Labour Market Protection Research Articles

COVID‐19 Labor Market Protection and Support for the Welfare State: Job Retention Versus Job Loss in Four European Countries

ABSTRACTThe COVID‐19 pandemic presents a natural setting to study how labor market protection policies may influence welfare attitudes because while lockdowns and economic recession threatened millions of jobs, job retention schemes shielded many workers from unemployment. We investigate support for unemployment protection and the unemployed among people active in the labor force and participating in the Mannheim Corona Study in Germany, Coping with COVID‐19 in France, ResPOnsE in Italy, and the British Social Attitudes survey in Great Britain. Two‐way fixed effects analyses on the German data show that there was a general increase in respondents' support over the onset of the pandemic and that while job loss significantly boosted support, there was little attitudinal difference between those who experienced job retention and those who continued working. We confirm these patterns with cross‐sectional analyses in all four countries, providing comparative insight into attitudes across the largest European economies. Unemployment is materially similar to job retention, but because it is associated with higher support, we contend that nonmaterial factors such as risk perceptions may be consequential in influencing preference changes when individuals lose their jobs.

Employment discrimination and labor market protections for sexual minorities in Brazil

This study estimates the impacts of an employment non-discrimination act (ENDA) for sexual minorities in Brazil. We contribute new evidence on ENDA impacts for sexual minorities in a distinct context from the current literature. Additionally, this is one of few studies to document labor market gaps by sexual orientation in Latin America. In this paper, we first present evidence of labor market gaps in employment, formal sector employment, hours worked, income and hourly earnings for lesbian and gay individuals in Brazil. For the same groups, we then estimate the impact of Brazilian legislation forbidding employment discrimination based on sexual orientation on these same labor market outcomes. Regarding initial pre-policy labor market gaps, conditioning on individual and work-related controls, we see that lesbian women experience wage premiums compared to straight women, while gay men experience wage penalties compared to straight men. We then estimate robust evidence that the implementation of employment protections increased income for gay men. For lesbian women, we estimate evidence of post-policy reductions in employment, but higher income and hourly earnings for those still working. Focusing on a Latin American country, we find many impacts consistent with the more recent existing evidence on ENDAs for sexual minorities.

Key policy mechanisms supporting the University–Industry collaboration in the Danube region: case study of academic HPC centres and SMEs

Purpose This paper aims to explore the key anchors of the National Innovation System shaping the nature of collaboration between academic high-performance computing centres (academic HPC centres) and small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) working in the automotive and electronics sectors of the Danube region. With two main research questions, it discusses the importance of knowledge transfer and technology transfer for collaboration between University and Industry (U-I collaboration) in three groups of developmentally distinct countries: competitively advanced, competitively intermediate and competitively lagging. As main anchors of the innovation system, stable legal environment, exciting innovation policies and strong R&D funding are recognised.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative empirical study in 14 Danube region countries included 92 focus group participants, expert representatives of academic HPC centres and SMEs. The data were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed.FindingsThe findings show the main prerequisites of the framework conditions for efficient U-I collaboration evolve through a goal-oriented National Innovation Policy and developed and functioning legal environment supporting labour market and intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement. Additionally, skilled people are needed to be able to operate with HPC, where it seems all the countries lack such skilled workforce. In competitively lagging countries, the high levels of brain drain exhibit strong impact to U-I collaboration.Research limitations/implicationsResearch into relationships between academic HPC centres and SMEs conducted was qualitative; therefore, limitations in terms of generalisation arise from it. On the other hand, the research is promising in terms of offering the guidance for policy makers who can use the findings when delivering innovation policy mix, adjusted to developmental level of own innovation ecosystem.Originality/value The study is among the pioneering work in U-I collaboration between academic HPC centres and SMEs from automotive and electronics industries in the Danube region. The research addresses the dynamics of collaboration and offers policy implications to strengthen the particular U-I collaboration.

Job loss during pregnancy and the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth.

