Market Disparities Research Articles

Labor Market Disparities Between African Americans and Afro Caribbeans: Reexamining the Role of Immigrant Selectivity

Black immigrants from the Caribbean have long attained greater labor market success than African Americans. The most recent studies show that Afro Caribbeans have earnings that are approximately 16% greater than African Americans and that Afro Caribbeans are as much as 21% more likely to be employed than African Americans. The most prominent explanation for greater Afro Caribbean success is that, because they have chosen to migrate, Afro Caribbeans are positively self‐selected on characteristics that are key for success in the U.S. labor market. Proponents of immigrant selectivity argue that migrants have greater levels of both hard and soft skills than nonmigrants. Using data from the National Survey of American Life—the first social survey to provide a nationally representative sample of both African Americans and Afro Caribbeans—this study finds that Afro Caribbeans have greater hard skills than African Americans but split the difference on two measures of soft skills: African Americans and Afro Caribbeans are matched on John Henryism, but African Americans have greater personal mastery than Afro Caribbeans. Contrary to expectations, controlling for differences in hard and soft skills does not provide for a meaningful reduction in labor market disparities between African Americans and Afro Caribbeans.

Gender Differences in the Early Employment Outcomes of STEM Doctorates

The representation of women among STEM doctorates has grown over the past decades but the underrepresentation of women in the STEM labor force persists. This paper examines the immediate post-degree employment outcomes of nine cohorts of STEM doctorates who attained their degrees between 1995 and 2013. The results reveal both progress toward gender equity and persistent inequities. Contrary to historical gender disparities, a small female advantage has emerged in the attainment of tenure-track faculty positions, women are increasingly less likely than men to enter postdoctoral positions, and the flow of STEM doctorates into business and industry, which was once male dominated, is now gender neutral. Among the doctorates who do not follow the doctorate-to-faculty career path, women are as likely as men to “stay in STEM,” but less likely to attain research-oriented jobs. Gender segregation in occupational attainment and significant gender gaps in earnings, however, continue to be defining characteristics of the STEM labor force. The results show that the labor market disparities vary across STEM fields but are largely not attributable to the gendered impact of parenthood and dual-career marriage.

Employment and Wage Disparities for Nurses With Activity Limitations.

No studies quantify the labor market disparities between nurses with and without activity difficulties (physical impairment or disability). We explore disparate treatment of nurses with activity difficulties at three margins of the labor market: the ability to get a job, the relative wage rate offered once a nurse has a job, and the annual hours of work given that wage rate. Key variables from the American Community Survey (ACS) were analyzed, including basic demographic information, wages, hours of work, and employment status of registered nurses from 2006 to 2014. Although there is relatively little disparity in hourly wages, there is enormous disparity in the disabled's employment and hours of work opportunities, and hence a moderate amount of disparity in annual wages. This has significant implications for the nursing labor force, particularly as the nursing workforce continues to age and physical limitations or disabilities increase by 15-fold from 25 to 65 years of age. Physical or psychological difficulties increase sharply over the course of a nurse's career, and employers must heighten efforts to facilitate an aging workforce and provide appropriate job accommodations for nurses with activity limitations.

Regional Labor Market Performance in Europe

The labor market effects of the recent financial and economic crisis are rather heterogeneous across countries and regions. Such differences in labor market performance among industrialized countries are an issue of ongoing research. The objective of this article is to analyze labor market disparities among European regions and to provide evidence on the factors behind these differences. Whereas previous research focused on the effects of national labor market institutions, we also take structural characteristics of regions into account and investigate differences in labor demand responsiveness and their potential determinants. The data set covers the Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques 2 regions in the EU15 for the period 1980 to 2008. We employ an error correction model that is combined with spatial residual correlation. Our findings point to substantially distinct wage and output elasticities of employment among European countries and regions. Moreover, the rate of adjustment to disequilibrium is subject to significant variation across units of observation. There is robust evidence that labor market institutions affect the adjustment speed of regional labor markets and the wage elasticity of employment. Moreover, the findings suggest that some characteristics of regional labor markets matter as well. However, corresponding results are less robust compared with the evidence on labor market institutions.

