Wage Earners Research Articles

ANALISIS TINGKAT KESEJAHTERAAN PEKERJA GIG DI INDONESIA

This research was conducted to determine the level of welfare of Indonesian gig workers in various fields. The method used is a quantitative method with primary data taken using a questionnaire from 250 respondents and then processed using multiple linear regression analysis methods. The research results show that job protection and income have a significant effect on the welfare of gig workers in Indonesia. Gig workers, most of whom do not work from the office, still need job protection and consider income an important factor that can influence their well-being. Meanwhile, social security is not a factor that can improve the welfare of gig workers in Indonesia because it is still hindered by several obstacles such as lack of socialization from the government and minimal literacy and concern for gig workers due to their busy lives and different work systems from wage earners.

The Conflict Theory of Inflation Revisited

ABSTRACT This article develops ideas contained in a previous paper on conflict inflation (Rowthorn [1977]. ‘Conflict, Inflation and Money.’ Cambridge Journal of Economics 1 (3): 215–239). It begins with a summary of that paper, stressing the importance of staggered markets, conflicting aspirations and unanticipated inflation. It then examines three recent articles that share a similar perspective. In the light of this discussion, it makes some general observations about the nature of conflict inflation. Finally It concludes with an application of conflict theory to the recent cost of living crisis in the UK. It argues that private companies have used their market power to defend their profit margins and ensure that the entire burden of higher world prices is borne by consumers, in particular wage and salary earners.

The local governance of COVID‐19: Lessons learned and ways forward in rural Bangladesh

AbstractThis article investigates how a district administration in Bangladesh managed COVID‐19 pandemic risk governance. Interviews were conducted with civil administrators, local government representatives, and representatives from community‐based organizations and nongovernmental organizations. The findings indicate that, despite limited health facilities, widespread ignorance of the virus, joblessness among wage earners, economic pressure, and a massive outbreak of COVID‐19, the district administration has demonstrated its diligence, professionalism, local knowledge, and promptness in providing optimal public services through coordination and information sharing among all stakeholders. The synergies and coordination between local administration, security forces, and local government representatives were great challenges in implementing nonpharmaceutical polices and support programs.

A Study of “AB Ren” From the Perspective of Construction Grammar

The “AB Ren” construction such as 打工人da gong ren ‘wage earner’ is fast becoming one of the key instruments in a riot of social media. In this corpus-based study to explore the nature of the “AB Ren” construction from Goldberg’s construction grammar perspective, a total of 108 “AB Ren” expressions were retrieved from the Beijing Language and Culture University Modern Chinese Corpus (BCC), and social media network Weibo. The study aims to investigate the formal features, constructional meaning, social functions and implied cognitive mechanisms behind the “AB Ren” construction. From the standpoint of the formal composition, this construction consists of two parts, the variable part and the fixed part. It can be divided into three categories (verb, noun, and adjective compounds). The “AB Ren” construction has the independent constructional meaning, which is used to describe a certain group of people who are engaged with an occupation corresponding to the “AB” part and are fond of particular activities as well as individuals who are defined as possessing certain features. Because of the high frequency of occurrences, some expressions acquire new emotional meanings as far as constructional meanings are concerned. A group of commonly-appeared “AB Ren” expressions, combining the use of metaphorical and metonymical mechanisms, illustrate language simplicity and are a great way to express self-encouragement and mockery. This study reveals the common generation trends of popular language on the internet in today’s world and the

The impact of COVID-19 on women’s labour market outcomes: evidence from four MENA countries

