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.     

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。     

Age,Wage, and Job Placement: Older Women’s Experiences Entering the Retail Sector

Older women seeking employment often find opportunities limited to low-wage jobs, such as those in retail. We report findings about job placement and starting wages for hourly workers hired at a women’s apparel retailer from August 2006 to December 2009. We examine competing hypotheses regarding the role of age in explaining women’s job placement and starting wages. Although newly hired women age 55+ earn higher wages and are placed in higher-quality jobs than the youngest women (ages 18–22), they are less likely to be placed in better-quality jobs than their midlife counterparts. Overall, wage differences are largely explained by job quality.     

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.     

Measuring immigrant wage growth using matched CPS files

Cross-sectional estimates of immigrant wage growth have painted an optimistic picture of the ability of immigrants to adapt to the U.S. labor market: Studies using cross-sectional data have generally found the wage growth of immigrants to exceed that of the native born. This optimistic picture of immigrant economic assimilation was challenged by the important finding that compared to earlier immigrant cohorts, recent immigrants started at much lower wages. As such, the high wage growth of immigrants relative to the native born measured in cross-sectional data may simply be the spurious result of declining immigrant earnings ability. In this paper, we match Current Population Survey samples so that the wages of individual immigrant and native-born men can be followed for one year. We find that the wage growth of immigrants does exceed that of the native born. The general finding of faster immigrant wage growth also holds when imposing the foreign-born geographic distribution upon natives, but not when imposing the native-born geographic distribution on the foreign born—a result consistent with some theories of immigrant assimilation. In each comparison, however, the actual wage growth of immigrants relative to natives is similar to the predictions of cross-sectional regressions. This similarity suggests that either there is no cohort quality bias in the cross-sectional estimates of immigrant wage growth, or that there has been a coincidental increase in immigrant wage growth as the entry wages of immigrants have fallen.     

Unskilled labor and wage determination: an empirical investigation for Germany

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on native wage impacts of immigration. I propose a mobile-fixed factor distinction as a framework in which to think about the differential impact of immigration on various labor market groups. Skilled workers are treated as a fixed factor of production since the strong reliance on skill certification in Germany inhibits mobility and shelters from competition. Unskilled workers, in contrast, receive competitive wages. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for 1984–1989 I estimate panel wage regressions for groups of workers separated by skill certification. I find that university graduates‘ wages increase, and the wages of workers without postsecondary degree decrease, as the industry share of unskilled workers increases. The effect for apprentices is ambiguous. JEL classification: F22, J31 Received January 19, 1995 / Accepted August 14, 1995     

The effect of work absence on wages and wage gaps in Sweden

We use unique information about short-term absence from the labor market among Swedish employees to investigate the potential wage loss attributed to this type of absence. A reform in the Swedish health insurance system was used as an instrument. The results indicate that women's wages are significantly reduced by work absence due to own sickness, while absence to care for a sick child has no significant wage effect. For men, we find no support for effects on wages from short-term absence. We also show that the distribution of the gender wage gap depends to a large extent on work absence. Received: 29 September 1998/Accepted: 16 April 1999     

Competition, substitution, or discretion: an analysis of Palestinian and foreign guest workers in the Israeli labor market

This paper investigates the effects of foreign workers on labor market outcomes for Palestinian workers in the Israeli labor market. The paper utilizes a micro-dataset on the Palestinian labor force combined with time-series data on foreign workers in Israel. The data covers the period 1999–2003, a period in which Israel enforced a strict closure on labor (and goods) movement, particularly in 2001 and 2002. The evidence suggests that foreign workers in Israel do not affect Palestinian employment; however, an increase in the number of foreign workers in Israel tends to reduce Israeli wages paid to Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli closure policy appears to be the main cause for the substantial reduction in long-run Palestinian employment levels in Israel, not the presence of foreign workers.     

The labor supply of Latinas in the USA: Comparing labor force participation, wages, and hours worked with Anglo and Black women

This study explores the determinants of labor supply patterns among Latinas in the USA. We use recent microeconomic data from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics/Latino National Political Survey (PSID-LNPS) to estimate models of labor force participation, wages, and hours worked for a sample of Cuban, Mexican, and Puerto Rican women. We estimate the same models for Anglo and Black women in order to explore ethnic differences in the impact of characteristics affecting both the reservation and the market wage. We find that differences exist in the return to characteristics, such as education, but that there are also substantial differences in the levels of those characteristics across ethnic groups. The low wage rates and labor market activity of Latinas relative to Anglo and Black women are thus likely to be the combined result of lower investments in human capital and larger family size, the greater negative impact of macroeconomic conditions, and a stronger responsiveness to wages. Among Latinas, we find that there are differences in labor market outcomes between national origin and nativity groups. We also find that age at arrival and years in the USA play a role in labor supply, and that this is particularly true for Puerto Rican women.     

