Increase In Labor Force Participation Research Articles

The Effect of Disability Pension Incentives on Early Retirement Decisions

I investigate the incentive effects of disability pensions on the labour supply decision. The implicit tax rate on further work is included as a forward looking incentive measure in order to investigate the effect of disability benefits on disability retirement entry as a special type of early retirement. A substantial change of the disability pension legislation caused exogenous variation in disability benefits in Germany in 2001 and is used to obtain estimates of individual’s responses to financial incentives. Benefit levels appear to have no effect on the labour market behaviour. At the same time, there is a sizable and significant disincentive effect of implicit taxes on labour market income, indicating that alleviating such disincentives would likely increase labour force participation. Since the response to financial incentives occurs mainly among those in good health, such a policy might on the other hand imperil the aim of providing insurance against a health induced loss of ones working capacity.

Impact of water supply and sanitation assistance on human welfare in rural Pakistan

The paper examines impact of two water supply and sanitation projects in rural Pakistan in improving access to water supply and sanitation and on health, education, and labour supply based on a household survey of 1300 project and 1300 comparison households. The impact was estimated using treatment effects based on a control-function approach. Overall findings show that the projects improved households’ access to water supply, reduced drudgery associated with fetching water and improved attendance of high-school-age girls in schools. However, the projects had no significant impact on the incidence and intensity of diarrhoea and on increasing labour force participation and hours available for work.

Why Don’t Employers Hire and Retain Workers with Disabilities?

Introduction Despite persistently low employment rates among working-age adults with disabilities, prior research on employer practices and attitudes toward workers with disabilities paints a generally rosy picture of successfully accommodated workers in a welcoming environment. Findings from previous studies might have been biased because of either employer self-selection or social desirability, yielding non-representative or artificially positive conclusions. Methods In this study, a novel approach was used to survey human resource professionals and supervisors working for employers known or reputed to be resistant to complying with the ADA’s employment provisions. Attendees of employer-requested ADA training sessions were asked to assess various possible reasons that employers in general might not hire, retain, or accommodate workers with disabilities and to rate strategies and policy changes that might make it more likely for employers to do so. Results As cited by respondents, the principal barriers to employing workers with disabilities are lack of awareness of disability and accommodation issues, concern over costs, and fear of legal liability. With regard to strategies employers might use to increase hiring and retention, respondents identified increased training and centralized disability and accommodation expertise and mechanisms. Public policy approaches preferred by respondents include no-cost external problem-solving, subsidized accommodations, tax breaks, and mediation in lieu of formal complaints or lawsuits. Conclusions Findings suggest straightforward approaches that employers might use to facilitate hiring and retention of workers with disabilities, as well as new public programs or policy changes that could increase labor force participation among working-age adults who have disabilities.

The Persistence Of Sexual Discrimination In The Workplace

Measured by an increasing labor force participation rate for women, a falling dissimilarity index for occupational sex segregation, and a declining male/female earnings gap, there has been increasing integration of women into the workforce in the U.S. over the last fifty years. This increased diversity should lead to increased productivity, thus inducing profit-maximizing firms to encourage it. However, sexual segregation has persisted for so long that it must be beneficial for the capitalist system as a whole. By keeping women separate and subservient with lower wages than men, firms exploit sexual discrimination and are able to maintain higher profits.

The Effects of Female Labor Force Participation on Obesity

This paper assesses whether a causal relationship exists between recent increases in female labor force participation and the increased prevalence of obesity amongst women. The expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in the 1980s and 1990s have been established by prior literature as having generated variation in female labor supply, particularly amongst single mothers. Here, we use this plausibly exogenous variation in female labor supply to identify the effect of labor force participation on obesity status. We use data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and replicate labor supply effects of the EITC expansions found in previous literature. This validates employing a difference-in-differences estimation strategy in the NHIS data, as has been done in several other data sets. Depending on the specification, we find that increased labor force participation can account for at most 19% of the observed change in obesity prevalence over our sample period. Our preferred specification, however, suggests that there is no causal link between increased female labor force participation and increased obesity.

Can adult education delay retirement from the labour market?

We examine whether adult education delays retirement to potentially increase labour force participation among the elderly, a mechanism suggested in the OECD strategy for “active ageing” and the “Lisbon strategy” of the EU. Using register data from Sweden, we analyse transcripts from adult education for the period 1979–2004 and annual earnings 1982–2004. We match samples of treated individuals, in adult education 1986–1989, and untreated on the propensity score. The timing of exit from the workforce is assessed by non-parametric estimation of survival rates in the labour force. The results indicate no effects of adult education on the timing of retirement.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Combining Work and Care for an Older Parent in Italy

Given the growth of care needs, the emphasis on informal care and the increasing labour force participation of women and senior workers, balancing employment and elderly care responsibilities is a crucial challenge. This qualitative study explores how and with what implications Italian senior workers combine work with care for older people. The results indicate that the impact of care responsibilities on work is limited and that employment has a buffer effect on overwhelming care responsibilities. By contrast the implications for private and family life are considerable. The conditions and mechanisms that support these results are discussed.

