In traditional couple formation males seem to attach more value to attractiveness and women seem to focus on earnings potentials. A new GLO Discussion Paper finds in an online dating field experiment that job status or job prestige does not play a role for initial contact interest for both sexes.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Research exploiting data on classic (offline) couple formation has confirmed predictions from evolutionary psychology in a sense that males attach more value to attractiveness and women attach more value to earnings potential. We examine whether these human partner preferences survive in a context of fewer search and social frictions. We do this by means of a field experiment on the mobile dating app Tinder, which takes a central place in contemporary couple formation. Thirty-two fictitious Tinder profiles that randomly differ in job status and job prestige are evaluated by 4,800 other, real users. We find that both males and females do not use job status or job prestige as a determinant of whom to show initial interest in on Tinder. However, we do see evidence that, after this initial phase, males less frequently begin a conversation with females when those females are unemployed but also then do not care about the particular job prestige of employed females.
A new GLO Discussion Paper discusses the US gun-related murder rate and places it in an international perspective, where the US rate is 27 times the average rate for 22 other developed countries; and the gun ownership rate is over five times higher so that the murder rate per gun is 5 times higher.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper examines the US gun-related murder (GM) rate and places it in an international perspective. The data show that the US GM rate is 27 times the average rate for 22 other developed countries (ODC). Its gun ownership rate is 5.4 times that of ODC and the murder rate per gun is 5 times that of ODC. Thus, as is done in the paper, an effective reduction of the US GM rate requires an analysis of both the high gun ownership rate and the high murder rate per gun. The paper examines about fifteen gun-policy reforms – including their impact, cost, structure for maximum benefit – and other reforms affecting the GM rate. It also looks at the GM impact of immigration and of programs that provide alternative life pursuits for young men at risk. It further presents a number of policy implications and some new proposals designed to reduce the GM rate. Four appendices provide 1) results from two recent opinion polls on gun-policy reforms, 2) a detailed analysis of the relationship between gun ownership and the GM rate, 3) calculations of gun buyback costs, and 4) a correction of existing results on the Brady Bill’s impact on gun ownership.
The GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of October investigates the economic effects of sector-wide bargaining agreements in Portugal, finding that extensions may contribute to unemployment and firm closure.
Author Abstract:Many governments extend the coverage of collective agreements to
workers and employers that were not involved in their bargaining. These
extensions may address coordination
issues but may also distort competition by imposing sector-specific
minimum wages and
other work conditions that are not suitable for some firms and workers.
In this paper,
we analyse the impact of such extensions along several economic margins.
Drawing on
worker- and firm-level monthly data for Portugal, a country where
extensions have been
widespread, and the scattered timing of the extensions, we find that,
while continuing
workers experience wage increases following an extension, formal
employment and wage
bills in the relevant sectors fall, on average, by 2%. These results
increase by about 25%
across small firms and are driven by reduced hirings. In contrast, the
employment and
wage bills of independent contractors, who are not subject to labour law
or collective
bargaining, increases by over 1% following an extension.
GLO DP Team Senior
Editors: Matloob Piracha (University of Kent) & GLO; Klaus F.
Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and Bonn University). Managing Editor: Magdalena Ulceluse, University of Groningen. DP@glabor.org
The Department of Economics at Macquarie University in collaboration with Macquarie University Centre for Health Economy (MUCHE) and Global Labor Organization (GLO) are organizing an international conference entitled the Economics of Health, Inequality and Behavior (WEHIB). It takes place at Macquarie University, Sydney/Australia, 11-13 November 2019. This multidisciplinary event aims to foster dialogue among social scientists on the nexus between health, behavior, and inequality across developed and developing societies.
The event is chaired by Kompal Sinha, a Senior Lecturer and HDR Director at the Department of Economics of Macquarie University. Sinha is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Economics and the GLO Research Cluster Lead for Development, Health Inequality and Behavior. Keynote speakers are Lisa Cameron (University of Melbourne), Andrew Jones (University of York), and Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University & GLO).
A new GLO Discussion Paper reviews this timely issue for the digital labor markets where labor-intensive services are traded by matching requestors (employers and/or consumers) and providers (workers).
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This critical and scoping review essay analyses digital labour markets where labour-intensive services are traded by matching requesters (employers and/or consumers) and providers (workers). It first discusses to what extent labour platform can be treated as two-sided or multi-sided markets, and the implications of these classifications. It then moves to address the legal and regulatory issues implied by these technologies. From a theoretical point of view, using a framework where innovation is not neutral in the labour market, platforms have implications for the quantity of jobs, for the kind of skills and tasks which are exchanged, and in terms of bargaining power of the contracting parties. It includes a critical evaluation of the empirical evidence from a variety of sources.
A new GLO Discussion Paper revealsthat in the Netherlands good social contacts and a good mastery of the native language enhance immigrants’ economic performance.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Using longitudinal data on immigrants in the Netherlands from the survey ‘Social Position and Use of Public Facilities by Immigrants’ (SPVA) for the years 1991, 1994, 1998, 2002, we examined the impacts of social contacts and Dutch language proficiency on adult foreign-born men’s earnings, employment and occupational status. On average, social contacts and a good mastery of the Dutch language enhance immigrants’ economic performances. The effects are much stronger for immigrants with low-skill-transferability than for immigrants with high-skill-transferability, are stronger for economic migrants than for non-economic migrants, and are stronger for white-collar workers than for blue-collar workers. Contact with Dutch people and Dutch organisations unambiguously enhances all aspects of immigrants’ economic performance, however, no evidence is found for a positive effect of co-ethnic contact on employment status. To deal with the endogeneity between Dutch language ability and earnings, an interaction term between age at migration and a dichotomous variable for a non-Dutch-speaking origin is used as the identifying instrument. The selectivity issue of survey respondents was tackled as well to validate the main findings. The study has a strong policy implication for integration policies in the Netherlands, or more broadly in the immigrant receiving countries.
A new GLO Discussion Paper demonstrates that the Italian occupational structure is strongly hierarchical, with the locus of power distinct by the locus of knowledge generation.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
GLO Fellows Dario Guarascio & Maria Enrica Virgillito
Author Abstract: Which type of work do Italians perform? In this contribution we aim at detecting the anatomy of the Italian occupational structure by taking stock of a micro-level dataset registering the task content, the execution of procedures, the knowledge embedded in the work itself, called ICP (Indagine Campionaria sulle Professioni), the latter being comparable to the U.S. O*NET dataset. We perform an extensive empirical investigation moving from the micro to the macro level of aggregation. Our results show that the Italian occupational structure is strongly hierarchical, with the locus of power distinct by the locus of knowledge generation. It is also weak in terms of collaborative and worker involvement practices, and possibility to be creative. Our analysis allows to pinpoint the role exerted by hierarchical structures, decision making autonomy, and knowledge as the most relevant attributes characterizing the division of labour.
A new GLO Discussion Paper surveys evidence in the literature that trans people’s self-esteem and self-respect can be enhanced by policy makers’ positive actions to promote inclusivity at the workplace.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
GLO Fellows Nick Drydakis, Katerina Sidiropoulou and Anna Paraskevopoulou
Author Abstract: This study provides empirical patterns regarding trans people’s self-esteem-oriented reflections during observations of positive workplace actions. The case of a 2015 UK workplace guide is utilized to fulfill our aims. We adopt Rawls’ political philosophy framework in order to evaluate whether trans people’s self-esteem-oriented concepts might be enhanced by policy makers’ positive actions. The study does find that trans people’s self-esteem and self-respect are enhanced by policy makers’ positive actions to promote inclusivity in the workplace. Due to these actions trans people feel more accepted, valued and trusted by the government. We suggest that if a workplace policy is perceived to be recognizing trans people’s worth this may be internalized, resulting in positive self-evaluations by trans people. In addition, we present empirical patterns from HR departments which have been aware of the workplace guide. HR officers suggest that the workplace guide informs their strategies, and positively affects the creation of a more inclusive workplace culture, the corporate profiles of their firms and staff organizational behaviours (such as, achieving results, fostering collegiality, reducing complaints) and addresses LGBT business and trans staff-members’ needs. We suggest that if employers adopt policy makers’ positive workplace policies aiming to increase inclusivity, they may be able to realize positive organizational outcomes in their firms.
