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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Goerke, Laszlo; Huang, Yue |
| Abstract: | Using panel data from 1985 to 2019, we provide the first comprehensive investigation of the relationship between trade union membership and job satisfaction in Germany. Cross-sectional analyses reveal a negative correlation, while fixed effects estimates indicate an insignificant relationship. This is also true if we incorporate information on collective bargaining coverage or the existence of works councils in subsamples for which this data is available. To address the endogeneity of union membership, we generate information on the union density individuals faced in their industry and region. This time-variant IV suggests no causal impact of individual union membership on job satisfaction. Finally, using different estimation models, we investigate whether the effects vary by gender, age, birth year, and employment status. |
| Keywords: | Exit-Voice Framework,German Socio-Economic Panel,Instrumental Variable,Job Satisfaction,Sorting,Trade Union Membership |
| JEL: | I31 J28 J51 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1135&r= |
| By: | Rania Gihleb; Osea Giuntella; Luca Stella; Tianyi Wang |
| Abstract: | This study explores the relationship between the adoption of industrial robots and workplace injuries. Using establishment-level data on injuries, we find that a one standard deviation increase in our commuting zone-level measure of robot exposure reduces work-related annual injury rates by approximately 1.2 cases per 100 workers. US commuting zones more exposed to robot penetration experience a significant increase in drug- or alcohol-related deaths and mental health problems. Employing longitudinal data from Germany, we exploit within-individual changes in robot exposure and document that a one standard deviation change in robot exposure led to a 4% decline in physical job intensity and a 5% decline in disability, but no evidence of significant effects on mental health and work and life satisfaction. |
| Keywords: | robot-exposure, work-related health risks |
| JEL: | I10 J00 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9809&r= |
| By: | Arntz, Melanie (ZEW Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research ; University of Heidelberg); Ivanov, Boris (ZEW Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research ; University of Heidelberg); Pohlan, Laura (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany ; IZA ; LASER ; ZEW) |
| Abstract: | "Routine-intensive occupations have been declining in many countries, but how does this affect individual workers’ careers if this decline is particularly severe in their local labor market? This paper uses administrative data from Germany and a matched difference-in-differences approach to show that the individual costs of job loss strongly depend on the task-bias of regional structural change. Workers displaced from routine manual occupations have substantially higher and more persistent employment and wage losses in regions where such occupations decline the most. Regional and occupational mobility partly serve as an adjustment mechanism, but come at high cost as these switches also involve losses in firm wage premia. Non-displaced workers, by contrast, remain largely unaffected by structural change." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Bundesrepublik Deutschland ; Westdeutschland ; IAB-Open-Access-Publikation ; Auswirkungen ; berufliche Mobilität ; Berufsgruppe ; Berufsverlauf ; Beschäftigungseffekte ; Betriebsstilllegung ; Einkommenseffekte ; IAB-Beschäftigtenhistorik ; IAB-Betriebs-Historik-Panel ; Massenentlassungen ; regionale Mobilität ; regionaler Arbeitsmarkt ; Routine ; technischer Wandel ; Arbeitslosigkeit ; Wirtschaftsstrukturwandel ; 1990-2010 |
| JEL: | J24 J63 J64 J65 O33 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202217&r= |
| By: | De Palma Francesco; Ligonnière Samuel; Saadaoui Jamel; Thommen Yann |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of collective wage bargaining institutions on the relationship between wage growth and unemployment, that is, the wage Phillips curve. Based on a labour market model with frictions and collective bargaining, we hypothesize that when the economy deteriorates, wages fall less in parts of the economy covered by collective wage agreements negotiated by trade unions at a centralized level than in economies with bargaining fully decentralized within companies. We move from theory to empirical analysis using regional NUTS-2 data from European countries, which show evidence that the wage Phillips curve flattens when unemployment is high—and gets steeper when the labor market is overheated —, in economies where the sectoral or cross-sectoral levels play a role in the collective wage bargaining. We also find that from a level of centralization intermediate between the company and the sector levels, the wage Phillips curve is twice as flat. |
| Keywords: | Phillips curve, Unemployment, Inflation, Wages, Collective bargaining. |
| JEL: | E24 E31 E32 J50 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2022-21&r= |
