How young workers get their training: A survey of Germany versus the United States

The recent economic literature on the incidence of various forms of post-secondary on-the-job and off-the-job training in Germany and the United States, as well as on the effects of training on wages, inequality, and labor mobility is surveyed. Young workers in Germany receive substantially more company-based (apprenticeship) training than United States workers. In the United States, high turnover deters firms from investing in general skills while it results in improved job matches. The received literature consents that key institutional elements required to make the German apprenticeship system work are absent in the United States. JEL classification: I2, J3, J24 Received December 14, 1995 / Accepted February 19, 1996     

Immigration,investment, and real wages

When a country is the recipient of large-scale, politically motivated immigration – as has been the case for Israel in recent years – the initial impact is to reduce real wages. Over the longer term, however, the endogenous response of investment, together with increasing returns, may well actually increase real earnings. If immigration itself is not wholly exogenous, but respond to real wages, they may be multiple equilibria, that is, optimism or pessimism about the success of the economy at absorbing immigrants may constitute a self-fulfilling prophecy. Received August 22, 1994 / Accepted August 23, 1995     

Immigration and males' earnings inequality in the regions of the United States

In this paper I investigate the impact of recent immigration on males' earnings distributions in the major regions of the United States. I use six counterfactual scenarios to describe alternative regional skill distributions and wage structures for the population of natives and long-term immigrants in the absence of recent immigration. I find that immigration over the last three decades can account for a substantial portion of the variation in inequality across the regions. Recent immigration has contributed moderately to national growth in males' earnings inequality, primarily by changing the composition of the population.     

Did the decline continue? Comparing the labor-market quality of United States immigrants from the late 1970s and late 1980s

The issue addressed in this paper is whether or not the decline in immigrant labor-market quality in the U.S. observed in the late 1960‘s and 1970‘s continued in the 1980‘s. Two other papers, Borjas (1995) and Funkhouser and Trejo (1995), have addressed the issue and have come up with contradictory results. In this paper I use a different data set, one that has advantages over the data sets used in the other studies. Given the rise in earnings inequality that has occurred in the United States over the 1980‘s, the returns to immigration for the more highly skilled will have increased relative to the low skilled, ceteris paribus. For this reason, it is possible that the skill decline of immigrants may have halted in the 1980‘s as immigrants of differing skill levels respond to the altered circumstances they would face in the United States. The empirical results show that the skill decline did indeed halt, a result which gives support to the Funkhouser/ Trejo result. Received July 24, 1995 / Accepted August 22, 1995     

基于地域、部门与行业差异的农民工工资歧视研究

农民工工资歧视是我国经济社会发展过程中面临的严峻现实。在依据中国家庭收入项目（CHIP）中的2013年中国城乡工资的抽样调查数据基础上,从地域、部门类型及行业三个层面探究农民工工资水平及歧视问题。研究发现：1.我国东中西部地区的农民工工资歧视程度呈现由高至低的阶梯状;2.在企业部门类型中的农民工工资歧视程度由外资向自由职业逐渐下降;3.在行业中的第一、二产业农民工工资歧视程度大于第三产业。     

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.     

The impact of labor market entry conditions on initial job assignment and wages

We estimate the effects of labor market entry conditions on wages for male individuals first entering the Austrian labor market between 1978 and 2000. We find a large negative effect of unfavorable entry conditions on starting wages and a sizable negative long-run effect. Our preferred estimates imply a decrease in starting wages by about 0.9 % and a lifetime loss in wages of about 1.3 % for an increase in the initial local unemployment rate by one percentage point. We show that poor entry conditions are associated with lower quality of a worker’s first employer and that the quality of workers’ first employer explains as much as three-quarters of the observed long-run wage effects resulting from poor entry conditions. Moreover, wage effects are much more persistent for blue-collar workers because some of them appear to be permanently locked in into low-paying jobs/tasks.     

The effect of immigration on the labor market performance of native-born workers: some evidence for Spain

This paper provides an approximation to the labor market effects of immigrants in Spain, a country where labor market institutions and immigration policy exhibit some peculiarities, during the second half of the 1990s, the period in which immigration flows accelerated. By using alternative data sets, we estimate both the impact of legal and total immigration flows on the employment rates and wages of native workers, accounting for the possible occupational and geographical mobility of immigrants and native-born workers. Using different samples and estimation procedures, we have not found a significant negative effect of immigration on either the employment rates or wages of native workers.

