Endogenous age discrimination

This paper shows that hiring discrimination against old workers occurs in imperfect labour markets even if individual productivity does not decrease with age and in the absence of a taste for discrimination. Search and informational frictions generate unemployment, with less productive workers facing higher risks of unemployment. Therefore, the employment status provides a signal for expected productivity. This stigma of unemployment becomes stronger with individual age and reduces the hiring opportunities of older workers. Political measures such as a reduction in dismissal protection can help to restore efficiency.     

The heterogeneity of ethnic employment gaps

This paper investigates the heterogeneity of ethnic employment gaps using a new single-index based approach. Instead of stratifying our sample by age or education, we study ethnic employment gaps along a continuous measure of employability, the employment probability minority workers would have if their characteristics were priced as in the majority group. We apply this method to French males, comparing those whose parents are North African immigrants and those with native parents. We find that both the raw and the unexplained ethnic employment differentials are larger for low-employability workers than for high-employability ones. We show in a theoretical framework that this heterogeneity can be accounted for by homogeneous underlying mechanisms and is not evidence for, say, heterogeneous discrimination. Finally, we discuss our main empirical findings in the light of simple taste-based vs. statistical discrimination models.     

Are black workers missing the connection? The effect of spatial distance and employee referrals on interfirm racial segregation

I use data on the hiring practices and spatial location of firms in four cities to model the process of interfirm racial segregation. When I control for the spatial location of the firm, the use of employee referrals reduced the probability of hiring a black worker by 75% in firms that are less than 10% black. Among all firms, the results suggest that employee referrals are just as important as the geographic location of the firm in generating employment segregation: both increase the predicted level of interfirm racial segregation among blue-collar workers in the cities studied by about 10%.     

Hiring a Gay Man,Taking a Risk?: A Lab Experiment on Employment Discrimination and Risk Aversion

We investigate risk aversion as a driver of labor market discrimination against homosexual men. We show that more hiring discrimination by more risk-averse employers is consistent with taste-based and statistical discrimination. To test this hypothesis we conduct a scenario experiment in which experimental employers take a fictitious hiring decision concerning a heterosexual or homosexual male job candidate. In addition, participants are surveyed on their risk aversion and other characteristics that might correlate with this risk aversion. Analysis of the (post-)experimental data confirms our hypothesis. The likelihood of a beneficial hiring decision for homosexual male candidates decreases by 31.7% when employers are a standard deviation more risk-averse.     

Hiring older workers and employing older workers: German evidence

Using German establishment data, we examine the relationship between delayed compensation, training, and hiring of older workers. Both those establishments that delay compensation and those with greater human capital requirements are less likely to hire older workers. We demonstrate that the routinely used control for the age of existing workers is endogenous and that instrumenting provides stronger evidence for the role of delayed compensation. Specifically, delayed compensation is simultaneously a negative determinant of hiring older workers but a positive determinant of employing older workers and, thus, more clearly associated with “employing older workers but not hiring them.”     

The new labor market: Immigrants and wages after IRCA

We examine the effect of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) on migrants' wages using data gathered in 39 Mexican communities and their U.S. destination areas. We examine changes in the determinants of wages before and after the passage of IRCA, as well as the effects of its massive legalization program. Migrants' wages deteriorated steadily between 1970 and 1995, but IRCA did not foment discrimination against Mexican workers per se. Rather, it appears to have encouraged greater discrimination against undocumented migrants, with employers passing the costs and risks of unauthorized hiring on to the workers. Although available data do not permit us to eliminate competing explanations entirely, limited controls suggest that the post-IRCA wage penalty against undocumented migrants did not stem from an expansion of the immigrant labor supply, an increase in the use of labor subcontracting, or a deterioration of the U.S. labor market.     

Strategic HR Management with an Aging Workforce: Using Demographic Models to Determine Optimal Employment Policies

A key component of the strategic plan for any company is the determination of the optimal number of workers needed to produce the desired level of output. Unless workers of different ages have the same skills and productivity, managers must also decide on the best age structure of their workforce and adopt compensation and employment policies to achieve these objectives. Employer responses to the shifts in the demand for their output impact the age distribution of the workforce while employment and compensation policies influence age specific hiring, retention, and retirement rates. This paper examines how demographic models can be used to project the future age structure of a labor force. In addition, we describe how compensation policies can be used to alter trends in the age distribution of employees. Thus, employers can develop strategic plans for achieving the desired labor force.     

