scholarly journals Black Population Size and the Structure of United States Labor Market Inequality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip N. Cohen

This dissertation investigates the relationship between relative Black population size and the structure of labor market inequality by race-ethnicity, gender and class. There are five principal new developments here. First, Black-White inequality for women -- as well as gender inequality -- is integrated into the research. Second, by examining three major labor market outcomes -- employment status, occupational attainment, and earnings -- the project offers a more systematic view of the relationships under study. This has important implications for better understanding possible causal mechanisms of racial-ethnic composition. Third, existing threat and crowding hypotheses are tested with new models using measures of residential and occupational segregation. Fourth, tests of class interactions are offered, casting new light on continuing debates about the relative costs and benefits of Black-White inequality across class and gender lines. Finally, estimation of contextual effects in all models is improved with hierarchical modeling techniques. Larger relative Black population size means more "race" in the local economy, and more "racial" inequality. This project asks the question: is more "race" good or bad for White and Black men and women at the individual level; whom does Black-White inequality help or hurt, and in what ways? I conclude that when the Black population is larger, Black-White inequality is more salient, and more important relative to class and gender inequality. A consistent set of models shows this pattern across labor market outcomes, and across gender and class groups -- as well as across variation in individual-level characteristics besides racial-ethnicity. Thus Black-White inequality again appears not only pervasive but also structural to the system of social stratification in the United States.

2018 ◽  
pp. 389-418
Author(s):  
Mehtap Akgüç ◽  
Miroslav Beblavý

This chapter analyzes the labor market integration of South–North and East–West migrants, together with intra-European and non-European Union migrants, vis-à-vis native peers in main European destinations. The analysis considers individual characteristics and labor market outcomes by migrant origins. Labor market outcomes are estimated, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and for country-fixed and year effects. Using interaction effects, the chapter estimates whether the work-related outcomes of young migrants differ vis-à-vis native peers. The econometric analysis using pooled European Social Surveys (2002–2015) suggests that individual characteristics explain part of the migrant–native peer differences. Particularly, migrants from Eastern and Southern Europe exhibit important gaps vis-à-vis native peers regarding unemployment, contract type, and overqualification. Overall, migrant youth and women seem to be in vulnerable situations in destination labor markets. In addition to nondiscriminatory treatment, transparent competence screening and smooth skills transferability could alleviate such youth and gender vulnerabilities.


Author(s):  
Terra McKinnish

Marriage and labor market outcomes are deeply related, particularly for women. A large literature finds that the labor supply decisions of married women respond to their husbands’ employment status, wages, and job characteristics. There is also evidence that the effects of spouse characteristics on labor market outcomes operate not just through standard neoclassical cross-wage and income effects but also through household bargaining and gender norm effects, in which the relative incomes of husband and wife affect the distribution of marital surplus, marital satisfaction, and marital stability. Marriage market characteristics affect marital status and spouse characteristics, as well as the outside option, and therefore bargaining power, within marriage. Marriage market characteristics can therefore affect premarital investments, which ultimately affect labor market outcomes within marriage and also affect labor supply decisions within marriage conditional on these premarital investments.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Yixia Cai ◽  
Dean Baker

A large and growing percentage of households are missed in the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS). For the survey as a whole, the rate of nonresponse is roughly 13 percent. This is higher for Blacks, with the share for young Black men being about 30 percent. The BLS’s current methodology effectively assumes that, with adjustment for various characteristics, people who are not included in a follow-up survey may not differ systematically from those who are included. The present paper, however, provides evidence that this may not be the case. With the rotation panel structure of the CPS data from 2003 to 2019, we investigate bias from nonresponse in CPS and its association with one’s prior labor market status, paying particular attention to how the relationship differs by race, ethnicity, and gender. Our analysis suggests that people are considerably more likely to be missing in a subsequent observation if they are unemployed or not in the labor force in the prior observation. We also estimate what the real labor market outcomes might have been when adjusting for nonresponse and undercoverage. Findings indicate that the current methodology may underestimate the national unemployment and labor force participation rates by about 0.7 and 1.2 percentage points, respectively. The gap between observed and adjusted unemployment rates tends to grow beginning in 2015. The unemployment rate is more understated for Blacks than for whites, particularly with a gap of about 3.3 percentage points for young Black men (age 16 to 34).