Does the exposure to job loss during pregnancy increase the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth? The experience of own or partner's job loss during the pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of miscarriageand stillbirth. Prior research on the psycho-social aspect of pregnancy loss has investigated the contextual and the individual-level stressors. At the contextual level, natural disasters, air pollution, and economic downturns are associated with higher risk of pregnancy loss. At the individual level, intense working schedules and financial strain are linked with increased risk of pregnancy loss both at early and later stages of the gestation. This work draws on high-quality individual data of 'Understanding Society', a longitudinal survey that has interviewed a representative sample of households living in the UK annually since 2009. Approximately 40000 households were recruited. The analyses use all the available survey waves (1-12, 2009-2022). The final sample consisted of 8142 pregnancy episodes that contain complete informationon pregnancy outcome and date of conception. Ongoing pregnancies at the time of the interview were excluded from the final sample. The outcome variable indicated whether a pregnancy resulted in a live birth or a pregnancy loss whereas the exposure variable identified the women's or their partner's job loss because of redundancy or a dismissal. Logistic regression models were employed to estimate the relation between job loss during pregnancy and pregnancy loss. The models were adjusted for an array of socio-demographic and economic characteristics following a stepwise approach. Several sensitivity analyses complemented the main findings. Baseline models controlling for women's demographic background and prior experience of miscarriage estimated an increased risk of pregnancy loss when women were exposed to their own or their partner's job loss during their pregnancy (odds ratio (OR) = 1.99, 95% CI: 1.32, 2.99). When the models were adjusted for all socio-economic and partnership-related covariates the association remained robust (OR = 1.81, 95% CI: 1.20, 2.73). First, the pregnancy outcome and the date of conception were self-reported and may besubjected to recall and social desirability bias. Second, although we adjusted for an array socio-demographic characteristics and self-reported health, other contextual factors might be correlated with both job loss and pregnancy loss. Third, owing to the limited sample size, we could not assess if the main finding holds across different socio-economic strata. By showing that exposure to a job loss during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth, we underline the relevance of pregnancy loss as a preventable public health matter. This result also calls for policy designthat enhances labour market protection and social security buffers for pregnant women and their partners. The authors received the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: H2020 Excellent Science, H2020 European Research Council, Grant/Award Number: 694262 (project DisCont-Discontinuities in Household and Family Formation) and the Economic and Social Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MiSoC). There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

DEMOGRAPHIC AGING PROCESS AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE LABOR STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION

Development of the demographic aging is one of the characteristics out of many challenges of the modern world population. Demographic aging is demonstrated in increased number of the older population and is the sign of the aging structure evolution. The results of the demographic aging are obvious in many countries of the world, including Georgia. The outcomes are reflected in various fields, like family structure, savings, economic development, change of consumption forms, the balance of demand and supply at the labor market, healthcare and social protection services. Increased number of the elderly people will raise the costs of the retirement allowance and care and will be the kind of test for the country economy (Bruni …2017, 20) Despite the trend of increasing proportion of the elderly population in the world, demographic aging is characterized by significant variety. The paper reads the demographic indicators (evaluations and predictions), describes period between 1990-2050. The portion of the population above 65 in entire world of the period was increased from 6.2% to 9.3%. According to the UN scale the world is aged, though least developed countries still maintain demographic youth, though according to forecast, the mentioned counties will be aged from 2030. Based on estimation of the correlation between demographic aging coefficient and factors influencing it there are the following findings, in particular, correlation between demographic aging and birth general coefficient (-0,876) for entire world, as well as total birth coefficient (-0,812) is strong. The linkage between less developed regions is the same, while there is average linkage in the developed regions. As for relationship with migration it is average in developed regions, while it is weak in less developed regions and countries. The most important correlation was identified between the demographic aging and median age reaching almost full relationship (0,973-0,981). It shows that change of median age is the key indicator influencing demographic aging. Demographic changes has been started by reduction of the birth rate since 19th century in Georgia, while portion of the elderly population exceeded 8% since 20s of the twentieth century. The paper refers the data from the public census for description of the demographic aging stages in Georgia according to the age groups (1897-2002); the factors influencing demographic aging are also learnt. The aging index within Georgian population corresponds to the index of the developed regions; this is why the influencing factors on the aging (birth, median age, life-span) mainly look similar to developed regions’ tendencies. It was reflected and will be reflected in aging and the rate forecasted by the UN for 2050 is around 21.8. As for migration, considered as one of the influencing factors on aging, it has a negative impact, characterized for less developed countries. According to the UN forecast migration coefficient for 2020 was 2.5, actually it reached 4.2, what can be the result of COVID 19 pandemics. As for the demographic aging linkage with the influencing factors in Georgia, the correlation of birth indicator is medium (general birth rate is 0.395, total birth rate is 0.612), while the strong linkage was identified between the migration and median age (median age was 0,935; migration was 0,988). The changes derived from demographic aging are reflected in the age structure of the work-capable population, reduction of labor supply. The paper provides three age groups of the labor-capable population (1994-2020), where there is the reduction by 42% of 15-29 age group compared to baseline period. This is the most serious result of the demographic aging. Reduction of the youth share among the work-capable population can have significant losses in terms of innovation, as well as less adaptation to the technological development. It was more obvious during the COVID 19 pandemics. The pandemics highlighted unequal access of the population to the digital technologies. Elderly people are more digitally-isolated and have barriers in accessing commodities and services which are provided online more and more (Ageing in the Digital Era, 2021). The same problem is faced by the population of pre-retirement period as during working processes appliance of digital technologies has been increased in the services. It is estimated that when younger part of the work-capable population be in the young adulthood age, the access to the modern requirements and media literacy will be increased, it will reduce the risk estimated by many scientists on slowing economic development down due to demographic condition during the next few decades. The economy is able to adjust to the changes of the population age structure due to new technologies.

