Labor Market Inequality Research Articles

Temperature, Workplace Safety, and Labor Market Inequality

Using data covering the universe of injury claims from the nation's largest worker's compensation system (2001-2018), we explore the relationship between temperature and workplace safety and its implications for labor market inequality. Hotter temperature increases workplace injuries significantly, causing approximately 20,000 injuries per year. The effects persist in both outdoor and indoor settings (e.g. manufacturing, warehousing), and for injury types ostensibly unrelated to temperature (e.g. falling from heights), consistent with cognitive or cost-related channels. The risks are substantially larger for men versus women; for younger versus older workers; and for workers at the lower end of the income distribution, suggesting that accounting for workplace heat exposure may exacerbate total compensation inequality. We document a decline in the heat-sensitivity of injuries over the study period, suggesting significant scope for adaptation using existing technologies.

Is Working from Home Here to Stay? Evidence from Job Posting Data after the COVID-19 Shock

We examine the transition to and persistence of working from home (WFH) by firms after the COVID-19 shock. Using job posting data from a leading online job portal in China and exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic as a quasi-experiment inducing the short-run WFH take-up of firms, we find a substantial and persistent increase in the share of WFH jobs post COVID-19. The WFH share increase in job posting is larger in firms with lower pre-COVIDWFH adoption, consistent with the learning effect from temporary shutdown policies. Firms with greater potential for remote work, measured by the teleworkability index à la Dingel & Neiman (2020), also experience larger increase in WFH job postings. Given that WFH jobs provide higher salaries and have higher educational requirements, our findings suggest that WFH is here to stay and thus have long-term implications on firm productivity and labor market inequality.

Skills, Degrees and Labor Market Inequality

Skills, Degrees and Labor Market Inequality

МЕХАНИЗМ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ НЕРАВЕНСТВА НА РЫНКЕ ТРУДА В ЦИФРОВУЮ ЭПОХУ

Recognizing the growth of inequality as one of the main social and economic problems of our time. The author concludes that it is natural and caused by a radical reformatting of the economy influenced by digital technologies. The article examines the organizational and technological changes in the modern economy, influenced by digitalization, in terms of their impact on labor relations and the restructuring of the modern labor market. The paper aims to study the mechanisms of the inequality formation in the labor market and the peculiarities of the social and labor sphere functions in the new economic reality. Employment, as a connecting link between economic and social processes, has been chosen as the main category of scientific analysis, which makes it possible to understand the essence of the ongoing transformations, as well as their social consequences. These transformations can be implemented using software automation of business processes. From the economic point of view, it allows you to significantly increase labor productivity, from the social point of view, it helps to reduce the demand for labor and labor costs. Automation of individual business processes turns out to be a socio-technological prerequisite for the “platformization” of employment and the emergence of crowdworking platforms that institutionalize this process. The increasingly widespread employment platform, which fundamentally changes the relationship between employers and workers, reduces social protection for the latter and leads to the segmentation of the previously egalitarian labor market. Under the influence of digitalization of business processes, labor relations are being transformed from social into computer algorithms, and the “employee” becomes a “user of mobile applications”. The article highlights the stages of business automation and examines its impact on employment and the nature of social and labor relations from the organizational, technological, political, economic and macroeconomic perspectives. In addition, the social consequences of digital transformation of business processes are analyzed in relation to the conditions of specific business activities – the manufacturing sector and the service sector. The author concludes that the digitalization of business processes affects the change in the nature of social and labor relations indirectly – through a decrease in demand for labor and structural changes in employment. Understanding the essence of this process is important for identifying the root causes of the inequality in the modern labor market, and the conclusions of the research may be useful when choosing options of state policy aimed at eliminating its most acute consequences.

