Orientation: Pay transparency has gained prominence as organisations seek to enhance fairness, trust, and talent retention. While international research demonstrates that transparent pay practices shape employee attitudes and behaviours, limited research has examined how transparency is experienced in contexts marked by historical inequality, such as in South Africa. Research purpose: This study explores how pay transparency influences employee attraction and retention in South African organisations by examining employees’ and human resource professionals’ lived experiences of transparency practices. Motivation for the study: Despite legislative efforts to promote equitable remuneration, wage inequality and distrust surrounding pay decisions persist in South Africa, which is shaped by apartheid-era labour legacies. Qualitative research examining how transparency is interpreted within this socio-historical context, and how these interpretations shape fairness perceptions and retention decisions, remains limited. Research approach/design and method: An interpretivist qualitative approach was adopted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 participants across multiple industries. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterns and shared meanings. Main findings: Five themes emerged: perceived fairness and trust; clarity in reward decision-making; preferred transparency principles; career growth and development; and managing internal pay equity. Pay transparency influenced attraction and retention primarily through procedural and informational justice, rather than distributive justice alone. Participants valued structured openness regarding pay principles, criteria, and salary ranges, without necessarily disclosing individual salaries. Practical/managerial implications: Organisations should adopt structured transparency models and strengthen explanatory communication to enhance trust and retention outcomes. Contribution/value-add: The study provides context-specific evidence from South Africa, demonstrating the centrality of procedural and informational justice in shaping employee responses to pay transparency.

This study examines the employment and wage effects of artificial intelligence adoption across 38 OECD countries from 2019 to 2025, a period encompassing the transformative emergence of generative AI technologies. Using a comprehensive AI Adoption Index constructed from enterprise investment data, patent filings, and workforce surveys, we employ instrumental variable estimation to identify causal labor market effects. Our findings indicate that a one standard deviation increase in AI adoption is associated with a 2.3% reduction in employment in routine cognitive occupations but a 1.8% increase in employment requiring complex problem solving and interpersonal skills. Wage effects exhibit substantial heterogeneity: workers in the top income quintile experience wage gains of 3.8%, while middle quintile workers face modest declines of 1.4%. We find that countries with robust active labor market policies and portable benefits systems demonstrate significantly smoother workforce transitions. The results suggest that AI represents a skill biased and task displacing technological change requiring coordinated policy responses encompassing education reform, social protection modernization, and strategic public investment in complementary human capital formation.

Nurses are crucial for high-quality healthcare, but there's a growing shortage. Wage inequality is a significant problem among nurses, affecting both nurses and patient care. This study investigates the wage gap among nurses in Iran. This study examined wage inequality among 595 nurses using wage quartiles, Lorenz curves, and a Gini coefficient (GC) decomposition. The decomposition method was used to analyze the contributions of within, between, and overlap subgroups to the overall wage inequality, along with the population share, wage share, and GC for each subgroup of nurses. The findings revealed that nurses in the top quartile earn 2.03 times more than nurses in the bottom quartile, with respective wage rates of $9.31 and $4.58. The total GC for nurses' wages was 0.16, indicating a moderate wage gap. Among nurses, those in specialized roles had the highest wage at $9.10 based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). This was followed by nurses aged over 40years ($8.30), nurses with over 15years of work experience ($8.15), and those working in psychiatric centers ($8.08). Conversely, the lowest wage rates among nurses were observed in those working in non-provincial hospitals ($5.51), followed by nurses in the private sector ($5.73), and nurses working in general hospitals ($5.76). The GC analysis revealed that the highest wage inequality was among nurses working in hospitals specializing in Ophthalmology and ENT (GC = 0.23), the private sector (GC = 0.18), and emergency departments (GC = 0.18). Conversely, the lowest wage inequality was observed in nurses working at the surgery department (GC = 0.10) and cardiology hospitals (GC = 0.11). The wage gap among Iranian nursing staff was moderate. Work experience, employment type, age, number of children, hospital specialty, workplace sector, and department significantly affected wage inequality among nurses, while gender and academic qualifications had no significant impact on the wage gap. Considering the importance of the wage gap for nurses' motivation and function, policymakers should consider these key determinants and develop targeted strategies to mitigate the wage gap among nurses.

Abstract We analyze the role of vertical structure in wage inequality. By constructing general equilibrium models, we consider scenarios with unemployment, full employment, and separated unskilled labor markets. In an economy with unemployment, a reduction in the regulated upstream price will widen wage inequality if the substitution elasticity of factors in the variable cost is sufficiently small. In an economy with full employment, a decrease in the regulated upstream price will expand wage inequality. In an economy with separated unskilled labor markets, the results in the two aforementioned situations still hold. We further discuss how regulated upstream pricing affects social welfare.

