Dual Labor Research Articles

Barriers to the effective exploitation of migrants' social and cultural capital in hospitality and tourism: A dual labour market perspective

This article examines migrants' labour market entry experiences and positions in hospitality and tourism from a dual labour market theory standpoint. We conducted thirty interviews with migrants from Latin America, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The transcripts were first analysed through an open coding framework. That was followed by emotion and sentiment analyses for the interviewees' transcripts using Natural Language Processing approach (NLP) with a programming code written in Python. This article found that migrants' high representation in tourism and hospitality is linked to the immense cultural capital they harbour. However, migrants are often at the sector's lower end and fail to build on their social and cultural capital. The research contributes to the understanding that migrants' positions within tourism and hospitality are misaligned with migrants' credentials. Ethnicity impacts job search success and attainment of higher ranks significantly. The underemployment of migrants in hospitality and tourism leads to human capital loss for both migrants and host economies.

Dual Returns to Experience

In this paper we study human capital accumulation and wage trajectories of young workers in a dual labor market. Using rich administrative data for Spain, we follow workers since labor market entry to measure experience accumulated under different contractual arrangements and relate it to current wages. We show that returns to experience accumulated in fixed-term contracts are, on average, lower than the returns to experience acquired in permanent jobs. However, this gap masks significant heterogeneity across individuals. The gap in returns widens along the skill distribution, where workers in the upper tail have the largest difference in returns. Moreover, among equally experienced workers, higher incidence of temporary employment in the past is associated with substantially lower wages. Ultimately, heterogeneous returns to experience translate into significant changes in the position of workers along the distribution of wage growth after 15 years in the labor market, bearing implications for life-cycle wage inequality.

Japan's Stagnant Wages in the Dual Labor Market

Japan's Stagnant Wages in the Dual Labor Market

Income Dynamics in Dual Labor Markets

Income Dynamics in Dual Labor Markets

Temporary layoffs, short-time work and COVID-19: the case of a dual labour market

Purpose This paper aims to study the type of short-time work (STW) schemes implemented in Spain to preserve jobs and workers’ incomes during the COVID-19 crisis and the corresponding labour market outcomes. Design/methodology/approach A dynamic macroeconomic model of job creation and destruction of the search and matching type in a dual labour market. Findings The model shows that the availability of STW schemes does not necessarily prevent a large increase in unemployment and job destruction. The quantitative effects depend on the degree of subsidization of payroll taxes and on the design of the policy. A scenario with a moderate degree of subsidization and where the subsidy is independent of the reduction in hours worked is the least harmful for both welfare and fiscal deficit. The cost of such a strategy is a higher unemployment rate. Concerning heterogeneous effects, the unemployed are the ones who experience the strongest distributional changes. Originality/value The effectiveness of STW schemes in dual labour markets using a search and matching model in the context of the COVID-19 crisis has not been analysed elsewhere. The literature has emphasized the importance of dynamics, labour market institutions and workers’ heterogeneity to understand workforce adjustment decisions in the face of temporary shocks to de- mand especially when firms’ human capital is relevant. These elements are present in the model. In addition, this paper computes welfare and distributional effects and the cost of these policies.

Temping fates in Spain: hours and employment in a dual labor market during the Great Recession and COVID-19

We investigate the behavior of aggregate hours supplied by workers in permanent (open-ended) contracts and temporary contracts, distinguishing changes in employment (extensive margin) and hours per worker (intensive margin). We focus on the differences between the Great Recession and the start of the COVID-19 Recession. In the Great Recession, the loss in aggregate hours is largely accounted for by employment losses (hours per worker did not adjust) and initially mainly by workers in temporary contracts. In contrast, in the early stages of the COVID-19 Recession, approximately sixty percent of the drop in aggregate hours is accounted for by permanent workers that do not only adjust hours per worker (beyond average) but also face employment losses—accounting for one-third of the total employment losses in the economy. We argue that our comparison across recessions allows for a more general discussion on the impact of adjustment frictions in the dual labor market and the effects policy, in particular the short-time work policy (ERTE) in Spain.

