Fraction Of Workers Research Articles

Compliance to Health and Safety Measures in Selected Construction Firms in Lagos, Nigeria

Non-compliance to safety measures remains one of the factors that endanger construction sites. As one of its contributions to work on enhancing the safety and health of workers and improving project quality delivery, this study examined the level of compliance to health and safety among construction firms in Lagos State, from the perspective of workers. The study adopted a survey research design. The sample size for the study was one hundred and twenty (120) skilled artisans who were randomly selected from among foreign and indigenous construction firms in the state. The research instrument was a questionnaire that collected relevant data, with descriptive and inferential statistics being used for the data analysis. It was found that only 22% of the firms made provision for PPE, in the light of legislative requirements on standards. Moreover, out of three workers, one was afraid to report incidents/accidents while the fraction of workers that wished to report were unaware of the officials to report such matters to. Consequently, a similar percentage of workers was worried that there would be a penalty for reporting safety issues. Regarding contractors' safety policy review, while one out of every three contractors bore their responsibilities under the safety policy, one out of every four contractors was requested to make some amendments. It was thus concluded that workers are not encouraged to report any incident or accident confirming a low level of compliance between the two firms. It is therefore suggested that there should be strict enforcement of measures for improving safety and health practices on construction sites, in addition to motivating workers on incident/accident reporting and specifying the right line of safety actions. Furthermore, risk assessment for work operations should be enhanced to minimise the percentage of work that is halted or executed unsafely.

Changing Stability in U.S. Employment Relationships

We confront two seemingly-contradictory observations about the US labor market: the rate at which workers change employers has declined since the 1980s, yet there is a commonly expressed view that long-term employment relationships are more difficult to attain. We reconcile these observations by examining how the distribution of employment tenure has changed in aggregate and for various demographic groups. We show that the fraction of workers with short tenure (less than a year) has been falling since the 1980s, consistent with the decline in job changing. Meanwhile, the fraction of workers with long tenure (20 years or more) has been rising modestly owing to an increase in long tenure for women and the ageing of the population. Long tenure has declined markedly among older men; this trend may have spurred popular perceptions that long-term employment is less common than in the past. The decline in long-tenure for men appears due to an increase in mid-career separations that reduce the likelihood of reaching long-tenure, rather than an increase in late-career separations. Nevertheless, survey evidence indicates that these changes in employment relationships are not associated with heightened concerns about job insecurity or decreases in job satisfaction as reported by workers. The decline in short-tenure is widespread, associated with fewer workers cycling among briefly-held jobs, and coincides with an increase in perceived job security among short tenure workers.

Perception of cycling risks and needs associated with skill level, gender, and age

Over the last decade, there has been a growing number of individuals using cycling for transport. However, a fraction of workers in the United States of America (USA) are riding bicycles for commuting due to different risk and need factors. Cycling still has serious obstacles to be utilized as alternative transportation. Therefore, there is a need to have a better understanding of the perceived risk/need factors among cyclists. This survey study clarifies the awareness among cyclists of different categories of Risk/Need Factors (RNF) and it contributes to a better understanding of the differences in perceived risks/needs within age groups, genders, and skill levels. An online survey was conducted that included three main categories of Risk/Need Factors (RNF) related to cycling: infrastructure-related, traffic-related, and facility-related. Mean Score Analysis and Ordered Probit Model were used to examine the differences in risk/need perception among cyclists of different ages, genders, and skill levels. According to the study outcomes, older cyclists are influenced more than young cyclists with the infrastructure-related RNF’s. Moreover, gender was not statistically significant when related to perceived RNF. Also, it was found that there are significant differences in the RNF’s among cyclists’ skill levels, infrastructure-related, and facility-related. The study findings emphasize the importance of improv-ing cyclists’ safety and promoting cycling for transportation. Meanwhile, beginner-skilled cyclists are more likely to be influenced by infrastructure-related RNF when compared to other skill levels. The findings of this study give clarifica-tions for potential issues that contribute to a better understanding of the differences in perceived risks/needs among age groups, genders, and skill levels. This reflects among the efforts to promote cycling safety and support cycling for transportation. Therefore, policymakers and city planners should consider the differences in RNF’s in developing cycling infrastructures and traffic management. This allows the urban street system to operate more efficiently, safely, and reliably for all users. Which will enhance the safety awareness of cyclists, reduce the risk factors in the long run, and play a leading role in increasing the number of cyclists.

