Labor Job Research Articles

Can Social Capital Narrow the Gap between Wages and Labor Productivity? Measurement and Conduction Mechanism Analysis

In the past forty years, China has made great achievements in economic construction, and also faces many difficulties and challenges. In the critical period of changing the development way, China should not only pay attention to the promotion of labor productivity, but also take into account the synchronization of labor compensation and productivity. From the perspective of social capital as informal institution, we use CFPS2010 data to objectively assess the gap between wages and labor productivity in China, and examine the impact of social capital on the gap and the conduction mechanism. With the help of stochastic frontier analysis, we calculate the gap between wages and labor productivity in Chinese labor market, and the mean gap is about 33.2%~45.7%. On this basis, the empirical study shows that, social capital can narrow the gap between wages and labor productivity remarkably. On average, if social capital expands by 1%, then the gap will narrow by 3.42%. These labor forces can benefit more from social capital whose wages are closer to their productivity. It means that social capital widens the disparity between different labor groups in a way. To overcome the endogenous problem, we construct two instrumental variables of social capital: the average cash gift at community level, and the importance of foreign dialects for labors. We also design a placebo test. It has been verified that social capital itself, rather than the other characteristics of the labor forces associated with their social capital, has affected the gap between wages and labor productivity. A series of robustness tests support above conclusions. Furthermore, the analysis of mediating effect model shows the reasons why social capital can narrow the gap between wages and labor productivity as follows: firstly, the labor forces who have more social capital can join the formal sectors more easily, in which the wages are closer to labor productivity; secondly, the labor forces who have more social capital can get more trust, resources and promotion opportunities; thirdly, social capital helps to reduce information asymmetry and improve the degree of matching between labor forces and jobs by sending messages. It is worth noting that, if more and more persons use social capital within a region, then social capital effect for individual labor will be weaken. As an informal resource allocation method, social capital gives a preferential treatment for a part of labor forces. With the advancement of marketization, the role of social capital has been continuously weakened. Therefore, market-oriented allocation and regular society are the ultimate choices for the reform. In the new era, China should perfect the system and mechanism of distributing according to factors, pay efforts to reduce the gap between wages and labor productivity, actively create a market environment with free flow of labor, flexible price response and fair and orderly competition, and promote the income distribution more reasonable and orderly.

A Study on the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership, Emotional Labor and Employee Job Satisfaction

目前对伦理型领导力的研究还处于起步阶段，将领导理论与情绪劳动相结合的实证研究极少。本文 根据前人研究结果，构建研究模型和研究假设，探讨伦理型领导力和情绪策略对工作满意度的影响机 制，并探究了情绪劳动的调节效应。研究结果指出：伦理型领导力和情绪劳动策略的深层行为对工作 满意度有显著的正向影响；情绪劳动策略的浅层行为对员工工作满意度有显著的负向关系；领导情绪 劳动的表层行为和深层行为在伦理型领导力对工作满意度的影响过程中起到了调节效应。研究结果不 仅从理论上拓展了相关领域的研究，也从人力资源开发角度为组织领导如何提高伦理型领导力以及选 择合适的情绪劳动策略，对更好地改善组织成员工作态度给予了些许合理建议。At present, the research on ethical leadership is still in its infancy, and there is little empirical research which combines leadership theory with emotional labor. Based on the predecessor’s research results, this paper constructs the research models and research hypothesis, discusses the influence mechanism of ethical leadership and emotional strategies on work satisfaction, and probes into the moderating effect of emotional labor. The results show that the deep behavior of ethical leadership and emotional labor strategies have a significant positive effect on work satisfaction. The shallow behavior of emotional labor strategies have a significant negative relationship to work satisfaction. The superficial behavior and deep behavior of the leadership emotional labor play a moderating effect in the process of the ethical leadership’s influence on work satisfaction. The research results not only extend the related research in theory, but also give some reasonable suggestions on choosing appropriate emotional labor strategies from the perspective of human resource development, and improving the ethical leadership to improve the working attitude of the organization members.

