Documents wage differential 1 115 results

"Trade unions have changed from being male dominated to majority-female organizations. We use linked employer–employee surveys for Norway and Britain to examine whether, in keeping with a median voter model, the gender shift in union membership has resulted in differential wage returns to unionization among men and women. In Britain, while only women receive a union wage premium, only men benefit from the increased bargaining power of their union as indicated by workplace union density. In Norway, however, both men and women receive a union wage premium in male-dominated workplaces; but where the union is female dominated, women benefit more than men. The findings suggest British unions continue to adopt a paternalistic attitude to representing their membership, in contrast to their more progressive counterparts in Norway."

"The 2020-21 edition also reviews minimum wage systems across the world and identifies the conditions under which minimum wages can reduce inequality. The report presents comprehensive data on levels of minimum wages, their effectiveness, and the number and characteristics of workers paid at or below the minimum. The report highlights how adequate minimum wages, statutory or negotiated, can play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the crisis.

“The Global Wage Report is central to the analysis of wage trends and labour market developments as well as to the theoretical debate about the role of labour in the economy. It is an indispensable publication for economists, trade unionists, employers and the interested public.” − Hansjörg Herr, Berlin School of Economics and Law."

"This paper studies the employment and reallocation effects of minimum wages in Germany in a search-and-matching model with endogenous job search effort and vacancy posting, multiple employment levels, a progressive tax-transfer system, and worker and firm heterogeneity. I find that minimum wages up to 70% of the median wage significantly increase productivity, hours worked and output without reducing employment. In frictional labor markets, however, reallocation takes time whenever the minimum wage cuts deep into the wage distribution. I show that gradually implementing a high minimum wage is necessary to avoid elevated unemployment rates during the transition."

"We analyse thirty years of Italian private sector employment data (1985-2018) to study the dynamics of rising earnings inequality. The total variance surged by 10 log points, with 55% occurring between industries, particularly in a few low-paid service sectors. Workers with low earnings ability showed increased likelihood of working in industries with low average firm premium (sorting) together with other low-earning workers (segregation). Strikingly, parallels with the US emerge. In both, inequality increased predominantly between industries and concentrated within a small number of sectors. Italy's increase primarily stems from low-paying sectors, diverging from the more balanced growth observed in the US across high-paying and low-paying industries. Our findings suggest that despite institutional differences similar underlying forces are at work."

"The purpose of this article is to provide an evaluation of the progress made in Albania to achieve gender balance in two main areas – political decision-making and the labour market – in terms of the degree of alignment with the requirements of the Beijing Platform for Action and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The methodology relies on qualitative research and is developed through an in-depth analysis of statistical data, mainly collected by the Institute of Statistics of Albania (INSTAT) and the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). The findings indicate that women remain under-represented in parliament as well as in the labour market. Progress was made prior to Covid-19 in the context of gender gaps in employment, but in 2020 the situation changed and they fell back before rising in 2021, leaving the situation as regards women's labour force participation steady. Other results are quite promising and show particular strides in the position of the gender pay gap and in terms of women's political participation in the Albanian cabinet, ranking Albania in both cases better than the EU-27. "

"This study uses household survey data from 58 countries around the world to compare the labour market outcomes of rural and urban workers, taking into account the specific socio-demographic characteristics of rural populations. It also provides an overview of the legal frameworks that can be used to address rural-urban employment and wage disparities.
Statistical evidence from 58 countries shows that although people in rural areas are more likely to be in employment than those in urban ones, they also tend to have jobs that can put them at risk of experiencing inadequate labour protection as well as low pay. In particular, rural workers are paid, on average, 24 per cent less than their urban counterparts on an hourly basis, and only half of this gap can be explained by rural–urban discrepancies in education, job experience and occupational category. Developing countries exhibit a relatively wider gap, with the unexplained part also being larger. Furthermore, in many countries, certain groups of rural workers are at greater disadvantage, such as women, who, on average, appear to earn less than men in rural areas. However, institutional and regulatory frameworks, notably those that set minimum wages or seek to promote equal opportunities, can help to reduce labour market-related inequalities across the rural–urban divide."

"Much of the literature on wage inequality describes increases in wage inequality over time driven by seemingly unstoppable forces of technological change and globalisation, widening the gaps between workers and disadvantaging the lower paid. At the same time institutional protection has continued to decline. It is, however, not as clear that wage inequality is actually on a constant rise everywhere. First, the evidence from Europe is generally more mixed with an overall decline in wage inequality since the early 2000s and substantial variation between countries. Second, even in the United States there has recently been a reversal in the trend of rising wage inequality, likely to have been driven by the greater bargaining power of lower-paid workers.

This paper considers in detail the role played by the institutional as well as the economic factors that shape wage floors and protect workers at the low end of the wage distribution. Using detailed data from EU-SILC from 2007 to 2021, enriched with contextual data, it shows that wage inequality has indeed on average declined across the EU (1). This is primarily due to convergence between countries. In line with expectations, strong institutional support, such as statutory minimum wages with greater bite and a higher collective bargaining coverage rate, are associated with lower inequality and a better position for vulnerable workers (2). Multilevel analysis indicates that, over time, changes in these institutional settings and in the demand for workers – affecting their bargaining power – affect inequality at the country-industry level (3). This paper provides insights into aspects of European labour institutions and labour market factors that affect inequality and shows that wages, particularly at the bottom of the wage distribution, are supported by institutional factors through the state or collective actors, as well as affected by the demand for labour."

"We provide evidence that suggests that a reduction in outside wage options reduces wage increases in retained jobs. We use the natural experiment of a reform that reduced outside wage options for employees in deregulated crafts occupations in comparison to employees in not reformed crafts occupations. To avoid estimation biases from general reform effects on wages, we concentrate on employees active in crafts occupations who worked for employers in the industry and commerce sectors and exclude employees in the crafts sector. Four years after the reform, the wages of treated employees in deregulated crafts were 5 per cent lower than wages of employees in not reformed occupations (control group). The reform, therefore, led to wage differentiation between comparable employees. The wage effects are concentrated in employers with high general wage increases after the reform and they can be found even at individual employers."