigrants are able to reduce their predicted unemployment rates considerably by obtaining information on Australian job opportunities prior to migrating.     

Labour Market Policies and Long-term Unemployment in a Flow Model of the Australian Labour Market

This paper develops a general equilibrium job matching model, which is used to assess the impact of active labour market policies, reductions in unemployment benefits and reductions in worker bargaining power on long-term unemployment and other key macro variables. The model is calibrated using Australian data. Simulation experiments are conducted through impulse response analysis. The simulations suggest that active labour market programs (ALMPs) targeted at the long-term unemployed have a small net impact and produce adverse spillover effects on short-term unemployment. Reducing the level of unemployment benefits relative to wages and worker bargaining power have more substantial effects on total and long-term unemployment and none of the spillover effects of ALMPs.     

劳动力市场歧视的分析及对策

本文首先介绍了劳动力市场歧视的概念、来源 ,然后就劳动力市场歧视的几种类型和中国的现状进行了全面系统的分析 ,最后提出了解决劳动力市场歧视问题的对策。文章主张 :通过反歧视教育、反歧视立法、反歧视补贴、创造劳动力市场充分信息、减少职业隔离、减少人力资本投资中的歧视 ,来解决劳动力市场歧视的问题。     

How Women Are Faring in the Australian Labour Market

The Economic and Social Outlook Conference that was held in 2011 carried a separate session on the role of women in the Australian labour market for the first time. Women now make up some 45 per cent of the workforce—in the late 1970s, the proportion stood at one‐third. While women play an increasingly more important role in the labour market, the gap between male and female earnings has shown stubborn persistence, at around 15 per cent. Various explanations include productivity‐related characteristics and the changing age profile of the female workforce. For low‐paid workers, these explanations are convincing; for high‐paid workers, both in the public and private sector, the pay gap remains unexplained.     

The Youth Labour Market in Australia*

This paper uses unit record data from the 1985 Australian Longitudinal Survey to review the major features of the youth labour market. It is shown that education plays an important role in determining the incidence of unemployment, wages, hours of work and access to training opportunities. Analyses of labour market dynamics indicates that the probability of leaving unemployment falls off substantially as the duration of the unemployment spell increases. A major conclusion of the paper is that the longer term unemployed appear to be segmented from other labour market participants. An implication of this finding is that there b very little which the longer term unemployed can do at the margin to influence their success other than adopt the most productive method of job search.     

A Characterization of Australian Unemployment Compensation: An Analysis of Labour Market Adjustment*

This paper uses a labour contracting framework to analyze the microeconomics of the Australian unemployment compensation system. We find that employers adjust labour inputs by using layoffs rather than shortened workweeks or work-sharing during economic recessions. Increases in government benefits tend to reinforce this result Countervailing influences are shown to be the severity of the income test applying to benefits eligibility and the Family Allowance Supplement in its role as supplementing the income of low-income families.     

Microeconomic Evaluations of Australian Labour Market Programs

This article reviews literature which measures the effects of labour market programs on individual's labour market outcomes.     

Occupational Segregation Indices in the Multidimensional Case: A Note*

An extension of an index of segregation recently proposed by Karmel and Maclachlan (1988) is suggested which allows the analysis of occupational segregation in the multidimensional case.     

The Impact of Immigration on a Depressed Labour Market: The South Australian Experience*

This paper examines the impact of immigration on the relatively depressed labour market in South Australia during the 1976-81 inter-censal period. The findings indicate that recently arrived immigrants have experienced exceedingly high unemployment rates. However, this is consistent with the view that immigration generates additional job opportunities for Australian residents (except in the manufacturing industry and trades occupations), and that immigrants experience high unemployment rates specifically because they have been unable to compete a 'fair share' of jobs away from residents already entrenched in the labour market.     

Occupational Sex Segregation —Increasing or Decreasing?*

Contrary to previous findings, the new index of sex segregation derived in this study suggests that sex segregation in the Australian workforce has been increasing. A decomposition of this new index indicates that the main reason for the increase is the increasing share of employment held by females. The decomposition also considers a number of aspects of occupations including growth rates, skill levels and gender domination.     

Ethnic Discrimination in Germany's Labour Market: A Field Experiment

Abstract. This paper studies ethnic discrimination in Germany's labour market with a correspondence test. We send two similar applications to each of 528 advertisements for student internships, one with a Turkish‐sounding and one with a German‐sounding name. A German name raises the average probability of a callback by about 14%. Differential treatment is particularly strong and significant in smaller firms at which the applicant with the German name receives 24% more callbacks. Discrimination disappears when we restrict our sample to applications including reference letters which contain favourable information about the candidate's personality. We interpret this finding as evidence for statistical discrimination.