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Examines the roles, problems and potential of TECs in the UK, within the framework of the 1988 White Paper, Employment for the 1990s, as a catalyst for providing a world‐class workforce. TECs are seen to have faced problems internally as well as being subject to varying external constraints. Suggests that the remit for TECs may have been too broad but acknowledges progress being made.

PurposeThe paper aims to provide comparative empirical evidence on young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET-youth) under the influence of the digital divide, education and sectoral growth across the EU regions, with a focus on the transition patterns followed over time by EU regions in bridging the digital divide and their specific implications on school-to-work transition (STWT).Design/methodology/approachFirstly, five variables on Internet usage activities are aggregated into an index of E-skills. Secondly, linear dynamic panel data regression models are used to explain the influence of various factors on regional rates of NEET-youth, with or without grouping regions upon the digital divide in relative terms.FindingsAdvanced digital literary skills are found to have a stronger effect on the STWT than the basic ones. The growth of employment in specific economic activities like “Information and Communication” enhances STWT, but only when considering regional differences in the digital divide and E-skills as well. However, the negative effect of deprivation and low educational attainments on STWT is offset by a low level of the regional digital divide. In addition, more R&D expenditure in higher education is necessary to compensate for the effect of the digital divide on the STWT.Practical implicationsOn brief, the policy implications are twofold. Firstly, regions will need to focus more on reducing the digital divide, because it will not only generate positive effects for STWT but will also enhance the positive impact of education and sectoral growth on STWT and even compensate for their low progress. Secondly, in the context of the EU single market, to better address the situation of young people, regions should monitor the relative progress in bridging the digital divide and improving E-skills, with respect to the other EU regions. Improving the relative position on the EU map of E-skills increases the effectiveness of regional policies targeting the STWT.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper lies in the regional approach to the relationship between STWT and the digital divide, which allows us to derive new policy measures for the EU regions. Other innovative contributions rely on the identification of (1) transition patterns that region follow over time in improving STWT while bridging the digital divide and (2) policy measures addressing the NEETs in the context of the regional digital divide.

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine how firms can build collective organisational citizenship behaviour towards the environment (OCBE) from green human resource management (GHRM) practices. The study tests how the three main aspects of GHRM, namely green abilities, green motivation and green opportunities, give rise to the enablers of green culture (EGC). The study further tests how each of the EGC (leadership emphasis, message credibility, peer involvement and employee empowerment) leads to the development of OCBE at the organisational level of analysis.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from Taiwanese manufacturing companies with a target of departmental heads. The authors managed to get 284 valid responses and analysed the data using path analysis on Stata12.FindingsThe study findings suggest that GHRM practices that include developing green abilities, green motivation and green opportunities support the development of the EGC. The EGC include leadership emphasis, message credibility, peer involvement and employee empowerment. It was, however, found that green abilities do not support the development of message credibility. It was further found the EGC lead to the development of collective OCBE except for peer involvement.Originality/valueThe authors propose an original concept of EGC in the context of Taiwanese manufacturing firms. This paper is amongst the pioneer papers to test the OCBE at organisational level. The authors also develop an integrated conceptual framework upon which firms can use in order to build OCBE at organisational level. Previous studies have examined OCBEs at employee/individual level.

PurposeThe authors investigate the extent to which differences in provincial union legislation have impacts on the union earnings premium.Design/methodology/approachContent analysis of provincial union regulations of 25 provinces is conducted to create two indices: one reflecting the degree of stringency of the local requirement that unions be established in a timely fashion and the other reflecting requirements for employers to negotiate wages with the union. The authors use individual level data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) of 2010 to estimate the union earnings premium.FindingsThe authors find that unionised workers in China receive an earnings premium ranging from 6.4 to 9.6%, which is in range of other studies (but not all) for China that tend to find a (perhaps surprising) union wage premium in spite of the fact that unions tend to be “company unions” designed to foster stability and growth and to serve as a transmission belt for the wishes of the Party rather than bargaining for the benefit of their members. The authors also find that provincial requirements to establish unions in a timely fashion enhance the impact of unions on the earnings of their members, but provincial requirements to negotiate wages dampen the effect of unions on the earnings of their members. Reasons for these results are discussed.Originality/valueDespite this lack of independence of the Chinese unions, research continuously finds that Chinese unions have effects that are surprisingly similar to those of unions in Western countries. This paper drills deeper into the underlying mechanisms to see if local union strategies, exemplified by provincial union legislation, can explain the unexpected union effects on compensation. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to do so. Moreover, the authors use individual-level data in contrast to most studies on China that use firm or provincial level aggregate data.

