Job Mobility and Early Career Wage Growth of White,African‐American,and Hispanic Women*

Objective. This article examines whether and how young women's job mobility influences racial and ethnic wage‐growth differentials during the first eight years after leaving school. Methods. We use the NLSY‐79 Work History File to simulate the influence of job mobility on the wages of skilled and unskilled workers. Results. African‐American and Hispanic women average less job mobility than white women, especially if they did not attend college. Unskilled women who experience frequent job changes during the first four postschool years reap positive wage returns, but turnover beyond the shopping period incurs wage penalties. Job mobility does not appear to boost wage growth for college‐educated women. Conclusions. Among unskilled women, race and ethnic wage disparities partly derive from group differences in the frequency of job changes, but unequal returns to job mobility drive the wage gaps for skilled women. We discuss several explanations for these disparities.     

The Cost of Parenthood: Unraveling the Effects of Sexual Orientation and Gender on Income*

Objectives. Prior research has repeatedly shown that parenthood affects employment outcomes; mothers have, on average, lower wages and are less likely to be hired than childless women. Some research indicates that this effect of parenthood on employment outcomes is dependent on sexual orientation. In particular, lesbian mothers might be treated more like childless women by those making employment decisions. This article examines the degree to which the lesbian wage advantage can be explained by lesbians avoiding the motherhood wage penalty experienced by heterosexual women. Methods. Drawing on 2000 U.S. Census data, this issue is first explored via ordinary least squares regression equations that estimate the effect of having a child present in the household on income. The Blinder‐Oaxaca method is then employed to decompose the earnings differential between heterosexual and gay individuals. Results. Results indicate that lesbians appear to experience a motherhood advantage that increases their wages by approximately 20 percent. Further, results support the notion that lesbians receive different returns to the presence of children in the household than do heterosexual women. Approximately 35 percent of the wage differential between lesbians and heterosexual women is attributable to differences in returns to child rearing. Conclusion. These findings have relevance for state and federal anti‐discrimination laws and work/family policies, as they provide further insight into the role that gender, and gender‐based assumptions, play in determining employment outcomes.     

Analyzing Wage Differential by Gender Using an Earnings Function Approach Further Evidence from a Small Developing Economy

This study uses the primary data from Fiji to examine if gender differential with respect to wages exists and if education plays an important role in the prevalence of the wage gap in general. The results of the study indicate that the inconsistency in wages is affected by both education and gender variables. This high disparity in wages based on gender raises serious questions about the government's ability to meet the MDG targets as far as the reduction of gender inequality is concerned.     

网络空间性别不平等的再生产:互联网工资溢价效应的性别差异——以第三期妇女地位调查为例

本文通过倾向值匹配的方法发现：在控制了其他因素之后,互联网使用者的平均工资收入是非使用者的1.38倍;同时,互联网溢价效应存在着显著的性别差异,女性的互联网工资溢价为男性互联网工资溢价的90.6%。此外,本文发现,互联网工资溢价效应与人们的网络行为密切相关。男性相比女性,具有更强烈的使用互联网资源进行再学习和人力资本再积累的偏好;在女性互联网使用者之间,性别观念更平等的女性具有更强烈的使用互联网资源进行再学习和人力资本再积累的偏好。在传统的网络空间性别不平等的研究框架下,本文着重于探析性别文化观念如何影响人们对互联网的使用偏好和使用方式,从而成为导致网络空间性别不平等的再生产的重要原因和机制。     

Job Skill and Black Male Wage Discrimination*

Objective. Debate over the causes of wage inequality have raised suggestions that, rather than discrimination, skill differences may be the reason for racial wage disparities. The purpose of this research is to examine what impact on‐the‐job skill differences have on wage inequality. Method. I regress the log wage onto race and a measure of skill. The Multi‐City Study of Urban Inequality Employer Survey is particularly useful in this analysis because it contains the employer's evaluation of the worker's relative skill against other workers. Result. When white and black men have the same employer's competitive performance rating, rather than decreasing racial wage differences, the differences actually increase. Conclusion. The wage gap is not a skills gap, but evidence of racial discrimination in the labor market.     