Personality, cognitive skills and life outcomes: evidence from the Polish follow-up study to PIAAC

BackgroundThere is a growing literature providing evidence on the importance of non-cognitive skills for life outcomes. However, to date there is limited evidence on the gains from incorporating such measures into large-scale competence surveys.MethodsWe investigate the relationship between personality traits and eight important life outcomes: educational attainment, labour market participation, employability, wages, job satisfaction, health, trust and life satisfaction measured in the Polish follow-up study to PIAAC. The study assesses two short scales: the Big Five Inventory and Grit. First, we compare explanatory power of personality traits to that of cognitive skills measured by PIAAC. Second, an incremental validity of Grit after controlling for the Big Five dimensions is assessed.ResultsThe analyses show that differences in personality traits are important in explaining differences in life outcomes. Educational attainment is more strongly related to cognitive skills, while for wages, the explanatory power of personality and cognitive skills is similar. For most of the subjective outcomes, the Big Five traits outperform cognitive skills in predictive power. Conscientiousness is positively related to most of the outcomes analysed while Neuroticism has a negative relationship. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and cognitive skills, Big Five traits add explanatory power to all models except for employability. Grit explains some additional variation in educational attainment and in a number of subjective outcomes: health, trust, job and life satisfaction, even after adjusting for the effects of cognitive skills and Big Five traits.ConclusionsGiven the potential benefits and relatively small burden on respondents in terms of required time it seems advisable to incorporate measures of personality traits into competence surveys as they contribute to explaining the variability in policy-relevant outcomes. The use of the Big Five Inventory seems preferable to Grit when a broad range of life outcomes is of interest, as the former covers multiple aspects of personality. However, using both scales offers an improvement in explanatory power.

The influence of emotional labor on job burnout in ICU nurses

Objective To investigate the current status of emotional labor of ICU nurses and its influence on job burnout. Methods Totally 253 ICU nurses of three comprehensive third-grade class-A hospitals were investigated using the general information questionnaire and nurses' emotional labor scale and job burnout scale. Results The average score of emotional labor was 3.59±0.67.The scores of deep acting, expression of genuine emotion and surface acting were 4.67±0.86, 3.37±0.91 and 3.26±0.86.There was a relationship between the factors of emotional labor and job burnout.The surface acting had positive prediction effect on emotional exhaustion(β=0.317, P<0.01) and depersonalization(β=0.292, P<0.01), and negative effect on personal achievement (β=-0.144, P<0.05). Deep acting had negative predictive effect on depersonalization(β=-0.283, P<0.01) and positive prediction effect on personal accomplishment (β=0.345, P<0.01). Conclusion ICU nurses have moderate levels of emotional labor, and the deep acting score is the highest between three dimensions.The surface acting and deep acting can predict job burnout, and managers of hospital should pay attention to the education and training of emotional labor for ICU nurses. Key words: Intensive care unit; Nurses; Emotional labor; Job burnout

A Review of the Motorcycle Phenomenon on Livelihoods in Eldoret and Kakamega Municipalities

Commercial motorcycle taxi has emerged as an important mode of road transport in many developing countries. In Kenya, it is only in the last one decade or so that this mode of transport, known popularly as boda boda gained prominence following a shift in economic policy geared towards reinvigorating growth. In this paper, we reviewed the phenomenal emergence of this mode of transport in Kenya using data from two urban areas – Kakamega and Eldoret municipalities, both located in Western part of the country. We focused specifically on earnings from the enterprise, ownership structure and the mode of operation. It has been established that the informal commercial motorcycle operation is an important source of livelihood to many poor urban households as it brings in a steady flow of daily income both to operators and motorcycle owners who happen to rent out their motorcycles. The boda boda operations also creates employment opportunity to many unskilled urban labour and further job opportunity to informal sector workers who wish to switch jobs in search of higher rewards. Boda boda business can be done on full-time or part-time basis. Those who work on full-time basis accounted for 82.1 percent while those who work as part-time operators accounted for 17.9 percent. The paper recommends further research on this informal transport sub-sector along rural-urban divide to ensure a more targeted approach aimed at improving livelihoods and eradicating poverty among the youth and other economically disadvantaged groups such as women.

Income Polarization of the U.S. Working Class: An Institutionalist View

:We provide an institutional insight into the trend of income polarization within the U.S. working class. In contrast to the previous industrial waves, the current and ongoing industrial revolution is characterized by the replacement of “creative destruction” with jobless growth. Instead of replacing the lost jobs with new ones, new disruptive technologies eliminate more jobs in traditional labor and capital-intensive sectors than create jobs in new idea-intensive sectors. By examining the relationship between the income share of the bottom 50 percent, the middle 40 percent, and the top 10 percent and technological progress, we obtain robust econometric results. According to our results, the income polarization among U.S. workers can be associated with the shift of R&D activities from the public to the corporate sector. The concentration of innovations by corporate capital limits the power of society to reduce inequality and to provide greater social stability through “the incredible productivity” of technological progress.