最低工资标准提升的劳动供给效应——基于回归间断设计的经验研究

文章依据中国健康与营养调查1997～2009年的微观数据,应用回归间断设计方法分析了最低工资标准提升对低收入群体劳动供给的影响。研究结果表明,提升最低工资标准未对男性就业和工作时间产生显著的影响,也未对女性工作时间产生显著影响,但对女性就业产生了显著的消极影响,这导致女性劳动力供给明显降低。随着相对工资的上升,男性就业、男性工作时间和女性工作时间均呈现上升趋势。因此,政府应逐渐适度地提高最低工资标准,在保证低收入群体劳动供给不受较大消极影响的同时,渐进地提高低收入群体的工资水平。     

Does Human Capital Raise Earnings for Immigrants in the Low-Skill Labor Market?

We use monthly Survey of Income and Program Participation data from 1996–1999 and 2001–2003 to estimate the determinants of differentiation in intercepts and slopes for age/earnings profiles of low-skill immigrant and native male workers. Our findings provide further depth of understanding to the“mixed” picture of earnings determination in the low-skill labor market that has been reported by others. On the positive side, many immigrants are employed in similar occupations and industries as natives. Both groups show substantial wage gains over time and generally receive similar returns to years of schooling completed. Immigrants also receive substantial returns to acculturation, measured as age at arrival and English language skill. These results cast doubt on the strong version of segmented labor market theory, in which low-skill immigrants are permanently consigned to dead-end jobs with no wage appreciation. On the negative side, immigrants earn approximately 24% less than natives and are less likely to occupy supervisory and managerial jobs. Latino immigrants receive lower returns to education than do white immigrants. Furthermore, age at arrival and language ability do not explain the lower returns to education experienced by Latino immigrants. These results suggest that Latino immigrants in particular may suffer from barriers to mobility and/or wage discrimination. Whether these negative labor market experiences occur primarily for illegal immigrants remains unknown.     

Asian-born scientists and engineers: their immigration flow and labor market adjustment

"This paper examines the flow of Asian-born scientists and engineers and their labor market adjustment. First, main elements to affect their immigration flow are described: supply, demand, and institution....The scarcity of domestic workers is the most important factor affecting demand of immigration. Institution, such as immigration policies, is another element to influence the immigration flow....Second, by using the 1980 U.S. Census data set, their labor market adjustment is explored in terms of hourly wages. Compared to the native-born white, there is no evidence that Asian-born scientists and engineers receive lower wages or lower return on human capital."     

Wages, taxes and publicly provided day care

Public employment growth has been parallelled by increased female labour force participation, while real wages for typical female public sector occupations have not increased. In a theoretical model we, first, show that there is a tradeoff between day care provision and gross wages for occupations for which day care is a complement. It is possible to combine increased public labour demand with public day care provision leaving the wage unaffected. Second, non-parents will be in favour of increasing day care as long as day care productivity is higher than the inverse of the tax rate. This is because the effective labour supply and, therefore, the tax base increase. Third, parents want to push day care provision even further. They are prepared to accept a lower day care productivity than non-parents because day care provision relaxes the constraint on their desired labour supply. The Pareto efficient day care provision is between parents‘ and non-parents‘ preferred levels. Received: 12 December 1995 / Accepted: 17 September 1997     

教育不平等与外来工工资的民族差异——兼论少数民族外来工教育获得的“三重弱势”

外来工工资收入的民族差异一直没有引起学术界的充分关注。2010年珠三角和长三角外来工问卷调查显示,少数民族外来工月平均工资为1636．16元,比汉族低约300元,差距显著。Oaxaca—Blinder模型分解表明,个人特征、企业特征、来源地等变量共解释了少数民族外来工与汉族外来工资差异的58．9％,其中主要来自于前劳动力市场阶段的教育不平等。导致少数民族外来工教育落后的原因是他们主要来自西部农村地区,当地经济发展水平和教育投入水平相对落后,而少数民族的语言和风俗习惯也影响到少数民族外来工的教育成就。     

The obesity pay gap: gender,body size,and wage inequalities—a longitudinal study of Chinese adults, 1991–2011

