Search results for ""Author Solomon W. Polachek""

How do workers fare in a continually changing labor market? This volume contains fifteen original scientific papers each examining how socio-economic changes affect worker wellbeing. Among the findings are: most increases in female labor force participation occur among women with high husbands' earnings, dispelling the myth that shrinking husbands' relative earnings cause women's work activities to rise; increased globalization equalizes pay between but expands pay within corporate establishments; high quality colleges widen the earnings distribution for top earners but only negligibly affect earnings for low wage earners; mathematical success depends on school quality more so than verbal learning; and adult daughters who visit ailing parents daily in a nursing home decrease their annual labor supply by about 1,000 hours implying a welfare loss of 180,000 dollars. Findings are: physical and/or sexual abuse appear to afflict over 30 per cent of the population leading to a 15 per cent drop in employment probability and a 32 per cent loss in wages; and, training workers in an entirely new occupation raises an employee's wage growth while training workers in the same occupation decreases their wage growth, at least during the Russian economy's recent transition.

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How do technology, public works projects, mental health, race, gender, mobility, retirement benefits, and macroeconomic policies affect worker well-being? This volume contains fourteen original chapters utilizing the latest econometric techniques to answer this question. The findings include the following: technology gains explain over half the decline in U.S. unemployment and over two-thirds the reduction in U.S. inflation; universal health coverage would reduce U.S. labor force participation by 3.3 per cent; blacks respond to regional rather than national changes in schooling rates of return, perhaps implying a more local labor market for blacks than whites; employee motivation enhances labor force participation, on-the-job training, job satisfaction and earnings; male and female promotion and quit rates are comparable once one controls for individual and job characteristics; public works programs designed to increase a worker's skills do not always increase reemployment; and, U.S. pension wealth increased about 20 per cent - 25 per cent over the last two decades.

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This volume contains twelve cutting edge papers contributing new research to important issues concerning worker welfare. The research deals with earnings inequality, discrimination, the effects of migration, and economic policy. Answers to a number of policy related questions are given including: Why are jobs designed the way they are? Does seniority-based pay provide a sufficient motivation for workers? Do sex-segregated firms grow more quickly than firms more equally divided by gender? What policies are effective in combating discrimination? Why is relative rural-urban income inequality so much greater in China than the US? How does migrating from one region to another affect one's child's schooling decisions? Do higher migration levels affect native worker wages?

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This volume contains 15 essays devoted to a number of multifaceted issues regarding how public policy affects worker well-being. Of the 15 chapters, the first two are the more general, dealing with overall earnings distribution and overall changes in welfare policy. The remaining chapters examine specific aspects of human welfare. They cover: fertility, disability, minimum wage, pension wealth, human capital investment, migration, health, and earnings. The book culminates with four chapters relating to gender and the family. Ultimately, determining who works, how much is earned, and how these earnings get distributed define the components of individual and social welfare. The topics covered in this volume shed light on these questions.

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This volume contains thirteen new and original chapters on topics relating to worker well-being. It deals directly with how economic institutions affect individual and family earnings distributions. Topics covered include job training, worker and firm mobility, unions, collective bargaining, minimum wages, unemployment insurance and schooling. Among the questions answered are: To what extent do greater work hours of women mitigate the widening of the family earnings distribution? To what extent does the decline in unionization widen the distribution of earnings? To what extent do computers expand the earnings distribution? To what extent does the Russian wage distribution change if one accounted for wage arrears? To what extent does business relocation bring about job creation and job destruction? To what extent does maternal education increase children's education? To what extent do job skills matter for low-income workers? And finally, why do minimum wage increases often fail to lead to increases in unemployment? There are thirteen new and original chapters containing research on aspects of worker well-being. Each chapter is written by experts in the field.