Contributions to school-to-work transitions: vocational training, skill mismatch and policy
The persistently high youth unemployment rates in many countries are of major concern in society and a challenge for researchers to provide evidence for policy-making (Francesco Pastore and Zimmermann, 2019; Zimmermann et al., 2013). Recent interest has concentrated on a better understanding of the role of specific institutional features of different school-to-work transition (SWT) regimes in affecting the youth labor market performance (Pastore, 2015a, b).
To foster this academic debate, the Global Labor Organization (GLO) had created in 2017 the GLO School-to-Work Transition Cluster under the leadership of Francesco Pastore. From this initiative, a first set of seven research papers were published in a special issue on “Advances on School-to-Work Transitions” (International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40, No. 3) edited by Francesco Pastore and Klaus F. Zimmermann. In a second round, seven additional contributions in this special issue, Part II, deal with the role of vocational training, overeducation and skill mismatch and labor market conditions and policy for the SWT. We provide a brief guide into the value added to our understanding of this important process.
Vocational training
A significant part of the literature expects from vocational education or training an important role in SWT. Is it more important than general education? This crucial question is addressed by Huzeyfe Torun and Semih Tumen (Do vocational high school graduates have better employment outcomes than general high school graduates?). They attempt to reveal causal effects of vocational high school education on employment relative to general high school education using Turkish census data. Initial OLS estimates support the superiority of vocational training for employment performance, but the findings get only qualified backing by instrumental-variable (IV) estimates. While the effects are still positive when IV methods are employed, they are only statistically significant for measures capturing the availability of vocational high school education but not for the inclusion of town-level controls or town fixed effects.
If vocational training is relevant, it should be the focus of
significant policy measures. An innovative study by Elena Cappellini,
Marialuisa Maitino, Valentina Patacchini, Nicola Sciclone (Are
traineeships stepping-stones for youth working careers in Italy?)
documents the role of traineeships as an active labor market policy in
Italy. The evaluation study relies on administrative data where a
counterfactual approach was used to compare trainees to unemployed young
people registered with Public Employment Services with respect to
employment success measured as hiring, job quality and persistence. The
paper concludes that traineeships may delay the transition to work, but
can open youngsters’ perspectives for a quality career in the long term.
To broaden and complete the picture, Irene Brunetti and Lorenzo Corsini (School-to-work transition and vocational education: a comparison across Europe) examine the impact of the types of vocational education across 11 European countries using the 2009 and 2014 European Union Labor Force Survey. Eichhorst et al. (2015) had classified vocational education and training strategies into school-based vocational education and training (as part of upper secondary education), formal apprenticeships, and dual vocational training: Which vocational systems show better results? Multinomial probit models provide indications that dual vocational training speeds up SWT and the vocational focus is particularly effective here.
Overeducation and skill mismatch
Skill mismatches including overeducation are important aspects of SWT
affecting labor market success in many ways. Two further studies
dealing with those issues in a more global country setting are involving
data from the Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan. Ghassan Dibeh, Ali Fakih and
Walid Marrouch (Employment and skill mismatch among youth in Lebanon)
were estimating a bivariate probit model where employment status and
skill mismatch perceptions for the labor market were jointly modeled.
Employability and skill mismatch were found jointly determined for males
and the core region only.
Kamalbek Karymshakov and Burulcha Sulaimanova (The school-to-work
transition, overeducation and wages of youth in Kyrgyzstan) study
overeducation and the impact on wages using Mincer type OLS regressions.
The propensity score matching method is applied to deal with potential
unobserved heterogeneity. Mismatch in the SWT process is studied
employing the Kaplan-Meier failure analysis. Tertiary education
correlates highly with being employed with a good match. Overeducated
workers reflecting the required level of education for a certain
position receive lower wages than those with suitable matches. However,
those individuals judging their education or qualifications to be larger
than necessary have higher wages.
Labor market conditions and policy
Are local labor market conditions an important driver of
post-compulsory schooling decisions and how this vary by gender? Elena
Francesca Meschi, Joanna Swaffield and Anna Vignoles (The role of local
labour market conditions and youth attainment on post-compulsory
schooling decisions) investigate this using the 2006/2007 wave of the
Longitudinal Study of Young People in England survey coupled with
individual-level attainment and school-based data available through
national administrative databases and local labor market data. Their
nested logit model shows that the most relevant factors behind
post-compulsory schooling decisions are expected wages, current
educational attainment and attitudes to school and parental aspirations.
How can labor policy foster the fast integration of young individuals
into the labor market? Stefan Sonke Speckesser, Francisco Jose Gonzalez
Carreras and Laura Kirchner Sala (Active labour market policies for
young people and youth unemployment: An analysis based on aggregate
data) provide a paper using European Union 27 countries Eurostat data
for 1996–2012. The findings suggest that wage subsidies and job creation
programs have reduced youth unemployment effectively. However, the
20–24-year-old unemployed benefit more than the very young.
References
Eichhorst, W., Rodríguez-Planas, N., Schmidl, R. and Zimmermann, K.F. (2015), “A roadmap to vocational education and training in industrialized countries”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 68 No. 2, pp. 314-337.
Francesco Pastore, F. and Zimmermann, K.F. (2019), “Understanding school-to-work transitions”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 374-378.
Pastore, F. (2015a), The Youth Experience Gap: Explaining National Differences in the School-to- Work Transition, Springer International Publishing, Heidelberg.
Pastore, F. (2015b), “The European Youth Guarantee: labor market context, conditions and opportunities in Italy”, IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Vol. 4.
Zimmermann, K., Biavaschi, C., Eichhorst, W., Giulietti, C., Kendzia, M.J., Muravyev, A., Pieters, J., Rodrìguez-Planas, N. and Schmidl, R. (2013), “Youth unemployment and vocational training”, Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics, Vol. 9 Nos 1-2, pp. 1-157.
Pastore, F. and Zimmermann, K. (2019), “Contributions to school-to-work transitions: vocational training, skill mismatch and policy”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 1361-1363. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-11-2019-420
Torun, H. and Tumen, S. (2019), “Do vocational high school graduates have better employment outcomes than general high school graduates?”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 1364-1388. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-11-2017-0314
Cappellini, E., Maitino, M., Patacchini, V. and Sciclone, N. (2019), “Are traineeships stepping-stones for youth working careers in Italy?”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 1389-1410. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-03-2018-0099
Brunetti, I. and Corsini, L. (2019), “School-to-work transition and vocational education: a comparison across Europe”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 1411-1437. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-02-2018-0061
Dibeh, G., Fakih, A. and Marrouch, W. (2019), “Employment and skill mismatch among youth in Lebanon”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 1438-1457. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-02-2018-0073
Karymshakov, K. and Sulaimanova, B. (2019), “The school-to-work transition, overeducation and wages of youth in Kyrgyzstan”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 1458-1481. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-02-2018-0054
Meschi, E., Swaffield, J. and Vignoles, A. (2019), “The role of local labour market conditions and pupil attainment on post-compulsory schooling decisions”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 1482-1509. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-11-2017-0303
Speckesser, S., Gonzalez Carreras, F. and Kirchner Sala, L. (2019), “Active labour market policies for young people and youth unemployment”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 1510-1534. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-03-2018-0100
On October 31, 2019 GLO President Zimmermann arrived in Ningbo after his visit at Lexin University in Shanghai. At the University of Nottingham Ningbo/China, Globalisation and Economic Policy Centre (GEP), he participated on November 1-2 at the 11th GEP China Conference: “Globalisation with Chinese Characteristics: The Belt and Road Initiative, International Trade and FDI”. He investigated the upcoming B&R research presented at the meeting, followed on November 1 the “World Economy China Lecture” of Justin Yifu Lin (Peking University) on “The Rise of China and the Belt and Road Initiative” and gave on November 2 his own “Distinguished GEP China Lecture” on “Global Labor Challenges and the B&R Initiative”. GLO Fellow Minghai Zhou of the University of Nottingham Ningbo had introduced Zimmermann and chaired his lecture and the following intensive discussions. Zimmermann also gave a longer interview to a team of student journalists from the Ningbo Economic Review. Full Conference Program. More details and pictures on the Ningbo visit see Report 1 and Report 2.