PurposeThis paper examines the role of occupational segregation in the evolution of wage differentials by gender and race in the Brazilian labor market between 2005 and 2015.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses microdata from the National Household Sample Survey and adopts two occupational integration typology to capture both horizontal and vertical segregation. The decomposition method proposed by Firpo et al. (2009) is employed to investigate the determinants of changes in differentials along the wage distribution.FindingsResults suggest a glass ceiling effect for all groups compared to white men. Gender and racial discrimination persist, especially at the top of the distribution. For both black women and men, observable characteristics account for most of the wage differentials, while for white women, the opposite occurs because of their education level. Vertical segregation behavior indicates that white men continue over-represented in higher-paid occupations. Although women improved their relative position in the occupational hierarchy, horizontal segregation behavior shows that their concentration in female-dominated occupations has not reduced, except in extreme quantiles. Education played a crucial role in reducing wage gaps, and regional differences stood out as a significant factor of the racial disadvantage.Originality/valueThe paper shows significant differences between the groups regarding verticalization and horizontalization of occupational structure along the wage distribution and over time, contributing to filling some gaps in the literature concerning the wage stratification based on gender and race in Brazil. Occupational segregation as a composition factor of the groups determines their positions in a vertically hierarchical and socially stratified occupational structure. The behavior of horizontal and vertical segregations evidences the continue under-valorization of female occupations and the barriers faced by racial and gendered groups to overcome the glass ceiling effect. Recognize the intersectionality of gender and race in addressing inequalities is fundamental to promote policies that overcome them.

PurposeThis paper investigates whether short-time work (STW) schemes were successful in their objective of maintaining employment and keeping workers employed within the same firms after the onset of the financial and economic crisis in 2008.Design/methodology/approachSpanish longitudinal administrative data has been used, making it possible to identify short-time work (STW) participation not only of workers but also of employers and allowing to know the future labour market status of participants and non-participants. Accordingly, treatment and control groups are defined, and Propensity Score Matching models estimated. The dependent variable is measured as the probability that an individual remained employed with the same employer in the future (one, two and three years) after implementation of a STW arrangement.FindingsOur results suggest that treated individuals are about 5 percentage points less likely to remain working with the same employer one year later than similar workers, and this negative effect of participation increases over time. Thus, STW schemes would not have the assumed effect of preventing unemployment by keeping the participants employed relative to non-participants.Research limitations/implicationsAs our analysis is based on the comparison of the employment trajectories of participant and non-participant workers in firms that have used STW arrangements, our findings cannot be interpreted as the job saving effects of either macro or micro studies carried out previously.Practical implicationsThe analysis carried out in the paper is complementary to the country-level and firm-level approaches that have been used in the empirical literature.Originality/valueWe adopt a worker-level approach. This is novel since no previous study has focused attention on the impact of STW participation on the subsequent labour market status of workers.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to quantify the labor market outcomes of people with disabilities (PwD) in Indonesia and compares them to people without disabilities. It first studies the labor force participation of PwD before examining the large and persistent wage gaps they face. It explores whether these wage gaps are explained by differences in productivity, a distinction which has important implications for policies addressing these gaps.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is based on the Indonesian Family Life Survey Wave 5, which includes unique questions allowing for several definitions of disability. Multinomial logistic regression is used to study differences in type of employment for PwD. Wage gaps are estimated and corrected for selection using propensity score matching, supported by a Heckman selection model and Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition. Comparisons with other physically disadvantaged subgroups and the analysis of heterogeneity by job requirements and sector of work explore whether productivity gaps help explain wage gaps.FindingsPwD generally have lower unconditional labor force participation, but disparities largely disappear when controlling for characteristics. Moreover, patterns vary depending on whether the measure of disability used depends on prior medical diagnosis. PwD that do not require prior diagnosis tend to work in more vulnerable employment. When they are employed for wages, people with these types of disabilities face lower wages, up to 22% lower. Meanwhile, (surprisingly) those with medically diagnosed conditions face no difference or a wage premium. This paper finds compelling evidence that, where a wage penalty exists, a substantial part is unexplained by observable characteristics.Originality/valuePrevious literature on disability has been mostly based on studies of high-income economies. This paper extends the literature to Indonesia, which differs from high-income contexts due to lack of mental healthcare resources and assistive technologies, as well as weaker rule of law. It provides unique insights based on types of disability and the salient dimensions of disability in the workplace. It also provides evidence that productivity differences do not explain the wage gap.