Effects of US citizenship on wages of Asian immigrant women

The article presents a cross‐sectional study on the effects of US citizenship on wages of Asian immigrant women. The findings show that US citizenship positively moderated the relationship between sample characteristics and wages. Higher education (university and graduate school) significantly boosts the wage level of Asian immigrant women who have US citizenship. However, such positive influence does not exist for Asian immigrant women without US citizenship. This finding suggests that Asian immigrant women without US citizenship still face a glass ceiling. Key Practitioner Message: ● Educate immigrants about the importance of and potential benefits associated with citizenship.     

Does Welfare Participation Affect Women's Wages?*

Objectives. This study examines how welfare participation and employment affect women's wages. Methods. We use longitudinal data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation and fixed‐effects regression models to test our hypotheses. Results. Our results indicate that time spent on welfare while unemployed results in a wage penalty that is similar to the penalty associated with nonwelfare work breaks. Time spent on welfare while employed has no effect on wages, unlike the strong positive impact of nonwelfare work periods. Conclusions. Working while on welfare does appear to prevent further wage deterioration, but does not lead to substantial wage growth.     

社会分层与健康不平等的性别差异:基于生命历程的纵向分析

本研究考察在社会分层与性别分层的交互作用下,生命历程中的两个竞争性理论--“累积优势/劣势理论”和“年龄中和效应理论”,哪一个更能解释中国男性和女性所经历的健康不平等。本研究利用“中国健康与营养调查”（CHNS）追踪数据和成长曲线模型发现,性别对社会分层导致的健康不平等及其发展有独特的影响。与男性相比,女性在各个年龄阶段都处于健康劣势,这一劣势是因为女性从教育和收入所获得的健康回报比男性低。此外,女性之间因为教育和收入导致的健康不平等程度随年龄的增长而缩小,男性之间的健康不平等程度并不随年龄的增长而改变,因此,本研究不支持健康不平等的“累积优势/劣势假说”,而是在女性群体中支持“年龄中和效应理论”。     

Public opinion towards workfare policies in Europe: Polarisation of attitudes in times of austerity?

Increasing wage inequality, strong labour market divides and welfare retrenchment are widely believed to result in more polarised public opinion towards the welfare state. The present study examined if attitudes towards workfare policies have become more polarised in Europe over recent decades. To achieve this aim, the study analysed public opinion data from the European Value Study (EVS) from 23 European countries in the years 1990–2008, using multi‐level regression analysis. It is found that individuals who are most affected by workfare – the unemployed, the poor and the young – most strongly oppose workfare concepts. Against expectations, there was no evidence of an increasing polarisation of attitudes in Europe. Attitudinal cleavages based on employment status, income and education have remained stable. Differences between age groups have even dissolved because younger cohorts increasingly favour strict workfare policies. The results suggest that warnings of increasing social conflicts and an erosion of solidarity in European societies are exaggerated.     

An empirical assessment of the wage premium for American veterans of World War II

This paper examines U.S. census data from 1960 to 1980 to assess the relative wages of WWII veteran and non-veteran men. Our analysis reveals that a significant portion wage gap between veterans and non-veterans (the “veteran wage premium”) is due primarily to differences in education, work experience and other socioeconomic characteristics. Our findings are consistent with the notion that greater human capital, due perhaps to the selection process for military service, or to the post-war benefits provided by the GI Bill, helped contribute to the remarkable post-war labor market success of American veterans. To a lesser extent, veterans may also have benefited from preferential labor market treatment, or from intangible aspects of military experience that enhanced their returns to earnings-related characteristics.     

Collective bargaining levels,employment and wage inequality in Spain

After the increase in inequalities following the Great Recession, studies on wage bargaining systems have increasingly focused on wage inequality. This research examines wage inequality associated with collective bargaining levels in Spain, based on matched employer–employee microdata and quantile regression methods. These methods are applied across the wage distribution, following the method proposed by Firpo et al. (2011), to estimate wage premiums associated with agreement levels and to decompose the wage differentials observed at different points of the wage distribution. From the evidence obtained it can be concluded that, although the higher wages found in firm-level agreements are explained by the better observed characteristics of firms and workers covered by these collective agreements, there remains a positive wage premium. Although this premium is seen throughout the wage distribution, it favours mostly workers in the middle and upper-middle end. This slightly increases wage inequality in comparison with sectoral agreements. In contrast, workers without collective bargaining coverage generally suffer a wage penalty. This penalty is only observed on the left of the wage distribution. It becomes a significant wage premium in the upper end of the distribution, which implies a significant increase in wage inequality. In short, the evidence of this research suggests that reducing the coverage of collective bargaining could be associated with a significant increase in wage inequality. A better policy option for countries with a predominant sectoral model, such as Spain, would be to move towards an organized decentralization model. This would cause significant gains in employment as suggested by OECD (2019) and only a slight increase in wage inequality.     