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Informality and informal employment are wide-spread and growing phenomena in all regions of the world, in particular in low and middle income economies. A large part of economic activity in these countries is not registered or under-declared and many workers enter employment relationships that do not provide any or only partial protection, work with little or no physical capital, receive low wages and work under conditions that can be hazardous to their health. This volume sheds light on the incidence and persistence of informality and the role of institutions and government regulations. The articles offer insights into issues such as how labor and tax regulations determine the incidence of informality, whether reforms on tax and other regulations can reduce informal employment, to what extent informality occurs as a result of job separations, how persistent is informal employment, how informal employment can be detected and whether migration can be a substitute for informal employment.

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This volume contains 13 new and important never before published chapters covering aspects of the employer-employee relationship. The volume is focused at the academic audience, but is also geared to government and business policy makers worldwide. The chapters use data from the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle-East to answer a number of vital labor market questions. These include: Why has part-time work increased so dramatically in the 15 European Union countries? What changes in retirement behavior will be expected as countries change pension laws? Why do firms often use fixed-term instead of long-term employment contracts? How do employee work interruptions affect occupational choice? Why do both employers and employees often prefer additional fringe benefits to wage increases? Do academic certifications really signal higher worker quality? How is an individual's work ethic influenced by others in residential neighborhoods? And, why do risky jobs often pay lower wages when one might expect employees need better remuneration to take dangerous jobs?

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A country's economic productivity is directly related to the health of its workforce. Thus, how a nation allocates resources to the physical health of its population is of vital importance in establishing the economic well-being of its citizens. This volume contains nine original and innovative articles that investigate the relationship between a nation's health policies, employee health and resulting labor market outcomes. Topics include the direct link between employees' health and wages, the employment impact of an unfavorable health shock, the relationship between job insecurity and a worker's mental health, the effect of career disruptions on already chronically ill workers, the consequences of arbitrary health insurance disenrollments, the impact of reducing publically available sick day benefits, the repercussions of increasing employers' sick pay benefits on absenteeism, the relationship between economic conditions and opioid abuse, and the consequences of parental migration on children's health. For researchers and students of labor economics, or anyone interested in understanding how a country's health policies affect its economic productivity, this volume is a fundamental text.

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Since its inception Research in Labor Economics has published over 350 articles encompassing a wide range of themes and spanning an array of labor economics topics. Authors have ranged from young scholars with much potential to mature leaders in the field, including Nobel Prize and John Bates Clark award winners. Over the years Research in Labor Economics has continued to present important new research in labor economics. It covers themes such as labor supply, work effort, schooling, on-the-job training, earnings distribution, discrimination, migration, and the effects of government policies on worker well-being. It aims to apply economic theory and econometrics to analyze important policy-related questions, often with an international focus. To commemorate Research in Labor Economics's 35th anniversary, this retrospective edition contains 20 of the most influential Research in Labor Economics articles along with new introductory prefatory updates written by the original authors. These new prefaces emphasize recent developments that each article might have inspired and also discuss remaining unanswered questions.

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This volume contains nine original innovative chapters on worker well-being. Three chapters are on time allocated to work and human capital acquisition, three on aspects of risk in the earnings process, two on migration, and finally one on how tax policies affect poverty. Questions answered include: Are more educated women now opting out of work with a higher probability than in the past? Under what circumstances do young adults allocate non-school time to educational pursuits? How do macroeconomic shocks affect labor force participation rates? Can tax policies alleviate poverty? Are workers compensated adequately for taking risks? Do differences in private and public sector earnings affect mobility between the two sectors? And, do migrant parents affect educational decisions of their offspring?

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How do changes at home, in the labor market and on the job affect worker well-being? This volume of Research in Labor Economics contains eight original and insightful articles answering this question. Seven deal with demographic and labor market change, and one deals with wage differences essentially at a point in time. Of the seven, two articles analyze changes in family related matters and have implications regarding labor supply; two examine legislative changes, one of which has implications on teenage employment, and the other on informal business formation; one looks at potential productivity changes on farms in a developing country and has implications for remaining on the family farm or going to work; one models wage growth and shows why wages sometimes fall as one remains in a job longer; and finally, one investigates new enterprise formation over time.