Measuring human capital divergence in a growing economy

The stylized fact that the fraction of workers who are college graduates appears to increase more in US cities where the initial share is larger has attracted significant attention. Furthermore, more educated cities appear to grow faster. These two trends could portend the divergence of cities by skill, with low-skill workers segregated in slow-growing or declining cities. This paper compares measures of skill divergence and finds that relative measures, which have the property of scale invariance, show no divergence for the period from 1970 to 2010. In addition, the relation between skill intensity and city growth appears to be concave, so that differences in the growth rate of skill intensity across cities may diminish over time as the average college share of the country rises.

Changing Stability in U.S. Employment Relationships: A Tale of Two Tails

We confront two seemingly-contradictory observations about the US labor market: the rate at which workers change employers has declined since the 1980s, yet there is a commonly expressed view that long-term employment relationships are more difficult to attain. We reconcile these observations by examining how the distribution of employment tenure has changed in aggregate and for various demographic groups. We show that the fraction of workers with short tenure (less than a year) has been falling since the 1980s, consistent with the decline in job changing. Meanwhile, the fraction of workers with long tenure (20 years or more) has been rising modestly owing to an increase in long tenure for women and the ageing of the population. Long tenure has declined markedly among older men; this trend may have spurred popular perceptions that long-term employment is less common than in the past. The decline in long-tenure for men appears due to an increase in mid-career separations that reduce the likelihood of reaching long-tenure, rather than an increase in late-career separations. Nevertheless, survey evidence indicates that these changes in employment relationships are not associated with heightened concerns about job insecurity or decreases in job satisfaction as reported by workers. The decline in short-tenure is widespread, associated with fewer workers cycling among briefly-held jobs, and coincides with an increase in perceived job security among short tenure workers.

Measuring Human Capital Divergence in a Growing Economy: Do Differences Deceive?

The stylized fact that the fraction of workers who are college graduates appears to increase more in US cities where the initial share is larger has attracted significant attention. Furthermore, more educated cities appear to grow faster. These two trends could portend the divergence of cities by skill, with low-skill workers segregated in slow-growing or declining cities. This paper compares measures of skill divergence and finds that relative measures, which have the property of scale invariance, show no divergence for the period from 1970 to 2010. In addition, the relation between skill intensity and city growth appears to be concave, so that growth rate differences may diminish over time as the average college share of the country rises.

Corrigendum

Corrigendum

Multi-Market Simultaneous Search: More Can Be Less

Standard labor search and matching models feature procyclical search intensity and quick recoveries. Both predictions are at odds with the US labor market after the Great Recession. This paper shows that in an otherwise standard model that incorporates multi-market simultaneous search, a temporary financial crisis can raise both search intensity and unemployment persistently, like a stampede to an unemployment trap—workers search harder but end up discouraging job creation—even if only a fraction of workers can conduct simultaneous search. The observed productivity shocks reduce search effort and do not cause such hysteresis. Subsidizing entry costs can bring quick recovery.

Agglomeration patterns in a multi-regional economy without income effects

We study the long-run spatial distribution of industry using a multi-region core–periphery model with quasi-linear log utility Pfluger (Reg Sci Urban Econ 34:565–573, 2004). We show that a distribution in which industry is evenly dispersed among some of the regions, while the other regions have no industry, cannot be stable. A spatial distribution where industry is evenly distributed among all regions except one can be stable, but only if that region is significantly more industrialized than the other regions. When trade costs decrease, the type of transition from dispersion to agglomeration depends on the fraction of workers that are mobile. If this fraction is low, the transition from dispersion to agglomeration is catastrophic once dispersion becomes unstable. If it is high, there is a discontinuous jump to partial agglomeration in one region and then a smooth transition until full agglomeration. Finally, we find that mobile workers benefit from more agglomerated spatial distributions, whereas immobile workers prefer more dispersed distributions. The economy as a whole shows a tendency towards overagglomeration for intermediate levels of trade costs.