| By: | David G. Blanchflower (Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow; NBER and Bloomberg); Alex Bryson (University College London; IZA, Bonn; NIESR, London); Jason Spurling (Member of the Dartmouth Class of 2023) |
| Abstract: | Most economists maintain that the labor market in the United States (and elsewhere) is ‘tight’ because unemployment rates are low and the Beveridge Curve (the vacancies-to-unemployment ratio) is high. They infer from this that there is potential for wage-push inflation. However, real wages are falling rapidly at present and, prior to that, real wages had been stagnant for some time. We show that unemployment is not key to understanding wage formation in the USA and hasn’t been since the Great Recession. Instead, we show rates of under-employment (the percentage of workers with part-time hours who would prefer more hours) and the rate of non-employment which includes both the unemployed and those out of the labor force who are not working significantly reduce wage pressures in the United States. This finding holds in panel data with state and year fixed effects and is supportive of a wage curve which fits the data much better than a Phillips Curve. We find no role for vacancies; the V:U ratio is negatively not positively associated with wage growth since 2020. The implication is that the reserve army of labor which acts as a break on wage growth extends beyond the unemployed and operates from within the firm. |
| Keywords: | unemployment; labor market inactivity; under-employment |
| JEL: | J30 J20 J60 E24 |
| Date: | 2022–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qss:dqsswp:2206&r= |
| By: | Erling Barth (Institute for Social Research, Oslo); Alex Bryson (University College London, IZA, and NIESR); Harald Dale-Olsen (Institute for Social Research, Oslo, and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Using linked employer-employee data for Norway we estimate the impact of changes in tax subsidies for union membership on individuals’ membership probabilities. Increased subsidisation of the unions increases union take-up, while increased union fees reduce the demand for membership. The price elasticity of demand for union membership is -9 percent in 2012, though effects are heterogeneous across workers. In the absence of the hikes in tax subsidies and holding workforce composition constant aggregate private sector union membership density would have fallen by 5 percentage points between 2001 and 2012. But it would have fallen by 10 percentage points among those on temporary contracts, for instance. |
| Keywords: | trade unions; union membership; wages, tax subsidies |
| JEL: | J01 J08 J50 J51 |
| Date: | 2022–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qss:dqsswp:2205&r= |
| By: | Bart Cockx; Koen Declercq; Muriel Dejemeppe |
| Abstract: | Providing income support to unemployed education-leavers reduces the returns to investments in education because it makes the consequences of unemployment less severe. We evaluate a two-part policy reform in Belgium to study whether conditioning the prospective entitlement to unemployment benefits for education-leavers on age or schooling attainment can affect educational achievements. The results show that the prospect of financial loss in case of unemployment can significantly raise degree completion and reduce dropout in higher education, but not in high school. We argue that the higher prevalence of behavioral biases among lower educated and younger students could explain these contrasting findings. |
| Keywords: | unemployment insurance, conditionality, degree completion, school dropout, behavioural biases |
| JEL: | H52 I21 I26 I28 J08 J18 J24 J65 J68 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9852&r= |
| By: | Jones, Sam (UNU-WIDER); Sen, Kunal (University of Manchester) |
| Abstract: | Can digital labour market platforms reduce search frictions in formal or informal labour markets? We study this question using a randomized experiment embedded in a tracer study of the work transitions of graduates from technical and vocational colleges in Mozambique. We implement an encouragement design, inviting graduates by SMS to join established digital platforms: Biscate, a site to find freelancers for informal manual tasks; and Emprego, a conventional formal jobs website. In contrast to positive estimates of the contribution of both platforms to job outcomes from naïve (per-treatment) estimates, both intent-to-treat and complier average treatment effects are consistently zero in the full sample, while the impact on life satisfaction is negative. However, use of the informal jobs platform leads to better work outcomes for women, especially those with manual qualifications, for whom earnings rise by over 50%. |
| Keywords: | digital labour platforms, search frictions, technical and vocational education, unemployment, Mozambique |
| JEL: | J64 J68 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15409&r= |
| By: | Daphné Skandalis; Ioana Marinescu; Maxim N. Massenkoff |
