An Intersectional Analysis of Labor Market Outcomes

Recent work highlights the importance of intersectionality to the study of the economic and labor market inequalities of those with disabilities. Yet, little attention has been given to examining the causes and consequences of these intersectional effects. The current chapter expands on previous research by (1) examining how race/ethnicity, gender, and disability status work in tandem to shape employment probabilities among working-age adults with disabilities and (2) whether potential disparities among these groups can be explained by government assistance receipt. This chapter uses data from the 2017 American Community Survey (ACS) to estimate a series of logistic regression models predicting employment from 16 race-gender-disability groups. Results provide evidence for a “spillover effect” where the disadvantages or advantages an individual acquires from the combination of their status-based characteristics spill over to affect their employment probabilities. This spillover effect may result from the multiplicative effects of race/ethnicity, gender, and disability status on institutions, including employment and government assistance, intertwining to create and maintain hierarchies of disadvantage, leading to overlapping institutions of oppression.

Does better job accessibility help people gain employment? The role of public transport in Great Britain

The combined decentralisation of many firms and services and the increasing concentration of traditional public transport services in the main corridors of urban centres have made it more difficult for people to access jobs, in particular when residing outside these prime accessibility areas. This is the first national study within the context of Great Britain to examine whether better public transport job accessibility, modelled at the micro level of individuals, improves employment probabilities for people living in Great Britain. While previous studies have typically concentrated on US metropolitan areas, our study uses British national employment micro datasets to assess which urban and rural areas and population groups would benefit from better public transport services. In an important departure from most standard accessibility methodologies, we computed a public transport job accessibility measure applied nationwide and combined this with individual-level employment probability models for Great Britain. The models were corrected for endogeneity by applying an instrumental variable approach. The study finds that better public transport job accessibility improves individual employment probabilities, in particular in metropolitan areas and smaller cities and towns with lower car ownership rates and in low-income neighbourhoods. It further shows that mainly lower educated groups and young people would benefit from better public transport job accessibility. The findings in this study are important for policymakers in that they imply that, in particular, job seekers who rely on public transport services may benefit from more targeted public policies to improve their accessibility to employment and thereby their social mobility.

Gender Role Attitudes and Labour Market Behaviours: Do Attitudes Contribute to Gender Differences in Employment in Germany?

This article contributes to the literature on persistent gender inequalities in the labour market by investigating gender role attitudes in Germany and their association with labour market behaviour. Based on the German Panel Study ‘Labour Market and Social Security’ (PASS), longitudinal analyses are applied to examine the influence of gender role attitudes and the household context on various employment states. The results reveal that gender role attitudes are crucial for labour market behaviour and that there are differences among women and men in different household contexts. Whereas single men and women do not differ significantly in their employment probabilities, women in couple households are less active in the labour market than their male counterparts. Furthermore, differences in employment are largest in couples with children. Among women, differences in full-time employment by household context become smaller when these women hold egalitarian attitudes.

Wage Insurance and Labor Market Trajectories

Wage insurance provides income support to displaced workers who find reemployment at a lower wage. We study the effects of the wage insurance provisions of the US Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program using administrative data from the state of Virginia. The program includes an age-based eligibility cutoff, allowing us to compare earnings and employment trajectories for workers whose ages at the time of displacement make them eligible or ineligible for the program. Our findings suggest that wage insurance eligibility increases short-run employment probabilities and that wage insurance and TAA training may yield similar long-run effects on employment and earnings.

EMPLOYMENT PROBABILITIES AND WORKFORCE DISTRIBUTION IN THE INDIAN MANUFACTURING SECTOR: A STATE-LEVEL ANALY

Employment distribution disparities are preventing the Indian economy from achievinginclusive growth. The skewed distribution of employment is one of the reasons forthe rising inequalities in the economy. In this regard, the present study analyses theemployment probabilities of Indians working in the manufacturing sector. A binarylogit model has been used on a pooled cross-sectional dataset of the fourth (2013-14) and fifth (2015-16) Employment and Unemployment Surveys (EUS). The studyanalyses four major attributes, namely castes (social categories), gender, location, andeducation. We analyze these attributes separately for all the 29 main Indian states,and find that caste and location are highly important deciding factors of employmentprobabilities in the manufacturing sector.