Relationship between Emotional Labor and Intrinsic Job Satisfaction: The Moderating Role of Gender

Using a wide range of excitements by service staff indicates the important role of emotional labor in such jobs, which affect their job satisfaction. This study examines the relationship between emotional labor and intrinsic job satisfaction among salespersons. The study is a descriptive study of correlation type and field survey. A population consisted of 248 salespersons working in seven chain stores were selected through simple sampling. Data collection tools are standard questionnaires whose validity and reliability have been confirmed. Obtained data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics tests and structural equation modeling and regression analysis. The findings of the research indicate that there is a significant difference between the level of emotional labor, surface acting and deep acting between women and men. There is also direct relationship between emotional labor and intrinsic job satisfaction. Additionally, the effect of gender moderator on the relationship between emotional labor and intrinsic job satisfaction was confirmed.

The Chinese labor market, 2000–2016

China experienced significant economic progress over the past few decades with an annual average GDP growth of approximately 10%. Population expansion has certainly been a contributing factor, but that is now changing as China rapidly ages. Rural migrants are set to play a key role in compensating for future labor shortages, but inequality is a major issue. Evidence shows that rural migrants have low-paying and undesirable jobs in urban labor markets, which points to inefficient labor allocation and discrimination that may continue to impede rural–urban migration.

Linking women's glass ceiling beliefs and employee satisfaction: the mediation of engagement

The role of employee engagement and satisfaction is very important in today's world of changing labour market, technology, and job patterns. With an increase in women participating in the labour market, understanding their attitude towards the glass ceiling and its relationship with work engagement and job satisfaction is important for individual, organisational, and societal progress. This article studies the relationship between glass ceiling beliefs and job satisfaction through the mediating role of work engagement. Four hundred twenty women employees were surveyed as the sample for this study and structural equation modelling was used to understand the relationships. The relationship between glass ceiling beliefs and job satisfaction was found to be fully mediated by work engagement. The study recommends longitudinal studies for future studies in this area.

Impact of Labour Welfare Measures on the Job Satisfaction and Attitudes of the Employees: The Case of Procter &amp; Gamble in Egypt

the organization that they work in. Therefore, the workenvironment should enable them to fulfill their expectationsand to achieve their goals.The satisfaction of employees is one of the primefocuses of the human resource management as it influencestheir occupational performance. The employees areconsidered valuable assets of any organization. Theircontentment and wellbeing are important.The labour welfare is believed to play an essential rolein the development of the employees and the wholeorganization. It is considered a motivational factor for theemployees .To explore the impact of the labour welfare measureson employee attitudes and job satisfaction, this study wasconducted using Procter& Gamble Company in Egypt(P&G) as a case study.

Linking women's glass ceiling beliefs and employee satisfaction: the mediation of engagement

The role of employee engagement and satisfaction is very important in today's world of changing labour market, technology, and job patterns. With an increase in women participating in the labour market, understanding their attitude towards the glass ceiling and its relationship with work engagement and job satisfaction is important for individual, organisational, and societal progress. This article studies the relationship between glass ceiling beliefs and job satisfaction through the mediating role of work engagement. Four hundred twenty women employees were surveyed as the sample for this study and structural equation modelling was used to understand the relationships. The relationship between glass ceiling beliefs and job satisfaction was found to be fully mediated by work engagement. The study recommends longitudinal studies for future studies in this area.

Between User’s Expectations and Provider’s Quality of Work: the Future of Elderly Care in Lithuania

In the context of the future development of a high-quality, user-driven elderly care system and efforts to ensure sufficient labour supply and job quality in this sector, it is important to analyse the sector from the perspective of both service users and service providers. The article aims to reveal the controversy between the demand for eldercare services, which reflects preference for informal care and home help services, and the challenge of securing quality jobs for care sector’s employees. Expectations of potential service users with regard to care services in Lithuania indicate a need for developing various employment models, including non-standard forms of employment, in order to ensure better access for the elderly to in-home services. On the other hand, taking into account the problem of the quality of jobs, the article considers not only the preconditions for developing the service system itself, but also the issues of job quality within the sector.