| Abstract: | The U.S. unemployment insurance (UI) system operates as a federal-state partnership, where states have considerable autonomy to decide on specific UI rules. This has allowed for systematically stricter rules in states with a larger Black population. We study how these differences in state rules create a gap in the unemployment insurance that Black and White unemployed workers receive. Using administrative data from random audits on UI claims in all states, we first document a large racial gap in the UI that unemployed workers receive after filing a new claim. Black claimants receive an 18% lower replacement rate (i.e., benefits relative to prior wage, including denials) than White claimants. In principle, the replacement rate of each claimant mechanically depends on the rules prevailing in her state and on her work history (e.g., the earnings before job loss and the reason for separation from prior employer). Since we observe claimants' UI-relevant work history and state, we are in a unique position to identify the role of each factor. After accounting for Black-White differences in work history, differences in rules across states create an 8% Black-White gap in replacement rate (i.e., slightly less than half of the overall gap). Using a standard welfare calculation, we show that states with the largest shares of Black workers would gain the most from having more generous UI rules. Altogether, our results highlight that disparate state rules in the UI institution create racial inequality without maximizing overall welfare. |
| JEL: | J65 J7 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30252&r= |
| By: | Blanco-Álvarez, Jose (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain); Parsons, Christopher (University of Western Australia); Tang, Sam (University of Western Australia); Wang, Yong (City University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | We examine how low and high skilled internal emigration causally affect investments in human capital at origin. We provide theoretical and empirical evidence of a disincentive mechanism through which individuals refrain from education should low skilled emigration prove a viable alternative. Our identification strategy leverages administrative records of labor contracts of differing skills signed at migrants' provincial destinations. We document large Brain Gain and Brain Refrain effects. Our results paradoxically demonstrate an improvement in human capital given the trajectory of the Spanish labor market over our sample period. When juxtaposed against provinces' net human capital positions however, most provinces lose. |
| Keywords: | brain drain, brain gain, brain refrain, internal migration, low skilled migration, high skilled migration |
| JEL: | F22 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15400&r= |
| By: | Nicholas Bloom; Ruobing Han; James Liang |
| Abstract: | Hybrid working from home (WFH), whereby employees work a mix of days at home and at work each week, has become dominant for graduate employees in the US. This paper evaluates a randomized control trial on 1612 engineers, marketing and finance employees of a large technology firm that allowed odd birthday employees to WFH on Wednesday and Friday and kept even birthday employees full time in the office. There are four key results. First, WFH reduced attrition rates by 35% and improved self-reported work satisfaction scores, highlighting how employees place a considerable value on this amenity. Second, WFH reduced hours worked on home days but increased it on other work days and the weekend, highlighting how home-working alters the structure of the working week. Third, WFH employees increased individual messaging and group video call communication, even when in the office, reflecting the impact of remote work on working patterns. Finally, while there was no significant impact of WFH on performance ratings or promotions, lines of code written increased by 8%, and employees' self-assessed productivity was up 1.8%, suggesting a small positive impact. Given these benefits for retention, job satisfaction, and productivity, after the experiment ended the firm extended hybrid WFH to the entire company. |
| JEL: | J0 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30292&r= |
| By: | Picchio, Matteo (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona); Ubaldi, Michele (Marche Polytechnic University) |
| Abstract: | This paper is a meta-analysis on the relationship between unemployment and health. Our meta-dataset is made up of 327 study results coming from 65 articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 1990 and 2021. We find that publication bias is important, but only for those study results obtained through difference-in-differences or instrumental variables estimators. The average effect of unemployment on health is negative, but small in terms of partial correlation coefficient. We investigate if findings are heterogeneous among several research dimensions. We find that unemployment is mostly effective on the psychological domains of health and that short- and long-term unemployment spells equally affect health. Dealing with endogeneity issues is important and, when this is done, the unemployment effects on health are closer to be nil. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, health, meta-analysis, meta-regression, publication bias |