An Intersectional Approach towards Parental Employment in Families with a Child with a Disability: The Case of Belgium

For parents with disabled children labour market participation is difficult since these children require care that exceeds typical parental care. At the same time, disabled children often live in families who belong to social categories that are associated with lower employment probabilities. However, the intersection between disability and social categories is hitherto overlooked in the literature. Drawing on a case study of Belgium, this article empirically examines to what extent parental employment is explained by the child’s disability and/or the family’s social disadvantages. For this, unique and large-scale register data are used. The results show that (1) childhood disability overlapped with social disadvantages; (2) childhood disability inhibited parental employment; but (3) the relationship differed by social category: for single parents, parents with low educational qualifications, and parents having multiple disabled children, disability and social disadvantage reinforced each other.

The Effects of Recognition of Foreign Education for Newly Arrived Immigrants

We analyze the effects of formal recognition of foreign higher education on employment probabilities and earnings for newly arrived immigrants in Sweden. Prior research has found that immigrants have lower returns on education if it was acquired in the country of origin than if it was acquired in the host country. One reason for this is that foreign credentials work poorly as productivity signals and risk-averse employers avoid employees with credentials they do not fully understand. A formal recognition statement can help overcome this problem by providing credible information about the foreign education, thus reducing uncertainty. Data consists of immigrants who, within the first ten years of residence in Sweden, had their foreign degree formally recognized during 2007–2011. Using fixed effects regressions, we estimate the treatment effect of official recognition to be 4.4 percentage points higher probability of being employed, and 13.9 log points higher wage for those with employment. We also find considerable treatment effect heterogeneity across subcategories of immigrants from different regions of origin, with different reasons for immigration and who obtained recognition during different economic conditions. Our conclusions are that the mechanism of employer uncertainty is real, and that recognition does reduce it. But as the signal of foreign education becomes better, other mechanisms such as human capital transferability problems and quality differences, and the ability to use foreign human capital, become more salient, leading to heterogeneous effects.

Do scarring effects vary by ethnicity and gender?

Being unemployed or inactive in youth leaves scars, but some people appear to be more successful than others in overcoming an initial disadvantaged situation. This chapter examines how early labor market experiences affect later employment and occupational opportunities for different groups. It compares the outcomes of White British men and women with those of second-generation ethnic minorities (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Caribbean) in England and Wales. It also discusses mechanisms affecting scarring and how they might vary across ethnic groups and genders. The analysis is based on the ONS Longitudinal Study. The examination follows individuals’ labor market experiences from 2001 (aged 16–29 years) to 2011 (aged 26–39 years). Having not been in employment, education, or training (NEET) has a less detrimental effect on later employment probabilities for Asian men than for White British men; the opposite is observed for Pakistani and Caribbean women compared to White British women.

Employment and Education–Occupation Mismatches of Immigrants and their Children in the Netherlands: Comparisons with the Native Majority Group

This study examines the labor market integration of immigrants and their children in the Netherlands focusing on employment and over- and underqualification. Using data from the first wave of the Netherlands Longitudinal Life-Course Study (NELLS), the analysis shows disadvantages in employment probabilities for men and women from different foreign origin groups compared to the Dutch majority even after accounting for differences in human capital. Ethnic differences in employment probabilities are lower, but still visible, when comparing only respondents who obtained post-secondary education in the Netherlands. Further, first-generation immigrant men from Turkey and Morocco are at higher risk of being overeducated than Dutch majority men whereas this is not the case for second generation men and first- and secondgeneration minority women. Substantial ethnic difference in the likelihood of being undereducated are not prevalent. Having a foreign compared to a Dutch degree is related to lower labor market outcomes, but this negative relation is more pronounced for women than for men. Finally, there is some indication that overeducation is somewhat less common in the public sector than in the private sector, but minorities do not benefit more from this than the Dutch majority.