Too Family Friendly? The Consequences of Parent Part-Time Working Rights

We use a difference-in-differences model with individual fixed effects to evaluate a 1999 Spanish law granting employment protection to workers with children younger than 6 who had asked for a shorter workweek due to family responsibilities. Our analysis shows that well- intended policies can potentially backfire and aggravate labor market inequalities between men and women, since there is a very gendered take-up, with only women typically requesting part-time work. After the law was enacted, employers were 49% less likely to hire women of childbearing age, 40% more likely to separate from them, and 37% less likely to promote them to permanent contracts, increasing female non-employment by 4% to 8% relative to men of similar age. The results are similar using older women unaffected by the law as a comparison group. Moreover, the law penalized all women of childbearing age, even those who did not have children. These effects were largest in low-skill jobs, at firms with less than 10 employees, and in industries with few part-time workers. These findings are robust to several sensitivity analyses and placebo tests.

A Year of COVID: The Evolution of Labour Market and Financial Inequalities through the Crisis

We use new, high-quality UK panel data to document the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic at an individual level, from April 2020 to March 2021. We focus on where and to what extent pre-existing labour market and financial inequalities have been exacerbated. Our story is more nuanced than earlier papers focusing on the start of the pandemic. To March 2021 some inequalities worsened, but others did not, and in some cases, a widening of labour market inequalities in the first wave of the pandemic was subsequently reversed. We find no evidence of divergence in employment outcomes by gender. On the other hand, the first wave of the pandemic impacted the employment of ethnic minorities, the young, and those with less formal education, but these differential impacts had largely abated by March 2021. By various measures, financial position and living standards strengthened, not only for the affluent, but also for middle deciles of the long-run income distribution, although those at the very bottom of the income distribution were more likely to report a decline in net wealth over the course of the pandemic

Social capital and self-efficacy in the process of youth entry into the labour market: Evidence from a longitudinal study in Sweden

Social networks play an important role in the employer–worker match, and the social capital perspective has been used to understand how social networks contribute to labour market inequality. This paper investigates the effect of social capital on achieving a stable labour market position for young adults, examining how boosted job finding self-efficacy is a possible mediator. The paper also examines whether social capital and self-efficacy are related to the preferred job search method. The study utilises a Swedish survey of young adults that is linked to tax register data on earnings. Here, social capital is defined as an extensive network and measured with the position generator, asking about knowing contacts in various occupations. The paper analyses heterogeneous effects that depend on the respondents’ initial status regarding employment and job search. The results show that social capital and job-finding self-efficacy are positively related to achieving stable employment for the initially not employed job searchers, but there is no effect for those initially employed and not searching for a new job. Furthermore, an analysis of job search methods reveals that social capital is positively related to preferring social networks and direct application and negatively related to searching through public employment services. The results also indicate that self-efficacy mediates only a little of the relationship between social capital and prospective employment, suggesting that job-finding self-efficacy likely only contributes slightly to how social capital affects labour market outcomes.

Local Labor Market Inequality in the Age of Mass Incarceration

We contend that the rise of mass incarceration in the United States can be framed through the lens of stratification economics, which views race- and class-based discrimination as a rational attempt on behalf of privileged groups to preserve their relative status and the material benefits which that status confers. Using the first (to our knowledge) local-level data set on incarceration rates by race, we explore the relationship between income inequality, poverty, and incarceration at the commuting zone level from 1950 to the present. Consistent with Michelle Alexander’s hypothesis that expansion of the penal system and the rise of “tough on crime” policy were efforts by privileged groups to drive a wedge into working-class political coalitions formed out of the Civil Rights Movement, we find that labor markets with greater inequality experienced larger increases in the overall incarceration rate. Furthermore, we find that relative rates of poverty play a key role in explaining differential effects of mass incarceration across race. Areas where White poverty rates were large relative to non-White poverty rates experienced no significant change in White incarceration, but an expansion of non-White incarceration. These findings have implications for policies related to economic and judicial systems.

Who Can Log In? the Importance of Skills for the Feasibility of Teleworking Arrangements across OECDCountries

COVID-19 lockdowns have radically changed the working arrangements for millions of workers. But who are the workers best positioned to work from home? Drawing on data from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), we show that workers possessing higher levels of skills are significantly more likely to telework in OECD countries. We show that while 30% of workers could telework across the OECD, the likelihood decreases for workers without tertiary education and with lower levels of numeracy and literacy skills. The findings raise important questions with respect to the extent to which the pandemic could exacerbate existing labour market inequalities, and the extent to which these inequalities could further worsen amidst intensified technology adoption in the pandemic’s aftermath.