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。     

Is Local Social Development Associated with Workforce Composition? A Municipal Analysis of Mexico, 1990–2015

A critical development goal involves reducing subsistence farming and encouraging entrepreneurship and formal sector employment. A growing number of studies examine cross-national variation in the rates of subsistence farming, marginal self-employment, formal employment, and prosperous entrepreneurship by level of development. However, despite significant regional disparities in development within most low-to-middle-income countries, little is known about how development at the local level is associated with labor market patterns. Using a pooled cross section containing four waves of data from the Mexican Census (1990–2015), this study investigates the relationship between social development and municipal workforce composition. In the 1980s, Mexico initiated an ambitious and multipronged development agenda intended to reduce extreme regional disparities in educational attainment, housing quality, access to utilities, and poverty. This study measures social development using a multi-dimensional measure that captures educational attainment, housing quality, access to utilities, and poverty. Laborers are separated into employed, own-account workers, and employers, with each category divided into agricultural and non-agricultural. In a second set of analyses, non-agricultural own-account workers are categorized as high and low growth potential and non-agricultural wage workers are separated into informal and formal sector. Results from fixed effects regression models indicate that local development significantly reduces the rate of own-account agricultural work and increases non-agricultural wage labor and employer self-employment. As less developed areas advance, the largest initial increase in non-agricultural work is in the informal sector. But, in more developed communities, social development increasingly predicts growth in formal sector employment and more selective entry into non-agricultural own-account work. The findings suggest that investment in community-level social development has the potential to reduce subsistence self-employment, encourage formal sector work, and promote entrepreneurship. Yet, the greatest gains occur in communities that already have mid to high levels of social development.     

Wages and employment of French workers with African origin

Our study focuses on the differences in wages and employment between French workers with French parents and French workers with at least one African parent, using the Formation Qualification Professionnelle survey (Insee, Paris, 2003). We introduce econometric decompositions, which allow us to reach conclusions when the potentially discriminated group is small. Then, we clarify the impact of discrimination at the hiring level in this context. We find that unexplained parts in the employment decompositions are much larger than in the wage decompositions. This suggests that, in France, labor market discrimination is more frequent at the hiring level than in the compensation process.     

On financing the internal enforcement of illegal immigration policies

"We introduce a government budget constraint into an illegal immigration model, and show that the effect of increasing internal enforcement of immigration laws on the host country's disposable national income depends on the mix of employer fines and income taxation used to finance the added enforcement. These issues are addressed under alternative assumptions about (a) the ability of host country employers to discern between legal and illegal workers, and (b) host country labor market conditions. Empirical evidence for the United States indicates that the employer sanctions program may have had a negative impact on disposable national income."     

工资上涨会降低我国的比较优势吗？

低廉的劳动力成本一直是我国参与国际分工的比较优势,但近几年随着我国劳动力工资水平的提高,很多发达国家逐渐将产品的生产外包业务转至它国。对此,本文搜集了我国28个产业的数据,分析工资对产品价格变动的影响程度。结果表明工资与制造业各行业的比较优势具有正相关关系,但工资上升并没有对其比较优势产生根本性转变,主要原因在于劳动生产率的上升快于工资水平的上升,这在一定程度上抵消了工资上涨对比较优势的负面效应。     

The effect of the sex composition of jobs on starting wages in an organization: Findings from the NLSY

We show that individuals in a job with a higher percentage of females earn lower starting wages with an employing organization. This holds true with controls for individuals’ human capital, job demands for skill or difficult working conditions, and detailed industry. We use a measure of sex composition that applies to detailed jobs: cells in a three-digit census occupation by three-digit census industry matrix. We use pooled panel data from the 19791987 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The unit of analysis is the spell-the time in which a person worked for one organization. The dependent variable is the first wage in the spell. We use models with fixed-effects to control for unmeasured, unchanging individual characteristics; we also show results from OLS and weighted models for comparison. The negative effect on wages of the percentage female in one’s job is robust across procedures for black women, white women, and white men. For black men the sign is always negative but the coefficient is often nonsignificant.     