PRIORITY AREAS OF SOCIAL PROTECTION OF THE POPULATION KYRGYZSTAN IN THE EAEU CONDITIONS

The main directions of social protection system for population and migrants of Kyrgyzstan under conditions of pandemic coronavirus and economic crisis in the Eurasian Economic Union have been studied. On the basis of statistical data of the country, the analysis of the number of recipients and the average monthly amount of state benefits to low-income families with children for the last three years was made. The main problems of migrant workers and their families in terms of social protection were identified. The question of effective use of information on the employment of migrant workers, using a single digital platform «Work without borders» throughout the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union was raised. The reasons influencing unemployment and poverty of the population of the republic were studied and identified. Proposals were formulated for the development of unified regulatory and legal documentation to improve the labor market and social protection of the population of Kyrgyzstan in the EAEU.

Covid (in)equalities: labor market protection, health, and residential care in Germany, Sweden, and the UK

Abstract How have differently institutionalized welfare regimes dealt with the Covid-19 crisis? In particular, how have they confronted the social and economic inequalities exposed by the virus? Taking three European countries—Germany, Sweden, and the UK, corresponding broadly to conservative-continental, social democratic, and liberal regime types—this paper tracks the virus response in the areas of income and employment protection and health and residential care. With attention paid to issues of “capacity” and the institutional arrangements in each case, we find that institutional histories in Germany and Sweden permitted a certain recidivistic reliance on established practices in the areas of employment and social protection. In sum, certain social and economic inequalities were mitigated as these countries set aside recent trends toward “liberalization” and mobilized longer-standing institutional capacities to protect some groups, although by no means all. Evidence of this trend is less clear in the health and residential care sectors, where Germany had existing capacity, allowing its older population to weather the crisis in better order than its counterparts in Sweden and the UK. In the UK, welfare liberalization has led to increased social and economic inequalities and funding reductions in health and residential care—all of which have reduced the country’s ability to deal with severe crisis. The Covid response in this case was agile, but also chaotic, with little being done to ameliorate the positions of the most vulnerable groups.

Labour market protection across space and time: A revised typology and a taxonomy of countries’ trajectories of change

We measure and interpret the evolution of labour market protection across 21 high-income countries over three decades, employing as conceptual foundations the ‘regime varieties’ and ‘trajectories of change’ developed by Esping-Andersen, Estevez-Abe, Hall and Soskice, and Thelen. We measure labour market protection considering four institutional dimensions – employment protection, unemployment protection, income maintenance and activation – and the evolution of the workforce composition. This measurement accounts for the joint evolution of labour market institutions, their complementarities and their relation to outcomes, and mitigate the unrealistic Average Production Worker assumption. We handle the multi-dimensional nature of labour market protection with Principal Component Analysis and capture the characteristics of countries’ trajectories of change with a composite score. We contribute to the literature in three ways. (1) We portray a revised typology that accounts for processes of change between 1990 and 2015, and that clusters regime varieties on the basis of coordination and solidarity levels, that is, Central/Northern European, Southern European, liberal. (2) We illustrate that, despite a persistent gap, a large majority of Coordinated Market Economies experiencing a decline in the level of labour market protection became more similar to Liberal Market Economies. (3) We develop a fivefold taxonomy of countries’ trajectories of change (liberalization, dualization, flexibility, de-dualization and higher protection), showing that these trajectories are not always path-dependent and consistent with regime varieties previously developed in the literature.

Governance Challenges and Opportunities for the International Labour Organization in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract The International Labour Organization has confronted several governance challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article looks at the impact of the pandemic on both the internal operations of this unique tripartite UN Specialized Agency and on the ILO’s substantive work on labour market and social protection governance. It explores how international labour standards and their monitoring offer human rights pointers for addressing the crisis. The article highlights interaction (not always coherent) between the ILO and other organizations in connection with COVID-19 and economic recovery. It foreshadows initiatives on how to ‘build back better,’ with the ILO again seeking a strengthened multilateral role in support of its social justice mandate, as informed by resolutions adopted by the International Labour Conference. The article also touches on the pandemic’s impact on the functioning of the ILO Administrative Tribunal, which adjudicates employment disputes for many international organizations.