Gender differences in experiencing coronavirus-triggered economic hardship: Evidence from four developing countries

The effect of labor market inequalities during economic crises is a well-established topic. Yet, little is known about this in the context of developing countries. We use recently collected phone survey data by Young Lives (YL) from four countries—Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State), Peru and Vietnam—to examine whether men and women suffer from coronavirus-triggered economic hardship differently. We find that men are more likely to lose jobs and income in Ethiopia and India—countries with a very high male-dominated formal sector. Conversely, gender effect is not significant in Peru and Vietnam with comparatively higher integration of women in formal employment. We further investigate whether gender effect varies by ‘wealth’ level. Findings suggest that only in India, in the wealthier group, men are more likely to face job and income loss than women, possibly indicating greater male concentration in higher-class occupations. However, the gender gap in facing hardship by wealth group is not significant for other countries.

Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality*

Abstract The earnings difference between white and black workers fell dramatically in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This article shows that the expansion of the minimum wage played a critical role in this decline. The 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act extended federal minimum wage coverage to agriculture, restaurants, nursing homes, and other services that were previously uncovered and where nearly a third of black workers were employed. We digitize over 1,000 hourly wage distributions from Bureau of Labor Statistics industry wage reports and use CPS microdata to investigate the effects of this reform on wages, employment, and racial inequality. Using a cross-industry difference-in-differences design, we show that earnings rose sharply for workers in the newly covered industries. The impact was nearly twice as large for black workers as for white workers. Within treated industries, the racial gap adjusted for observables fell from 25 log points prereform to 0 afterward. We can rule out significant disemployment effects for black workers. Using a bunching design, we find no aggregate effect of the reform on employment. The 1967 extension of the minimum wage can explain more than 20% of the reduction in the racial earnings and income gap during the civil rights era. Our findings shed new light on the dynamics of labor market inequality in the United States and suggest that minimum wage policy can play a critical role in reducing racial economic disparities.

Digital Labor Market Inequality and the Decline of IT Exceptionalism

Several decades of expansion in digital communications, web commerce, and online distribution have altered regional IT labor market returns in the United States. IT occupations experienced similar wage growth as STEM occupations involving IT-related work activities, and wage inequality rose across locations and within MSAs. Supply side characteristics especially agglomeration and skilled labor pooling contributed to regional variation in IT wages since 2005. The size distribution of establishments in IT-using services industries increasingly drove IT wage inequality after 2012. While market concentration contributed to wage premiums across locations, establishment count contributed to within-MSA wage spread.

The spatial dimensions of temporary employment in Canada

The flexibility of labour markets has entailed a growing use of temporary employment that is associated with limited work arrangements that are often unprotected, poorly paid, and socio‐economically insecure. Yet, the factors that shape the patterning of temporary employment and its types (seasonal, casual, and contract jobs) are relatively unknown in Canada. Using data from Statistics Canada's 2016 Labour Force Survey and the 2016 Census, this paper examines the spatial characteristics influencing the patterns of temporary employment and its types across Canada's census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations (CMAs/CAs). We hypothesize that geographies characterized by a high proportion of immigrants, highly educated populations, and highly unemployed populations have a greater likelihood of workers employed in temporary employment and its types. Our analyses support these hypotheses as population characteristics (CMAs/CAs with a high share of Asian immigrants); labour market characteristics (unemployment rate and prevalence of low income in CMAs/CAs); and human capital characteristics (CMAs/CAs characterized by a large share of populations with a bachelor's degree or higher) contributed more to explaining positive temporary employment outcomes than did occupation characteristics. This study adds valuable insights into the spatial dimensions of labour market insecurity that could be valuable in formulating place‐based policies that address labour market inequalities.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Ethics in Mexico Through a Gender Lens

