Informal Caregiving and Women's Work Choices: Lessons from the Netherlands

This paper focuses on the effects of Dutch long‐term care and labour market policies on women's labour market participation and informal caregiving decisions. Labour market participation and informal caregiving are estimated jointly through a multivariate dynamic binary probit on European Community Household Panel data. Under Dutch policy, informal care decisions appear to be independent of household non‐labour income and no significant impediment seems to hinder the contemporaneous practice of work activities and care. However, past informal care provision still slightly reduces the probability of currently working and vice versa, leaving room for policy improvements to enhance labour market participation.     

Cost of Childcare and Female Employment in the UK

Abstract. Mothers of young children may be prevented from working because of the high cost of available, formal childcare. In the UK, the typical cost of a nursery place is more than the average household spends a year on either food or housing. This study examines the extent to which female labour force participation is affected by the cost of formal childcare. The results suggest that childcare price subsidies have a modest impact both on labour force participation and on the use of formal childcare.     

The Labour Market in Macedonia: A Labour Demand Analysis

Abstract. This paper examines the labour market in Macedonia, a country with the highest unemployment rate in Europe. I describe labour market institutions and policies during the transition. I also examine job creation and job destruction using firm‐level data and I estimate short‐term and long‐term elasticities of the labour demand. The analysis shows that there are regulatory barriers to the labour market flexibility. I can also conclude that the privatization of socially owned enterprises has failed to promote job creation. Nevertheless, labour market problems seem to stem from factors other than substantial sluggishness of firms in adjusting employment to variations in wages.     

Employment Spells and Previous Labour Market History

ABSTRACT: In this paper the author analyses the influence of the past labour market history of an individual on the length of employment spells he will experience. Most empirical works emphasize the so called Markov model, which implies that the probability of an individual changing state depends only on the state currently occupied. Using data on the labour market histories of a sample of unemployed persons, we specify and estimate a reduced form model where job separation rates arc a function of the entire labour market history and of variables related to personal characteristics and labour market conditions. The empirical analysis supports the claim that transition probabilities are related to past labour market history.     

Temporary Workers in Italy: Who Are They and Where They End Up

Abstract. Temporary work has been an important component of employment growth in Italy since the early 1990s. This paper focus upon labour market transitions of temporary workers in order to test whether temporary work enhances the subsequent labour market chances. We use propensity score matching to compare subsequent employment outcomes of people who have recently acquired a temporary job with those of people who remained unemployed. Individuals' hetero geneity explains a good amount of the raw differences in the subsequent labour market status of temporary workers and the comparison group. Yet there appears to be a sizable net gain from experiencing a temporary work. Our benchmark average estimate is a 30 percentage points rise in the ‘satisfactory employment’ chances 1 year after the start of the temporary work experience. The net gains are the largest for females and adult people and the areas with low unemployment; moreover, gains are the largest for the most recent years in our sample and for those people who were (according to the propensity score estimates) either least or most likely to exit from unemployment.     

The Older Worker in the Low Countries

Abstract. The paper deals with present, demographically-based problems in highly-developed labour markets, with special reference to the Belgian and Dutch experience. Both sluggish inflow by young cohorts and early retirement by senior workers are analysed. The first of these phenomena can be explained by the falling birth rate and increasing educational levels; the second phenomenon is the result of technological changes in the labour market and a social security system which offers attractive opportunities for early outflow. For companies, this trend translates into a loss of experience and a loss of corporate culture. On top of this, the social security system is coming under heavy pressure and scarcity symptoms are likely to develop on the supply side of the labour market.     

The Management of Redundancies in Europe: The Case of the Netherlands

The paper presents the findings of comparative and interdisciplinary legal and economic study on managing labour redundancies in seven EU member countries. It is structured for comparability between the systems examined. The introductory section contains an account of the evolution of the Dutch labour market, with special reference to redundancy trends, of the features of the programmes for managing redundancies, of the roles of firms and the ‘external environment’ in handling workforce adjustments. The second section presents a map of policies that work to prevent labour redundancies (preventive measures) such as flexibility, training etc. Next, the instruments for handling temporary labour redundancies (retentive measures) are examined (e.g. short-time working, temporary layoffs etc.). The following section is devoted to instruments and programmes involved in the management of permanent labour redundancies (expulsive measures), e.g. collective dismissals, severance pay etc. The final section provides an overall assessment of the Dutch system for managing labour redundancies, and briefly discusses the national debate on the prospects for reform, in light of the principles and policies of convergence set forth by the European Union.     

Early Labour Market Returns to College Subject

Abstract. We estimate early labour market outcomes of Italian university graduates across college subjects. We devote great attention to endogenous selection issues using alternative methods to control for potential self‐selection associated with the choice of the degree subject in order to unravel the causal link between college major and subsequent outcomes in the labour market. Our results suggest that ‘quantitative’ fields (i.e. Sciences, Engineering, and Economics) increase not only the speed of transition into the first job and employment probability but also early earnings, conditional on employment.     