Labour migrants and rural change: The “mobility transformation” of Hitra/Frøya, Norway, 2005–2015

After the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements, large numbers of Eastern European labour migrants settled in rural destinations in Western Europe where they predominantly found low-skilled manual labour jobs in rural industries. These labour migrants differ from other types of rural migrants (e.g., domestic in- and out-migrants, lifestyle and amenity migrants, international refugees and asylum seekers) and represent distinct challenges and opportunities for the host rural communities—for example in terms of novel forms of social inequalities and cultural diversities. This paper discusses the dynamics of transnational labour mobilities and their consequences for rural Europe by investigating the case of the Hitra/Frøya community, until recently a traditionalist rural community in Mid-Norway. As a result of large-scale labour migration, over the last decade the region has developed into a genuine high-mobility, transnational rural community and is now characterised by its heterogeneous social fabric. From the local elites’ perspective, which seems to have hegemonic status in the region, the transformation is a successful, triple-win situation: The community at large develops a more sustainable economy and sees population growth and reduced social problems, the locals enjoy the boosted economy and its many benefits, and the in-migrants escape economic austerity in their homelands and are successfully integrated into their host communities. However, stories told by labour migrants provide important nuances to the narrative of success and suggest processes of social fragmentation, polarisation, and contestation. The paper demonstrates how contemporary forms of rural mobilities may confront the traditional structures of rural societies, generate novel social divides and multi-local identities and everyday practices. Methodologically, the paper employs a mixed-methods approach and analyses a variety of materials: statistical materials, public documents, interviews with key informants in the local rural community, and in-depth individual interviews and focus group sessions with migrants.

EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMICAL STRESS ON EMPLOYEES SATISFACTION AND ITS IMPACT ON COST AND QUALITY OF HEALTH SERVICES

The current study drives at evaluating the environmental and economic stresses on employees’ satisfaction and their impact on quality and costs of health services. Theses stresses differ from one person to another. The concern with examining psychological stresses refers to the consequences and high costs caused by stresses for an individual and society equally. Therefore, the study’s purpose is to identify the level of occupational stresses employees suffer from, exploring as well the relationship between labor stress, job satisfaction, and quality of health services. It also drives at exploring the relationship exists between stress, age variable, and sex. In order to achieve study targets, a questionnaire form is designed collected through interview approach that has included a set of phrases for measuring the sample’s attitude towards study variables. The study sample consists of (100) items. The researchers have selected the research population from employees working in Ain Shams Specialized Hospital and a class-sample from all occupational levels, including some basic demographic characteristics of the study sample items, namely, sex, age, occupational level, scientific certificate, and years of experience. The study has come to several results as follows: There is a significant effect of administrative stress resulted in the internal environment on employees’ job satisfaction, working in Ain Shams Specialized Hospital. There is also a significant effect of economic stress resulted in the internal environment on job satisfaction of the employees who are working in Ain Shams Specialized Hospital. There is a significant effect of quality of health services on job satisfaction of the employees who are working in Ain Shams Specialized Hospital. The study recommends the following: Employees should fulfill only their necessary duties and works, canceling those aren’t necessary in order to reduce managerial stress. Employees should have sufficient time to fulfill their job tasks. Salaries should suit the work size and tasks they are in charge of. The hospital should allow employees free expression of their opinion concerning work problems. Re-designing work place to be characterized with comfortable and healthy environment that encourages fulfilling tasks. The management should support views and thoughts of employees for improving performance quality in the hospital. Working on satisfying employees’ needs to be able to create and innovate at work, holding also training courses to increase skills.

항공사 직원들의 감정노동 유형별 소진에 대한 실증적 연구

In this study, we investigated the effects of the emotional labor of airline company employees upon burnout. After a review of prior studies, we defined the burnout concept and found two sub dimensions of burnout, which are emotional/physical exhaustion and depersonalization. We also developed an exploratory trial of emotional labor type built upon a few key prior studies and examined whether these types moderated the effect of emotional labor. The investigation of the relation between emotional labor components and burnout revealed that surface acting had a statistically significant positive effect on both sub dimensions of burnout. Deep acting however had a statistically significant negative effect on depersonalization and showed very big standardized beta coefficient compared to surface acting, but not on emotional/physical exhaustion. While testing for parallelism, we found a moderating effect of emotional labor type on emotional/physical exhaustion, but in terms of depersonalization, the moderating effect of emotional labor type was found only in surface acting. Interestingly, the averages of emotional/physical exhaustion and depersonalization in the positive emotional labor group were lower than those in the neutral emotional labor group. We also investigated the leisure type of respondents and the demographic variables related to emotional labor components, job satisfaction and burnout in order to suggest several fruitful implications.

Evidence Review on Labour Market and Job Place Retention: Mentoring Pathways Towards Employment

In Europe, there are four main active labour market programs: training, job search assistance, wage subsidies and subsidized public sector employment. Literature indicates that among all four, job ...