As Zimmermann outlined in his keynote, the globalization of work is a necessary process in the evolution of human specialization of work to improve efficiency and to increase welfare. In the face of adjustment costs during transition and development, societies may ignore this for some time, but this comes with welfare losses. The keynote lecture discussed the role of global labor in the context of the great human challenges of our time: demography, urbanization, the technological revolutions at the work place, climate change, migration, and populism. The lecture contributed to the understanding of these challenges, and how global labor can foster welfare. While the benefits of labor mobility are more and more debated around the globe, in particular in the United States, Europe, and Australia, the Asian and African nations follow a different approach. China is the most mobile nation of the globe. Through its internal migration and the B&R initiative it strongly contributes to general welfare. But China needs to observe the global labor challenges, in particular the aging issue and the international migration pressures to be able to act properly. It has security issues as well as it needs food and natural resources.
On his recent trip to China, GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann had reached Shanghai on October 28. There he met his local hosts at theShanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, Wenxuan Hou, Chair in Corporate Finance, University of Edinburgh Business School and Lixin University, and Yun Zhang, Associate Dean of the School of Finance, Lixin University. He was also warmly welcomed by the President of the University, Li Shiping. They discussed the perspectives of higher education and models of international collaboration. On October 29, Zimmermannprovided a general lecture on the merits of global labor economics. The event was chaired by GLO Fellow Wenxuan Hou. China is the most mobile country of the world; it needs globalization to deal with the challenges of demographic change and security as well as the need of food and natural resources.
President Li Shiping (left) & Associate Dean Yun Zhang (right)
A new GLO Discussion Paper reveals a predominance of empirical results in the academic literature supporting a negative association between students’ frequency of smartphone use and their academic success.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We present the first systematic review of the scientific literature on smartphone use and academic success. We synthesise the theoretical mechanisms, empirical approaches, and empirical findings described in the multidisciplinary literature to date. Our analysis of the literature reveals a predominance of empirical results supporting a negative association between students’ frequency of smartphone use and their academic success. However, the strength of this association is heterogeneous by (a) the method of data gathering, (b) the measures of academic performance used in the analysis, and (c) the measures of smartphone use adopted. The main limitation identified in the literature is that the reported associations cannot be given a causal interpretation. Based on the reviewed findings and limitations, directions for further research are discussed.
A new GLO Discussion Paperreviews the growing body of research in economics which concentrates on the education gender gap and its evolution, over time and across countries.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper reviews the growing body of research in economics which concentrates on the education gender gap and its evolution, over time and across countries. The survey first focuses on gender differentials in the historical period that roughly goes from 1850 to the 1940s and documents the deep determinants of the early phase of female education expansion, including pre-industrial conditions, religion, and family and kinship patterns. Next, the survey describes the stylized facts of contemporaneous gender gaps in education, from the 1950s to the present day, accounting for several alternative measures of attainment and achievement and for geographic and temporal differentiations. The determinants of the gaps are then summarized, while keeping a strong emphasis on an historical perspective and disentangling factors related to the labor market, family formation, psychological elements, and societal cultural norms. A discussion follows of the implications of the education gender gap for multiple realms, from economic growth to family life, taking into account the potential for reverse causation. Special attention is devoted to the persistency of gender gaps in the STEM and economics fields.
You have labor and migration research dealing with well-being in a development context? Consider to contribute to the GLO/EHERO Special Sessions on Well-beingat the18th International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies ISQOLS Annual Conference on August 25-28, 2020 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Note that the Submission deadline is January 15, 2020.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) and the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization (EHERO) are organizing several special sessions at the 18th ISQOLS Conference (August 25-28, 2020, Rotterdam). We welcome submissions from the economics discipline related to two themes: “Labor, Development, and Well-being” and “Migration, Politics, and Well-being Research”.
Contributions to the theme “Labor, Development, and Well-being” can address topics related, but not limited, to the well-being causes and consequences of development, labor market arrangements, or migration.
Submissions for the theme “Migration, Politics and Well-being Research” can focus on the well-being causes and consequences of migration and migration policy and subjective well-being effects on political behavior, among others.
Presentation format
Each 90-minute special session will feature three papers. Each presentation will last 20 minutes, followed by 10-minute remarks by a discussant and a general discussion. We hope that this format will allow for a workshop-like atmosphere and more in-depth discussions of the individual papers.
Abstract
and paper submission
Please submit a short abstract (250 words) by January 15, 2020 to https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=isqols2020 and choose the symposium “GLO/EHERO Well-being Sessions” when submitting. Before the conference, we will contact you for submission of the full paper.
ISQOLS 2020
These sessions are part of the ISQOLS 2020 conference and conference fees for this conference have to be paid accordingly. More information on www.isqols2020.com
GLO – EHERO organizers
Dr. Milena Nikolova (University of Groningen and GLO), Dr. Martijn Hendriks (EHERO) and Dr. Martijn Burger (EHERO)
On the initiative of GLO Fellow Dorothea Schäfer, we post the launching of the XPRESS project funded by @EU_H2020 under GA 857831.
The XPRESS project gives support to public procurement to facilitate the collaboration between Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and the public sector for the development and adoption of RES (Renewable Energy Sources) in regions. It also investigates the role of public procurement in promoting innovations and technological change toward RES, including its role in facilitating SMEs’ financial access and funding opportunities. XPRESS will demonstrate the positive impact of innovative Green Public Procurement on cities, municipalities and SMEs in terms of energy savings, energy efficiency and lower carbon emissions.
The Annual Conference 2019 on “Bilding Bridges” of The Academy of Europe – Academia Europaea (AE), took place on October 23-25, 2019 in Barcelona. AE welcomed a large number of new members, including GLO Fellows Marco Vivarelli (Università Cattolica-Milano) and Douglas S. Massey (Princeton University), and saw a larger number of academic sessions of high quality and interest. Klaus F. Zimmermann, Professor Emeritus of Bonn University, UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and President of the Global Labor Organization was also present in his role as Chair of the AE Section “Economics, Business and Management Sciences”. More pictures.
In a joint meeting of AE Classes A1 (Humanities) and A2 (Social and Related Sciences) chaired by AE Class Chairs Poul Holm (Trinity College Dublin, A1) and Björn Wittrock (Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, A2), Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge, provided a lecture on “Counting People”. Her contribution was debated by Kirsten Drotner (University of Southern Denmark) and a very lively discussion of the members of both classes. The two AE Erasmus Medal Award winners gave their lectures on “Re-imagining the Nation: Memory, Identity and the Emotions” (Aleida Assmann, University of Konstanz) and “Realising Children’s Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment” (Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics).
Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge, speaks on “Counting People”
Zimmermann and Class Chairs Björn Wittrock (A2) and Poul Holm (A1) (left to right)
Kirsten Drotner, Poul Holm, Marilyn Strathern & Björn Wittrock (left to right)
Aleida Assmann, University of Konstanz, Erasmus Medal Lecture I
Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics, Erasmus Medal Lecture II
Oded Galor, an eminent and very influential economist, has originated three influential research fields that are central to macro history and the study of the evolution of human resources. He is the founder of Unified Growth Theory, has pioneered the study of the interaction between the evolution of human and cultural traits and the process of economic development, and he has recently pioneered the examination of the implications of the exodus of anatomically modern humans from Africa, on the observed variations in social cohesion and productivity across the globe. MORE DETAILS.