PurposeCOVID-19 has had various effects on women’s labour supply worldwide. This study investigates how women’s labour market outcomes in the MENA region have been affected by the stringency of governments’ COVID-19 responses and school closures. We examine whether women, particularly those with children at young age, reduced their labour supply to take care of their families during the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachTo investigate whether having a family results in an extra penalty to women’s labour market outcomes, we compare single women to married women and mothers. Using the ERF COVID-19 MENA Monitor Household Surveys, we analyse the key conditions underlying women’s labour market outcomes: (1) wage earnings and labour market status including remaining formally employed, informally, unpaid or self-employed, unemployed or out of the labour force and (2) becoming permanently terminated, being suspended, seeing a reduction in the hours worked or wages, or seeing a delay in one’s wage payments because of COVID-19. Ordered probit and multinomial logit are employed in the case of categorical outcomes, and linear models for wage earnings.FindingsWomen, regardless of whether they have children or not, appear to join the labour market out of necessity to help their families in the times of crisis. Child-caring women who are economically inactive are also more likely to enter the labour market. There is little difference between the negative experiences of women with children and child-free women in regard to their monthly pay reduction or delay, or contract termination, but women with children were more likely to experience reduction in hours worked throughout the pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThese findings may not have causal interpretation facilitating accurate inference. This is because of potential omitted variables such as endogenous motivation of women in different circumstances, latent changes in the division of domestic work between care-giving and other household members, or selective sample attrition.Originality/valueOur analysis explores the multiple channels in which the pandemic has affected the labour outcomes of MENA-region women. Our findings highlight the challenges that hamper the labour market participation of women, and suggest that public policy should strive to balance the share of unpaid care work between men and women and increase men’s involvement, through measures that support child-bearing age women’s engagement in the private sector during crises, invest in childcare services and support decent job creation for all.

Smoothing consumption in times of illness: Household recourse mechanisms.

We study the welfare impacts of illness shocks on rural agricultural households in the semi-arid tropical and humid eastern regions of India. These regions are characterized by rainfed agriculture, missing markets for credit and insurance, and limited access to publicly funded healthcare infrastructure. We find that illness shocks increase households' medical expenditures and reduce wage income. However, aggregate non-medical, food, and non-food consumption expenditures are insensitive to illness shocks. Disaggregating illness by the age and the gender of the household members, we observe that illness in male children leads to the largest increase in medical expenditure, and illness in prime-aged adults leads to the largest decline in per-capita wage earnings. We also find illness shocks leading to changes in household dietary diversity, higher travel expenditures, and a compensating reduction in spending on education and entertainment. Analysis of risk-coping strategies reveals that households rely on transfers from kinship networks and loans from informal sources like local moneylenders to smooth consumption. While large landowners rely on gifts from kinship networks, landless and smallholders increase borrowings from informal sources.

The impact of minimum wage increase on suicidal ideation in South Korea: a difference-in-differences analysis using nationally representative panel data.

South Korea had the highest suicide rates in the OECD and one of the largest (16.4%) increases in the minimum wage in 2018. Prior studies have provided evidence that increases in minimum wage reduce suicide rates in the population, but no study examined the effects of the policy change on individual-level suicidal behaviour. Our study sample was built using the 2015-2019 waves of the Korean Welfare Panel Survey, a population-representative longitudinal survey. The sample consisted of 5146 participants, including those earning above minimum wage (control) and minimum wage earners (treatment) based on their 2018/19 earnings. The outcome of the study was suicidal ideation, which is an important precursor to other suicidal behaviours, and was captured using self-reported measures. We examined the impact of the 2018 minimum wage hike in Korea on suicidal ideation, using a difference-in-differences design. The minimum wage increase was associated with a 1.6% points reduction (95% CI: -2.8% to -0.5%) in self-reported suicidal ideation. Stronger policy effects were shown among women and older age groups. Our study demonstrates that public policies employing a population-based approach, such as increasing minimum wages, could serve as an effective intervention to mitigate suicidal ideation among low-income workers.