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This volume contains new important research on worker well-being. Topics include employment contracts, compensation schemes, worker productivity, retirement decisions, the demographic transition, time allocation, and child labor. Among the questions answered are: How important is incentive pay in increasing worker productivity? Does monitoring productivity affect a worker's earnings trajectory? How is the decision to retire different in two-earner families compared to one-earner families? How did the evolution of the family affect men's and women's proclivities to work? Do welfare subsidies encourage recipients to spend additional productive time with their children? Can property titles (land reform) affect child labor in less developed country settings?

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After three decades of economic reform, China is experiencing substantial demographic changes and a steady structural transformation toward a market economy. These phenomena pose major challenges for the Chinese labor market, which are at the center of the booming academic and policy research in recent years. This volume presents fresh knowledge on labor market issues in China. It contains eight original research articles which offer insights and answers to question such as: Which are the most important challenges of the Chinese labor market? How does rural-urban migration affect occupational choice in rural China? Does urban occupational mobility differ across gender? Which is the cost of job displacement in urban labor markets? Is over-qualification affecting the hiring probability across educational groups? How does the social insurance system perform in terms of coverage of urban workers? Which are the incentive problems in the new rural pension program?

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This volume contains eight new and innovative research articles relevant to researchers and policy makers. Each chapter deals with an aspect of human welfare and is authored by an expert in the field. One deals with how technological change affects the distribution of earnings, two deal with how workers advance through corporate hierarchy, four deal with how incentives motivate workers, and the final chapter deals with how one immigrant group is far more successful than even the native population. Among the questions answered are: What accounts for the relative rise in skilled worker salaries? Which workers advance more quickly up the corporate ladder? Are workers hired from outside the company as successful as internally promoted workers? Does performance-based pay affect worker absenteeism? Do retirement incentives to workers really help the firm? Do unexpected decreases in retirement income decrease retiree life satisfaction? Do more stringent divorce laws increase cohabitation? What causes immigrants to really succeed in their new country?

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Understanding the factors that affect how one transitions from school to the labor market and finally to retirement is important both to the individual and to the policy maker. This volume contains seven original and innovative articles that analyze aspects of such labor market transitions. Questions answered include: How did hiring and firing decisions change for blacks and Hispanics relative to whites in the Great Recession? Can redesigning the minimum wage lead to more efficient employment transitions and greater social welfare? What are the factors leading a company to fast-track an employee? How does the number of layers in a company’s hierarchical structure affect one’s ability to be promoted? Do women gravitate to more socially caring occupations because they care more than men? Does gaming among youth increase math scores more for boys than girls? And, does good health impede one’s inclination to retire?

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This 50th Celebratory Research in Labor Economics volume contains ten original and innovative articles each written by stellar senior scholars in labor economics, including a Nobel Laureate. Each article deals with an aspect of worker well-being addressing questions such as: What can epidemiologists learn from search and matching models? What advanced degrees yield the highest returns? How do occupational and safety risks on the job affect earnings? What are best practices in estimating gender discrimination? Has technology exacerbated the widening earnings distribution? How have bureaucrats overregulated the economy? Did Right to Work laws really decrease unionization? Why were undocumented immigrants able to return to work faster than natives during Covid-19? And, how does a husband’s death impact a widow’s use of time at home?

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The 2008 global financial and economic crisis led to a significant increase in unemployment rates in most developed economies, yet despite the rising supply of labor, a high share of employers claim that they cannot find the right talent and skills. Concerns that economic restructuring and changing skill needs associated with new technologies and workplace organization practices will not be met by an adequately skilled workforce, has placed the issue of skill mismatch – the incongruence between skill supply and skill demand – high up in the policy agenda. This volume contains eleven original research articles which deal with the linkages between education and skills and the causes and consequences of different types of skill mismatch. Topics include the way graduate jobs can be defined, the labor market decisions and outcomes of graduates, the determinants of the overeducation wage penalty, the determinants and consequences of underskilling, the wage return of skills, the impact of skill mismatch on aggregate productivity, and the role of work-related training and job complexity on skill development.