In Mexico, significant ethical and social issues have been raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the most pressing issues are the extent of restrictive measures, the reciprocal duties to healthcare workers, the allocation of scarce resources, and the need for research. While policy and ethical frameworks are being developed to face these problems, the gender perspective has been largely overlooked in most of the issues at stake. Domestic violence is the most prevalent form of violence against women, which can be exacerbated during a pandemic: stress and economic uncertainty are triggers for abuse, and confinement limits access to support networks. Confinement also exacerbates the unfair distribution of unpaid labor, which is disproportionately assigned to women and girls, and highlights inequality in the overall labor market. Lack of security measures has resulted in attacks towards health workers, particularly female nurses, due to fear of contamination. Finally, resource results in lack of access to other health necessities, including sexual and reproductive health services. Research across all disciplines to face—and to learn from—this crisis should be done through a gender lens, because understanding the realities of women is essential to understand the pandemic’s true effects in Mexico and the world.

Labor Market Inequality, Career Mobility, and Entrepreneurship

This symposium aims to advance our understanding of how labor market discrimination influences individuals in their career choices by examining career decisions such as entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, and career mobility. Each presentation in our symposium will focus on one of these career choices and elaborate on how and why individuals facing discrimination in the labor market make certain decisions. Furthermore, the papers will explore how such career choices help or hinder individuals to overcome the labor market discrimination that they face in the labor market. A notable feature of our symposium is that the four papers each examine a different population - formerly incarcerated individuals, racial minorities, and women (with children). Collectively, our symposium will present a unique opportunity to better understand the boundary conditions under which each minority group experiences and responds to labor market discrimination. Entrepreneurship as a Way to Overcome Labor Market Discrimination for Formerly Incarcerated People Presenter: Jiwon Hwang; Columbia Business School Presenter: Damon J. Phillips; Columbia Business School Minority Entrepreneurship and Alternative Opportunities inside Established Organizations Presenter: Tiantian Yang; Duke U. Entrepreneurship, Mobility, and the Management of Human Capital: The Effect of Family Constraints Presenter: Martin Ganco; Wisconsin School of Business Presenter: Florence E M Honore; U. of Wisconsin, Madison Presenter: Daniel Olson; U. of Washington Same Planet, Different Worlds? Spatial and Institutional Employment Segregation by Race in America Presenter: John-Paul Ferguson; McGill U.

Continuities in Transition: Ethnicity, Language and Labour Market Inequalities in Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACTEthno‐racial and linguistic boundaries have major implications for socio‐economic well‐being throughout the world, yet their specific effects vary greatly across contexts. The countries that were once part of the Soviet Union have seen dramatic transformations yet also exhibited remarkable continuities from the socialist era. This article contributes to cross‐national evidence on the roots and expressions of ethno‐racial socio‐economic inequalities and on nation building and nationalism in the post‐Soviet context. It uses data from two identically designed nationally representative surveys conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2011 and 2017 to investigate patterns and trends in ethnic and linguistic disparities in employment by occupational type and economic sector and in earnings among men and women. The authors find that despite government policies to promote the advancement of the nation's titular majority, Kyrgyz, and to encourage the use of its language, the ethno‐linguistic economic inequalities inherited from the Soviet era — privileged positions of the European‐origin minority and of Russian‐speaking Kyrgyz — were still potently present in the earlier survey. While variations in types of occupation and employment sectors tended to diminish between the two surveys, the ethno‐linguistic differences in earnings remained very pronounced, even after controlling for other factors. The authors relate these findings to the extant scholarship and reflect on their implications for our understanding of post‐socialist transitions.