A TEST OF THE AFRO CARIBBEAN MODEL MINORITY HYPOTHESIS

AbstractThroughout the twentieth century, Black immigrants from the Caribbean attained greater socioeconomic status than African Americans. Although Black immigrants remain an understudied population, recent studies show that Afro Caribbeans continue to outperform African Americans in the labor market. Given that these groups share a set of racialized physical features, some contend that this gap highlights the role of cultural attributes in the manufacture of Black ethnic and Black-White racial disparities. In this study, I investigate the degree to which cultural attributes associated with a specific form of themodel minority hypothesisare responsible for disparities between African Americans and Afro Caribbeans. I use data from theNational Survey of American Lifein order to test for the relative roles of work ethic, economic autonomy, oppositionality, family structure and function, and racial attitudes in the manufacture of disparate labor market outcomes between African Americans and Afro Caribbeans. I find mixed support for the idea that Afro Caribbeans constitute a model minority vis-à-vis African Americans and that differences in model minority attributes are only partially responsible for these labor market disparities. My findings suggest that racial inequality will not be undone if the racially stigmatized and marginalized simply work harder and complain less about race and racism in the United States.

The Unbearable Divergence of Unemployment in Europe

Unemployment in Europe is not only “too high”, it is also too different across countries that belong to a monetary union. In this paper we i) document this increasing heterogeneity, ii) try to explain it and iii) draw from our diagnosis indications as to the appropriate set of policies to reduce unemployment and labour market disparities. Our analysis suggests that the divergence in labour market outcomes across Europe is the by-product of interactions between, on the one hand, shocks of varying size and nature, and, on the other hand, country-specific labour market institutions. We argue that EU policy coordination and conditionality during the Great Recession and the euro area debt crisis did not properly take into account these interactions. We also propose a change in the European policy approach for fighting unemployment.

Internal migration, regional labor markets and the role of agglomeration economies

We analyze the determinants and regional implications of internal migration flows across Danish municipalities in 2006–2012. Besides assessing the role of labor market and housing market factors in driving a region’s net migration rate, we particularly focus on agglomeration factors identified by “new” migration theories related to regional growth models and the new economic geography. The work contributes to the field in the following way: we extend the scarce literature on the different channels through which agglomeration economies act as an attractor for mobile labor. Moreover, we account for the role of space–time dynamic adjustment processes and simultaneity among migration and labor market variables and finally test for heterogeneity in the migration response to regional labor market disparities among low- and high-skilled migrants. Our results support the view that agglomeration economies are indeed key drivers of internal migration flows in Denmark. That is, while we obtain mixed evidence with regard to the role of traditional labor and housing market variables, most of the included proxies for agglomeration economies such as the region’s population density, patent intensity, endowment with human capital as well as the region’s employment share of knowledge-intensive services are positively correlated with the region’s net in-migration rate. Regarding the regional implications of internal migration flows, the results hint at a process of cumulative causation for the time period of analysis running from agglomeration economies to the inflow of mobile labor and subsequent regional income development.

Structural breaks and labor market disparities in the Canadian provinces

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to use quarterly time series data from Canada and the Canadian provinces to determine if the unemployment rates in the Canadian provinces are converging to the national rate of unemployment.Design/methodology/approach– First, the authors check for existence of stochastic convergence using recent unit root statistics, see Perron and Rodríguez (2003) and Rodríguez (2007). Second, the authors verify existence of convergence using methods proposed by Volgelsang (1998) and Bai and Perron (1998, 2003). All these methods allows for structural break(s) in the data.Findings– Results from different unit root tests, without and with structural breaks, confirm that stochastic convergence exists in all provinces. The other results show strong evidence that deterministic convergence exists and the unemployment rates of the Canadian provinces are converging to the unemployment rate of Canada. This conclusion is stronger when multiple breaks are allowed in the trend function using the approach of Bai and Perron (1998, 2003).Practical implications– Since the authors have verified the existence of stochastic convergence, any intervention in the labor markets of the Canadian provinces to control the provincial unemployment rate would have a temporary effect and these policies will not have a permanent influence on the unemployment rates. However, existence ofβ-convergence in the Canadian provinces shows that general policies toward lowering the national unemployment rate would decrease the provincial unemployment rates as well.Originality/value– To the best of the knowledge, the paper attempts to study the unemployment rate convergence in the Canadian provinces using the above-mentioned approaches. These approaches allow the authors to take into consideration the possibility of structural breaks in order to get results that are more accurate.

Opportunities Denied, Wages Diminished: Using Search Theory to Translate Audit-Pair Study Findings into Wage Differentials

Abstract This article proposes a framework with which to estimate the impact on labor market outcomes implied by audit-pair study findings. I present a search model with discrimination and calibrate the model with experimental data from audit studies of the U.S. labor market and the NLSY79 to estimate the wage and unemployment implications of documented hiring disparity. All simulated results are highly consistent with the hypothesis that hiring discrimination may be an important component of the observed labor market disparity between African American and white workers in the U.S. Additionally, while the simulations only generate a small proportion of the observed gaps in unemployment, it proves to be one of the few models capable of explaining simultaneous wage in unemployment gaps. The most robust finding of the article is that non-trivial wage gaps can result even from the seemingly small differences in hiring rates documented in these studies.