流动人口的人力资本禀赋效应及其代际差异

招工难、找工难的现象隐藏着一个重要的经济心理学效应--禀赋效应,即个体出让某物品估价高于得到此物品愿意支付价格的现象。调查结果显示,70%的被访者存在人力资本禀赋效应,他们对自己所拥有的受教育程度应得到的收入估价是对同等受教育程度的劳动力的购买价格的2.9倍。人口学、社会和经济特征对于是否会产生人力资本禀赋效应有显著的影响作用,而禀赋效应的强弱主要受到就业身份的影响。雇员愿意出让价格大大高于雇主愿意购买价格就会出现交易困难,导致"招工难、找工难"的现象出现。事实上,雇员月工资与雇主愿意购买价格非常接近,雇员只能被迫降低愿意出让价格,以适应社会,摆脱"找工难"的困境。第一代流动人口比第二代流动人口的人力资本禀赋效应感更强。与第一代相比较,第二代流动人口中的雇员所期望的薪金更接近于雇主所愿意购买的价格。     

超大城市新生代农民工就业满意度评价及其比较分析--以北京市为例

超大城市面临稳定保有一定数量农民工劳动力和控制人口规模的平衡问题,合理评价城市劳动力新生力量———新生代农民工的就业满意度,有利于客观反映新生代农民工的就业状态与现实诉求,并为超大城市提高农民工就业质量提供支持。以北京地区新生代农民工为研究对象,在明确就业满意度构成因素的基础上,运用因子分析法构建适合新生代农民工城市就业特点的就业满意度模型和评价量表,并对新生代农民工的就业满意度进行分析评价。结果显示,新生代农民工在就业中更看重工作环境、职业发展和晋升机会,对报酬的关注度有所下降,这与已有研究结果有所不同;新生代农民工整体的就业满意度较低,其中更换工作的机会、涨薪机会、晋升机会、与老板关系的不满是导致满意度低的最主要原因;新生代农民工内部存在代际分化,“90后”农民工的就业满意度显著高于“80后”;文化程度、所从事的岗位、婚姻状况对新生代农民工的就业满意度都有显著影响。     

Applying demographic analysis in affirmative action disputes: An instructional case

This instructional case study illustrates applications of demographic concepts, data, and techniques in evaluating affirmative action goals for equalizing employment opportunity. Courts of law addressing employment discrimination disputes need an accurate picture of each minority group's proportion in a pool of prospective employees. The demographic and socioeconomic factors conditioning those proportions vary from place to place. In the situation examined here, the court originally used an imperfect population standard to set hiring goals. The case traces the multiple failures to account for those conditioning influences and describes the resulting distortions of legal purpose. In analyzing this failure, students gain experience in clarifying issues in dispute, devising measures to fit legal standards, and delineating qualified labor pools. Specific instructional applications include: using census data to document how local population structure and composition determine each minority group's presence in the workforce; and using administrative data to delineate the relevant labor pools for setting affirmative action goals. Training is broadly suited to assignments where applied demographers must delineate the ethnic and racial composition of a pool of workers eligible to be hired or promoted.     

Getting the offer: Sex discrimination in hiring

The hiring process is currently the least understood aspect of the employment relationship. It may be the most important for understanding the broad processes of stratification with allocation of demographic groups to jobs and firms. The lack of knowledge is due to difficulty of assembling data on the processes that occur at the point of hire. Against this background we analyze data on all applicants to positions in one of the largest Scandinavian banks in 1997–1998, providing what we believe to be the first study using applicant pool data and information about extended offers in a private-sector European firm, adding to the record of about half a dozen such U.S. studies. The hiring agents in the organization are fully conscious and concerned about the nonconscious biases and gender schemas they carry when making hiring decisions. Their effects on hiring are considered to be beyond dispute: women are at a clear disadvantage. For actual hiring practices we found that the opposite is true: women are not at a disadvantage and may even be at an advantage in getting offers. Two organizational practices may lead to female advantage. The hiring agents had been educated about the role of nonconscious biases, which perhaps mitigated their effects. But they had also been instructed to search actively for qualified females in the applicant pool. With no qualified females in the first pass, they go through the pool a second and third time hoping to find one. We discuss reasons why the interpretations and meanings the hiring agents attribute to the hiring process are at odds with what actually occurs.     

Unintended consequences of Immigration Reform: Discrimination and hispanic employment

The record-keeping requirements of the Immigration Reform and Control Act(IRCA), and fines for illegal employment, may induce employers to discriminate against foreign-appearing workers. The General Accounting Office (GAO) reported widespread IRCA-related discrimination but did not link reported discriminatory practices to discriminatory employment behavior. We analyze the GAO’s random survey and, controlling for selectivity effects, demonstrate that employers who report discriminatory practices actually employ fewer Hispanics. Although the measured reduction of Hispanic employment due to IRCA is fairly small, this finding parallels research alerting us to adverse consequences of a law that so far has achieved few of its intended effects.     

Youth unemployment and government policy

Young people of working age tend to be particularly prone to labor market inefficiencies that keep their wages excessively high and their employment excessively low. These inefficiencies are usually magnified through unemployment benefit systems. This paper examines how these problems can be tackled through “employment vouchers,” i.e. hiring subsidies or tax breaks for the unemployed. It examines how vouchers to the young unemployed should differ from those to the adult unemployed. The employment vouchers considered here reduce unemployment and impose no cost on the government, since they are financed by the induced fall in government expenditures on unemployment benefits. Among other things, we find that young workers should receive lower vouchers as displacement of the old rises and as deadweight from providing vouchers to the old increases.     