He is a GLO Fellow, Editor of the Journal of Population Economics and the Journal of Economic Growth. To honor his contributions to economics, he just received his Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Poznan and he delivered the prestigious Copernican Lecture in the Nicolaus Copernicus University in the magnificent medieval town of Torun (UNESCO World Heritage). The lecture that was attended by nearly 500 scientists (astronomers, physicists, mathematicians, biologists, and economists), took place at the magnificent, Artus Court, in the center of ancient Torun.
Award Ceremony – Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Poznan
The Copernican Lecture on “The Journey of Humanity – Roots of Inequality in the Wealth of Nations”, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Artus Court in Torun.
A new GLO Discussion Paperreviews challenges and perspectives of work policies affecting the well-being of trans people.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: For trans people (i.e. people whose gender is not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth) evidence suggests that transitioning (i.e. the steps a trans person may take to live in the gender with which they identify) positively affects positivity towards life, extraversion, ability to cope with stress, optimism about the future, self-reported health, social relations, self-esteem, body image, enjoyment of tasks, personal performance, job rewards and relations with colleagues. These relationships are found to be positively affected by gender affirmation and support from family members, peers, schools and workplaces, stigma prevention programs, coping intervention strategies, socioeconomic conditions, anti-discrimination policies, and positive actions. Also important are legislation including the ability to change one’s sex on government identification documents without having to undergo sex reassignment surgery, accessible and affordable transitioning resources, hormone therapy, surgical treatments, high-quality surgical techniques, adequate preparation and mental health support before and during transitioning, and proper follow-up care. Societal marginalization, family rejection, violations of human and political rights in health care, employment, housing and legal systems, gendered spaces, and internalization of stigma can negatively affect trans people’s well-being and integration in societies. The present study highlights that although transitioning itself can bring well-being adjustments, a transphobic environment may result in adverse well-being outcomes. Policy makers should aim to facilitate transitioning and create cultures of inclusion in different settings, such as schools, workplaces, health services and justice.
On September 12-13, 2019 the 34th Annual Conference of the Italian Association of Labour Economists (AIEL) took place in Novara/Italy. During the conference, a joint session AIEL-CCME/GLO was organized. Please find here the program with the speakers in bold, the bio of the speakers and the paper abstracts. The report was provided by Francesco Pastore (University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli), GLO Country Lead Italy and GLO Thematic Cluster Lead School-to-Work Transition.
2.6 Joint Session AIEL-CCME / GLO
Organizer and chair: GLO Fellow Enkelejda Havari (European Commission JRC)
Antonella Rocca (University of Naples Parthenope), Floro Ernesto Caroleo (University of Naples Parthenope and GLO), Francesco Pastore (University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli and GLO), Claudio Quintano (University of Naples Parthenope): The School-to-Work Transition: What Affects Mainly its Duration?
Elena Claudia Meroni (European Commission JRC), Daniela Piazzalunga (Università di Verona), Chiara Pronzato (Università di Torino): Use of Extra-school Time and Child Behaviour
Enkelejda Havari (European Commission JRC and GLO), Franco Peracchi (Georgetown University, EIEF and University of Rome “Tor Vergata”): Intergenerational Effects of War on Education: Evidence from World War II in Europe
Silvia Granato (University of Warwick): Early Influences and the Gender Gap in STEM
Antonella Rocca
Elena Claudia Meroni
Enkelejda Havari
Silvia Granato
Bios
Antonella Rocca is Aggregate Professor in Economic Statistics (Qualified as Associate Professor) at the Department of Management and Quantitative Studies, (Excellence Department), University of Naples “Parthenope”, Italy, where she teaches “Statistics for Business” and “Information systems for decision-making processes in public administration”. Her research interests concern labor markets, with a focus on the most disadvantaged groups (young people, women, immigrants). She uses econometric models and decomposition techniques for the analysis of economic gaps and constructs composite indicators for cross-countries comparisons. She collaborates with the European Commission and other international scientific organizations as expert for the evaluation of scientific projects.
Elena Claudia Meroni is Research Fellow at the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (Ispra, Italy). She is part of the Competence Centre on Microeconomic Evaluation (CC-ME), within the Monitoring, Indicators and Evaluation unit. She holds a PhD in Statistics from the University of Padua. During her PhD she has been a visiting scholar at Pompeu Fabra University. Her main research interests are policy evaluation, economics of education, labour economics, economics of the family and demography.
Enkelejda Havari is Research Fellow at the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (Ispra, Italy). She is part of the Competence Centre on Microeconomic Evaluation (CC-ME), within the Monitoring, Indicators and Evaluation unit. Before joining the Commission in 2015, she was a Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the Economics Department of Boston University and a Post-Doctoral researcher at the University of Ca’ Foscari Venice. She holds a Ph.D. in Econometrics and Empirical Economics from the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and a M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Bologna. Her research interests lie in the area of applied micro-econometrics and impact evaluation with a special focus on labour economics, economics of education, and family economics.
Silvia Granato is Research Fellow at the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (Ispra, Italy). She is part of the Competence Centre on Microeconomic Evaluation (CC-ME), within the Monitoring, Indicators and Evaluation unit. Before joining the Commission in September 2019 she was a Teaching Fellow at the Economics Department of Warwick University, teaching courses on labour economics and applied economics. In 2018 she completed her PhD in Economics at Queen Mary University of London, after obtaining two Master’s Degrees in Economics – at the University of Naples and at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. Her main research interests are in the area of applied micro-econometrics, in particular topics related to economics of education and gender economics.
Abstracts of papers
The school to work transition: What affects mainly its duration? Antonella Rocca (University of Naples Parthenope) with Floro Ernesto Caroleo (University of Naples Parthenope), Francesco Pastore (University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli), Claudio Quintano (University of Naples Parthenope)
In this research, the authors analyze the School-To-Work Transition (STWT) in a selection of 21 European countries by level of education (low and medium vs high education). The main scope of this research consists in identifying the determinants of such different durations of the STWT across the countries considered. Duration models based on survivor functions are used including a wide spectrum of factors linked to personal characteristics, labour market and institutional factors and aspects related to the education system and the type of transition regime. The authors contribute to the existing literature in many ways. First of all, they analyze the duration of STWT rather than unemployment duration. Second, a separate analysis of low and medium educated is provided, which is usually neglected in previous studies. Data refer to the EU-SILC cross-sectional waves from 2013 to 2017. All sample units aged between 18 and 34, who completed education two years before, are included in the analysis. Those who are attempting military service, student-workers and permanent disabled are also excluded from the analysis. Results suggest that, even after controlling for all these factors, Continental and Liberal countries show performances significantly higher in comparison above all with the countries of the Mediterranean regime. Another important result is that, after the model has been corrected to account for unobserved heterogeneity, data show positive duration dependence, that means that the probability of achieving a job increases with time but also the need to improve the set of indicators for the education system monitoring and the importance of individual characteristics not captured by the observed covariates.
Use of extra-school time and child behaviour Elena Claudia Meroni (European Commission JRC) with Daniela Piazzalunga (University of Verona) and Chiara Pronzato (University of Turin)
In this paper, we study the effects of extra-school activities on children’s non-cognitive development, using data from the Millennium Cohort Study (UK) and focusing on children aged 7-11 years old. We classify the time spent out of school into six homogenous groups of activities, using principal component analysis, and estimate the relationship thereof with five behavioural dimensions drawn from the Strength and Difficulties questionnaire, exploiting the panel structure of the data. Results show the beneficial effects on children’s behaviour of sports, school-related activities, time with parents and household chores, while a small detrimental effect of video-screen time is detected. We test the robustness of our estimates against omitted variable bias, and the results are confirmed.