Local Banks Efficiency and Employment

Abstract. This work analyses the links between credit and labour markets highlighting the influence of credit market inefficiencies on employment. We argue that if banks are not efficient in monitoring the borrowers in the presence of asymmetric information, credit market imperfections have real effects. We estimate dynamic equations using system generalized method of moments (GMM) for bank loans and employment on panel data for Italian firms. The system GMM estimates indicate that the impact of credit market on employment is higher where the local financial market is less developed, asymmetric information is widespread, bank managers are less efficient in assessing the firms' solvency and do not use appropriate methods to evaluate the borrowers' payback capacity.     

Beyond demand-control: Emotional labour and symptoms of burnout in teachers

Teaching is a profession that involves a high level of emotional labour. This includes such behaviours as surface acting (displaying an emotion that is not actually felt), deep acting (the activity undertaken to actually feel a required emotion), and suppression of emotion. In many professions, this emotional labour is thought to be related to high levels of burnout. The aim of our study was to show that emotional labour has a unique relationship with burnout that is separate from its relationship with the variables of the Demand Control Support (DCS) model. Emotional labour was studied, together with the variables of the Karasek Job Demand Control Support model, in a random sample of 365 mathematics teachers in the Netherlands. We used the Dutch Questionnaire on Emotional Labor (D-QEL) that measures: (1) surface acting, (2) deep acting, (3) suppression, and (4) emotional consonance. In line with other studies, job characteristics were found to be specifically related to emotional exhaustion. Surface acting was significantly related to depersonalization, and emotional consonance (the absence of emotional labour) was related to personal accomplishment. We conclude that whereas the DCS model has been valuable for understanding emotional exhaustion, emotional labour provides an additional perspective for understanding work stress.     

Labour Market Policy and Employment Growth in Sweden

ABSTRACT: In this paper, the author outlines the Swedish employment situation and traces the history of the labour market policy it generated, from its earliest development at the turn of the century, through to the Rehn-Meidner model, and then examines the various reactions and criticisms against it. It goes on to look at the trends and developments of the labour market in the‘80s, and concludes by making a speculative analysis on if and how the labour market policy has had an effect on the participation of various sectors of the population in the labour force, and if it has influenced unemployment in the Swedish labour market.     

Disability and Labour Supply during Economic Transition: Evidence from Bulgaria

Abstract. This paper focuses on the interrelationship between disability and labour force participation for the adult population in Bulgaria. We estimate simultaneous equation models with discrete endogenous variables to account for the different forms of interdependence between health and labour supply. Using the Bulgarian Integrated Household Surveys conducted in 1995, 1997 and 2001, our econometric results indicate that disability exerts a negative effect on labour participation, but labour supply has little effect on disability. Evidence from panel data also suggests that disability reduces labour force participation.     

Labour Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany: Challenges and Concepts

ABSTRACT: This paper describes how German labour policy, both employment policy and active labour market policies, has developed between 1974 and 1987. Government intervention for full employment in a welfare state, a cooperative system of industrial relations, an active labour market policy, and a comparatively efficient system of vocational and adult education did not prevent the loss of full employment in 1974. But persistent labour market slack until today has not fundamentally changed the climate of relative political and social calm. The basic concepts, programmes and specific measures of labour policies pursued in the FRG are surveyed with special reference to their costs and effects on employment and the structure of unemployment. The challenges to labour policy stem from three complete business cycles around a slightly falling trend in employment and the bad prospectives of the German labour market until the year 2000. Four major measures of labour market policy now reduce registered unemployment by about 400,000 in the mid 1980s. Total costs of unemployment amounting to 57 billion DM per year offer financial alternatives to create jobs and to reduce working hours. Finally, actual proposals under discussion in Germany are examined in order to combat unemployment in a determined commitment to full employment immediately.     

Productivity,Real Wages and Worker Rights: A Cross-National Comparison

ABSTRACT: High unemployment in Europe has led many economists to recommend labour market deregulation — the removal of obstacles to labour market flexibility. These “obstacles” include union power, employment protection legislation and income security arrangements. We argue that such worker rights promote productivity and real wage growse effects. Policy-makers should be aware of these positive effects on productivity and real wage growth when considering curtailing worker rights in order to reduce unemployment.     