Author(s):  
Sally Wallace ◽  
Thomas Mroz ◽  
Alex Hathaway

The benefits of a college education are well documented. However, the majority of existing research focuses on students who matriculate soon after high school graduation. There is little empirical evidence illustrating whether a college degree is similarly beneficial to those already in the workforce, particularly individuals over 50. Nonetheless, the coming years will see the dramatic growth of older individuals, many of whom will continue to be active in the labor force, and policymakers would benefit from effective strategies to improve the labor market outcomes of older individuals. This research proposes to evaluate the labor market outcomes of individuals in Georgia who obtain a bachelor’s degree at age 50 or older by merging state-level individual level labor force (Dpt of Labor) with individual level educational data from the University System of Georgia (USG). Specifically, we explore whether these later-age degrees result in employment opportunities with higher wages and increased retention in the labor force beyond the traditional retirement age of 65 than those who do not attain a bachelor’s degree.  The results will provide policymakers across the United States with information to make informed decisions regarding higher education incentives and policies for older students.


2021 ◽  
pp. 019791832110088
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Kanas ◽  
Katrin Müller

This article contributes to previous research on immigrant integration by examining how religiosity and gender roles in European countries influence immigrant women’s labor market outcomes. Moreover, we extend theoretical work on the importance of the receiving country’s norms and values by hypothesizing and testing whether receiving countries’ influence varies with immigrant women’s religiosity and gender-role attitudes. Using the European Social Survey data and multilevel regression models, we find that religious immigrant women participate less in the labor market and work fewer hours than nonreligious immigrant women. Immigrant women’s traditional gender-role attitudes partly explain the negative relationship between individual religiosity and labor market outcomes. While the receiving country’s religiosity is negatively related to immigrant women’s labor market outcomes, this negative relationship is significantly weaker for religious and gender-traditional immigrant women than for nonreligious and gender-egalitarian women. These findings suggest that the economic benefits of residing in countries that support female employment are limited to immigrant women who are ready and positioned to embrace gender-egalitarian norms and values.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés Erosa ◽  
Luisa Fuster ◽  
Gueorgui Kambourov ◽  
Richard Rogerson

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-323
Author(s):  
Rizqi Qurniawan ◽  
Thia Jasmina

To improve the quality and competitiveness of human capital and correspond to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 especially target 4.3, to ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, Indonesia has been focusing on improving the quality of secondary education. However, empirical data and previous research showed that secondary school graduates in Indonesia face high unemployment and income differences, especially vocational school graduates. The quality of secondary high schools plays an important role in determining the years of schooling of the graduates and indirectly impacts labor market outcomes. Using longitudinal panel data at the individual level from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) of 2000, 2007, and 2014; and applying education production function and Mincer earning equation, this study finds that the difference in wages between graduates of general and vocational high schools is not statistically significant despite the school quality. However, analyzing within the vocational high schools shows that better quality of vocational high schools increases years of schooling of its graduates as they can access tertiary education, and subsequently increases their performance in the labor market. This finding indicates that policies to improve school quality, especially vocational high schools, should be enhanced.


2017 ◽  
Vol 107 (5) ◽  
pp. 125-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Buser ◽  
Noemi Peter ◽  
Stefan C. Wolter

Willingness to compete has been found to predict individual and gender differences in educational choices and labor market outcomes. We provide further evidence for this relationship by linking Swiss students' Baccalaureate school (high school) specialization choices to an experimental measure of willingness to compete. Boys are more likely to specialize in math in Baccalaureate school. In line with previous findings, competitive students are more likely to choose a math specialization. Boys are more likely to opt for competition than girls and this gender difference in competitiveness could partially explain why girls are less likely to choose a math-intensive specialization.


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