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to examine the processes of sense-making around wages among working-class employees in a factory setting. Based on long-term participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the study finds a ‘culture of reconciliation’ characterized by wage inequalities, which are considered functional and structured around work specialization or gender. Workers accept personal responsibility for their wages, while management views market forces as decisive and immutable. I draw on research regarding silence in organizations and conceptualizations of working-class habitus. I use these concepts to shed light on the nature of contemporary labor markets, focusing on the intersection of their global and situational specificities. I argue that meaning-making about wages is a multilayered process that involves – explicitly, but predominantly implicitly – actors occupying markedly different positions of power, as well as the structural processes that shape the settings these actors inhabit. I argue that recognition, respect, and remuneration are closely interconnected.

Purpose This paper examines how oil supply shocks and monetary policy actions jointly affect wage inequality in the US, with a particular focus on the role of education. The study addresses three key questions: (1) how exogenous oil supply shocks influence wage inequality, (2) how exogenous monetary policy shocks shape income distribution, and (3) whether these effects differ within and between education groups, revealing the role of human capital in amplifying or mitigating inequality. Design/methodology/approach The analysis uses quarterly US data from 2000 to 2021. Wage inequality is measured using the Theil index constructed from CPS/BLS weekly earnings of full-time workers aged 25 and above, allowing additive decomposition into within- and between-education components (high school, bachelor's and advanced degree). Identification relies on exogenous oil supply news shocks and exogenous monetary policy shocks. A vector autoregression (VAR) framework is estimated, and impulse response functions trace the dynamic effects of both shocks on inequality over a 10-quarter horizon. Findings The results show that overall wage inequality increased by about 15% over the sample period, with roughly 75% driven by within-education dispersion rather than differences across education levels. Oil supply shocks significantly raise wage inequality, increasing dispersion within high-school and advanced-degree groups and widening inequality between education groups. In contrast, contractionary monetary policy shocks compress wage inequality, with the strongest effects observed among advanced-degree earners and a reduction in between-education wage gaps. Research limitations/implications This study focuses exclusively on the US due to data availability at a quarterly frequency, which limits the generalizability of the findings to other economies with different labor market institutions and energy dependence. Wage inequality is measured using CPS/BLS data for full-time workers, excluding self-employed and part-time workers, who may experience different distributional effects. The analysis is confined to education-based groupings and does not account for other dimensions of inequality, such as race, gender or industry. Finally, while exogenous shock measures are used, the VAR framework captures average dynamic responses and may not fully reflect nonlinearities or structural changes across different economic regimes. Practical implications The findings show that macroeconomic policies have important distributional effects. Oil supply shocks significantly increase wage inequality, especially within high-school and advanced-degree groups, implying that energy price volatility can worsen income dispersion. Policies that reduce exposure to oil shocks—such as energy diversification and strategic reserves—may therefore also help limit inequality. Monetary policy, while aimed at stabilizing inflation and output, affects income distribution as well: contractionary shocks compress wage inequality, particularly among highly educated workers. Since most inequality arises within education groups, education alone is insufficient; complementary labor market and earnings-stabilization policies are needed to mitigate the unequal effects of macroeconomic shocks. Originality/value This study is among the first to jointly analyze oil supply shocks and monetary policy shocks using exogenous identification while decomposing wage inequality by education. By highlighting heterogeneous distributional responses across education groups, the paper provides new insights into how energy shocks and stabilization policies interact with human capital to shape income inequality.

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to analyse the cumulative impacts of wage growth on the growth of demand and labour productivity in the Brazilian economy from 2004 to 2013. To achieve this aim, a dynamic panel data model is utilised based on sectoral data. The results indicate that the expansion of demand has increased the growth of labour productivity. In turn, productivity was not directly affected by the growth of real wages. The joint expansion of demand and wages had little effect on productivity growth, despite increasing the wage share, reducing wage inequality, and generating a significant volume of employment.

ABSTRACT This study critically reviews Afonso (2024), who proposes a model of economic growth that considers automation capital, traditional capital, skilled labor, and unskilled labor. In his definition of a balanced growth path, the progress of automation makes both the ratio of skilled labor to all labor and the skill premium asymptotically approach zero in the long run. Eventually, the economic growth rate becomes zero, which contradicts his conclusion. In contrast, if we correct the definition of the balanced growth path, the ratio of skilled labor to all labor asymptotically approaches unity in the long run, and the skill premium diverges to infinity. In this case, the long‐run growth rate of per‐capita output is equal to the growth rate obtained from Jones's (1995) semi‐endogenous growth model. JEL Classification : E24, E25, J31, O31, O41

Abstract This paper studies the decline in wage inequality in Taiwan from 2004 to 2019 using administrative employer‐employee matched data and the Abowd–Kramarz–Margolis (AKM) framework. Unlike the U.S. and Europe, Taiwan experienced an 8.4% drop in wage inequality, driven largely by reductions in within‐firm disparities. Minimum wage hikes likely contributed to this compression, as lower‐tail inequality declined due to faster earnings growth among low‐wage workers, while upper‐tail inequality remained relatively stable. AKM estimates, robust to bias correction, indicate that firm‐specific wage premiums account for a small share of inequality, while worker‐firm sorting has become increasingly important in explaining wage dispersion.