| JEL: | C52 I10 I12 J64 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15433&r= |
| By: | Jirjahn, Uwe; Le, Thi Xuan Thu |
| Abstract: | While works councils provide a highly developed mechanism to promote workplace democracy, research on their consequences has been dominated by economic aspects. This study brings a new perspective to the understanding of works councils by examining their influence on workers' political behavior. Political spillover theory suggests that participation in the firm's decision making has the potential to foster workers' political participation in civic society. Our study for Germany indeed finds a positive association between the presence of a works council and workers' interest in politics. This holds in panel data estimations including a large set of controls and accounting for unobserved individual-specific factors. However, separate estimations by gender show a positive association between works councils and political interest only for men, but not for women. Traditional gender roles and disproportionate responsibility for family may make it difficult for women to be politically engaged even when a works council is present. |
| Keywords: | Works council,works councilor,union member,gender,political interest |
| JEL: | J51 J52 J53 J58 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1141&r= |
| By: | Winnie van Dijk (The University of Chicago); Robert Collinson (University of Notre Dame); John Eric Humphries (Yale University); Nicholas Mader; Davin Reed; Daniel Tannenbaum |
| Abstract: | More than two million U.S. households have an eviction case filed against them each year. Policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels are increasingly pursuing policies to reduce the number of evictions, citing harm to tenants and high public expenditures related to homelessness. We study the consequences of eviction for tenants using newly linked administrative data from two large cities. We document that prior to housing court, tenants experience declines in earnings and employment and increases in financial distress and hospital visits. These pre-trends are more pronounced for tenants who are evicted, which poses a challenge for disentangling correlation and causation. To address this problem, we use an instrumental variables approach based on cases randomly assigned to judges of varying leniency. We find that an eviction order increases homelessness, and reduces earnings, durable consumption, and access to credit. Effects on housing and labor market outcomes are driven by impacts for female and Black tenants. |
| Keywords: | eviction, homelessness, poverty, tenant protections, rental housing markets |
| JEL: | J01 H00 I30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-24&r= |
| By: | Gomez-Salvador, Ramon; Soudan, Michel |
| Abstract: | The US economy has endured an exceptionally severe recession caused by the measures put in place to contain the spread of COVID-19. This occasional paper assesses the impact of this crisis on key labour market variables, such as (un-)employment, wages and productivity, and highlights the differences versus past recessions, with an emphasis on the global financial crisis (GFC). It also presents a comparison of developments in certain key variables between the euro area and the United States, and it discusses the outlook in the United States for the ongoing recovery. JEL Classification: J20, J30, J60 |
| Keywords: | Beveridge curve, job flows, labour market tightness, Phillips curve, unemployment rate |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbops:2022298&r= |
| By: | Andrea Cinque; Lennart Reiners |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of international migration restrictions on communities’ capacity to absorb income shocks after natural catastrophes. We adopt the implementation of an emigration ban on female Indonesians as a natural experiment. After an array of violent assaults against female servants in Saudi Arabia, the Indonesian government issued a moratorium in 2011, preventing millions of female workers to migrate there as domestic workers. Exploiting the exogenous timing of the ban and that of natural disasters allows us to estimate the causal effect of the absence of international migration as an adaptive strategy. Relying on a panel of the universe of Indonesian villages, we use a triple difference strategy to compare poverty levels in the aftermath of natural disasters for villages whose main destination is Saudi Arabia against others, before and after the policy shock. We find that in villages with strong ex-ante propensity to migrate to Saudi Arabia, poverty increases by 13% in face of natural disasters after the ban, further aggravating the already severe consequences induced by those events. |
| Keywords: | migration, natural disasters, Indonesia, migration ban |
| JEL: | F22 J61 Q54 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9837&r= |