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This volume contains new important research on worker well-being in a changing economy. Topics include employee compensation, human capital investment, women's wages, unemployment, and the effects of government policies. Among the questions answered are: Does free-trade (particularly regarding NAFTA) affect women's wages relative to men's? Can guaranteeing college scholarships raise high school students' grade-point averages? Does increasing wage dispersion within a plant induce workers to put out more effort; or does it decrease comradery among employees, thereby lowering productivity? Does deferring worker pay really affect productivity on the job? Do firms manipulate fringe benefits (job characteristics) to adequately compensate workers for dangerous jobs? Do business cycles influence the terms of effort-enhancing labor contracts? How can workers signal their potential quality when displaced by plant closings? How severe are the detrimental effects of long-term joblessness? And finally, how do changes in welfare laws affect recipients' time allocation at home?

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Beginning in 1965 Nobel Laureate Gary Becker realized that shadow prices, which reflect the value of one’s time, may be at least as important as money prices. Implications of his resulting theory of time allocation were not tested until much later when governments began to collect extensive data on how individuals utilized their time. Time Use in Economics contains original research on new aspects of time use compiled by Daniel S. Hamermesh, a long-time path-breaking labor economist leader in analyzing time use data, and Solomon W. Polachek, a pioneer in gender-related labor market research. Topics include how time is used by type of household, how time is used in particular jobs, how time is used in high versus low growth geographic areas, how time is used after a job loss, how time use affects individual wellbeing, as well as how to interpret the blurred boundaries of time use between leisure and work, a growing issue as more individuals, especially mothers, work from home.

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Inequality has been rising in many countries over the last decades and the process seems to have accelerated with the Great Recession. Not only is income distribution more unequal today than 40 years ago, but also its transmission through generations has increased. In other words, many countries no longer experience upward economic mobility as was prevalent in the past. Research in Labor Economics volume 43 contains new and innovative research on the causes and consequences of inequality. Topics include the way inequality is measured, the level of equal opportunities across countries, the impact of education, the effect of changing occupational structure, the consequences of changing productivity within the firm, the roles of stagnating average real wages, the decline of union membership, the effect of maternal labor supply on labor market outcomes of their children, and the link between income inequality and health.

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For most countries, women's labor force participation and hours of work has risen while men's have fallen. Concomitantly, men's and women's wages and occupational structures have been converging. This volume contains new and innovative research on issues related to gender convergence in the labor market. Topics include patterns in lifetime work, earnings and human capital investment, the gender wage gap, gender complementarities, career progression, the gender composition of top management and the role of parental leave policies. Among the questions answered are: Do the levels of and returns to human capital change over the last 50 years in the US? Can the shorter fecundity horizon for females (a biological constraint) explain the division of labor in the home and the resulting wage gap? Does skill-biased technological change favor women's wages more than men's? Do care sector jobs incur a wage penalty? What impact does this have on firm and employee outcomes? Does the glass-ceiling faced by women in top management relate to fertility and parental leave policies and having children? And finally, are men and women complements or substitutes in the labor market?

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How firms are structured, the management practices they develop, as well as the way in which workers and managers interact can have wider implications for both the performance of the firm and the well-being of its workers. This volume contains ten original and innovative articles that investigate aspects related to workplace practices and productivity. Topics include the role of employee voice in the workplace, the link between unions, innovation and firms’ investment, the relationship between job autonomy and hierarchy, the impact of personnel policies on firm performance, the consequences of incentives through discrete bonus compensation schemes for learning on the job, the repercussions of firm downsizing on worker’s performance, the individual returns to entrepreneurship, the impact of private tutoring on college attendance, and the measurement of labor market transitions.

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Research in Labor Economics 44 takes another in-depth and focussed look at Inequality. This time however it is tied in with well-being of the workforce. Research in Labor Economics volume 44 contains new and innovative research on the causes and consequences of inequality and well-being of the work force.

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Why in 2015 are there still large gender differences in economic success? This volume consists of a set of state of the art research articles to answer this question. Focus areas include educational attainment, financial risk management, bargaining power, social mobility, and intergenerational transfers in the US and abroad.

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