Agglomeration, congestion, and regional unemployment disparities

Regional labor markets are characterized by huge disparities between unemployment rates. Models of the New Economic Geography explain how disparities between regional goods markets endogenously arise but usually assume full employment. This paper discusses regional unemployment disparities by introducing a wage curve based on efficiency wages into the New Economic Geography. The model shows how disparities between regional goods and labor markets endogenously arise through the interplay of increasing returns to scale, transport costs, congestion costs, and migration. The level and stability of regional labor market disparities depends on the extend of labor market frictions.

REAL-MONEY VS. PLAY-MONEY FORECASTING ACCURACY IN ONLINE PREDICTION MARKETS – EMPIRICAL INSIGHTS FROM IPREDICT

Prediction markets are online trading platforms where contracts on future events are traded with payoffs being exclusively linked to event occurrence. Scientific research has shown that market prices of such contracts imply high forecasting accuracy through effective information aggregation of dispersed knowledge. This phenomenon is related to incentives for truthful aggregation in the form of real-money or play-money rewards. The question whether real- or play-money incentives enhance higher relative forecast accuracy has been addressed by previous works with diverse findings. The current state of empirical research in his field is subject to two inherent deficiencies. First, inter-market studies suffer from market disparities and differences in the definition of underlying events. Comparisons between two different platforms (one for play-money contracts, one for real-money contracts) are potentially biased by different trading behaviour. Second, the majority of studies are based upon identical datasets of market platforms (IOWA stock exchange, Tradesports/Intrade, NewsFutures).This paper contributes new insights by analysing 44,169 trading observations on ipredict, where real-money and play-money contracts are traded on a variety of events. Forecasting accuracy is analysed on overall trading activity as well as comparison of equal contracts under different monetary incentive schemes. Statistical models are built to analyse the influence of order volumes and days to expiry under both incentive schemes. Ignoring different events in underlying trading activity, play-money contracts imply statistically insignificant excess accuracy. In direct comparison of equal events, real-money contracts, however, real-money contracts predict at significantly higher accuracy. This paper finds a relationship between order volumes and forecasting accuracy whereas the influence of days to expiry and aggregated volumes showed lower R² than was expected by formed hypotheses.

Temporary Foreign Workers and Regional Labour Market Disparities in Canada

Temporary foreign worker programs are typically seen as short-term solutions to shortages of regional or occupational labour. During the past decade, Canadian regions experienced unequal economic growth, and some suffered from significant excess labour demand. The Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker Program was thus expanded and conditions to access it made easier. During the same period, the pattern of regional disparities in unemployment rates became more persistent. This paper shows that some of the persistence is due to the increased availability of temporary foreign workers. This suggests that policy makers did not price them correctly to avoid adverse effects on the Canadian labour market.

Temporary Foreign Workers and Regional Labour Market Disparities in Canada

Temporary foreign worker programs are typically seen as short-term solutions to shortages of regional or occupational labour. During the past decade, Canadian regions experienced unequal economic growth, and some suffered from significant excess labour demand. The Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker Program was thus expanded and conditions to access it made easier. During the same period, the pattern of regional disparities in unemployment rates became more persistent. This paper shows that some of the persistence is due to the increased availability of temporary foreign workers. This suggests that policy makers did not price them correctly to avoid adverse effects on the Canadian labour market.

Labour Market Disparity, Poverty, and Inequality in Urban China

ABSTRACT: This paper examines poverty and income inequality in urban China by analysing recent survey data collected in four of the largest Chinese cities(1). Using a number of quantitative measurements, including poverty indices and Gini coefficients, the paper investigates income poverty and inequality among three groups, namely urban locals, urban migrants, and rural migrants. The results strongly suggest that urban poverty and inequality are a serious issue and that rural migrants have become a major segment in the urban poor class. The results are expected to contribute to the debate on how to improve public policy on poverty alleviation, which currently focuses only on officially registered urban locals.

Temporary Foreign Workers and Regional Labour Market Disparities in Canada

Temporary foreign worker programmes are seen as short-term solutions to shortages of regional or occupational labour. During the past decade, Canada experienced unprecedented economic growth and some regions appeared to suffer from acute labour shortages. The country’s temporary foreign worker programme was thus expanded to include all types of low-skill workers and access by employer was made easier. During the same period, wide regional discrepancies in unemployment rates persisted as the adjustment mechanism for convergence in regional labour markets did not seem to function. This paper shows that some of the persistence is due to increased availability of temporary foreign workers suggesting they are not priced correctly to avoid adverse effects on the Canadian labour market.