Wage subsidies as an anti-discrimination policy

Using the statistical theory of discrimination, we argue that initial wage offers may be lower for minority workers, but that wage differences for a given level of productivity should diminish with the worker's job tenure. If a wage subsidization policy is designed so that initial wage offers are equal for majority and minority workers and is maintained for a time period sufficient to demonstrate true productivity, then wage differences for a given level of productivity should disappear. We also provide an empirical test of the effectiveness of such a policy by using a sample of participants in a government job program that enforced equal wage schedules for White and Black workers. Our results show that measured discrimination declined among program participants, supporting the hypothesis that wage subsidies would be an effective anti-discrimination policy.     

Are Gay Men and Lesbians Discriminated Against When Applying for Jobs? A Four-City,Internet-Based Field Experiment

An Internet-based field experiment was conducted to examine potential hiring discrimination based on sexual orientation; specifically, the “first contact” between job applicants and employers was looked at. In response to Internet job postings on CareerBuilder.com®, more than 4,600 resumes were sent to employers in 4 U.S. cities: Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, and San Francisco. The resumes varied randomly with regard to gender, implied sexual orientation, and other characteristics. Two hypotheses were tested: first, that employers' response rates vary by the applicants' assumed sexuality; and second, that employers' Response Rates by Sexuality vary by city. Effects of city were controlled for to hold constant any variation in labor market conditions in the 4 cities. Based on employer responses to the applications, it was concluded that there is no evidence that gay men or lesbians are discriminated against in their first encounter with employers, and no significant variation across cities in these encounters was found. Implications of these results for the literature on hiring discrimination based on sexual orientation, the strengths and limitations of the research, and the potential for the Internet-based field experiment design in future studies of discrimination are discussed.     

农民工就业培训调查分析

参加就业培训是农民工顺利实现非农就业的关键,调查显示:农民工受教育程度低,主要以初中、高中文化程度为主;政府部门、用人单位和农民工对就业培训的投资力度较弱,大多数农民工只能从事简单体力劳动;现有劳动力就业培训市场不规范,农民工对其表现出极大不信任;就业培训缺乏灵活性和针对性。构建以农民工、用人单位和政府部门为主体,培训机构、培训市场和就业市场相协调的就业促进型培训模式。利用这一模式,提高农民工综合素质,加大就业培训的投资力度,规范劳动力培训市场建设。     

Muslims in France: identifying a discriminatory equilibrium

We analyze the assimilation patterns of Muslim immigrants in Western countries with a unique identification strategy. Survey and experimental data collected in France in 2009 suggest that Muslims and rooted French are locked in a suboptimal equilibrium whereby (i) rooted French exhibit taste-based discrimination against those they are able to identify as Muslims and (ii) Muslims perceive French institutions as systematically discriminatory against them. This equilibrium is sustained because Muslims, perceiving discrimination as institutionalized, are reluctant to assimilate and rooted French, who are able to identify Muslims as such due to their lower assimilation, reveal their distaste for Muslims.     

Social inequalities in disability-free life expectancy in the french male population, 1980–1991

We calculate aggregate indicators of population health for occupational groups to gauge changes in health disparities during the 1980-1991 period. The study is based on the experiences of French adult men in three major occupational classes: managers, manual workers, and an intermediary occupational group. Life table models show that managers have longer life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) than manual workers, and a shorter life expectancy with disability. The concurrent increases in life expectancy and DFLE during the period maintained the occupational disparities in health; the years lived with disability, however, declined for all groups, as for the entire French population.     

Creating illegal immigrants

This paper considers the prospects for successful implementation by governments of guest-worker programs that are based on an intended temporary presence of foreign workers. A means of enforcement of temporary presence is a penalty imposed for overstaying the permissible time period. Employers who are obliged to post bonds for their foreign workers are provided with an incentive to ensure that their workers leave at the end of their contractually specified stay. We consider the consequences of such a bond when foreign workers can leave legal employers for illegal employment. We also investigate the effectiveness of deferred payments to foreign workers as a means of discouraging transition from legal employment to illegal presence. In the final analysis, although the policy intention is a temporary stay, we conclude that if foreign workers do not wish to return home, there is an almost inevitability to the creation of a population of illegal immigrants (whose presence may be subsequently legalized). Received: 28 May 1997/Accepted: 6 July 1998     

The mortality of Allied prisoners of war and Belgian civilian deportees in German custody during the First World War: A reappraisal of the effects of forced labour

Influenced by results for the Second World War, recent research on forced labour in Imperial Germany during the Great War has stressed continuities of racial discrimination against East European workers. While agreeing that prisoners of war (POWs) from Russia were discriminated against, I reject the view that this led to a significantly worse mortality regime for the group as a whole. Using the same raw data, I calculate annual rates which show that the mortality of POWs from Russia was only slightly higher than that of French and Belgian POWs but much lower than that of British and Italian POWs and of Belgian civilian deportees. I argue that this unexpected outcome is explained by the fact that the POWs who came early into German captivity faced a lower risk of being employed in urban industrial areas, with their much more unfavourable food and disease environment.