Minimum Wages in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Primer

The fraction of workers currently covered by minimum wages in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is small, but as formality and urbanization increase, wage regulation will become increasingly relevant. In this analysis, we find that higher minimum wage values are associated with higher levels of GDP per capita, in both SSA and non-SSA countries. Using two measures to assess the level at which minimum wages are set, we find that minimum wages in SSA countries are on average lower—relative to average wages—than most other comparable regions of the world. Thus, SSA as a whole reflects no particular bias toward a comparatively more pro–minimum wage policy. Within SSA, however, we observe that low-income countries set relatively higher minimum wages than middle- or upper-income countries. We find significant variation in the detail of minimum wage regimes and schedules in the region, as well as large variations in compliance. Notably, several countries in SSA have relatively complex minimum wage schedules, and on averag...

Trade, Soil Quality and Pre-Industrial Agglomeration - Evidence from 18th Century Denmark

Abstract I investigate the sources of pre-industrial agglomeration using Danish census data at the parish level from 1787. Understanding historical agglomeration is important since it is highly persistent: Places which were more urbanized hundreds of years ago also tend to be more urbanized to day. I show that the presence of a natural harbour is an important determinant of historical urbanization were as soil quality is not. The results are consistent with the predictions of a new economic geography model where trade is mostly water-based. Natural harbours increase market access and thus the scope for urbanization since there are increasing returns in the urban sector. Better soil quality in the parish does not increase market access and urbanization since land-based trade is costly. Consistent with this idea I find that natural harbours are positively associated with the fraction of workers in production and services, whereas soil quality is uncorrelated with these two variables. The results hold at the parish level and at higher levels of aggregation.

EDUCATION, INEQUALITY, AND DEVELOPMENT IN A DUAL ECONOMY

This paper develops a dynamic dual-economy model and examines how the long-run outcome of an economy depends on the initial distribution of wealth and sectoral productivity. It is shown that, for fast transformation into a developed economy, the initial distribution must be such that extreme poverty is not prevalent so that most people can take education to acquire basic skills and the size of the “middle class” is large enough so that an adequate number of people can access education to acquire advanced skills. Both conditions seem to have held in successful East Asian nations, where, as in the model economy undergoing such transformation, the fraction of workers with advanced skills rose greatly and inequalities between these workers and others fell over time. In contrast, if the former condition holds but the latter does not, which would be the case for many nations falling into the “middle income trap,” consistent with facts, the fraction of workers with basic skills and the share of the modern sector rise, but inequality between workers with advanced skills and with basic skills worsens and the traditional sector persists for long periods. If the former condition does not hold, which would be true for the poorest economies, the dual structure and high inequality between workers without basic skills and others persist for very long periods. Consistently, Hanushek and Woessmann (2012) [Hanushek, Eric A. and Ludger Woessmann (2012) Do better schools lead to more growth? Cognitive skills, economic outcomes, and causation.Journal of Economic Growth17, 267–321] find that the share of students with basic skills and that of top performance have significant effects on economic growth that arecomplementary to each other.

Education, Inequality, and Development in a Dual Economy

In the post-WWII era, most developing economies had decent economic growth, but, with current growth trends, the great majority of them are unlikely to transform into developed economies in near future. In these economies, the dual economic structure, the coexistence of the modern/formal sector and the traditional/informal sector, is persistent. The educational level of the population increased greatly, but the growth of the skill level, especially when measured by the share of high-skill workers, is relatively modest. Wage inequality between workers with basic skills and with advanced skills rose over time, while the inequality between workers with and without basic skills fell greatly. In order to understand these facts, this paper develops a dynamic dual-economy model and examines how the long-run outcome of the economy depends on the initial distribution of wealth and sectoral productivity. It is shown that, for fast transformation into a developed economy, the initial distribution must be such that extreme poverty is not prevalent and the size of ”middle class” is enough. If the former is satisfied but the latter is not, which would be the case for many developing economies falling into ”middle income trap”, the fraction of workers with basic skills and the share of the modern sector rise, but inequality between workers with advanced skills and with basic skills worsens and the traditional sector remains, consistent with the above-mentioned facts.