Unequal Japan: Conservative Corporatism and Labour Market Disparities

AbstractThe majority of the literature on the increasing labour market disparities in Japan has attributed the trend to changing market circumstances or new government policies. However, this article claims that widening income disparities, especially between regular and non‐regular workers, are more deeply rooted in the nature of Japan's policy‐making mechanism. Combining industrial actors' conservative orientation towards dual labour markets and their corporatist interactions for policy making, this article argues that Japan's disparity problem has originated from its ‘conservative corporatism’. The article presents the manner in which conservative corporatism has widened the disparities in employment security and welfare benefits.

Cross‐border commuting in the Danish‐German border region ‐ integration, institutions and cross‐border interaction

Although the process of European integration has facilitated labour mobility in the EU to a considerable extent, cross‐border commuting is still at a low level. We provide evidence on labour mobility in the Danish‐German border region. The objective of this paper is to investigate the recent development of cross‐border commuting in the region and whether this reflects increasing labour market integration. We re‐late the development to different theories on cross‐border labour mobility. Our results suggest that much of the pronounced growth of cross‐border commuting is caused by labour market disparities and a proceeding integration of labour markets on both sides of the border. However, an analysis of structural characteristics of cross‐border commuters and their working places indicates that the cross‐border labour market still has specific features. There are significant differences between cross‐border commuters on both sides of the border with respect to income and main branches of employment. Moreover, the analysis points to a pronounced sectoral concentration of cross‐border workers. Due to this “specialisation” there are distinct differences be‐tween the sectoral distribution of cross‐border commuters and the corresponding structure of total employment in the region.

Disparities in Labor Market Outcomes across Geopolitical Regions in Nigeria. Fact or Fantasy?

Questions focused on understanding Africa's lack of growth are not new in economics research. Ethnic fragmentation is one of the many reasons suggested for lack of growth of many developing countries especially in Africa. This is because many countries that are ethnically fragmentized find it difficult agreeing on societal goals and instead, focus on achieving dominance in the political arena of the country. These actions usually lead to: ethnic conflict, corruption, instability and other factors that hamper growth in the long-run. Nigeria is no stranger to the scenario described above. The basis of most ethnic and regional conflicts is claims of the marginalization of particular groups. Documented and anecdotal evidence of marked differences in basic economic and social indicators are usually the starting point for these assertions. However, general perception and beliefs play a role in solidifying these claims. In this paper, evidence of labor market disparities in Nigeria is sought first using descriptive analysis of the data. Subsequently, I test the null hypothesis that there are no significant differences in labor market outcomes across geopolitical regions using econometric techniques. By means of an instrument first suggested by Osilli and Long (2003) but constructed similarly to Uwaifo (2006), I estimate the returns to education using two stage least squares. This instrument is based on the exogenous implementation and withdrawal of free education across regions and states in Nigeria over time. I derive estimates for both Northern and Southern Nigeria.

The Italian Welfare System in the European Context

The deep changes that have taken place over the past twenty years in the labor market, demographics, and social disparities have led European countries to reorganize their welfare systems in order to respond more effectively to these challenges. Although several of the European Union's core documents affirm social protection as a fundamental component of European society since it ensures political stability, social cohesion and economic progress, there is significant evidence that today's European countries will follow a United States approach of “minimal social protection” especially in the current climate of liberal ideologies and global market pressures. The erosion of historical commitments to social protection is aided by the fact that a significant number of European voters appear to favor tax reductions and don't seem to make the connection between low taxes and low social services and infrastructure spending. After a brief description of the Italian welfare system, this paper discusses Italy's reforms of the 1990s and reaches the conclusion that actual and planned reforms are paving the way for a residual model of welfare and social protection. It is further argued that a constant re-examination and restructuring of the welfare system is necessary in order to improve its effectiveness in reaching defined goals while at the same time responding to changing economic conditions. However, restructuring efforts should focus on improvements in internal efficiency, rather than on a general reductions of social expenditures. In fact, it is argued that the reduction of social expenditure in itself is neither a necessary consequence of globalization and European unification nor a necessary strategy to remain competitive. It is instead a reflection of cultural leanings and political choices.

Regional Labor Market Disparities in Belgium

Regional Labor Market Disparities in Belgium