The Effect of Exchange Rate Movements and Economic Growth on Job Creation

AbstractJob creation is at the centre of economic development and remains a source of sustenance for social and human relations. The creation of a job-enabling economic environment is imperative in promoting social and economic cohesiveness in the macro and microeconomic environment. Any shocks to the economy, particularly those of exchange rate shocks and changes in economic growth, may negatively affect the labour market and job creation. This study made use of quarterly observations, from the first quarter of 1995 to the fourth quarter of 2015, to investigate the effect of the real exchange rate and economic growth on South Africa’s employment status. South Africa, a developing country, was selected as a case study due to its high unemployment rate that is still increasing. The Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model and multivariate co-integration techniques were used in assessing the impact and responsiveness of employment to the real exchange rate and real economic growth in South Africa. Findings of this study revealed that employment responds positively to economic growth and negatively to the real exchange rate in the long-run. The short-run displays a positive relationship between real economic growth and employment, while the relationship between employment and the real exchange rate is also negative. However, the effect of economic growth in creating jobs is not significant enough in stimulating job creation in South Africa, as indicated by results in variance decomposition. Movements in the exchange rate exerted a significant short and long-run negative effect on employment dynamics; implying that a depreciation of the rand against the U.S. dollar is associated with decrease in overall employment. Exchange rate stability is thus important for economic growth and job creation in South Africa. The study provided further recommendations on promoting job creation in South Africa and other developing countries.

The impact of Syrian refugees on natives\u2019 labor market outcomes in Turkey: evidence from a quasi-experimental design

Civil conflict in Syria, started in March 2011, led to a massive wave of forced immigration from Northern Syria to the Southeastern regions of Turkey, which later had serious economic/political repercussions on the MENA region and most of Europe. This paper exploits this natural experiment to estimate the impact of Syrian refugees on the labor market outcomes of natives in Turkey. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that immigration has considerably affected the employment outcomes of natives, while its impact on wage outcomes has been negligible. We document notable employment losses among informal workers as a consequence of refugee inflows. Formal employment increased slightly potentially due to increased social services in the region. The majority of those who lost their informal jobs have either left the labor force or remained unemployed. Formal employment and unemployment rates have increased, while labor force participation, informal employment, and job finding rates have declined among natives. Disadvantaged groups, i.e., women, younger workers, and less-educated workers, have been affected the worst. The prevalence of informal employment in the Turkish labor markets has amplified the negative impact of Syrian refugee inflows on natives’ labor market outcomes. Overall, the impact of Syrian refugee inflows on the Turkish labor markets has been limited, which suggests that the potential costs on the European and other affected labor markets might also be limited.

Losing Labor: Coffee, Migration, and Economic Change in Veracruz, Mexico

AbstractBased on research in four communities in Veracruz, Mexico, this article traces the cultural biography of economic change from an economy based primarily on coffee production to one based on migration, bamboo furniture manufacturing, and other livelihoods. In line with other studies, the declining importance of coffee in peasant livelihoods came about with the withdrawal of state support and neoliberal policies that encouraged a shift from quality to quantity production of coffee. Labor scarcity also played a role, however, as families dealt with falling coffee incomes by migrating to wage labor jobs in Mexico and the United States (U.S.). Our work suggests that changing global labor markets, combined with labor scarcities in Mexican communities, are as important to consider in economic change as the more common explanations of state agricultural policy and neoliberalism.

Impact of personal competencies and market value of type of occupation over objective employability and perceived career opportunities of young professionals

The research of employability shows tension in the social field of career, where variables such as market value, gender, and personal skills are important. The aim of this study was to identify the predicted weight of market value of type of occupation, sex, and career competences (self-efficacy, pro-activity, and locus of control) over objective employability and perceived opportunities for a future career and satisfaction of young professionals. In this study, 294 graduates from 27 different undergraduate degree programs participated, describing their labor situation, satisfaction with career opportunities, and their level in the studied competences. Each type of occupation has a specific market value score, according to national and international criteria. It was possible to identify that the market value of their occupations had significant effects on objective employability (p<.000, f=.48). Also, self-efficacy and locus of control were significant predictors of perceived employability opportunities (p<.000, f=.26). This predictive value of personal variables was different between males (p=.011, f=.82), and females (p<.000, f=.34), and between occupations with low market value (p=.016, f=.45), medium market value (p<.000, f=.34), and high market value (p=.006, f=.21), which allows the development of specific intervention strategies to promote equality in labor opportunities and job placement.