ABSTRACT Using plant‐level data from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), this paper examines the effects of global value chains (GVCs) on employment and wage premiums in the Indian manufacturing sector. The study examines the GVC effects on (i) employment, (ii) the wage premium of skilled and unskilled workers, and (iii) skilled and gender wage inequality. The results indicate that participation in GVCs is positively associated with employment and wages, and a stronger impact on skilled workers. Further, GVC participation significantly increases wage gaps between skilled and unskilled workers. There are several policy implications from the study: (i) the skills of workers should be improved through training and re‐tooling, (ii) a strong monitoring framework on the dynamics of the labour market should be developed in relation to unbundling the effects of the GVC, and (iii) strong forward‐looking labour market institutions and policies are required to increase the “future skills” of local workers.

This paper studies income inequality and optimal taxation policies in a talent‐to‐task assignment model of self‐selection. Our model considers relative capital‐skill complementarities across tasks, leading to the polarization of capital and technology by task complexity, which in turn drives the polarization of job and wage growth by talent levels. Regarding optimal tax policy, the wage compression channel remains effective through the trickle‐down effect of subsidizing high‐wage earners and taxing low‐wage earners. Yet, the wage compression channel via capital, corporate, and R&D taxes, aimed at reducing wage inequality, does not operate via a trickle‐down effect. Instead, it works by taxing capital income and R&D investments in high‐task‐complexity sectors while subsidizing those in low‐task‐complex sectors. Moreover, we identify a Pigouvian effect that arises to address spillovers, which modifies the marginal tax rates on labor income, capital income, firm profits, and R&D investments.

Sources of rising student debt in the U.S.: College costs, wage inequality, and delinquency

Artificial intelligence viewed through a lens as a skill-biased technological innovation, with a special attention toward labor markets and productivity growth. Rather than AI being an unprecedented disruption, the analysis of the effects of it in real world situations situates recent developments within established economic frameworks related to automation and task substitution. Publicly available labor market and productivity data suggest AI adoption generates different effects across different occupations, complementing higher-skill labor while simultaneously increasing adjustment pressures with routine tasks. While productivity gains associated with AI may support long term economic growth, short-run labor market disruptions raise concerns regarding wage inequality and workforce adaptation. These dynamics underscore the importance of education, reskilling, and institutional responses in shaping the economic outcomes of artificial intelligence. 1. Introduction-Artificial intelligence has become increasingly common across many parts of the economy, changing how work is done and how firms produce output. AI tools are now used.

<span>This study examines the private returns to education and work experience in Bangladesh, focusing on heterogeneity across the wage distribution and moving beyond conventional average-effect estimates to provide robust causal evidence relevant to human capital and inequality policies. Using nationally representative data from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016–2017, the analysis applies Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Instrumental Variable Generalized Method of Moments (IV-GMM), Quantile Regression (QR), and Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression (IVQR) techniques to address endogeneity in schooling and to capture distributional effects, with parental education serving as an instrument for individual educational attainment. The results show that both education and work experience significantly increase earnings. At the same time, endogeneity-corrected estimates indicate higher returns to education than OLS estimates, confirming that mean-based models underestimate the true causal effects. IVQR estimates reveal pronounced heterogeneity, unlike the QR, with returns to education rising monotonically across the wage spectrum, suggesting that higher-wage earners benefit disproportionately. At the same time, work experience yields positive but diminishing returns. Substantial gender and rural–urban wage gaps persist, although women experience relatively higher marginal returns to education, particularly at the lower end of the wage distribution. Although the cross-sectional nature of the data limits the analysis of dynamic wage trajectories and the instrument may not capture all intergenerational channels, the findings provide credible and policy-relevant insights. By being among the first studies to apply an IVQR framework, this research offers updated and nuanced evidence on how education and experience shape wage inequality in a developing-country context.</span>

