THE DETERMINANTS OF EMPLOYMENT: A SECTORAL ANALYSIS FOR TURKEY

This paper analyzes the effects of wages, openness, and demand on employment in the private manufacturing industry in Turkey based on panel data for the period of 1973–2001. The wage elasticity of employment increases after trade liberalization. Nevertheless, output elasticity of labor demand is higher than wage elasticity in the total manufacturing sector for the whole estimation period, and in the high- and medium-skilled sectors in the post-1980 period. Trade effects, after controlling for output, seem to have a low economic significance. The positive effects of exports on the labor intensity of production are low or are offset by labor saving effects of foreign trade, particularly in the high- and medium-skilled sectors. On the other hand, there is some evidence of a negative import effect in the low-skilled sectors, whereas in the high- and medium-skilled group a complementary relation between domestic labor and imported inputs dominates the effects.     

The 2008/09 Economic Crisis: The Impact on Psychological Well-Being in the USA

The 2008/09 economic crisis has been the worst crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression. The causes and implications of the so-called “Great Recession” have been widely documented, but the effects of the crisis on psychological well-being have only received limited attention. Using state-level data, this paper aims to assess empirically the impact of the 2008/09 crisis on several indicators of mental health in the USA. The results indicate that unemployment and income levels have a significant and detrimental impact on mental health. This implies that social protection systems—and in particular labor market programs—play a paramount role in reducing the adverse impact of the crisis on mental health.     

The Gender Impact of Social Protection Policies: A Critical Review of the Evidence

Abstract

Over the course of the neoliberal era, social protection policies have been transformed dramatically; these changes have had profound gender implications. Since the early 1980s, welfare state regimes around the world have shifted away from ‘universalism' towards ‘targeting'. More recently, there has been a further shift—especially in industrialized countries—away from the male-breadwinner to the adult worker model. Despite the progressivity implied by this latter shift, important issues of gender inequality remain unresolved (even in Nordic countries where levels of gender equity are higher than elsewhere). This paper presents a critical review of social protection policies, examined from a gender perspective. The analysis presents a conceptual framework on gender and the welfare state, and examines the experience of major industrialized and developing countries in engendering social policy. In particular, this paper provides a careful examination of care-related programs, since this domain is particularly important to understanding the gendered effects of social protection policies. Finally, the gendered implications of the global crisis and subsequent policy measures are examined.