Descrepancies between Supply and Demand and Adjustment Processes in the Labour Market

Changes in demand and supply in segments of the labour market will affect the labour market position of workers with an educational background in a related field of study. In one economic tradition such discrepancies between supply and demand are thought to lead to unemployment in the case of excess supply and to unfilled vacancies or skill shortages in the case of excess demand. The other neo‐classical oriented tradition expects wage adjustments to take fully account of these labour market imbalances, leading to higher wages for studies with excess demand and lower wages in case of excess supply. In practice the labour market might, on the one hand, be more flexible than suggested by the first approach, but on the other hand adjustment might be incomplete and not only wages but also other aspects of the employment relationship might be affected by a friction between supply and demand. This study examines the relationship between discrepancies between labour demand and supply on the one hand and manifestations of these tensions in the labour market experience of school‐leavers on the other hand. To investigate this relationship, a random coefficient model has been used, which allows for different adjustment processes for the various educational types, but still makes full use of all the information available in the data. The analyses provide insights about the importance of different adjustment processes and their complementarity and substitutability. We show that on average, supply surpluses lead to pressure to accept jobs at a level which is lower than the school‐leavers educational level, jobs with relatively low wages, and jobs with part‐time contracts. A direct link between supply surpluses and unemployment is only found for a few specific fields of study. Unemployment seems to occur mostly when school‐leavers do not take temporary jobs or jobs below their educational level in case of excess supply.     

Youth Unemployment and Opportunities in the Labour Market – The Myth of Lifelong Hysteresis

This paper examines whether the level of risk of unemployment for recently trained youths in the labour market has lasting effects upon their employment opportunities: will a cohort that enters the labour market during a period of high unemployment have a permanently higher rate of unemployment than one that joins the labour market during a period of low unemployment? The connection between occupational choice and employment status after graduation is also examined The analysis encompasses teachers, engineers and unskilled workers. The conclusion is that troughs and highs in the labour market have a significant but not necessarily permanent effect upon unemployment and placement in different industries.     

The Female Immigrant Labour Supply: The Effect of an In‐work Benefit

We explore the effect of an in‐work benefit on the labour supply of single immigrant women in Sweden. Using a simulation approach, we find that, on average, the in‐work benefit has no effect on the labour supply of these women. However, women with low incomes increase their labour supply, a response that is the strongest among non‐European and Eastern and Southern European women, and is mainly a result of increased participation in the labour market. High‐income earners slightly reduce their working hours. Thus, the results suggest that the in‐work benefit may strengthen the labour market attachment of low‐income immigrant women.     

Long-Term Effects of a Plant Closure: a Multistate Duration Analysis of Event History Data in a Ten-Year Follow-Up Study

This paper discusses the possible effects on future prospects in the labour market of those who suffer a plant closure. A multistate duration model is estimated on monthly event data comprising 172 individuals over ten years, with the occurrence of the plant closure among the regressors. An individual can escape to one of several destinations when exiting one of three origin states (unemployed, sick leave, outside the labour force). Our prime concern has been transitions leading to a new job or to destination states outside the labour force (disability pension and at home, without any social security benefit). We find indications of severe negative long-term effects on employment from a plant closure: long durations in unemployment when searching for new jobs, higher incidence of leaving the labour force, longer periods of sick leave and higher incidence of disability pension. Thus, an adverse shock reducing employment may have negative long-term effects on the labour market through long spells of unemployment and a shrinking labour force. Our findings thus support the hypothesis of hysteresis dynamics in the labour market.     

Beyond demand–control: Emotional labour and symptoms of burnout in teachers

Abstract

Teaching is a profession that involves a high level of emotional labour. This includes such behaviours as surface acting (displaying an emotion that is not actually felt), deep acting (the activity undertaken to actually feel a required emotion), and suppression of emotion. In many professions, this emotional labour is thought to be related to high levels of burnout. The aim of our study was to show that emotional labour has a unique relationship with burnout that is separate from its relationship with the variables of the Demand Control Support (DCS) model. Emotional labour was studied, together with the variables of the Karasek Job Demand Control Support model, in a random sample of 365 mathematics teachers in the Netherlands. We used the Dutch Questionnaire on Emotional Labor (D-QEL) that measures: (1) surface acting, (2) deep acting, (3) suppression, and (4) emotional consonance. In line with other studies, job characteristics were found to be specifically related to emotional exhaustion. Surface acting was significantly related to depersonalization, and emotional consonance (the absence of emotional labour) was related to personal accomplishment. We conclude that whereas the DCS model has been valuable for understanding emotional exhaustion, emotional labour provides an additional perspective for understanding work stress.     

Is Imperfect Competition in the Product Market Relevant for Labour Markets?

Recent research in macroeconomics emphasises the importance of imperfect competition in the product market for labour market outcomes. We investigate one aspect of this issue by specifying a dynamic labour demand model where firms face different degrees of competition in the product market and test its predictions for 299 US manufacturing industries. We find that the long-run equilibrium level of industry employment as well as the speed of labour demand adjustment decreases with market power. Our results imply that imperfect competition in the product market explains part of the observed labour market rigidities and also sheds new light on two “stylized facts” in industrial organisation, the observation of procyclical movements in productivity and price–cost margins in concentrated industries.