A Simple and Fairer System to Fund Social Security

FICA withholding from wages is currently used to fund Social Security. It uses a Cap with no Floor system, which subjects the first dollar of wage earners salaries to FICA, up to a wage cap, after which FICA is no longer applied. What is shown here, is that a Floor with no Cap system is better, for the myriad of reasons provided herein, and should be adopted by Congress to replace the current system

Ethnoracial differences in income and safety net patterns among low‐income postpartum families before and during the Great Recession

AbstractIn the absence of paid family leave, postpartum low‐income unmarried women often rely on a patchwork of resources from wage earnings, public safety‐net programs, and informal familial support. The Great Recession (2007–2009) caused massive unemployment, with Black and Latine families disproportionately impacted by the economic fallout. Public safety‐net provisions attenuated economic hardship, yet it's unclear if postpartum low‐income women patched together comparable resources during the recession and if there were racially disparities in women's access to resources. Using a sample of low‐income unmarried women who gave birth between 2004 and 2011 from the Survey of Income and Public Program, we examine whether safety‐net provisions and familial support attenuated the fallout of the Great Recession by examining income patterns and safety‐net use (SNAP, WIC, and TANF) among postpartum low‐income unmarried women by ethnoracial group before and during the recession. Our findings suggest the Great Recession had a disparate negative impact on the economic well‐being of postpartum Black women, particularly through lower wage earnings. Increased SNAP income may have attenuated some, but not all, of the deleterious impact of the recession on Black women, and increased WIC participation may also have provided crucial support for addressing food insecurity among Black women. Implications for maternal and infant health and policy are discussed.

How the 1963 Equal Pay Act and 1964 Civil Rights Act Shaped the Gender Gap in Pay.

In the 1960s, two landmark statutes-the Equal Pay and Civil Rights Acts-targeted the long-standing practice of employment discrimination against U.S. women. For the next 15 years, the gender gap in median earnings among full-time, full-year workers changed little, leading many scholars to conclude that the legislation was ineffectual. This article revisits this conclusion using two research designs, which leverage (i) cross-state variation in preexisting state equal pay laws and (ii) variation in the 1960 gender gap across occupation-industry-state-group cells to capture differences in the legislation's incidence. Both designs suggest that federal antidiscrimination legislation led to striking gains in women's relative wages, which were concentrated among below-median wage earners. These wage gains offset preexisting labor market forces, which worked to depress women's relative pay growth, resulting in the apparent stability of the gender gap at the median and mean in the 1960s and 1970s. The data show little evidence of short-term changes in women's employment but suggest that firms reduced their hiring and promotion of women in the medium to long term. The historical record points to the key role of the Equal Pay Act in driving these changes.

Explaining the relationship between person–organization fit and entrepreneurial intention through workplace ostracism and loneliness

Purpose The entrepreneurial intention of employees refers to the motive of those who work in a company to resign and start their businesses instead of continuing to be wage earners. It is one of the under-studied aspects of entrepreneurship research. Accordingly, this research paper aimed to find out whether perceived person–organization fit was related to the entrepreneurial intentions of employees and whether perceived workplace ostracism and loneliness mediated this process. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional study was conducted to achieve the purpose. The data were collected through a questionnaire technique from a total of 572 employees. Participants were from 20 different provinces of Turkey and 27 different sectors. Hypotheses were tested through the structural equation modeling technique. Findings Findings indicated that a lack of perceived person–organization fit resulted in entrepreneurial intention. Workplace ostracism resulted in workplace loneliness. Workplace ostracism and loneliness significantly mediated the relationship between perceived person–organization fit and entrepreneurial intention. Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to establish and test the relationships between person–organization fit, entrepreneurial intention, workplace ostracism and loneliness. In this regard, findings can benefit researchers and practitioners in better figuring out why some employees leave their companies to start their businesses while others do not.

Smallholders in Capitalist Agriculture: Persistence and Challenges

Abstract This paper posits that the majority of “smallholders” in contemporary China are commodity producers who must engage in various commodity exchanges to carry out agricultural production and accomplish their social reproduction. Consequently, “smallholder” refers to a family-based economic operation model, rather than a social identity or psychological identification. Within this framework, the study focuses on the intricate relationships between smallholders, various commodity markets, and other market participants. Specifically, it examines two aspects: the relationship between smallholders and capitalized large-scale producers and other agriculture-related capital entities, and the relationship between smallholders and the commodified labor force. The paper argues that the interaction between smallholders and capitalized large-scale producers is not a zero-sum game of mutual replacement; except in certain areas, smallholders are not driven out of agricultural production by large-scale capitalized producers, but coexist and interact with them in various ways. On the other hand, smallholders heavily rely on short-term hired labor for their agricultural production, and many also become wage earners themselves, participating in the agricultural production of other producers and earning wage income. Compared to the expansion of capitalized large-scale production, the most significant challenge facing China’s smallholder economy, as this paper contends, is the intergenerational reproduction crisis brought about by the aging of the labor force and the urbanization of the younger generation.