Intergenerational effects of war on education: Evidence from World War II in Europe Enkelejda Havari (European Commission JRC) with Franco Peracchi (Georgetown University, EIEF and University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)
The negative effects of war on the education and health of the civilian population are well documented. However, there is no evidence on whether these effects extend to subsequent generations. To fill-in this gap we analyze the inter-generational effects of World War II on educational attainments focusing on parent-child dyads in which parents were born in 1926– 1949. We show two things. First, parents who suffered the war, that is, were exposed to major war events or personally experienced war-related hardship, ended up with less schooling than parents with similar characteristics who did not. Second, the children of parents who suffered the war have lower educational attainments than the children of parents with similar characteristics who did not suffer the war. Our reduced form results also suggest estimates of the coefficient of inter-generational transmission of education based on war-related hardships as instruments. These estimates show that mother’s education matters more for daughters, whereas father’s education matters more for sons.
Early influences and the gender gap in STEM Silvia Granato (University of Warwick)
Despite the striking reversal of the gender gap in industrialized countries in the last 40 years, women still pursue degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) much less than their male peers do. I use data from a uniquely rich and largely unexplored source that combines both administrative and survey information on the population of Italian graduates to analyse the determinants of gender gaps in STEM graduation rates for Italian college leaving cohorts from 2010 to 2015, with emphasis on family, cultural and school influences, as well as geographic proximity in the supply of STEM degrees. Half of the gender gap in STEM graduation is attributed to the gender difference in maths and science content of the respective high school curricula. My results indicate that in Italy the gender gap in STEM graduation has its roots in a gendered choice originating many years before. This finding suggests that the role of the influence of environmental factors – such as the family – in the different educational choices of females and males is even greater than can be estimated through this study.
The Conference, organized with the support of multiple partners, will bring together researchers from academia across disciplines with policy practitioners across public and private stakeholders, to review the state of policy research and debate on youth transitions.
Multiple dimensions of youth transitions will be discussed: the crises in school to work transition and future of work prospects for young people; youth transitions in situations of conflict and peace-building; and youth participation in civic and political spheres.
The Conference will also launch the first Global Network of Policy Research on Youth Transitions that will promote and partner for expanded policy and research interface on priority issues.
For partnerships and contributions to the debate and to the future Global Network, please contact GLO Policy Director Azita Berar by November 15, 2019.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfinds for Portugal that while wages of continuing workers were increasing following an extension, formal employment and wage bills in the relevant sectors were falling.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Many governments extend the coverage of collective agreements to workers and employers that were not involved in their bargaining. These extensions may address coordination issues but may also distort competition by imposing sector-specific minimum wages and other work conditions that are not suitable for some firms and workers. In this paper, we analyze the impact of such extensions along several economic margins. Drawing on worker- and firm-level monthly data for Portugal, a country where extensions have been widespread, and the scattered timing of the extensions, we find that, while continuing workers experience wage increases following an extension, formal employment and wage bills in the relevant sectors fall, on average, by 2%. These results increase by about 25% across small firms and are driven by reduced hiring. In contrast, the employment and wage bills of independent contractors, who are not subject to labor law or collective bargaining, increases by over 1% following an extension.
A new GLO Discussion Paper assesses the effects of introducing centralized scoring standards into schools with higher and lower quality peer groups.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Because accountability may improve the comparability that is compromised by lenient grading, we compare exit exam outcomes in the same schools before and after a policy change that increased teacher accountability by anchoring grading scales. In particular, using a large administrative dataset of 364,445 exit exam outcomes for 72,889 students, we assess the effect of introducing centralized scoring standards into schools with higher and lower quality peer groups. We find that implementation of these standards increases scoring differences between the two school types by about 25 percent.
A new GLO Discussion Paperprovides a state-of-the-art literature review about research that aims to explain the return, repeat, circular and onward migration of the highly-skilled migrants around the world.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This chapter provides a state-of-the-art literature review about research that aims to explain the return, repeat, circular and onward migration of the highly-skilled migrants around the world. After it describes the status quo in the knowledge economy and the international race for talent, it presents the relevant theories and concepts of migration in the social sciences and how these theories accommodate the phenomena of return, repeat and onward migration. A special section is devoted to selection. The chapter then summarizes, evaluates, and juxtaposes existing empirical evidence related to theoretical predictions. Observables such as education, income, gender and home country as well as unobservables such as ability, social capital and negotiating skills play a strong role in influencing return, repeat and onward migration decisions. Yet, there is no consensus on the direction of the effect. The chapter discusses shortcomings and limitations along with policy lessons. It concludes by highlighting holes in the literature and the need for better data.
March 30-31, 2020 in Pisa, Italy. The GLO supported workshop on “Migrations, Populism and the Crisis of Globalization” will take place at the Department of Economics of the University of Pisa. Submission deadline is 15 January 2020. For a detailed conference announcement see below.
Please send an abstract of approx. 300 words to the editorial board of the academic journal Scienza e Pace/Science and Peace (redazione@cisp.unipi.it) and to the AISSEC secretariat (aissec.org@gmail.com) by 15 January 2020. Acceptance will be notified around mid-February. A first draft of the paper would be expected by mid-March.
An issue of Scienza e Pace/Science and Peace will be devoted to the themes addressed in the workshop and will include the articles that will be submitted by April 30, 2020. Conference participants are particularly encouraged to submit their papers. The articles submitted for publication in the journal will be subject to peer review refereeing.
Francesco Pastore, GLO Country Lead Italy, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, is representing GLO.
A new GLO Discussion Paperreviews gender identity and workplace legislation at national and international levels across Europe.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: It is a fact that transgender people experience severe discrimination in various forms not only in their everyday lives but also in their working lives, especially when transitioning. It seems that Europe is slowly changing over the years as there are constant calls to tackle this complex issue by considering the inclusion of a third gender option, the abolition of any abusive practices, recommendations for legal redress in cases of violation, and a more transparent and self-determined legal recognition procedure. There are national laws which offer protection on the basis of gender identity at national and international levels. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of uniformity due to a number of unresolved matters such as uncertainty about who is covered, whether gender identity should be covered as a protected ground, what is required to gain a legal change of name and gender marker in official documents, who is responsible for authorization and uncertainty over the stages, nature and duration of the actual procedure. Fewer distressed transgender employees and transphobic incidents are observed when there is greater social acceptability, organizational effort and national intervention. Research and collective actions by movements, political leaders, academics, medical experts and non-governmental organizations are further required to minimize societal and employment exclusions of transgender people.
In his new book, GLO Research Director Danny Blanchflower has explained us why the job market is not as healthy as we think, in particular he promotes to look at underemployment instead of unemployment. glabor.org had announced the book earlier this year and published in the summer an interview with the author. In her book review for theLSE Review of Books website, GLO Fellow Hélène Syed Zwick provides more details and insights, but also formulates questions and challenges.
GLO Research Director David G. Blanchflower.GLO bio. He is the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, Professor of Economics at the University of Stirling, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
GLO Fellow Hélène Syed Zwick. GLO bio. She is Executive Director of the ESLSCA Research Center and Associate Professor in Economics at ESLSCA University (Egypt).
“In Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?, David Blanchflower contributes to the already substantial stream of scholarship on job quality, happiness and economic downturns. The author, a prominent economist and former external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) between 2006 and 2009, offers a praiseworthy, didactic and anticipated analysis ‘on well-paying [or good] jobs and the failure of policymakers to deliver them’ (11).
In the first part of the book, the author skillfully argues that most Western countries, especially the US and the UK, are far away from full employment, despite their respective low unemployment rates. Through a heavy reliance on data, he argues, and brilliantly demonstrates, that the unemployment rate is no longer an accurate signal of labour market slack. He repeats throughout his book that the main signal that confirms this hypothesis is the lack of sustained wage and price growths. Normally, Blanchflower explains, in a situation of full employment, there ‘would be so few people looking for jobs’ (25) that wages would grow rapidly and ‘workers would be able to climb the occupational ladder’ (140). Unfortunately, he writes, this is not happening either in the US or the UK. On the contrary, underemployment – which relates to ‘unstable, precarious, low-paying, and temporary jobs’ (35) and which expanded after the Great Recession in most rich Western countries – appears as a significant new predictor of wage and inflation growth. Here we reach the central argument of the book: underemployment associated with weak bargaining power on the part of workers leads to contained wage pressure. Blanchflower advises that we therefore rely on underemployment rather than unemployment to analyse the labour market situation, especially within this post-recession period characterised by ‘an extended semi-slump, of subnormal prosperity’ (80).