Making part-time work a fully-fledged alternative: How the Dutch social partners responded to a dual labour market, 1966–1993

ABSTRACT The Dual Labour Market theory suggests that in collective bargaining, the perceived threat of outsiders leads to a more beneficial outcome for insiders, while the outsiders are further marginalized. The history of part-time employment in the Dutch labour market suggests a different path. After female labour force participation started to increase in the 1970s, the Netherlands witnessed a growing divide between core workers with a ‘standard employment relationship’, who were mostly male breadwinners, and part-time working women who were often underpaid and had little protection against dismissal and other social risks. Flexible part-time jobs, however, were not just desired by women who aspired to combine work and care, these jobs also fitted the needs of certain businesses, particularly in the retail sector. To prevent low wage competition between retail companies, unions in the retail sector started to demand equal treatment between part-time and full-time employees. To mitigate the burden of more expensive part-time jobs, however, several organizations promoted high-quality part-time work across the sectors so that part-time workers would not crowd in one sector. Eventually, this programme was meant to contribute to making voluntary part-time work a legitimate and fully fledged option in the Dutch labour market

Uneven Use of Remote Work to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19 in South Korea's Stratified Labor Market.

Background: This research analyzed whether South Korean companies adopted remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on the dual labor market structure comprising of primary sector (large corporations) and secondary sector [small and medium enterprises (SMEs)]. Companies in the dual labor market were classified based on firm size.Methods: We used August supplementary data from the Economically Active Population Survey covering 2017–2020 provided by Statistics Korea. In this empirical study, a Linear Probability Model was used to analyze the probability that employees would work for companies that introduced remote work since COVID-19 depending on the size of the company.Results: This study showed three main results. First, unlike other flexible work systems, the use of remote work has increased rapidly since COVID-19. Second, the larger the size of the company, the higher the probability that employees would work for companies that introduced remote work after COVID-19. Third, according to the analysis by industry, the difference in remote work utilization between large corporations and SMEs was relatively small because of a similar working method in manufacturing.Conclusion: Results of this study suggested that polarization within the dual labor market structure also spilled over to adoption of remote work, which was initially introduced to prevent the spread of the pandemic. This study examined the system and factors of labor-management relations contributing to such polarization and presented policy directions for the current labor market structure.

The double penalty: How female migrants manage family responsibilities in the Spanish dual labour market

Objective: This study examines the convergence of employment behaviour and work-life balance of foreign-born women with those of native-born Spanish women between 2014 and 2018.
 Background: The changing role of women in the labour market is a central development of the past century. However, the study of female labour market participation has focused on native women, typically with a college education.
 Method: We use the Spanish Labour Force Survey and its 2018 ad hoc module on the reconciliation of work and family life to compare the working behaviours of native and migrant women. We use a matching algorithm to construct a sample of native workers with comparable human capital and living arrangement characteristics.
 Results: The segmentation of the Spanish labour market leads to the concentration of female immigrants in specific occupational niches with precarious employment conditions, regardless of the length of their stay in the country. The country’s employment and care regime forces female migrants to deal with their care responsibilities differently than their native counterparts: i.e., migrants are more likely than natives to interrupt their employment to fulfil household duties, and are less likely to engage in part-time work and to outsource care provision to family and professional caregivers.
 Conclusion: Female immigrants are doubly penalised as both immigrants and mothers.

Which Workers are Most Exposed to covid-19 and Social Distancing Effects in a Dual Labour Market?

This paper provides evidence for the different potential effects of covid-19 on formal and informal employment, using the work-from-home (Dingel & Neiman, 2020; Saltiel, 2020) and the proximity occupation approaches (Mongey et al., 2020) in Colombia. We found that only 13 % of informal employment positions can be performed from home (remotely) and that the figure for formal employment is twice as large (20 %). We recoded the raw occupational responses of the Colombian Household Survey to a granular level to directlycombine occupational information from two sources: O*net and step. We then calculated work-from-home estimates, extracting cohesive results from both sources. We investigated how personal and household characteristics relate to work-from-home and proximity and provide sound evidence for a larger effect on the informal population and its association with vulnerability (lower income and education levels, no internet access, poorworking conditions). Standard employment policies will not impact directly on the most vulnerable populations in developing countries where informal employment is the norm.