Testing the coherence between occupational exposure limits for inhalation and their biological limit values with a generalized PBPK-model: The case of 2-propanol and acetone

The coherence between occupational exposure limits (OELs) and their corresponding biological limit values (BLVs) was evaluated for 2-propanol and acetone. A generic human PBPK model was used to predict internal concentrations after inhalation exposure at the level of the OEL. The fraction of workers with predicted internal concentrations lower than the BLV, i.e. the ‘false negatives’, was taken as a measure for incoherence. The impact of variability and uncertainty in input parameters was separated by means of nested Monte Carlo simulation. Depending on the exposure scenario considered, the median fraction of the population for which the limit values were incoherent ranged from 2% to 45%. Parameter importance analysis showed that body weight was the main factor contributing to interindividual variability in blood and urine concentrations and that the metabolic parameters Vmax and Km were the most important sources of uncertainty. This study demonstrates that the OELs and BLVs for 2-propanol and acetone are not fully coherent, i.e. enforcement of BLVs may result in OELs being violated. In order to assess the acceptability of this “incoherence”, a maximum population fraction at risk of exceeding the OEL should be specified as well as a minimum level of certainty in predicting this fraction.

Lower-Income Individuals Without Pensions: Who Misses Out and Why?

In 2010, only 19 percent of individuals ages 50-58 whose household incomes were less than 300 percent of the poverty line participated in a pension of any kind at their current jobs, compared to 56 percent of those above 300 percent of poverty. This paper investigates this pension gap. In particular, we decompose the pension participation rate into its four elements in order to compare coverage between higher- and lower-income individuals: 1) the fraction of people who are currently working (the employment rate); 2) the fraction of workers who are in firms that offer pension benefits to at least some workers (the offer rate); 3) the fraction of workers who are eligible for pension benefits, conditional on being in a firm where it is offered (the eligibility rate); and 4) the fraction of workers who enroll in a pension plan when they are eligible (the take-up rate). We find that the substantial pension gap between higher- and lower-income individuals is driven primarily by the lower-income group’s lower employment rate and the smaller probability of working for an employer that offers pensions; when lower-income workers do have a pension plan at work, their eligibility and take-up rates are nearly equivalent to higher-income workers. We also find that the factors associated with a higher value for each element of pension participation are very consistent: higher education and income, previous pension history, and job characteristics including firm size, occupation, job tenure, and union status. Together, these findings suggest that policies such as automatic enrollment that focus on pension eligibility or take-up are unlikely to close the pension coverage gap between older, lower-income individuals and their higher-income contemporaries; instead, greater pension participation requires more jobs and, in particular, more “good jobs.”

Adicción al trabajo: características, detección y prevención desde una perspectiva integral

Introduction The work gives the person a sense of identity, affects its self-esteem and gives legitimacy to the family and society. However, there is a fraction of workers who carry it out in a very intense and compulsive way, which has negative implications. This sets a condition known as work addiction.Objective To describe the characteristics of workaholism and factors that predispose to it, as well as preventive actions to avoid workaholism at organizational and individual level.Methods: Literature review and critical and reflexive reading. workaholism within the following database: Medline, Cuiden, Cochrane, Pubmed and Google Scholar using as keywords: nursing, workaholism and clinical symptomatology during 2013.Results: The appearance of physical symptoms are usually indicators for detecting workaholism, however, these physical symptoms alone do not allow to point out a possible addiction, being also necessary to evaluate psychological and social aspects.Conclusions: It is difficult to differentiate between hard work and workaholism for four main reasons: 1) the rejection of the problem by the person affected 2) hardworking people are praised in society, excessive devotion is regarded as a quality 3) the lack of information to the population for awareness raising of work addiction as a disease, 4) non-existence of workaholism within the criteria of diagnostic manuals (ICD-10)

