Equality and Income Security in Market Economies: What's Wrong with Insurance?

This article critically assesses the marketization of income security, and identifies links between equality, self‐reliance and welfare reform. Marketization in emergent economies is distinguished by a strong separation between the use of insurance for the mainstream economy and relief for the poor. The impact of this model on the shaping of working lives and on market rigidity is discussed through a review of implications in the areas of subsistence, integrity interests and employment transitions. The broad faith in insurance solutions is argued to derive from a highly abstract approach to welfare reform and to result in a lack of attention to uneven and unstable markets, and to self‐government as a motive to work. Evidence of this emerges from a comparison of insurance in its more ideal form (in Chile) with modified models (Brazil and Korea). In the last two cases a developmental orientation has aided in the provision of broad‐based security. Other factors that appear to enhance the importance of direct assistance are also discussed, including aspects of state administration and labour services that limit work opportunity and individual autonomy in uneven economies. The segregated dual approach to income security is argued to be broadly deficient, but not because insurance is inherently wrong. Countries as diverse as Barbados and Denmark show that more cohesive economies are a better foundation for integrating insurance with general welfare and for income security and individual enterprise broadly conceived.     

Coping with long–term unemployment: economic security, labour market integration and well–being. Results from a Danish panel study, 1994–1999

On the basis of a Danish panel study of the long–term unemployed 1994–1999, the article challenges core premises underlying labour market reforms, assigning too high a priority to work and work incentives, and too little priority to social protection. Economic hardship has become widespread among long–term unemployed even in Denmark, and this is a more serious threat against well–being than unemployment as such. Generous social security, denounced as 'passive support', enables the unemployed to cope with their situation, and there are no signs of any 'dependency culture'. Incentives in terms of economic hardship may stimulate active job seeking but the panel study reveals that it has no positive effect on subsequent labour market integration.     

Effects of Rotation Group Bias on Estimation of Unemployment

Previous analysis of rotation group bias in the Current Population Survey has concluded that if the biases are additive, the ratio and composite estimators of month-to-month change in unemployment are unbiased. This article shows that if the biases contain a multiplicative aspect, both estimators of change are then biased. The article also presents some empirical results that cast doubt on the validity of a purely additive model.     

实施积极的大学生就业政策是构建和谐校园之本

就业是民生之本,实施积极的大学生就业政策是构建社会主义和谐校园之本.西方经济学的失业理论对我国寻求解决大学生就业矛盾的途径有着重要的借鉴意义.我们必须实施积极的大学生就业政策,最终实现解决当前大学生就业问题的重大目标.     

Do displaced workers lose occupational prestige?

Worker displacement has become a common feature of employment in the “flexible economy.” While studies of income losses and the duration of unemployment after displacement abound, and popular accounts argue that workers often lose status, less empirical attention has been paid to the quality or prestige of employment displaced workers are able to secure after a downsizing event. This paper helps to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on changes in occupational prestige among a nationally representative sample of displaced workers who became reemployed from the January 2004 Displaced Workers and Employee Tenure Supplement of the Current Population Survey. Our findings show that displaced workers with higher levels of education, net of other factors, fared significantly better than others in job quality upon reemployment, highlighting the importance of education in retaining status and privilege in the new economy.     

Survey non-response and the duration of unemployment

Summary.  Social surveys are often used to estimate unemployment duration distributions. Survey non-response may then cause a bias. We study this by using a data set that combines survey information of individual workers with administrative records of the same workers. The latter provide information on durations of unemployment and personal characteristics of all survey respondents and non-respondents. We develop a method to distinguish empirically between two explanations for a bias in results based on only survey data: selectivity due to related unobserved determinants of durations of unemployment and non-response and a causal effect of a job exit on non-response. The latter may occur even in fully homogeneous populations. The methodology exploits variation in the timing of the duration outcome relative to the survey moment. The results show evidence for both explanations. We discuss implications for standard methods to deal with non-response bias.     

关于失业现象的理论再分析

失业是市场经济中劳动力供求失衡的必然结果。失业是劳动力在供给与需求上总量的结构失衡。在社会主义市场经济中，失业不仅有其存在的必然性，而且有其积极作用。失业是促进企业内部管理不断改善的有效手段，同时也可以为劳动素质的全面提高提供动力。     

Unemployment and crime: A neighborhood level panel data approach

Twenty-five years ago, David Cantor and Kenneth Land presented a model of the relationship between unemployment and crime. This model showed the complexity of this seemingly simple relationship. Namely, there are two independent and counteracting effects from unemployment that affect crime: motivation and guardianship. In their analysis, Cantor and Land found that the guardianship effect dominates the motivation effect, but subsequent research has questioned this result. In this paper, the unemployment and crime relationship is tested using a neighborhood level hybrid modeling approach. Such a method allows for the nuances of Cantor and Land’s model to be tested at a fine ecological resolution for the first time. It is found that both motivation and guardianship matter for crime, but at different time frames: motivation matters in the long-run whereas guardianship matters in the short-run, similar to what Cantor and Land hypothesized.     

Does the unemployment rate affect the divorce rate? An analysis of state data 1960-2005

We analyzed data from 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1960 to 2005 to study how the unemployment rate and the divorce rate are related. Unemployment is positively related to divorce in a bivariate analysis, but the association is not significant when state and year fixed effects are included in the statistical model. When the sample is divided into time periods, unemployment is negatively and significantly associated with divorce after 1980. These findings provide the strongest support for a “cost of divorce” perspective and suggest that a high rate of unemployment decreases the rate of divorce, net of unobserved time-invariant state characteristics and period (year) trends.     

建国初期共产党人的劳动就业观

建国初期,针对全国经济凋敝、失业严重的经济国情,为缓解因失业而引起的尖锐社会问题,共产党领导人十分重视失业问题,认真研究并试图彻底解决这一问题。共产党领导人认为,新中国失业问题主要是旧中国的“遗产”,失业问题与社会制度有关,旧社会、资本主义制度必然产生而且无法解决失业问题,新社会、新民主主义制度以至社会主义制度一定能够解决失业问题,也不应该长期存在失业现象。共产党领导人主张三个人的饭五个人吃,提出全面劳动就业观。