Factors Associated with Depression among Working-Age Household Heads in Korea: A Cross-Sectional Household Study.

Depression is a mental disorder common worldwide. This study determined the relationships between demographics, health status, household parameters, and depression rates among working-age household heads. We analyzed data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study Survey conducted in 2020. The 11-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale was used to assess depression. Bivariate analyses and a multiple logistic regression model were used to evaluate the influence of these factors on depression among household heads. The overall prevalence of depression among working-age household heads was 11.69% (19.83% of females and 9.58% of males). The relative risk of depression was 1.71 times higher among the unemployed than among wage earners and 2.18 times higher among those with low income than among those with general income. The relative risk of depression was 3.23 times higher in those with poor health status than in those with good health, and 2.45 times more in those with severe disabilities than in those without disabilities. The rate of depression decreased with education level, number of family members, and presence of children but increased with the presence of the disabled or elderly. This study provides a comprehensive overview of depression among working-age household heads and identifies factors strongly associated with depression. These findings may have implications for policymakers to reduce the burden on and improve the quality of life of household heads.

Do perception factors affect adaptation behaviours against air pollution among vulnerable occupation groups? Evidence from Chittagong and Dehradun.

Abstract Air pollution is a key environmental issue affecting the urban population in the urban cities of Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) countries. It is particularly detrimental to marginalized occupation groups like street vendors, labourers and drivers who work outdoors for their livelihood. There are mitigation strategies to reduce the brunt of air pollution that work in the long run. However, these strategies will need time to implement and operationalize. Adaptation behaviours and measures, in this context, are urgently required and become vital to cope with the impacts of air pollution exposure especially for highly exposed informal workers who have very little means of avoiding it. Adaptation behaviour is very complex and depends on socioeconomic and psychological factors. In this paper, we assess the impact of psychological factors like perception and motivation on the adaptive behaviour of the informal workers using Protection Motivation Theory (PMT). Our findings from Dehradun show that concern behaviour towards air pollution was strongly affected by motivation and perception factors. Adaptive behaviour in the form of both concern behavior and the extent of use of additional protective measures is dependent on how the risks of air pollution and related adaptation measures are perceived by the workers. In addition to this, certain adaptation behaviours like changing or adjusting the daily normal behaviour to avoid air pollution exposure are not feasible as they have direct implications on daily wage earnings.

Wage Earners in India, 1500–1900: Regional Approaches in an International Context, edited by Jan Lucassen and Radhika Seshan

Wage Earners in India, 1500–1900: Regional Approaches in an International Context, edited by Jan Lucassen and Radhika Seshan

ASSESSMENT OF THE NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS IN EGOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, EDO STATE, NIGERIA

This study assessed the nutritional status of primary school pupils in Egor LGA, Edo state. The study was guided by two objectives and one hypothesis. Eight (8) schools were purposively selected out of the sixteen (16) primary schools in Egor Local Government Area. The sample size for the study was two hundred and eighty-eight (288). This study assessed the nutritional status of primary school pupils in Egor LGA, Edo state. The study was guided by two objectives and one hypothesis. Eight (8) schools were purposively selected out of the sixteen (16) primary schools in Egor Local Government Area. The sample size for the study was two hundred and eighty-eight (288). The anthropometric measurement was used to calculate the BMI. Statistical analysis was done using frequency and percentage while independent t-test statistic was used to test the hypothesis of the study at 5% significance level. The anaysis showed that 25.35% of the pupils had normal nutritional status, while 74.65% are underweight ( malnutrition) but no overweight. Forty percent (40%) of those that are underweight have mild underweight, 33% have moderate underweight and 27% have severe underweight. On the average, the primary school pupils surveyed have mild underweight. It was also found that there is a significant difference in the nutritional status of the pupils based on gender. Female pupils are more malnourished than the male pupils. The study recommended that more economic activities should be created in the local government to enable parents and guardians to work and earn wages or salaries so that they can feed their families and themselves adequately. Step-up nutrition education and sensitization, provision of quality diets as well as nutrition knowledge are imperatives to regulate and avert malnutrition among children.