Pay Equity and Equal Employment Opportunity in New Zealand - Developments 2008/2010 and Evaluation

This is the fourth in a series of LEW papers updating developments relating to pay equity and EEO and evaluating their impact. As with my previous papers, it focuses primarily on gender, but also discusses the overall situation and touches on issues related to ethnicity, age and disability. In the last two years the election of a National Government has led to an even less interventionist climate, with the abolition of the Pay and Employment Equity Unit in the Department of Labour and the cancellation of associated pay equity investigations. This paper will discuss these moves and what remains of the Unit’s work and other EEO initiatives. It will also examine recent evidence on discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, age, and disability, as well as reports/recommendations/actions for its elimination – including employer/union attempts to improve opportunity for recent migrants and people with disabilities. The situation for older workers will also be examined, with increasing labour force participation at 65+ observed and encouraged, despite considerable discrimination faced by this group. Finally, the paper will discuss the EEO impacts of the 90 day initial period in which the normal dismissal provisions of employment law are waived and other actual and foreshadowed changes to the law potentially reducing labour market protection.

Retirement, Imperfect Annuity Markets and Aging

We show that the recent tendency of increasing labor force participation in age groups 55-59 and 60-65 can be explained by lower unintended bequests caused by the observed compression of mortality. This result arises from introducing imperfect annuity markets and uncertain survival into a model where individuals live in two overlapping generations. In addition, we show that annuity market imperfections may provide a utilitarian rationale for a public pay-as-you-go pension system that counterbalances the intergenerational transfer of wealth from unintended bequests.

The Interaction of Metropolitan Area Costs and the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit: One Size Fits All?

The Federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) contributed to increasing employment rates for single women during the 1990s. This paper expands on what is known about the labor supply response to the EITC by exploiting differences in the cost-of-living faced by potentially eligible recipients in different geographic areas. Using the 1993 EITC expansion, we demonstrate that the labor supply response varies considerably with metropolitan area cost-of-living. We identify an increase in labor force participation among single mothers of as much as 10 percentage points in the lowest-cost metropolitan areas. There is no discernable participation response in metropolitan areas with the highest housing costs, where approximately 40 percent of the population lives. We find little response along the intensive margin, regardless of the costs in the metropolitan area. We conclude that the welfare-enhancing effects of the EITC are undermined by the interaction of the program’s fixed national rules and geographic variation in wages and cost-of-living. In addition, our findings suggest that the federal EITC does little to reduce joblessness in many of the nation’s largest cities.

THE INTERACTION OF METROPOLITAN COST-OF-LIVING AND THE FEDERAL EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT: ONE SIZE FITS ALL?

This paper explores the interaction between the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the cost-of-living faced by single mothers. After the 1993 EITC expansion, we identify up to an 8 percentage point increase in labor force participation for single mothers in the lowest cost areas but no discernible response in the highest cost areas. We conclude that the EITC’s welfare-enhancing properties are undermined by the interaction of the program’s fi xed national rules and geographic variation in wages and the cost-of-living. In addition, our fi ndings suggest that the EITC does little to reduce joblessness in many of the nation’s largest cities.

Structural Change, the Social Policy Environment and Female Employment in Turkey

ABSTRACTSince the 1970s, a series of demand and supply related changes have led to significant labour market transformations which have brought about a sustained increase in female employment throughout the world. While similar transformations have also been underway in Turkey, the country appears to be one of the rare exceptions to worldwide trends. During the last two decades both female labour force participation and female employment rates have declined at national level. In this article, two sets of questions are posed to explore the factors likely to influence female labour force participation. One set of questions pertains to the society‐specific dynamics of structural change in employment patterns in Turkey, with particular reference to the level and composition of employment in the service sector. A second set of questions is posed to examine labour market relations and the social policy environment in Turkey, and their impact on the demand for and supply of female labour. Current changes in the prevailing policy environment are considered to highlight a certain contradiction in the attitudes of decision makers who seem to be faced with a trade‐off between continuing adherence to conservative patriarchal values and the objectives of increasing labour force participation and combating poverty.

Disability insurance and unemployment insurance as substitute pathways

In this article, we estimate the degree of substitution between enrolment into Disability Insurance (DI) and Unemployment Insurance (UI) in the Netherlands. Starting in the 1990s many policy measures aimed at reducing DI enrolment, and increase labour force participation. We quantify whether these policy measures have led to a reduction in hidden unemployment in DI. A side effect of the reforms may be increased pressure on UI. Therefore, we simultaneously estimate reverse substitution, that is, hidden disability in UI. To this end, we employ a sample of firms in the Dutch AVO database from the period 1993 to 2002. Using instrumental variables in a bivariate Tobit specification, we identify the hidden components in both respective schemes. The estimation results indicate that about 3% of all dismissals took place through DI, which implies that about one quarter of the DI enrolments observed in our sample in fact consists of hidden unemployment. We find no evidence for reverse substitution of disabled persons ending up in UI.