Markups in a dual labour market: The case of the Netherlands

We follow the production function approach to assess markups, which requires the estimation of the output elasticity of a flexible input. In the basic setup we estimate a structural value added production function, using temporary contract hours as flexible input. We find rather stable markups in the Netherlands in the period 2006–2016. We show that extending the flexible input incorrectly with fixed contract hours results in an increasing markup. Findings are robust to an alternative setup, in which a gross output production function is specified and materials are used as flexible input. Implications for applied work and policy are discussed.

Revisiting the undeclared service economy as a dual labour market: lessons from a 2019 Eurobarometer survey

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to transcend the long-standing depiction that workers universally participate in the undeclared service economy out of necessity due to their exclusion from the formal labour market, by proposing and evaluating the existence of a dual undeclared labour market in the service sector composed of an ‘upper-tier’ of voluntary exit-driven and ‘lower-tier’ of exclusion-driven undeclared service sector workers. Reporting a 2019 Eurobarometer survey conducted in 28 European countries, a dual labour market in the undeclared service economy is validated. Three-quarters of undeclared service workers report either purely exit- or exclusion driven rationales. For every lower tier undeclared service worker, 6.7 are in the upper tier, with those in the voluntary exit-driven upper tier more likely to be older, self-employed, having spent time in full-time education, and to be living in Western Europe and Nordic countries. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed.

코로나19 팬데믹 시대 한국 노동시장과 사회복지제도에 대한 대안으로 기본소득 검토

한국 노동시장과 사회복지제도의 이중구조와 불평등은 코로나19 팬데믹 상황에서 사회경제적 취약계층의 어려움을 가중시킨다. 노동시장에서 청년, 여성, 저임금 비정규직 노동자, 영세 자영업자 등은 실업과 소득 감소 위험에 직면했지만, 기존 사회복지제도는 노동시장의 변화에 적절하게 대응하지 못하고 사회안전망의 사각지대는 여전히 광범위하게 존재하고 있다. 본 논문에서는 한국 노동시장과 사회복지제도의 문제점을 파악하고 코로나19 팬데믹을 계기로 주목받는 보편적 기본소득을 살펴본다. 기본소득이 제시하는 대안적 사회안전망으로의 역할에도 불구하고 재원 확보와 증세에 대한 논의가 충분하지 않다는 점에서 정책 실현 가능성은 높지 않다고 평가한다.

An Empirical Analysis of the Nurses’ Dual Labor market: Comparison between Large Sized-Hospitals in the Metropolitan and Small to-Medium Sized-Hospitals in Local Area

본 연구는 고임금과 양호한 근무환경이 보장된 수도권대형병원과 저임금, 열악한 근무환경을 형성하는 지방중소병원으로 분절된 간호사 노동시장의 이중구조 속에서 간호인력 수급 불균형이 발생하는 요인을 분석하였다. 이를 위해 2020년 11월에 전국의 간호사를 대상으로 2주간 온라인 설문조사를 실시하여 총 1,164명이 응답하였고, 탈락자를 제외한 1,142명이 분석되었다. 설문도구는 Doeringer & Piore가 제시한 이중구조를 설명하는 변수에 대한 총 16문항으로 구성되었다. 노동시장의 이중구조의 결정요인을 분석한 로지스틱 회귀분석에서는 간호사 연령, 임금수준, 교육수준, 노조가입유무, 의료기관설립 주체의 5가지 변수로 나타났다. 연령의 경우 50대에 비해 20대, 30대가 각각 6.034배, 4.448배 수도권대형병원에 더 많이 분포하고 있었고, 임금수준은 월250만원에 비해 월 350만원 이상이 32.773배 더 많이 분포하였으며, 교육수준의 경우는 석사학위자가 전문학사자에 비해 수도권대형병원에 분포할 확률이 5.256배 더 많았다. 그 외 통계적으로 유의한 결정 요인은 노조가입 유무와 의료기관 설립주체로 나타났는데, 노조가입자는 미가입자보다 7.573배 더 많이 수도권대형병원에 분포하고 있었고, 공공의료기관에 비해 민간의료기관이 수도권대형병원일 가능성이 2.504배 높았다. 따라서 지방중소병원의 간호사 적정 수급을 위해서는 임금수준 향상, 노조와 같은 민주적 의사결정 구조 개선, 자기 계발을 위한 성장 기회 제공 등 간호사가 선호하는 근로조건을 마련해야 한다.