Does the distribution of musculoskeletal pain shape the fate of long-term sick leave? A prospective cohort study with register follow-up.

Although multisite pain can markedly reduce work ability, the relevance of the bodily pain distribution as a predictor of long-term sick leave is still unknown. This study aimed to investigate the association between musculoskeletal pain distributions and long-term sick leave in the general working population of Denmark and included 66,177 currently employed wage earners without long-term sick leave during the prior 52 weeks. Participants reported whether they had pain in the lower extremity (hips/knees), upper extremity (neck/shoulders), or the low back. The analysis controlled for age, sex, year of survey reply, educational level, occupational group, psychosocial work factors, body max index, smoking, leisure-time physical activity, and mental health confounders. The results demonstrated that the risk of long-term sick leave increased with the number of pain sites. Compared with no pain, localized pain in any body region increased the risk/hazard by 25% to 29% (HR [95% CI]: 1.29 [1.07-1.54] for pain only in the low back), whereas pain in 2 regions increased the risk by 39% to 44% (HR [95% CI]: 1.41 [1.18-1.69] for pain in the low back + hips/knees). Workers reporting pain in all 3 regions experienced a 72% increased risk (HR [95% CI]: 1.72 [1.55-1.91]). Thus, the number of pain regions seems to matter more than the exact pain location. The spatial extension of musculoskeletal pain in workers functions as a gradient system, where pain spread throughout the body is an independent indicator of the high risk of long-term sick leave.

Legal Protection For Printing Workers Who Earn Wages Below The Regency Minimum Wage (Case Study In Telang Village, Bangkalan Regency)

Legal Protection For Printing Workers Who Earn Wages Below The Regency Minimum Wage (Case Study In Telang Village, Bangkalan Regency)

The impact of SO2 emissions trading scheme on pollution abatement and labor market for industrial enterprises in China

To cope with the emissions permit trading program, industrial firms have to change production decisions, which may affect their pollution discharge, labor demand, and workers’ wage earnings. Using a time-varying difference-in-differences framework together with robustness checks, this research explores the impacts of the SO2 emissions trading scheme (SETS) on SO2 emissions, employment, and wages of industrial firms in China. It was noted that the program resulted in a remarkable decline not only in SO2 emissions but also in labor demands and wages. The mechanism analyses further show that emissions reduction is mainly driven by fossil energy input decrease rather than by desulfurization technology. The negative effects of employment and wages are driven by the negative output effect and insufficient technology rather than by the environmental substitute effect. Our findings contribute to the improvement of the market-oriented environmental permit trading program and development of regulated firms in developing countries.

Going green: estimating the potential of green jobs in Argentina

This paper aims to identify and characterize the potential of green jobs in Argentina, i.e., those workers that would benefit from a transition to a green economy, using occupational green potential scores calculated in US O*NET data for the period 2015–2021. We apply the greenness scores to Argentine household survey data and estimate that between 23 and 25 percent of workers are in green jobs, i.e., have a high green potential. However, to promote and ensure an inclusive and effective green transition, we consider the decent work dimension (through legal informality measures), and find that between 11 and 12 percent of wage earners are in green formal jobs. We then analyze the relationship between the green job indicators and various labor and demographic variables at the individual level. We find that the green potential is relatively greater for men, the elderly, those with very high qualifications, and those in specific sectors such as construction, transportation, mining, and industry. These are the groups that are likely to be the most benefited by the greening of the Argentine economy. The green potential score is positively associated with informality, thus the green transition may be incompatible with decent work.