Sociocultural values promoting Western body-type ideals have proliferated over the past 20 years. An important question is whether the same obesity wage penalties seen in the United States, such as wage reductions for obese individuals, are emerging in China as ideals of beauty change to reflect Western ones. We hypothesize that Westernisation will exacerbate the impact of body size on wages for years to come, particularly for urban non-manual workers whose workplaces call for extensive interpersonal relations with employers, colleagues, and customers. This study examines the economic outcomes for individuals aged 18–55, focusing on 6600 female and 8488 male participants in the longitudinal 1991–2011 China Health and Nutrition Survey. Linear fixed-effects regression models estimate the net effect of body mass index (BMI) on wages, as well as the marginal effect of BMI on wages, by survey year. All analyses control for demographic backgrounds and household fixed effects, and are stratified by gender. The results show that normal-weight women with non-manual jobs in 2011 made 2.79–2.95 times more than they had in 1991, while overweight women made 2.66–2.76 times more, and obese women made only 2.57–2.63 times more. The results also indicate that women with non-manual jobs have been subject to wage disparities since 2000. Specifically, the wage disparity for heavier women living in urban areas with non-manual jobs increased significantly after 2000, while current male obesity rates may have been propelled by social acceptance of larger body sizes among men, particularly for manual workers living in rural areas.     

Informal search,bad search?: the effects of job search method on wages among rural migrants in urban China

The use of informal job search method is prevalent in many countries. There is, however, no consensus in the literature on whether it actually matters for wages, and if it does, what are the underlying mechanisms. We empirically examine these issues specifically for rural migrants in urban China, a country where one of the largest domestic migration in human history has occurred over the past decades. We find that there exists a significant wage penalty for those migrant workers who have conducted their search through informal channels, despite their popularity. Our further analysis suggests two potential reasons for the wage penalty: (1) the informal job search sends a negative signal (of workers’ inability to successfully find a job in a competitive market) to potential employers, resulting in lower wages, and (2) there exists a trade-off between wages and search efficiency for quicker entry into local labor market. We also find some evidence that the informal job search may lead to low-skilled jobs with lower wages. We do not find strong evidence supporting alternative explanations.     

Wage and (un-)employment effects of an ageing workforce

Given the empirical fact that workers of different ages are not perfect substitutes in production, this paper explores how change in the age pattern affects wages and (un)employment. We develop a general equilibrium model where wages for young and old workers are set by monopoly unions. Contrary to the common wisdom on this topic, we show that an increase in the relative number of older workers has no effect on young and old unemployment. If, however, unions attach a higher weight to the wishes of the old, the unemployment rate of the old (young) will increase (decrease). In this case, we observe a redistribution of wage income from the young to the old.     

The elasticity of labor demand and the minimum wage

We show that, contrary to widespread belief, low-pay workers do not generally prefer that the minimum wage rate be increased until the labor demand is unitary elastic. Rather, there exists a critical value of elasticity of labor demand so that increases in the minimum wage rate make low-pay workers better off for higher elasticities, but worse off for lower elasticities. This critical value decreases with unemployment benefits and increases with workers’ risk aversion. We also show that in some countries the benefits for long-term unemployed are so low that workers would probably prefer that the minimum wage rate be decreased. I thank the anonymous referees for helpful suggestions.     

Wage Frontiers in Pre and Post-crisis Spain: Implications for Welfare and Inequality

Social Indicators Research - This paper explores the evolution of wages in Spain using a stochastic frontier approach to estimate the wage frontiers of workers in Spain as a function of their human...     

Teenage truancy,part-time working and wages

Part-time work whilst still in full-time education is common in many industrialized countries, and teenagers constitute a significant component of the work force in some sectors of the labour market. In Britain, in the early 1990‘s, some 60% of 16–18 year olds still in full time education also worked part-time. Although the determinants of teenager participation in the labour market have been studied previously (both in the United States and the United Kingdom), there remain a number of neglected questions. We address some of these in this paper, basing our analysis on data taken from the UK National Child Development Study. We first examine how teenagers divide their time between working and studying. We further analyse what explains teenage wages and labour supply. We utilise a rich set of variables describing parental background, as well as parents‘ labour force status and draw on information on physical stature to explain variations in wages. JEL classification: I20, J20, J31 Received March 26, 1996/Accepted May 16, 1997     

A Comment on Ali Tas˛ıran's `Wage and income effects on the timing and spacing of births in Sweden and in the United States'

This note reviews and evaluates Taşıran's (1995) claim that estimated female wage effects on Swedish fertility dynamics reported by Heckman and Walker (1990) are not robust to the use of microwage data. The results reported here indicate that once individual wage measures have been purged of measurement error, estimated female wage effects are not sensitive to the introduction of microwages. The results reported by Heckman and Walker (1990) persist even with the use of microwage data. Received: 8 March 1996/Accepted: 4 December 2001 I thank Tom MaCurdy, Eric French and two anonymous referees for useful comments. This research was supported by NICHD grants HD-19226 and HD-28685. The usual disclaimer applies. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.