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Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to attempt to look at the link between labor market risks and social insurance demands by taking occupational unemployment rates, and specificity of skills into account. Design/methodology/approach - Occupational unemployment rate is treated as an estimate of labor market risk in addition to human capital investment. Then, the variations in Germany and the USA - with diverse labor markets and a considerable difference in terms of social insurance support - are examined. Findings - The results suggest that occupational unemployment rate is explanatory for the demands for social insurance along with income. Practical implications - Conclusions reached in the paper aim to contribute to the understanding of the political support for social insurance and hence provide tools for the design of such insurance mechanisms. Originality/value - Contrary to the widespread association between the type of human capital and social insurance preferences in the literature, the paper argues that the cross-country variations can be explained by occupational unemployment rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to estimate the association between religious affiliation and the rate of return to human capital for German men and women. Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs data from the 1997, 2003, 2007 and 2011 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel for German men and women in full-time employment between the age of 25 and 54. The association between religious affiliation and wages was estimated using a conventional human capital model. Findings – This paper finds that Catholic men (women) received a wage premium of 4 per cent (3 per cent) relative to their Protestant counterparts, even after controlling for an extensive range of demographic, economic and social characteristics. Originality/value – The study contributes to the literature by providing – to the best of the authors’ knowledge – the first results on the wage premium received by Catholic men and women in the German labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and the human-capital determinants of low-wage mobility for labour market entrants in the UK and Germany. Design/methodology/approach -- Using panel data for the UK (BHPS) and Germany (GSOEP), a competing-risks duration model is applied that allows the study of transitions from low pay to competing destination states: higher pay, self-employment, unemployment and inactivity. Unobserved heterogeneity is tackled by a non-parametric mass-point approach. Findings -- It is found that low pay is only a temporary state for most young job starters. However, there is a small group of job starters that is caught in a trap of low pay, unemployment or inactivity. In the UK, job starters escape from low pay mainly by developing firm-specific skills. In Germany, involvement in formal vocational training and the attainment of apprenticeship qualifications account for low pay exits. Originality/value -- Over the past decades, unemployment and low-wage employment have emerged as major challenges facing young labour market entrants. While most empirical studies focus exclusively on the transition from low pay to high pay, the paper shows that a significant percentage of young entrants are caught in a low-pay-non-employment trap. Moreover, it is shown that, depending on the institutional context, different types of human capital investments can account for a successful low-pay exit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse how characteristics of the HR department and HR work, which relate to resource availability and resource needs, influence HR outsourcing. The study examines the subject of human resource (HR) outsourcing. Design/methodology/approach – The potential influence of firms' characteristics on HR outsourcing is analysed theoretically and empirically. The dataset (n=1,021) covers a broad spectrum of personnel services and is based on computer-aided telephone interviews with chief executives and human resource managers of German firms. Findings – Generally, we find that firm size and previous reorganization activities significantly raise the probability of an HR outsourcing. In contrast, there is no overall significant influence of central characteristics of HR work or the HR department on HR outsourcing in general. Originality/value – Although there is a trend toward the outsourcing of work, little research is being done on the relationship between the expected effects of outsourcing, the make-or-buy decision of decision makers, and the firm's characteristics themselves. This study sheds some more light on the relationship between HR outsourcing and firms' characteristics and finds some interesting relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to derive an empirical method to identify different types of training strategies of companies based on publicly available company data. Design/methodology/approach -- Using a ten-year panel, the within-firm retention rate, defined as the average proportion of apprentices staying in a company in relation to all apprenticeship graduates of a company over several years, was analyzed. The within-firm retention rate is used to identify these companies' training strategies. Findings -- It was shown that companies' motivation for apprenticeship training in Germany is not homogeneous: 19 percent of all companies follow a substitution strategy and 44 percent follow an investment strategy. The determinants of the substitution strategy were estimated and, for example, sizeable differences were found between sectors with different skill requirements and between firms' coverage of industrial relations. Research limitations/implications -- The method is well suited to classify substitution-motivated training firms but it is less precise in identifying the investment motivation. Moreover, very small firms which train only one apprentice need longer panel duration for precise results and therefore the classification results are less precise for very small firms. Practical implications -- The classification can be used to identify determinants of company participation in apprenticeship training and to predict changes in demand for apprentices. Originality/value -- A simple and innovative method of identifying different types of training motivation with publicly available company data was derived, which has so far been possible only with very detailed company-specific apprenticeship surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tests the hypothesis that overeducation is contingent upon the differing human capital endowments of employees. The analyses are based on data from the German life History Study (GLHS). Apples a trivariate probit model which takes into account the selective acquisition of school qualifications, and the selective choice of vocational training programs with varying levels of quality. The findings confirm that the type of school diploma obtained has a strong effect on the later risk of overeducation. Furthermore, in the case of the intermediate school diploma - the qualification typically held by those entering initial vocational training in Germany - the grade attained also proves to have a strong effect on the risk of overeducation. In Me with the existing literature, this paper finds that the risk of overeducation decreases as traditional human capital endowments such as experience, tenure, and on-the-job-training increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extant research advocates for the strategic integration of human resource management (HRM) in managerial decision making to foster firm performance. However, the empirical evidence of a stronger strategic integration of HRM is still limited, especially in terms of strategic guidelines such as a human resource (HR) strategy and international comparative matters. Drawing on responses from 588 German and US-based organizations and related to the new institutionalism theory, this study examines whether a HRM partnership (i.e., sharing responsibilities between HRM and line management) that represents a particular form of strategic integration of HRM is beneficial for organizations. In particular, we find international differences as a more pronounced HRM partnership increases employee turnover in the USA, whereas no significant changes are encountered in Germany. We further demonstrate that organizations located in the USA are more likely to have a formal HR strategy compared to those in Germany. However, this study can neither provide support for the direct effect of a HRM partnership on employee turnover nor of a moderation of this relationship through the HR strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]