Documents Oesch, Daniel 14 results

"This article examines the job prospects of displaced industrial workers in Switzerland. Based on a survey of 1,203 workers who were dismissed after their manufacturing plants closed down, we analyse the determinants of re-employment, the sector of re-employment and the change in wages. Two years after displacement, a majority of workers were back in employment: 69% were re-employed, 17% unemployed and 11% retired. Amongst re-employed workers, two thirds found a job in manufacturing and one third in services. Contrary to a common belief, low-end services are not the collecting vessel of redundant industrial workers. Displaced workers aged 55 and older seem particularly vulnerable after a plant closes down: over 30% were long-term unemployed, and those older workers who found a new job suffered disproportionate wage losses. Advanced age—and not low education—appears as the primary handicap after mass redundancy."

"What types of jobs are growing: well-paid managerial jobs or low-paid auxiliary jobs, high-end professional jobs or bottom-end service jobs? Can occupational change transform affluent countries into enlarged middle-class societies? Or, on the contrary, are we heading towards a future of increasingly divided class societies? Do changes in the employment structure allow forthcoming generations to move towards more rewarding jobs than those held by their parents - or is downward mobility the more likely outcome? This book throws new light on these timely questions by drawing on extensive evidence of employment data on the pattern of occupational change in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland since 1990. It documents the change in the employment structure, and examines the five underlying driving forces: technology, globalization, education, migration, and institutions. The book discusses whether governments really have no other choice than either occupational upgrading with soaring unemployment or full employment with expanding low-end jobs. The book gives a clear picture of the future of work, skills, and employment in today's Europe, contributing to the debate in economic sociology and labour economics."

"In the last four decades, women have made major inroads into occupations previously dominated by men. This paper examines whether occupational feminization is accompanied by a decline in wages: Do workers suffer a wage penalty if they remain in, or move into, feminizing occupations? We analzye this question over the 1990s and 2000s in Britain, Germany and Switzerland, using longitudinal panel data to estimate individual fixed effects for men and women. Moving from an entirely male to an entirely female occupation entails a loss in individual earnings of twelve percent in Britain, six percent in Switzerland and three percent in Germany. The impact of occupational feminization on wages is not linear, but sets apart occupations holding less than 50 percent of women from those with more than 60 percent of women. Only moving into the latter incurs a wage penalty. Contrary to the prevailing idea in economics, differences in productivity – human capital, job-specific skill requirements and time investment – do not fully explain the wage gap between male and female occupations. Moreover, the wage penalty associated with working in a female occupation is much larger where employer discretion is large -the private sector – than where wage setting is guided by formal rules – the public sector. These findings suggests that wage disparities across male and female occupations are due to gender devaluation."

"Welfare states are often reduced to their role as providers of social protection and redistribution. In 1990, Esping-Andersen argued that they also affect employment creation and the class structure. We analyse the stratification outcomes for three welfare regimes – Britain, Germany and Denmark – over the 1990s and 2000s. Based on individual-level surveys, we observe a disproportionate increase among professionals and managers, and a decline among production workers and clerks. The result is clear-cut occupational upgrading in Denmark and Germany. In Britain, high and low-end service jobs expanded, resulting in a polarized version of upgrading. Growth in low-end service jobs – and thus polarization – is no precondition for full employment. Both Britain and Denmark halved their low-educated unemployment rate between 1995 and 2008. Yet low-end service jobs expanded only in Britain, not in Denmark. The cause is the evolution of labour supply: rising educational attainment means that fewer low-educated workers look for low-skilled jobs."

"This article enquires into the causes of union growth and decline by analysing flows in and out of membership at the level of 70 Swiss union locals over 2006–2008. Gross flows in union membership are much larger than the resulting net changes: annual membership turnover of 10 per cent is a surprisingly constant feature across unions. Net changes in membership are primarily determined by inflows: successful and languishing union locals differ in their entry rates, whereas exit rates are similar. Variance in union locals' entry rates is not usefully explained by the labour market context, but by differences in union strategy."

"In OECD countries, unemployment disproportionately affects low-skilled workers. This article examines four explanations: wage-setting institutions, employment regulation, globalization and monetary policy. The analysis is based on pooled regressions for 21 affluent countries over the period 1991—2006. We find no support for the argument that low-skilled workers' employment prospects are hindered by legal minimum wages or strict employment protection, nor that wage inequality improves low-skilled employment. By contrast, investment in active labour market policies pays off and low real interest rates are associated with significantly less low-skilled unemployment. Hence, low-skilled workers' job prospects seem enhanced by a combination of active labour market programmes with monetary policy that fully exploits the economy's growth potential."

"We analyse occupational change over the last two decades in Britain, Germany, Spain and Switzerland: which jobs have been expanding—high-paid jobs, low-paid jobs or both? Based on individual-level data, four hypotheses are examined: skill-biased technical change, routinization, skill supply evolution and wage-setting institutions. We find massive occupational upgrading which matches educational expansion: employment expanded most at the top of the occupational hierarchy, among managers and professionals. In parallel, intermediary occupations (clerks and production workers) declined relative to those at the bottom (interpersonal service workers). This U-shaped pattern of upgrading is consistent with the routinization hypothesis: technology seems a better substitute for average-paid clerical and manufacturing jobs than for low-end interpersonal service jobs. Yet country differences in low-paid services suggest that wage-setting institutions channel technological change into more or less polarized patterns of upgrading. Moreover, immigration surges in Britain and Spain seem decisive in having provided the low-skilled labour supply necessary to fill low-paid jobs. "

"This paper enquires into the causes of union growth and decline by analysing flows in and out of membership. It does so at the level of 70 Swiss union locals over the period 2006-08. Gross flows in union membership are found to be much larger than the resulting net changes: turnover of annually 10 per cent thus is a surprisingly constant feature across unions. Net changes in membership are primarily determined by inflows: successful union locals differ from languishing ones with respect to their entry rates, whereas exit rates are similar. There is large variance in union locals' entry rates that is not accounted for by the labour market context. Rather, it seems attributable to differences in union organization and strategy."