Social protection and the level and inequality of child mortality in 101 low- and middle-income countries: A statistical modelling analysis.

BackgroundExpanding social protection programme is a major target of the Sustainable Development Goals. Previous studies provided evidence for the relationship of social protection programme to greater use of health services and some improved health outcomes for children. Yet, its impact on child mortality has not been clearly revealed. In this study, we examined the association between social protection programmes and child mortality.MethodsWe obtained child mortality data from 379 nationally representative surveys involving 101 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We included five child mortality outcomes in the study, which were neonatal mortality rate (NMR), post-neonatal mortality rate (PMR), childhood mortality rate (CMR), infant mortality rate (IMR), and under-5 mortality rate (U5MR). We extracted data on social protection programmes from multiple data sources (eg, Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity). Social protection and labour programme (SPL) was the major type of social protection we included. We also included four subtypes of SPL - social assistance, cash transfer, social insurance, and labour market protection. Both unadjusted and adjusted regressions were conducted to measure the associations between characteristics of social protection programmes and child mortality, as well as inequalities in child mortality.ResultsAmong the 101 countries, the median coverage rate of SPL was 28.5%, with an interquartile range between 6.5% and 55.2%. Using the adjusted model, we found a one-percentage-point increase in SPL coverage is associated with a reduction of 0.09 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.04, 0.14) per 1000 live births in NMR, 0.11 (95% CI = 0.04, 0.18) in PMR, and 0.25 (95% CI = 0.11, 0.38) in CMR. Social assistance programme was the only subtype of SPL to be significantly associated with lower mortality rates. A higher SPL coverage was associated with better equity in child mortality – as the coverage of SPL increased by one percentage point, the concentration index of CMR would increase by 0.08 (95% CI = 0.03, 0.13) in the adjusted model, suggesting an improvement in equity.ConclusionsThe strong association between social protection programme and child mortality suggests that to achieve the SDG targets of universal social protection and to reduce child mortality, LMICs shall consider prioritizing the expansion of social protection programmes.

Economic Migration: On What Terms?

I investigate whether wealthy democratic states should liberalize economic migration and, if so, on what terms. Is it permissible for the state to restrict economic migration as a form of labor market protection? If so, under what conditions? If not, why not? I argue that even granting that states have a right to control their borders and to prioritize the interests of their inhabitants, there is good reason to liberalize permanent low-skilled migration, so long as this is paired with appropriate social policies.

Relationship between Economic Growth and Unemployment Rates in the Algerian Economy: Application of Okun’s Law during 1991–2019

This paper aims to examine the Algerian economy by applying Okun’s law to study the impact of real GDP on unemployment rates and examine the impact of labour market protection policies on Okun’s coefficients. The annual data on the Algerian economy for the period 1991–2019 were used. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing technique model was used in conjunction with the gap version for Okun’s coefficients. The empirical results show that Okun’s law operates in Algeria’s economy. Coefficients estimated using the gap version led to the conclusion that there was a negative and significant impact of the GDP gap on unemployment rates. Though there was a decline in unemployment as GDP increased, the rise in employment was very weak for each 1% increase in the GDP. These findings should be of significant interest to regulators and policymakers in the Algerian economy, practitioners and academic researchers, international and national investors, managers and any other groups interested in the labour market in the Algerian economy and the labour markets of other developing economies. The paper provides the real GDP’s effect on unemployment rates in Algeria by releasing the gap version for Okun’s coefficient. Also, it provides evidence that increased labour market protection mitigates the adverse effects of a decrease in output growth rate on employment.

Evaluation of the level of social development of poviats in Małopolskie Voivodship with the use of a dynamic synthetic measure

The level of social development of territorial units in Poland is an important topic in the context of the pursued policy to equalise the differences in regional development. Nowadays, spatial disproportions in development are considered one of the main social problems also in Małopolskie Voivodship. The purpose of the study described in the article involves the comparison of changes in the level of social development in the poviats of Małopolskie Voivodship in the period of 2010–2019 by means of a dynamic synthetic measure. The situation of these poviats was evaluated based on data provided by the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland, describing 10 selected diagnostic features relating to the following areas: the demographic situation, the labour market, education, standard of living and health protection of the inhabitants. The method of linear ordering of multidimensional objects in a dynamic approach was applied. The volume of changes in the level of development of the poviats was determined on the basis of a dynamic synthetic measure. The results of the study indicate that in all of the poviats, a significant decline was observed in the value of the synthetic measure describing the demographic situation and education. On the other hand, the positive aspect is that in all of the poviats the value of the synthetic measure relating to the labour market, living conditions and health protection of the population increased significantly. Consequently, the disproportions between the poviats in the analysed period deepened in terms of the demographic situation and education, whereas the differences in the level of development decreased in the case of the labour market, living conditions and health protection of the population.