Consequences of eliminating federal disability benefits for substance abusers

Using annual, repeated cross-sections from national household surveys, we estimate how the January 1997 termination of federal disability insurance, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), for those with Drug Addiction and Alcoholism affected labor market outcomes among individuals targeted by the legislation. We also examine whether the policy change affected health insurance, health care utilization, and arrests. We employ propensity-score methods to address differences in observed characteristics between likely substance users and others, and we used a difference-in-difference-in-difference approach to mitigate potential omitted variables bias. In the short-run (1997–1998), declines in SSI receipt accompanied appreciable increases in labor force participation and current employment. There was little measurable effect of the policy change on insurance and utilization, but we have limited power to detect effects on these outcomes. In the later period after the policy change (1999–2002), the rate of SSI receipt rose, and short-run gains in labor market outcomes diminished.

How Longer Work Lives Ease the Crunch of Population Aging.

Population aging is not a looming crisis of the future—it is already here. Economic challenges arise when the increase in people surviving to old age and the decline in the number of young people alive to support them cause the growth in society's consumption needs to outpace growth in its productive capacity. The ultimate impact of population aging on our standard of living in the future depends a great deal on how long people choose to work before they retire from the labor force. Here, there is reason for optimism. A constellation of forces, some just now gaining momentum, has raised labor force participation at older ages at just the time it is needed. We examine the most important factors behind the increase in labor force participation realized to date: the shift in the skill composition of the workforce, and technological change. We argue that forces such as changes in the structure of employer-provided pensions and Social Security are likely to propel future increases in labor force participation at older ages. The labor market is accommodating older workers to some degree, and older men and women are themselves adapting on a number of fronts, which could substantially lessen the economic impact of population aging. Age-related health declines and the reluctance of employers to hire and retain older workers present challenges, but the outlook for future gains in labor force participation at older ages is promising.

Attitudes toward home‐based employment for mothers of young children: Australian evidence

Kelley CGE, Kelley SMC, Evans MDR, Kelley J. Attitudes toward home‐based employment for mothers of young children: Australian evidence Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 33–44 © 2008 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.People have mixed feelings about paid employment for mothers with young children. This might reflect opposition to women's work per se or, instead, fear that children are harmed by the mother's absence from the home. To find out, we developed new questions differentiating support for or opposition to mothers working for pay depending on whether the employment is home‐based or outside the home. Data from a large representative national sample of Australia (n= 1,324) show that public support for employment is about 30 percentage points greater if the mother works at home. Structural equation analyses show social differences in levels of support. Thus work at home provides a way of increasing labour force participation and earnings for mothers (with the welfare benefits that implies), which is congruent with public opinion.

The Welfare Effects of Integrating HIV/AIDS Treatment with Cash or in Kind Transfers

The fight against HIV/AIDS involves the implementation of various social protection programs to improve the welfare of patients and affected households. Free or subsidized AIDS treatment is now being provided to at various scales in the afflicted regions of the world. In recent years, initiatives integrating AIDS treatment with social transfers have emerged thus raising questions on the welfare effects of this integration and if these effects are different or larger than AIDS treatment alone. The objective of this review is to establish the following: a) to assess the welfare impact of integrating AIDS treatment with cash or in kind transfers and compare them to the welfare effects of AIDS treatment alone and b) to determine the effects of the cash transfer and AIDS treatment combination versus the in kind transfer and AIDS treatment combination. The authors review economic theory and empirical studies and find that AIDS treatment alone improves patients� health and survival rates while increasing labour force participation rates. Integrating AIDS treatment with cash or in kind transfers theoretically has ambiguous effect on labour supply, while empirical evidence shows improvements in patients� health, food consumption, labour activity and adherence to treatment when food transfers are integrated with AIDS treatment. Some evidence shows that cash transfers increased household income and food consumption when integrated with AIDS treatment. However since current empirical studies are few , the authors come to a conclusion that there are opportunities for further research especially direct comparing AIDS treatment alone and its integration with cash or in kind transfers.

Why Japanese Workers Remain in the Labor Force So Long: Lessons for the United States?