| By: | Drydakis, Nick |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether an association exists between parental unemployment and health-related quality of life and mental health for adolescents aged 15-18 in Athens, Greece. The gathered dataset covers the same upper high schools in two periods, 2011-2013 and 2017-2019. The study finds that parental unemployment bears an association with decreased health-related quality of life and increased adverse mental health symptoms for adolescents. Moreover, the 2011-2013 period, a period of increased parental unemployment, saw a decrease in health-related quality of life and increased adverse mental health symptoms for adolescents. In addition, parental unemployment proved more detrimental to adolescents' health-related quality of life and mental health in 2011-2013 than in 2017-2019. The present research ranks among the first studies to examine whether parental unemployment could be associated with worse health-related quality of life and mental health for adolescents during periods of increased parental unemployment. Public policies that can reduce the adverse effects of parental unemployment on adolescents' health-related outcomes require consideration. This approach proves critical because deteriorated health-related quality of life and mental health can negatively impact on adolescents' human capital, progression, income, and future health. |
| Keywords: | Parental unemployment,adolescents,health-related quality of life,mental health,recession,economic crisis |
| JEL: | E24 J13 I10 I14 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1134&r= |
| By: | Giannakopoulos, Nicholas; Nicolitsas, Daphne |
| Abstract: | We discuss the interrelationship between membership in employers' associations and the exis- tence of trade unions. The analysis is based on both aggregate data for 13 European countries for 1980{2019 and firm-level data for 12 of these countries from the European Company Survey (ECS) for 2013 and 2019. Our findings suggest that at the aggregate level there is potentially a dependence between membership in the two types of organizations despite the fact that mem- bership in the two organizations appear to respond differently to macroeconomic conditions and to different institutional parameters. The firm-level data suggest that such a dependence might exist in some countries while the two organizations simply co-exist in most countries. The firm-level analysis confirms a number of stylized facts found in other analyses; larger and longer-established firms are more likely to belong to an EA and firms enforcing a collective agreement signed outside the remit of the firm are also more likely to be members of an EA and have union presence. The analysis is fraught with difficulties as, inter alia, the evolving nature of the two types of organizations makes it more difficult to ascertain the type of co-habitation between the two. |
| Keywords: | Employers' association membership,trade union membership,institutions |
| JEL: | J51 J54 L21 K23 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1140&r= |
| By: | Miriam Gensowski (Københavns Universitet); Mikkel Aagaard Houmark; Cecilie Marie Løchte Jørgensen; Ida Lykke Kristiansen |
| Abstract: | We study how children’s socio-emotional skills and well-being in adolescence are affected by an increase in the duration of parental care during infancy. Ex- ploiting a Danish reform that extended paid parental leave in 2002 and effectively delayed children’s entry into formal out-of-home care, we show that longer leave increases adolescent well-being, conscientiousness and emotional stability, and reduces school absenteeism. The effects are strongest for children of mothers who would have taken short leave in absence of the reform. This highlights how time spent with a parent is particularly productive during very early childhood. |
| Keywords: | parental leave, early childhood, skill formation, parental investments, Socio- Emotional Skills, personality, well-being, Adolescence. |
| JEL: | J13 J18 J24 I31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-23&r= |
| By: | Ariell Reshef; Gianluca Santoni |
| Abstract: | We study the evolution of labor shares in 1995-2014, while taking into account international trade based on value added concepts. Declines in labor shares accelerate in 2001-2007, concurrently with global value chain (GVC) integration, after which there is no trend for both. We develop a gravity-based instrument for GVC integration and find that the acceleration in the decline in labor shares is caused by increased intensity of forward GVC integration. The integration of China into GVCs has a disproportionally large effect through this mechanism. Declines in labor shares are shouldered mostly by less skilled workers in fabrication functions. Relatively capital abundant countries integrate more into forward GVCs linkages, which is associated with greater upstreamness within GVCs and increases in capital intensity. Forward GVC integration is associated with international vertical integration of both upstream intermediate input production and of offshoring of downstream assembly. |
| Keywords: | labor share, global value chains, upstreamness |
| JEL: | E25 F14 F15 F16 F66 J00 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9835&r= |