How did divorced women fare in the 1990s?: Analysis of work and hourly earnings

This paper presents evidence of changes in employment and real wages in the population of divorced single women during the 1990s. Using data from the U.S. Current Population Survey (CPS) for 1989 and 1999, the paper estimates multivariate models of labor force participation and hourly wages for each year. Differences between years in employment and wages are decomposed into portions attributable to changes in measured characteristics and changes in coefficients of the models. Estimates indicate that full time employment remained virtually unchanged during the decade, and real wages increased by less than 2%. Decomposition of the regression models shows that measured characteristics in this population changed in a direction that would have lead to higher wage growth, but those changes were offset by changes in the model’s coefficients. The result is that earnings experienced only modest growth. In the labor force participation model, changes in measured characteristics worked in the direction of a modest decrease in full time employment, but again coefficient changes provided an offsetting effect.     

The impact of opening markets on Mexican male/female wage and occupational differentials

This article addresses the effect of a more open market under NAFTA on the economic status of Mexican women. It is assumed that increases in export processing and tourism, industries that have a high demand for female labor, will result from the agreement. The approach of this study is to use regression and correlation analysis to compare wage and occupational differences in two Mexican cities: Tijuana, on the U.S.-Mexican border, and Torreon, in the interior. A major findings is that the overall wage gap is statistically significantly lower where there is increased export processing activity, but there appears to be very little change in occupational segregation. Three additional impacts are: first, that labor force participation rates increase for both men and women, but proportionally more for women. Second, the higher labor demand appears to weaken the relationship between the job qualifications of education and experience and wages. Third, wages by gender are more equal, but for the labor force as a whole there is a greater level of wage dispersion.     

Higher Education Policy,Enrollment, and Income Inequality*

Objective. The objective of this article is to examine whether public expenditure on higher education has an effect on income inequality by increasing enrollment. Methods. Combining data from the World Bank Development Indicators with data from the World Income Inequality Database version 2, we study the relation between government education expenditure and enrollment rates, as well as the relation between government education expenditure and the change in income inequality during the 1980s and the 1990s. Results. We find that public expenditure on higher education has no positive effect on enrollment. Increased enrollment is mainly explained by higher GDP per capita. Using carefully selected Gini coefficients to ensure comparability over time, we do not find a robust relation between higher education expenditure and lower income inequality, contrary to some previous studies. Conclusions. Government expenditure on higher education has very limited effects on enrollment and inequality. This finding, however, does not imply that there are no social benefits from such subsidies. For example, in countries where high marginal tax rates decrease the economic returns to education, governments may wish to compensate for this through subsidies.     

An American Dream Unfulfilled: The Limited Mobility of Mexican Americans

Objective . We build on past research regarding immigrant group adaptation by examining the wages of first–, second–, and third–generation Mexican–American men and women and empirically evaluating if past theories of immigrant incorporation apply to the Mexican–American case. Methods . We use the 1989 Latino National Political Study and the 1990/1991 Panel Studies of Income Dynamics and OLS regressions to estimate the effects of generation and human capital on wages. Results . Immigrant men and women report lower wages than their second– and third–generation counterparts, but once human capital controls are added, the wage pattern becomes one of steady decline across generations for men, and stagnation or marginal decline across generations for women. Conclusions . Our results generally contest the applicability of linear assimilation hypotheses to the Mexican–American experience, while lending some credence to the selectivity and immigrant optimism hypotheses. Results also indicate the importance of developing more contextualized immigrant adaptation frameworks.     