Recent Trends in Earnings Volatility: Evidence from Survey and Administrative Data

Abstract Recent papers find that earnings volatility is again on the rise (Dynan et al. 2008, and Shin and Solon 2011). Using household survey data—the matched Current Population Surveys and Survey of Income and Program Participation—and the newly available Longitudinal Employment and Household Dynamics administrative dataset, we find that earnings volatility was remarkably stable in the 1990s and through the mid 2000s. This evidence is in contrast to that from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) which registers a sharp increase in the early 2000s. We investigate whether adjusting measures based on our sources to more closely match the characteristics of the PSID can reconcile this divergence in trends, but do not find a clear explanation for the divergence. We also find little evidence of a rise over this period in the components of volatility: volatility among job leavers, volatility among job stayers, and the fraction of workers who are job leavers.

Employer-sponsored programmes for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS: Recent experience from sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines a sample of employer programmes in sub-Saharan Africa that supplement government efforts to prevent and treat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Some of these programmes provide workers with in-house education, voluntary HIV testing and antiretroviral treatment. Others rely on new forms of employment-based group health insurance that include an HIV treatment package. In addition, some enterprises use the workplace as a platform for launching efforts into neighbouring communities to reach spouses, children, sex workers, secondary school students and others. Early evidence suggests that employer programmes maintain the health of large fractions of workers living with HIV who are served by them. They further enable enterprises to avoid productivity losses and turnover costs associated with HIV. At the same time, they take pressure off government agencies that face demands for treatment far exceeding their capacity. The article identifies features of successful employer programmes including “elite appeal”, which mobilizes community leaders and role models to deconstruct stigma, change perceptions and call for behavioural change; and “collateral linkage”, which extends the reach of HIV workplace programmes by linking them to related community concerns: e.g. alcohol abuse, malaria and domestic violence. Looking forward, the potential for expanding employer programmes as well as the restrictions associated with the limited scale of formal-sector employment within sub-Saharan African economies is assessed. Actions by which governments, employer associations, trade unions and international organizations can encourage further development of such programmes and extend their reach are suggested.

Reality of On-the-Job Search

This paper provides a set of simple, yet overlooked, facts regarding on-the-job search and job-to-job transitions using the UK Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS is unique in that it asks employed workers whether they search on the job and, if so, why. I find that workers search on the job for very different reasons, which lead to different outcomes in both mobility and wage growth. A nontrivial fraction of workers engage in on-the-job search due to a fear of losing their job. This group mimics many known features of unemployed workers, such as wage losses upon finding a job. Workers also search on the job because they are unsatisfied. This group is roughly equally split into those who are unsatisfied with pay and those who are unsatisfied with other aspects of their job. Distinguishing these two groups allows me to highlight the importance of the nonpecuniary value of a job. I further show that the evidence that firms make a counteroffer in response to a worker’s outside offer is scarce and that wage outcomes at the time of job-to-job transitions are closely linked to the worker’s outside option. The evidence in this paper contributes not only to deepening our understanding of labor reallocation, but it also suggests the fruitful directions of future research in the labor search literature.

The role of population heterogeneity and human mobility in the spread of pandemic influenza

Little is known on how different levels of population heterogeneity and different patterns of human mobility affect the course of pandemic influenza in terms of timing and impact. By employing a large-scale spatially explicit individual-based model, founded on a highly detailed model of the European populations and on a careful analysis of air and railway transportation data, we provide quantitative measures of the influence of such factors at the European scale. Our results show that Europe has to be prepared to face a rapid diffusion of a pandemic influenza, because of the high mobility of the population, resulting in the early importation of the first cases from abroad and highly synchronized local epidemics. The impact of the epidemic in European countries is highly variable because of the marked differences in the sociodemographic structure of European populations. R(0), cumulative attack rate and peak daily attack rate depend heavily on sociodemographic parameters, such as the size of household groups and the fraction of workers and students in the population.