If such a proposal is quite orthodox, three elements transversal to
this first part capture the reader’s attention: the economics of walking about
(EWA); the societal consequences; and house-ownership and mobility. Firstly, thanks
to Blanchflower’s EWA approach which is ‘fundamental’ to the book (184), he is
in contact with what has been happening to ordinary people. As he explains,
Blanchflower believes in data from the real world. His thinking has been
‘driven mostly by observing how the world works and attempting to uncover
fundamental truths and patterns in the data’ (9). Discussions with London
cabbies or looking at jingle mails (the act of mailing the keys back to the
mortgage lender) are common ways for Blanchflower to feel what is going on in
societies. Secondly, he discusses the links between feelings of insecurity on
the labour market, happiness and societal outcomes like obesity, mental
disorders, depression and even suicide. Thirdly, he examines the negative impact
of house ownership on mobility. He evokes the fall in the homeownership rate,
especially in the US and the UK, and explains that an unconstrained housing
market leads to more efficient labour markets and to a fall in the equilibrium
unemployment rate thanks to higher mobility. These effects have too often been neglected
by researchers, he argues.
The second part of Not Working is composed of five chapters
and aims to study the response to the Great Recession. Blanchflower’s analysis
led him to anticipate the crisis in 2007, while most of his colleagues did not.
The author calls therefore for a ‘big rethink’ (11, 315), especially among
policymakers, central bankers and economists. Scathingly, he denounces their
obstinacy in relying on theoretical, mathematical-based models and
prescriptions from the 1970s. As he argues, ‘the elites were stuck in the past’
(171) and ‘the experts were looking in the wrong places’ (162). Policymakers
decided in 2009-10, under the recommendations of economists, to launch what
Blanchflower names a ‘reckless and unnecessary austerity’ (173) ‘attacking the
Keynesian school of thought from multiple directions’ (171). The author writes
that this was a ‘unique opportunity [for them] to decrease the size of the
state’ (173).
In this section of the book, Blanchflower’s efforts may appear overly
detailed to the less specialised reader and not especially innovative for the
specialists. Yet, he convincingly establishes the socio-economic, demographic
and geographic profile of the ‘left-behinds’ in the US, the UK and Eurozone
countries after 2010. Unsurprisingly, decreases in expenditure ‘hit the weak,
the disabled and vulnerable’ (214). Such fractures between the have-nots and
haves were already present before the Great Recession, which only ‘exacerbated
them’ (37). He notes that the left-behinds from the US, the UK, France and
Austria have been ‘strongly opposed to political and social developments they
see as threatening sovereignty, identity and continuity’ (258). He therefore indicates
that he was already expecting in 2010 a political ‘backlash’ (265) after all
the pain and suffering. Why should politics not therefore suffer? Few can have
ignored recent populist movements in the US with Donald Trump’s presidency, in
the UK with the Brexit vote and in France with Marine Le Pen. The author
establishes a direct relationship between the profile of the left-behinds and
those who voted for populist parties.
This inquiry leads us to the third part dedicated to prescriptions
and policy recommendations. Whilst the quality of analysis and richness of its
scholarly references impresses across two-thirds of the book, here the author
fails in making the reader optimistic or confident about the future. Why? First,
because the recommendations he formulates are unoriginal and lack ambition, and
second, because several dimensions elsewhere detailed in the book, like the
decline in unionism and bargaining power, are not even discussed. Strictly
speaking, the use of idioms and expressions in the titles and subtitles in this
third part appear by far insufficient to convince me. Most of the Keynesian recommendations
that he formulates are well-known and have been debated for decades. For
instance, he recommends reaching full employment by decreasing the interest
rate to boost wages and therefore living standards, investing more in infrastructure
to create jobs, subsidising childcare services and providing incentives for
low-skilled workers. From my point of view, such advice relies far too much on
the intervention of public authorities, which seems quite inconsistent with Blanchflower’s
lack of trust in policymakers and politicians that he claims throughout his
book: ‘Why believe them?’ he asks several times. ‘Why should we trust any of
them now? I don’t,’ he writes (211).
It could certainly be argued that this third part is disappointing as Blanchflower fails to provide sufficient depth in the formulation of his recommendations, which is essential once the analysis has been delivered. However, even with this limitation, this encyclopedic book is highly welcome and will be an unquestionably worthy addition to the bookshelves of a general readership as well as scholars in labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics and political science.”
Dr. Hélène Syed Zwick, Executive Director of ESLSCA Research Center, ESLSCA University, Egypt
A new GLO Discussion Paperstudies through counterfactual analysis how income taxation affects the correlation of income across generations. Introducing a flat tax regime reduces the correlation in comparison to no taxes, which is enforced through child benefits and a progressive scheme.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We study the impact of income taxation on intergenerational income correlation. We estimate a life cycle dynastic model and conduct counterfactual analysis to observe the effects of various tax regimes. Compared to a no tax environment, a flat tax regime reduces the correlation only by one percentage points. If the flat tax regime provides child benefits, the correlation additionally declines by four percentage points. Finally, if the taxes are progressive, the reduction, which is due to the increase in the fertility rate (quantity) and the decrease in the educational outcome of children (quality), is highly significant (seven percentage points).
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
The University of Kent (UoK), the UK’s European university, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. It has a rural campus in Canterbury as well as campuses in Kent and European postgraduate centers in various European cities. The University is committed to rigorous research and excellent education; it is international, with over 20,000 students from about 160 nationalities and about 40% of international academic staff. It provides GLO with a local platform in the UK.
GLO Director Matloob Piracha is Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent and Country Lead of GLO for the entire UK; he will act as Head of the local initiatives at Kent. A first joint research workshop is planned for April 2020 at Kent; a Call for Papers will appear in due course.
GLO’s Virtual Young Scholars (VirtYS) program for emerging young scholars is also headed from Kent, namely by GLO Fellow Olena Nizalova, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Kent.
The GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of September finds that inclusive labor market access regulations substantially increase the employment chances of asylum seekers, in particular if the language distance is short.
Author Abstract:In the face of recent refugee migration, early integration of asylum seekers into
the labor market has been proposed as an important mechanism for easing their
economic and social lot in the short as well as in the long term. However, little
is known about the policies that foster or hamper their participation in the labor
market, in particular during the important initial period of their stay in the host
country. In order to evaluate whether inclusive labor market policies increase the
labor market participation of asylum seekers, we exploit the variation in asylum
policies in Swiss cantons to which asylum seekers are as good as randomly allocated.
During our study period from 2011 to 2014, the employment rate among asylum
seekers varied between 0% and 30.2% across cantons. Our results indicate that
labor market access regulations are responsible for a substantial proportion of these
differences, in which an inclusive regime increases participation by 11 percentage
points. The marginal effects are larger for asylum seekers who speak a language
that is linguistically close to the one in their host canton.
GLO DP Team Senior
Editors: Matloob Piracha (University of Kent) & GLO; Klaus F.
Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and Bonn University). Managing Editor: Magdalena Ulceluse, University of Groningen. DP@glabor.org
A new GLO Discussion Paperstudies the shortcomings and merits of the first experiment of establishing a quasi-market in the provision of employment services.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper aims to study the shortcomings and merits of the first experiment of quasi-market in the provision of employment services: the Lombardy DUL (Dote Unica Lavoro). This system, which has inspired the 2015 national reform within the Jobs Act, has reactivated and revitalized the sector by providing important job opportunities to jobless workers. The system has the typical problems of quasi-markets in the provision of public services (lion’s share of private organizations; cherry picking; gaming). However, different expedients are devised in the program to minimize these shortcomings. The empirical analysis suggest that such phenomena if existent are at a physiological level. Analysis of the determinants of completing successfully the program provides non-trivial results as to, among others, the role organizations of different ownership type and of services provided.