<span>As the first ever piece of EU legislation aimed explicitly at ensuring adequate minimum wages and promoting strong collective bargaining, the European Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages in the EU is a milestone in strengthening the social dimension of the European Union. Its ultimate policy objective is to reduce wage inequality and in-work poverty in order to advance upward social convergence and social cohesion across the EU. Because of the EU's limited competences on the issue of wages and collective bargaining, however, while the Directive is strong on procedural regulations it is weaker on substantive requirements, which are formulated mainly in terms of recommendations. This is why the real impact of the Directive in the sense of achieving its political objectives relies strongly on an ambitious transposition into national law that transforms the ‘soft law' of the Directive into hard law at national level.</span> <br> <br><span>One dimension of the analysis therefore concerns how the Member States have formally transposed the Directive into national law. However, the comprehensive formal transposition of the Directive is only one factor that will determine its success in realising its political objectives. The other important factor is the Directive's broader political implications as manifested in its influence on the political agenda and the political and public discourse about minimum wages and collective bargaining in the Member States. This report deals with both dimensions of the impact of the European Minimum Wage Directive.</span>

The era of AI: Technological change, data protection, and inter-industry wage inequality

Migration has emerged as a major socio-economic coping mechanism for distressed rural households in India. Women constitute a significant proportion of internal migrants, particularly in the brick‑kiln and construction sectors, which largely depend on unskilled labour. This paper presents an extended, detailed, and data‑rich analysis of 300 migrant women labourers working across Rajasthan. It highlights the socio‑economic profile, labour conditions, wage inequality, reproductive health concerns, and social consequences of rural‑urban female migration. Findings reveal a striking combination of financial exploitation, gender‑biased labour relations, hazardous work conditions, malnutrition, and absence of social protection. Although migration improves short‑term income, it reinforces patriarchal control and exposes women to multi-layered vulnerabilities. The study recommends urgent policy reforms to safeguard women migrant workers under national and state labour welfare frameworks.

Women’s entrepreneurship in Kazakhstan has undergone a notable transformation in recent years, yet existing research has not fully captured how structural gender conditions shape these changes. This paper examines the evolution of women-led micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and the broader gendered economic environment between 2019 and 2024. The study employs time-series modelling, a structural break test, and a composite index approach, using national gender-disaggregated data from the Kazakhstan Statistical Compendium. Descriptive and econometric analyses reveal a significant regime shift in 2022: women-led MSMEs increased sharply, and the estimated model identifies a statistically meaningful break in both the level and growth rate of entrepreneurial activity. To assess whether this shift reflects a broader structural change, the paper develops the Composite Entrepreneurship Gender Index (CEGI), integrating five indicators—entrepreneurial participation, managerial representation, unemployment, wage inequality, and MSME growth. The index shows a transition from negative values in 2019–2021 to strongly positive values in 2022–2024, indicating improvements in structural opportunity conditions. These findings suggest that post-pandemic restructuring, targeted state support, and rapid digitalisation collectively expanded women’s pathways into entrepreneurship. The study highlights the importance of combining statistical modelling with gender-sensitive indicators to understand the systemic transformation of Kazakhstan’s entrepreneurial landscape.

Women play a significant role in the tourism industry in Bali and Jakarta. Disparities persist in access, leadership, and wages despite their high involvement in hotels, MICE, the creative economy, and micro-enterprises. This study aims to compare the roles of women in Bali and Jakarta, identify factors influencing their involvement, and assess adaptation strategies to work and domestic demands. The study employed mixed methods. Quantitative data were obtained through surveys of hotel managers in Bali and Jakarta. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews with hotel managers and observations of operational activities. Women in Bali are more dominant in the creative economy sector, with strong local community support. Women in Jakarta are more likely to work in the formal sector, with broader access to training but still face barriers to promotion to managerial positions. Wage inequality persists in both regions. Women embrace flexible working hours, family support, and business diversification to maintain economic stability. These findings underscore the need for gender-friendly tourism policies, expanded access to professional training, provision of childcare services, and increased women's involvement in tourism decision-making. This study contributes to gender and tourism studies by integrating social capital and economic resilience perspectives in a cross-context urban-cultural comparison.

The unorganized sector in India employs a significant share of the female workforce, yet their contributions remain largely invisible in national statistics and policy frameworks. This study explores the socio-economic conditions of women workers in India’s unorganized sector, focusing on employment patterns, income disparities, working conditions, and social security access. Using a mixed-method approach that integrates field survey data with secondary sources, the research investigates how gender-based labor segmentation, wage inequality, and lack of institutional support affect women’s economic well-being. Findings indicate that women in informal employment face multidimensional vulnerabilities, including unstable income, long working hours, occupational insecurity, and limited decision-making autonomy. The study underscores that the intersection of gender, caste, and class perpetuates these inequalities, with female workers concentrated in low-skilled, low-paying, and precarious jobs. Policy recommendations include promoting gender-responsive labor regulations, social protection measures, and access to financial literacy and microcredit. By highlighting the economic realities of women in the unorganized sector, this study contributes to a more inclusive understanding of labor and gender dynamics in India’s evolving economy.