Analysis of Regional Wage Difference in Labor Market Discrimination

Based on geographical isolation, dual labor market and other factors, the development of China’s different regional economy has obvious characteristics of differentiation, which can be embodied in the phenomenon of “different salaries for the same work” and “different workers with the same salary”. In order to further analyze its influence, this paper analyzes the regional discrimination in the free labor market with the help of the multiple regression analysis model of regional wage and remuneration in economics, referring to the factors such as region, occupation, expenditure cost and labor market, and on the basis of studying the influence of labor market discrimination, wage difference and human resources on labor remuneration.

Employment Dualism in Crisis: Labour Market and Welfare State Reforms Before and During COVID-19

Dual labour markets have been a specific feature of employment systems in Con-tinental Europe after an initial wave of deregulation that started in the 1980s in a situation of high and persistent unemployment. Since then, the institutional duali-sation of employment by type of contract has had massive implications on the quality and quantity of jobs. However, while dualisms were conceived as inevita-ble and stable, the perception has become more nuanced and dynamic, account-ing for partial dedualising steps observable over the last decade in particular. This paper gives an overview of the history of dualisation and dual labour markets before addressing current challenges arising from the digital transition and the COVID-19 pandemic. It concludes with a discussion about potential policies to overcome labour market dualisms.

Scars that Never Heal: Dualisation and Youth Employment Policies in Spain from the Great Recession to the Corona Crisis

This article analyses the evolution of the dual labour market in Spain in the post-crisis and provides a first assessment of the labour market impact of the Covid-19 crisis. With the only exception of reducing the distance between the regulation of temporary and permanent contracts, the reforms introduced during the great re-cession and the post-crisis period have not only failed to reduce inequalities in the labour market, but have amplified some of them in interaction with austerity policies. Policies targeting young workers have delivered limited success in improving the position of the most disadvantaged, and more generally, to reduce dualisation as temporary employment remains very high whilst employment conditions of younger groups have deteriorated and become more widespread among those with higher educational attainment.

Employment protection and firm-provided training in dual labour markets

In this paper we leverage a labour market reform (Fornero Law) which reduced firing restrictions for open-ended contracts in the case of firms with more than 15 employees in Italy. The results from a Difference in Regression Discontinuities design demonstrate that after the reform, the number of trained workers increased in firms just above the threshold by approximately 1.5 additional workers. We show that this effect can be explained by the reduction in worker turnover and a higher use of permanent contracts. Our study highlights the potentially adverse effects of employment protection legislation on training in dual labour markets.

An empirical exploration of geographic heterogeneities in labor markets informality and minimum wage effects

Dual labor markets, defined by the existence or not of a formal labor contract, are a widespread feature in developing countries. Part of this duality results from marked asymmetries between relevant groups and categories, given one-size-fits-all regulation. This article proposes an exploration of the relationship between informality and the minimum wage as a potential source of variation for the identification heterogeneous effects between regions in Argentina. The results obtained support the existence of heterogeneities in policy effects between the central and peripheral regions. The distribution of wages and the level of compliance with the associated minimum wage regulations are the main variables of interest; both exhibit differential effects across regions, stronger northern agglomerations. These are robust to various specifications and controls associated with interregional differences (educational levels, size of companies, sectoral differences, among others). Results have important implications given persistent regional backwardness, and heterogeneities in terms of the workings of both markets and related policies.

Dual Labor Market and the "Phillips Curve Puzzle"

Low inflation was once a welcome to both policy makers and the public. However, Japan's experience during the 1990's changed the consensus view on price of economists and central banks around the world. Facing deflation and zero interest bound at the same time, Bank of Japan had difficulty in conducting effective monetary policy. It made Japan's stagnation unusually prolonged. Too low inflation which annoys central banks today is translated into the "Phillips curve puzzle". In the US and Japan, in the course of recovery from the Great Recession after the 2008 global financial crisis, the unemployment rate had steadily declined to the level which was commonly regarded as lower than the natural rate or NAIRU. And yet, inflation stayed low. In this paper, we consider a minimal model of dual labor market to explore what kind of change in the economy makes the Phillips curve flat. The level of bargaining power of workers, the elasticity of the supply of labor to wage in the secondary market, and the composition of the workforce are the main factors in explaining the flattening of the Phillips curve. We argue that the changes we consider in the model, in fact, has plausibly made the Phillips curve flat in recent years.