A new GLO Discussion Paperdocuments evidence on the impact of household air pollution on mental health in China.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: While adverse health effects of ambient air pollution have been well documented, there is scarce evidence on the impact of household air pollution (HAP) on mental health. We investigated the causal link between HAP exposure from the use of solid fuel on depressive symptoms using a nationally representative dataset of middle-aged and older population in China. Employing the propensity match score method (PSM), matching and adjusting for potential confounders, we found significantly higher Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) score and risk of depressive symptoms among solid fuel users than clean fuel users. These associations were especially stronger for older females who were less educated, of lower income, of higher body mass index, or had chronic diseases.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that collective bargaining in Portugal has a relatively small role as a source of effective labor law.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: How much value does collective bargaining add to the working conditions already established in general labour law? In this paper we propose a methodology to address this question: we compare the specific contents of collective agreements (except minimum wages) to their equivalent norms set by base law. We illustrate this approach by analysing in detail about 400 norms from six collective agreements in Portugal and then comparing them to the country’s Labour Code. We find that as many as 62% of those collective bargaining norms are exactly or virtually equal to the Labour Code; only 25% (an average of 16 norms per convention) are more favourable for the worker; and 12% (8) are more favourable for the employer. We conclude that collective bargaining in Portugal has a relatively small role as a source of effective labour law. We also present several potential explanations for our findings, including the wide range of base law, which may reduce the negotiating space of bargaining.
A new GLO Discussion Paper reveals that based on standard measures, inequality in Egypt and Tunisia is not unusually high. This is qualified exploring a new dimension decomposing inequality by income sources.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Egypt and Tunisia are perceived to have high levels of inequality, yet based on standard measures, inequality in these two countries is not unusually high. In this study we explore a new dimension of inequality in Egypt and Tunisia by using a more complete measure of income and decomposing inequality by income sources (factor components). We find that higher-income households have more income sources than lower-income ones. Informal wage work and earnings from household enterprises are more common in Egypt than Tunisia, while formal wage work, pensions, and social assistance are more common in Tunisia. Social assistance does little to offset income inequality in either country. Enterprise earnings (in Egypt) and agricultural earnings (in Tunisia) as well as rent and other capital income in both countries play a large role in inequality. High inequality in these non-wage income sources may help explain why inequality is perceived to be high.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that cohorts born around the start of transition are shorter than their older or younger peers. While the transition process has been a traumatic experience, its negative impact has largely been overcome.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Using newly available data, we re-evaluate the impact of transition from plan to market on objective and subjective well-being. We find clear evidence of the high social cost of early transition reforms: cohorts born around the start of transition are shorter than their older or younger peers. The difference in height suggests that the first years of reform were accompanied by major deprivation. We provide suggestive evidence on the importance of three mechanisms which partially explain these results: the decline of GDP per capita, the deterioration of healthcare systems, and food scarcity. On the bright side, we find that cohorts that experienced transition in their infancy are now better educated and more satisfied with their lives than their counterparts. Taken together, our results imply that the transition process has been a traumatic experience, but that its negative impact has largely been overcome.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
The International Economic Association (IEA) was founded in 1950 as a Non Governmental Organization, at the instigation of the Social Sciences Department of UNESCO. It has since its creation maintained information and consultative relations with UNESCO and is since 1973 a federated member of the International Social Science Council. Its aim from the beginning has been to promote personal contacts and mutual understanding among economists in different parts of the world through the organization of scientific meetings, through common research programs and by means of publications of an international character on problems of current importance.
GLO will contribute to the July 3-7, 2020 event in Bali, Indonesia: International Economic Association World Congress. Conference announcement. Submission deadline January 15, 2020 (extended).
Labor market issues broadly defined will be the emphasis of the Second Renmin University of China – GLO Conference in Beijing on 7-8 December 2019. Keynote speakers will be GLO Fellows Shi Li of Beijing Normal University and Xi Chen of Yale University.
This continues the very successful tradition started with the first conference. See program and event pictures of the 2018 event.
What is it about? The conference provides a platform for researchers working on topics related to the labor market, including migration, income discrimination, health and well-being, education, environment, labor market policies, and other labor-related issues. Submissions focusing on the Chinese labor market are encouraged.
Organization The event is organized by the School of Labor and Human Resources at Renmin University of China and GLO. There are no conference fees. Travel and accommodation need to be arranged by participants. Renmin University will offer catered lunch and refreshments throughout the event and conference dinner on December 7.
Submission Papers or long abstracts to be submitted by October 31: renmin-glo@ruc.edu.cn Selected participants will be notified by 10 November 2019.
Program Committee GLO FellowsSylvie Démurger (CNRS), Shuaizhang Feng (Jinan University), Corrado Giulietti (University of Southampton) & Jun Han (Renmin University of China)
A new GLO Discussion Paper reveals that in Poland women find independence at work and for those in professional occupations a job matching their competences as a desirable job attribute, while for men the lack of stress, a good salary and independence is key. Financial constraints strongly determine the entry into self-employment.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We examine supply-side determinants of transition from the wage and salary sector to selfemployment of women and men living Poland. The empirical analysis is made possible due to a unique and under explored longitudinal survey — Social Diagnosis – that contains rare indicators such as job preferences and work events. The empirical results in the 2007-2015 period indicate that women and men transitioning into self-employment are differently motivated. In terms of job attributes, women find independence at work and for those in professional occupations a job matching their competences as a desirable job attribute, while for men the lack of stress, a good salary and independence is key. The analysis of work events and its influence on selfemployment weakly confirms the glass-ceiling hypothesis. In line with other research, our analysis indicates that financial constraints strongly determine the entry into self-employment. A key human capital determinant is past entrepreneurial experience indicating a slow, cautious transition process into self-employment.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfindsthat a women’s self-help group program in India has contributed to sustainable development through improvements in the quality of life.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper investigates a women’s self-help group program with more than 1.5 million participants in one of the poorest rural areas of Northern India. The program has four streams of activity in micro-savings, agricultural enterprise training, health and nutrition education, and political participation. The paper considers whether there is any evidence that program membership is associated with quality of life improvement. Using new data on a variety of self-reported capability indicators from members and non-members, the paper estimates propensity score matching models and reports evidence of differences in some dimensions as well as significant benefits to those from the most disadvantaged groups—scheduled castes and tribes. The paper considers robustness and concludes that for some dimensions, there is evidence that the program has contributed to sustainable development through improvements in the quality of life.
Does the growth of self-employment and in particular gig work among females explain part of the observed declining fertility rates? A new GLO Discussion Paperfindsfor Portugalno statistically significant differences in fertility between employees and self-employed women.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: The growth of self-employment and in particular gig work may explain part of the declining fertility rates observed in many countries. This study examines this question drawing on longitudinal data to compare women’s fertility, proxied by maternity leave uptake, when self-employed or wage workers. It considers the case of Portugal, which allows to focus on structural aspects of work types, as fertility-related social protection there does not discriminate between self-employment and wage work. Results indicate that there are no statistically significant differences in fertility between employees and self-employed women. These findings highlight the importance of social protection for the self-employed, at least as far as their fertility is concerned.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfinds that the fracking innovations who had revolutionized the United States oil and gas industry and facilitated a boom in energy production were responsible for positive effects on the labor markets, in particular outside the oil and gas industry.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Fracking innovations revolutionized the United States oil and gas industry and facilitated a boom in energy production in states with oil and gas resources. This paper examines effects of oil and gas booms within a state on individual employment and earnings. To account for endogenous migration decisions, we instrument for oil and gas production in workers’ state of residence via the predicted percent of oil and gas employment in their state of birth. We find statistically significant and economically meaningful positive effects. The bulk of the effects accrue to workers employed outside the oil and gas industry indicating sizable spillovers.