Do Labor Market Flexibility and Efficiency Increase Government Social Protection Expenditures?

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between labour market flexibility and efficiency and social protection expenditures. Building on the theories of government expenditures and the empirical literature on the determinants of social protection, the article examines empirically the relationship between flexible labour market and social protection expenditures. The empirical model explains social protection mainly in terms of the demand and supply of social protection, modernization theory and political institutions, namely democracy. Labour market flexibility and efficiency indicators include hiring and firing policies, labour-employer cooperation, wage determination flexibility, redundancy costs, linking pay to productivity, reliance on professional management, and the ratio of women in the labour force. We use a sample of 44 developed and emerging economies for the period 2007–2014 and adopt instrumental variables and two-step generalized method of moments estimation methodologies to account for endogeneity. Estimates show that linking pay to productivity, wage flexibility, and redundancy costs reduce social protection expenditures, while the ease of hiring and firing increases them. The article draws attention to the positive impact that flexible and efficient labour markets and organization-level human-resource policies have on reducing social protection expenditures and increasing fiscal space.

Solidarism without solidarity – the impact of the Solidarity Fund performance on the public sector debt

The article presents a critical analysis of the successive stages of the legislative process and the gradual expansion of the Solidarity Fund's tasks and the impact of these changes on its financial management. The aim of the study is to present the consequences of the implementation of (politically-driven) ad-hoc measures both for the financial management of the Solidarity Fund itself and its impact on the debt of the entire sector. Although the Fund's primary goal was to provide additional support for people with disabilities, its ultimate function is to primarily finance one-off benefits, paid on annual basis, for old-age and disability pensioners beyond all the principles of the social policy, which, as a result, weakens the existing system of labour market protection.

The Impact of COVID-19 in Brazil: Labour Market and Social Protection Responses.

The Impact of COVID-19 in Brazil: Labour Market and Social Protection Responses.

Rising between-workplace inequalities in high-income countries

It is well documented that earnings inequalities have risen in many high-income countries. Less clear are the linkages between rising income inequality and workplace dynamics, how within- and between-workplace inequality varies across countries, and to what extent these inequalities are moderated by national labor market institutions. In order to describe changes in the initial between- and within-firm market income distribution we analyze administrative records for 2,000,000,000+ job years nested within 50,000,000+ workplace years for 14 high-income countries in North America, Scandinavia, Continental and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. We find that countries vary a great deal in their levels and trends in earnings inequality but that the between-workplace share of wage inequality is growing in almost all countries examined and is in no country declining. We also find that earnings inequalities and the share of between-workplace inequalities are lower and grew less strongly in countries with stronger institutional employment protections and rose faster when these labor market protections weakened. Our findings suggest that firm-level restructuring and increasing wage inequalities between workplaces are more central contributors to rising income inequality than previously recognized.

The impact of robotization on the labour market and social protection

The impact of robotization on the labour market and social protection

Electoral competition and the welfare state

The article investigates how parties compete over the welfare state by emphasising specific welfare state issues. The core argument is that two issue-specific factors determine how much parties emphasise individual welfare state issues: the character of policy problems related to the policy issues and the type of social risks involved. To test the argument, a new large-N dataset is employed, with election manifestos from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The dataset contains information on how much parties have talked about health care, education, and labour market protection in national elections since 1980. With the data at hand, it is possible to provide the first systematic investigation of how parties compete for votes over the welfare state. The approach here is able to explain the empirical fact that health care is consistently receiving increased attention everywhere, while particularly labour market protection has witnessed a decline in attention.

Long-Run Effects of Health Shocks in a Highly Regulated Labour Market

Based on administrative data covering employment, social security and hospital record histories, we investigate the effect of acute cardiovascular health shocks resulting in unplanned hospitalisation, on blue collars’ long-term labour outcomes in Italy. The Italian institutional setting, characterised by a highly regulated labour market and high job protection, is different from that of countries – mainly Nordic and Anglo-Saxon – covered in previous studies. We apply matching and parametric regression techniques to remove possible bias arising from observable and time-invariant unobservable confounders. Results point at sizeable and persistent reductions in employment and labour income, while hours and wage adjustments appear limited. Whereas a relatively generous social insurance system might compensate the earnings loss, our findings question the appropriateness of existing labour inclusion policies.