As part of the search for ways to increase labor force participation rates among older workers in the United States, it makes sense to take a close look at evidence from Japan, one of the few industrial countries with a substantially higher labor force participation rate among older workers, particularly men, than the United States. Based mainly on prior studies and original interview data, we first discuss five potential factors which help explain why Japanese workers remain in the labor force as long as they do: (1) perceived economic necessity; (2) the large fraction of workers who are self-employed; (3) a culture that puts a high value on remaining in the labor force throughout the life course; (4) the long healthy life expectancy; and (5) the government's role in facilitating the labor force participation of older workers. We suggest that the Japanese national cultural value on remaining economically productive well into old age clearly underlies the development of the government's legislative initiatives aiming to extend the working lives of older workers. We then outline three policy suggestions for those seeking to increase labor force participation rates among older U.S. workers: (1) increase the financial incentive to workers who remain in the labor force; (2) improve public programs designed to foster efforts by older workers to become self-employed; and (3) increase the extent of government efforts to link older workers to prospective employers.

Interconnecting Work and Family: Race and Class Differences in Women's Work Status and Attitudes

SHIFTING WORK-FAMILY REALITIES The interdisciplinary work-family field has grown apace in recent years, as scholars, writers, and policy makers have all focused renewed attention on women's status and attitudes. Much of this resurgence, however, has addressed the behaviors and attitudes of middle- to upper-class white women and their decision to or parent. But this narrow focus limits our research and theorizing and overlooks how women respond in creative ways by interconnecting (or weaving together) their and family lives (Garey 1999, 14). Although this work-family reality is relatively more recent for middle- to upper-class white women, it is a much older reality for many working-class or poor women and women of color. In this essay, I broaden the research focus to a more diverse group of women. My goal is to understand how different women respond to new work-family realities.1 STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE WORK-FAMILY LANDSCAPE New work-family realities are best reflected in the structural mismatch between changed family demographics and partially changed customs, norms, and organizational practices (Moen and Roehling 2005; Roos, Trigg, and Hartman 2006, 201- 2). Women's dramatic entry into the labor force, and changes in their pattern of participation, now mean that they more closely resemble men in their labor force participation. Blau and Kahn's (2005, 42) analysis of Current Population Survey data reveals that between 1980 and 2000 women's status became less sensitive to both their own and their husband's wages, and they now supply their labor much as men do. Increased labor force participation has been most stark among married women and women with children, those most subject to work-family conflict. Dualearner families are now the most common household type: by 2000, 62 percent of married couples were dual earners, compared with 44 percent in 1975 (Costello, Wight, and Stone 2003, 203). Since 1970 women have also made significant inroads into more demanding male professional and managerial occupations (Reskin and Roos 1990). Careers are less likely to unfold in a predictable progression of jobs within single organizations, and workers move frequently across firms in boundaryless careers. Both men and women compete as ideal workers in an increasingly global market, scheduled around a 24/7 economy. The resulting time bind negatively affects workers, especially those with higher education and in time-intensive professional and managerial jobs (Jacobs and Gerson 2000). Entry into professional and managerial occupations is more likely to characterize the changing prospects of white women, even though black middle-class women preceded their white counterparts into the labor market by many years (Landry 2000, 91). BEYOND SEPARATE SPHERES The popular and scholarly literatures rely on dichotomous language to describe and family. Garey (1999, 8) faults researchers for relying on separate spheres terminology to describe women as either work-committed or domestically oriented (e.g., Gerson 1985), or as women who to or work to live (e.g., Mason 1988). More recent (e.g., BlairLoy 2003) theorizes the existence of a devotion to schema, where greedy workplace demand all our time and commitment, and a devotion to family schema, where intensive mothering is a woman's major commitment, regardless of her role. Blair-Loy argues that these cultural schemas powerfully shape women's attitudes and behaviors and are embedded in the beliefs of their husbands, the practices of employers, and workplace institutions more generally. In this view, women are seen as committed to either or family, a cultural divide that emerges from a malebreadwinner-female-caregiver gender ideology that creates naturalized boundaries that working women must cross (Gazso 2004, 465). The changing landscape of the American (now global) labor market makes the choice between and family largely the prerogative of the privileged (Johnson, 2002) and diverts our attention from the restructured realities of women's lives. …

The Case for Staying Home

Recent US media reports about a new trend in returning home among married women with children, especially college-educated ones, have raised questions about the well-documented trends of increasing labor force participation among married women with young and minor children in the US. Using both cohort and period data from the 1994 and 2002 General Social Surveys, this study examines whether there is a reverse trend in staying home among married women with young children under the age of six and those with school-age children aged six to 17. Results of trend analyses by cohort and by period and multinomial logistic regression analysis indicate that there is no reverse trend in staying home among married women with young children as a whole, but the evidence does point to a new trend in staying home among married women with young children and a bachelor's or higher degree. For married women with school-age children as a whole and those with a bachelor's or higher degree, there appears to be mostly statistically insignificant changes in staying home across time periods and among the new generation. The study also finds declines in stay-home rates from 1994 to 2002 especially among less-educated, low-income or African-American married women with young children and to a less extent those with school-age children. The implications of the findings are discussed.