基于省级面板数据的劳动者工资扭曲测度

本文利用1999—2012年省级面板数据,基于C-D生产函数对我国各省历年劳动者工资扭曲指数进行测度。研究结果发现：（1）我国各省劳动者工资普遍存在向下扭曲;（2）劳动者工资扭曲指数的时间趋势表现为先升后降,近4年趋于稳定的态势;（4）劳动者工资扭曲的省际差异的变动轨迹为：先逐渐缩小,再大幅度频繁波动,后平缓缩小;（4）劳动者工资扭曲存在地区差异,扭曲程度从高到低依次为东部地区、中部地区和西部地区。（5）劳动者工资扭曲指数并不完全取决于当地实际工资水平。由此,本文建议是：制定抑制地区间恶性引资竞争的宏观政策,建立以贸易利益最大化为目标的贸易发展模式,完善劳动力市场制度化建设,加强法律和工会对劳动者权益的保护,完善社会保障制度,扩大财政支出,从而减轻劳动者工资扭曲程度。     

Employment gains and wage declines: The erosion of black women’s relative wages since 1980

Public policy initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s, including Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity law, helped mitigate explicit discrimination in pay, and the expansion of higher education and training programs have advanced the employment fortunes of many American women. By the early 1980s, some scholars proclaimed near equity in pay between black and white women, particularly among young and highly skilled workers. More recent policy initiatives and labor market conditions have been arguably less progressive for black women’s employment and earnings: through the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, the wage gap between black and white women widened considerably. Using data from the Current Population Survey Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS-MORG), this article documents the racial wage gap among women in the United States from 1979 to 2005. We investigate how demographic and labor market conditions influence employment and wage inequality among black and white women over the period. Although shifts in labor supply influence the magnitude of the black-white wage gap among women, structural disadvantages faced by black women help explain the growth in the racial wage gap.     

城市工资上涨、劳动力转移与投资拉动增长方式——基于中国地级城市面板数据的分析

改革开放后,中国以高投资率带动了城市经济的高速增长,但随着农村剩余劳动力存量的不断减少,劳动力供给增长开始跟不上高投资带来的劳动力需求的增长,城市经济的发展正面临着工资加速上涨、投资的产出与就业效应不断降低的挑战。文章利用2004～2009年中国地级城市面板数据进行实证分析,结果显示,城市工资上涨对劳动力供给的拉力是递减的,而对劳动力需求的抑制作用却是递增的;劳动力市场均衡的比较静态分析结果显示,投资的工资上涨效应在递增,而投资的产出与就业效应在递减,因此城市工资上涨是必然趋势。此外,工资上涨对外商直接投资有明显抑制作用,在国内外双重压力下,中国继续实行投资拉动的增长方式已不是明智的选择。     

The declining significance of race among American men during The latter half of the twentieth century

The extent to which racial minority groups face discrimination in the labor market is the subject of considerable debate. Using William J. Wilson's thesis of the declining significance of race as our theoretical context, we provide further empirical evidence about labor market discrimination by investigating wages among African American, American Indian, Chinese American, Hispanic white, Japanese American, and non-Hispanic white men. We find, during the period before the civil rights movement, that a substantively significant wage disadvantage is evident for these minority groups with controls for observed labor force characteristics. In recent data, these net disadvantages are reduced substantially for each of these groups except Hispanics. With the exception of Hispanics, the results support Wilson's thesis.     

The timing of maternity in the Netherlands

In this paper the timing of maternity is estimated by a hazard model. The novel aspect of this paper is that it is shown that wages and total household labor income have a significant effect on the timing of maternity. Both the wage rate of the woman and the wage rate of the husband have a negative effect on the timing of maternity. Total household labor income increases the probability of having a child at an earlier age. Calculated elasticities show that the timing of maternity is relatively elastic with respect to wage rates. However, the elasticities of the decision whether or not to have children altogether are much smaller. Women working in the labor market delay the timing of maternity compared to non-participating women. Attending school has the same effect. Until the age of 28 the maternity hazard increases with age, after that it decreases.We benefited from comments on previous drafts by Siv Gustafsson, Joop Hartog, Peter Kee, Herriette Maassen van den Brink, Eddie Mekkelholt, Joop Odink, Hessel Oosterbeek, Hans van Ophem, Gusta Renes, Andre Voskamp, two anonymous referees, and the Managing Editor of this Journal. This paper is a revised version of a paper presented at the third annual meeting of the European Society for Population Economics, Paris, June 1989. The usual disclaimer applies.