What shape great expectations? Gender and social-origin effects on expectation of university graduation

Female educational attainment has progressively caught up with male educational attainment in many OECD countries. Expectations of university graduation have correspondingly been found higher among female adolescents than among male ones. Resorting to individual-level data drawn from PISA 2003, we study the extent to which female advantage diverges across levels of parental education. We find evidence that female advantage in terms of expectations of university graduation is higher for children of lower social origin. Merging individual-level data (PISA 2003) with data on systems of education, gender egalitarianism and gender labour-market equality drawn from different sources, and applying both a two-step approach and three-level random intercept multilevel modelling to the resulting dataset, we then explore if these country-level factors explain the positive effect of gender at lower levels of parental education. We do not find that the system of education plays any role in this respect, but there is some evidence that gender labour-market inequality stimulates higher educational expectations among daughters of lowly educated fathers (compensatory effect).

Cinsiyete Dayalı Ekonomik Eşitsizlikleri: Seçilmiş Kavramların incelenmesi

Economic inequality is a global phenomenon with all-encompassing implications. While inequality affects both men and women, due to the socially ascribed gender roles and expectations women are more prone to experience disparities. Based on a narrative review, the aim of this article is to provide a primer on four selected theories related to genderbased economic inequalities. The first section provides a brief overview of a) sexual division of labor b) the nimble fingers theory c) glass wall and glass ceiling effects and d) female-headed households and the feminization of poverty. The final section demonstrates the implications of these paradoxical economic phenomena in the Turkish context. The article explains how women from diverse socio-economic backgrounds are prone to labor market inequalities because of the intricate nature of structural biases. A plethora of literature is available on the Turkish context, highlighting the nuances of economic participation. The present article complements the existing body of literature, however, it adds a new dimension by offering the theoretical underpinnings behind the economic inequalities endured by Turkish women. Future research could explore the empirical evidence on the dynamics of economic disparity while considering the theoretical concepts discussed in this article.

The relevance of public employment services for the labour market integration of low-qualified young people – a cross-European perspective

ABSTRACT In the wake of the Great Recession, youth labour market integration has become a central issue in both national as well as EU policy, e.g. in connection with the European Youth Guarantee. In this context, public employment services (PES) are considered central actors in promoting youth labour market integration. However, since international comparative analyses are scarce and the role of institutions and policies is thus rarely explicated, it is still an open empirical question whether and in which context PES can fulfil such a key role. Therefore, we analyse two questions based on the EU-LFS 2016 ad-hoc module: (i) How relevant is PES support to young people with different educational levels in finding a job? (ii) How do differences in the educational system and in labour market policies shape the relevance of PES support across Europe? This study illustrates that in countries with highly stratified, standardised and vocational-specific educational systems the relevance of PES is comparatively high in particular for the low-qualified. Thus, those countries have good reasons to strengthen PES to support the most disadvantaged and to combat labour market inequalities.

Is employment a panacea for poverty? A mixed-methods investigation of employment decisions in South Africa

Unemployment is a key determinant of poverty in South Africa and labour market inequalities reflect deep-rooted socio-economic inequalities. In a context of high rates of poverty and unemployment, we would expect a job loss to be associated with a decline in wellbeing. Using nationally representative panel data and original qualitative data collected in Cape Town, I find that, on average, this hypothesis holds. However, this aggregate effect conceals heterogeneities in the relationship between labour market transitions and wellbeing which are of special analytic interest. In particular, this study focusses on those cases which go against the grain of the overall labour market-wellbeing nexus – that is, cases in which black, urban youths turn down or quit wage work. An analysis of these examples helps illuminate how disadvantaged workers face non-negligible disincentives to certain forms of low-skill employment and reveals the circumstances under which these disincentives may outweigh the disincentives to unemployment. To aid this investigation, I develop a model which analyses the welfare effect of job losses as being jointly determined by the strength of outside options and disincentives to work. Using qualitative data, I provide evidence in support of this model and show that, under certain circumstances, transitioning out of employment will be the welfare optimising choice for workers: Younger workers with no dependants and with alternative sources of support can be said to have stronger outside options, and are especially likely to turn down or quit low-quality jobs. Older workers, with dependants and without alternative sources of support, are more likely to accept and persist in low-quality jobs. This study argues that understanding the complexity of the incentives that workers face and which inform labour market choices will be indispensable in effectively designing policies which aim to reduce inequalities in labour markets – in South Africa and beyond.