A new GLO Discussion Paper reviews the economic literature to understand delayed graduations and university dropouts.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non- governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper surveys the theoretical approaches used in the literature to study the phenomenon of delayed graduation and university dropout. The classical human capital model does not contemplate failure, which the amended human capital model does. Delayed graduation and university dropout are two stages of the same decision repeated over the years to step aside or leave when the net returns to education expected ex ante are negative. Failure can also be taken as a signal of the real skills of individuals who do not succeed to gain a higher level of education. The job search approach underlines the role of positive/negative local labor market conditions as a factor able to explain choices of investment in human capital. Within the bargaining approach, the decision to delay graduation or dropout from university is related to bargaining within the family between parents and children: the former give their children better consumption opportunities in return for their presence at home. Although the amended human capital model is certainly the most compelling one, the other approaches help framing factors which are neglected in the human capital model, forming a well-structured body of knowledge to better understand the phenomenon under scrutiny, while also suggesting a set of policy tools to better control it.
A new GLO Discussion Paperstudies forItaly how over-education affects migrants and it evaluates the role informal networks play in producing it. Migrants are more over-educated than natives, but the role of networks is equally relevant for both ethnic groups.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Whilst migration has become a structural feature of most European countries, the integration of foreigners in the labour market continues to raise concerns. Evidence across countries shows that migrants are more often over-educated than natives. Over the last years, scholarship has intended to capture the effect of informal networks on migrants’ over-education. Interestingly, no study has looked into the Italian case, yet a country for which the effect of networks on education-occupation mismatch is well documented. This article has two objectives: it assesses the extent to which over-education affects migrants and it evaluates the role informal networks play in producing it. We find that foreigners are more over-educated than natives but that the role of networks is consistent across the two groups. Empirical evidence is drawn from the application of quantitative and counter-factual methods to PLUS 2018 – Participation, Labour, Unemployment Survey.
A new GLO Discussion Paper providing an updated picture of main empirical evidence on the relationship between new technologies and employment.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: The present technological revolution, characterized by the pervasive and growing presence of robots, automation, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, is going to transform societies and economic systems. However, this is not the first technological revolution humankind has been facing, but it is probably the very first one with such an accelerated diffusion pace involving all the industrial sectors. Studying its mechanisms and consequences (will the world turn into a jobless society or not?), mainly considering the labor market dynamics, is a crucial matter. This paper aims at providing an updated picture of main empirical evidence on the relationship between new technologies and employment both in terms of overall consequences on the number of employees, tasks required, and wage/inequality effect.
The article finds thatparents compensate disadvantaged children with greater cognitive resources using data fromprimary school-aged Ethiopian siblings.
Author Abstract: A small but increasing body of literature finds that parents invest in their children unequally. However, the evidence is contradictory, and providing convincing causal evidence of the effect of child ability on parental investment in a low-income context is challenging. This paper examines how parents respond to the differing abilities of primary school-aged Ethiopian siblings, using rainfall shocks during the critical developmental period between pregnancy and the first 3 years of a child’s life to isolate exogenous variations in child ability within the household, observed at a later stage than birth. The results show that on average parents attempt to compensate disadvantaged children through increased cognitive investment. The effect is significant, but small in magnitude: parents provide about 3.9% of a standard deviation more in educational fees to the lower-ability child in the observed pair. We provide suggestive evidence that families with educated mothers, smaller household size and higher wealth compensate with greater cognitive resources for a lower-ability child.
Read also the Lead Article of issue 4 (2019): Gautam Hazarika, Chandan Kumar & Sudipta Sarangi: “Ancestral ecological endowments and missing women“ Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 32 (2019), Issue 4 (October), pp. 1101-1123 Journal Website, complete issue 4. Paper PDF – OPEN ACCESS. GLO Fellows Gautam Hazarika, Chandan Kumar Jha & Sudipta Sarangi
A new GLO Discussion Paperfinds for Switzerland thatinclusive labor market policies increase the labor market participation of asylum seekers.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: In the face of recent refugee migration, early integration of asylum seekers into the labor market has been proposed as an important mechanism for easing their economic and social lot in the short as well as in the long term. However, little is known about the policies that foster or hamper their participation in the labor market, in particular during the important initial period of their stay in the host country. In order to evaluate whether inclusive labor market policies increase the labor market participation of asylum seekers, we exploit the variation in asylum policies in Swiss cantons to which asylum seekers are as good as randomly allocated. During our study period from 2011 to 2014, the employment rate among asylum seekers varied between 0% and 30.2% across cantons. Our results indicate that labor market access regulations are responsible for a substantial proportion of these differences, in which an inclusive regime increases participation by 11 percentage points. The marginal effects are larger for asylum seekers who speak a language that is linguistically close to the one in their host canton.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfinds thatparental migration has a significant negative effect on children’s non-cognitive development.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO)
is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that
functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate
global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Many children worldwide are left behind by parents who are migrating for work. While previous literature has studied the effect of parental migration on children’s educational outcomes and cognitive achievements, this study focuses on how parental migration affects children’s non-cognitive development. We use longitudinal data of children in rural China and adopt labor market conditions in destination provinces as instrumental variables for parental endogenous migration choice. We find that parental migration has a significant negative effect on children’s non-cognitive development. Differentiating inter- and intra-provincial migrations suggests that the negative effect of parental migration is mainly driven by inter-provincial migrations. We test four different mechanisms of how parental migration affects child development including parental financial inputs, parental time inputs, household bargaining, and children’s own time input. Our results provide insights into the relative importance of different mechanisms in determining the effect of parental migration on children’s non-cognitive skill formation.
The GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of August finds that government redistribution through expenditures is a useful tool capable of reducing net income inequality, and even more effectively than has been predicted by previous studies.
Author Abstract:Expansion of the public sector and redistributive policies may reduce income inequality, but formal tests suffer from the problem of endogeneity of government size with respect to the distribution of income. Studying 30 European countries over the period 2004-2015, we apply instrumental variable estimation techniques to identify a causal relationship between income inequality and government size, measured as the government expenditure share in GDP. Using a novel instrument – the number of political parties in the ruling coalition – we find that accounting for the possible endogeneity of government size increases the magnitude of the estimated negative effects. Our findings thus suggest that much of the literature underestimates the true role of the government in attenuating income inequality. The estimated relationship between income inequality and government size persists in a series of robustness checks.
GLO DP Team Senior Editors: Matloob Piracha (University of Kent) & GLO; Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and Bonn University). Managing Editor: Magdalena Ulceluse, University of Groningen. DP@glabor.org
GLO is affiliated with many events and conferences over the year. For our complete listing see the GLO Events page. New events will be announced on the News page, where you can register to obtain regular email messages.
Brisbane, Australia. ThirdAustralian Gender Economics Workshop (AGEW) will take place on February 5-7, 2020 at the Queensland University of Technology. Submission deadline is 18 September 2019.MORE INFORMATION.
The first GLO/EHERO Symposium, chaired by Martijn Burger of EHERO, took place on September 6, 2019 and featured presentations by Dimitris Ballas (University of Groningen) and GLO Fellows Kelsey O’Connor (STATEC) & Martijn Hendriks (EHERO). O’Connor and Hendriks presented research on the subjective well-being consequences of labor migration and refugee asylum centers, respectively, while Ballas discussed novel methods for understanding the geographical distribution of happiness.
Chaired by GLO FellowMilena Nikolova (The University of Groningen), the second GLO/EHERO Symposium on September 7, 2019 offered talks by GLO Fellows Carol Graham (The Brookings Institution/The University of Maryland, College Park), Spiros Stavropoulos (EHERO), and Milena Nikolova. Graham discussed her novel work on the consequences of hope, aspirations, and resilience and future outcomes, such as mortality and income growth. Stavroupoulos’ presentation concerned the implications of industrial change for life satisfaction and Nikolova discussed her research on the causes and consequences of meaningful work.
Both GLO/EHERO symposia were well-attended and a great success and the organizers hope to continue organizing them in future ISQOLS conferences. The next ISQOLS conference will take place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, between August 25-28, 2020.
Note: O’Connor’s paper “The effect of immigration on natives’ well-being in Europe” is available as a GLO Discussion Paper.