Labor Market Outcomes for Legal Mexican Immigrants Under the New Regime of Immigration Enforcement

OBJECTIVES: This paper documents the effects of increasingly restrictive immigration and border policies on Mexican migrant workers in the United States. METHODS: Drawing on data from the Mexican Migration Project we create a data file that links age, education, English language ability, and cumulative U.S. experience in three legal categories (documented, undocumented, guest worker) to the occupational status and wage attained by migrant household heads on their most recent U.S. trip. RESULTS: We find that the wage and occupational returns to various forms of human capital generally declined after harsher policies were imposed and enforcement dramatically increased after 1996, especially for U.S. experience and English language ability. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that the labor market status of legal immigrants has deteriorated significantly in recent years as larger shares of the migrant workforce came to lack labor rights, either because they were undocumented or because they held temporary visas that did not allow mobility or bargaining over wages and working conditions.     

Did We Overestimate the Value of Health?

Adam Smith's idea that wage differences reveal preferences for risk rests on strong theoretical foundations. This paper argues, however, that the dominant approach to identify compensating wage differentials—regressing individual wages on aggregate measures of risk—may lead to arbitrary estimates of these risk differentials. In a dataset with information on both, the incidence of illnesses or injuries across firms and industries, I calculate an implicit value of one injury or illness of about (1990) USD 18,800 pursuing the dominant approach. In contrast, regressing wages on the incidence of risk across firms produces a value of one injury or illness of about USD 11,300.     

Jack (and Jill?) of All Trades – A Canadian Case Study of Equity in Apprenticeship Supports

In the past decade, Canadian federal and provincial governments have designed programmes to facilitate entry into trades in an attempt to stimulate economic growth. As part of these efforts, increasing attention is focusing on programmes to encourage women to enter skilled trades, while paying little attention to those trades traditionally dominated by females. In this article, we explore the gendered dimensions of apprenticeship programmes in Canada, demonstrating the ways in which gender inequality is reproduced by programmes that situate employers and women as responsible for change. In particular, using a case study, we illustrate that the gendered structure of the labour market is preserved and reproduced. While efforts have targeted women to facilitate entry into non‐traditional occupations such as electricians and plumbers, female‐dominated trades such as hairstylists remain untouched, thereby sustaining the gendered wage structure of the economy. Thus women remain segregated in low‐paying trades and receive fewer public supports when pursuing training in these segregated trades. The article argues that apprenticeship training and certification is constructed to respond to the needs of male‐dominated trades, but not the needs of female‐dominated trades. Ultimately, the public policy decisions that make up the apprenticeship training and certification system in Canada reproduce gender inequality.     

Global Economy and Gender Inequalities: The Case of the Urban Chinese Labor Market*

Objectives. This article examines the effects of economic globalization on gender inequalities in urban China. It argues that the significance of economic globalization on gender inequality depends on its impact on job queues in the labor market of a country. Methods. Using both individual‐ and city‐level data, and a series of multilevel linear and logistic models, we analyze the effects of three city‐level variables on the gender gap in income: foreign direct investment (FDI) per capita, growth rate of FDI, and opening up to overseas investment early on. We also examine gender differences in employment in high‐paying foreign‐invested firms, and in lower‐paying export‐oriented manufacturing. Results. We find no variation in gender gap in income among cities of varying levels of FDI, growth rates of FDI, or whether they were among the earliest to open up to international investment. Women are more likely to be employed in export‐oriented manufacturing industries that offer lower wages and are less likely to work in high‐paying foreign firms and joint ventures. Conclusions. These results suggest that economic globalization profoundly influences gender inequalities by changing the nature of job queues, and men and women are sorted and matched into jobs accordingly. Economic globalization contributed to and perpetuated a gendered distribution of male and female workers in the Chinese urban labor market in the late 1990s.     

FROM HARVESTER TO DE-REGULATION: WAGE EARNERS IN THE AUSTRALIAN WELFARE STATE

The significance of the Harvester Judgment in 1907 was not only in the establishment of a ‘fair and reasonable’ wage, which became known as the basic wage , but also in the principle that wages had to meet at least the basic social needs of the worker's family. Income earned through employment was thus regarded as primary welfare . These principles in wage determination were discarded in the 1960s and the de-regulation policies of the 1980s further increased the division between employment and social needs. Exacerbated by the endemic high levels of unemployment, the progressive de-regulation of the labour marked since the 1980s has been one of the most significant causative factors in the growing inequality in Australia.