PurposeThe increased expectations regarding job performance accompanied by changes in employment relationships in public organizations require special concern for the employability enhancement of their workers. Literature on the subject points out the importance of job content in the context of employability enhancement. The purpose of this paper is to answer the following question: what are the relationships between job variety, the learning value of the job, employability and job performance?Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents the results of a survey which was carried out in 2016. The sample consisted of 566 pairs, i.e. employees and their immediate supervisors in 147 public organizations which provide key public services in Poland. A model of the relationships between job variety, the learning value of the job, employability and job performance was proposed and tested using path analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsIt was found that both job variety and the learning value of the job were positively connected to employability, which mediated their relationships with job performance. However, the analysis revealed that the examined predictors not only affected employee work outcomes indirectly, through their impact on employability, but also directly influenced the quality of job performance.Originality/valueThe study has provided empirical evidence regarding the relationships between job content, employability and job performance, which was hitherto absent from public organizations. An original conclusion from the research is that employability enhancement brings positive results for both employees and organizations.

PurposeDistinguishing what employers in different areas of Great Britain need to pay to attract and retain labour has been a central component of public-sector resource allocation decisions. This paper examines how changes in the pattern of spatial wage differentials following the global financial crisis have impacted on the formulae which allocate government funding to local government and health providers in the NHS.Design/methodology/approachUsing employer-reported data on earnings, we examine spatial patterns of private-sector wages in Great Britain between 2007 and 2017. The method permits the analysis of finely defined geographical areas and controls for differences in industry and workforce composition to distinguish those differences that are attributable from unmeasured characteristics, such as differences between areas in the cost of living and amenities. These standardised spatial wage differentials (SSWDs) underpin the funding allocation formulae.FindingsThe analysis shows that since 2007 private-sector wage dispersion, both within and between regions, has reduced: lower paid areas have experienced a relative increase in wages and higher paid a relative decline. Over the period, there was a significant reduction in the London wage premium.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates the importance of ensuring established policies are applied using contemporary data. The SSWDs used to distribute government funds have not been re-estimated for some time. As a result, the current resource allocation model has overcompensated the London region and undercompensated others during this period.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelation between two important dimensions of gender segregation: education and occupation. It further investigates the gender wage gap.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses a three-way additive decomposition of the mutual information index – an index based on the concept of entropy. A non-parametric wage decomposition method that uses matching comparisons is used for measuring the wage gap.FindingsThe results show that the extent of gender segregation in India is higher in urban areas than that in rural areas. Most of the observed segregation in rural labour markets originates from educational outcomes, whereas in urban markets it is due to occupational profile of individuals. The findings of the wage decomposition analysis suggest that education in rural areas also explains a sizeable part of the gender wage differential. Nevertheless, a large share of the wage gap remains unexplained in both rural and urban areas.Originality/valueWhile much research has looked at occupational segregation, less attention has been paid to educational segregation. The paper uses a unique approach to understand the joint effect of occupation and education in explaining gender segregation.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to provide the estimates of returns to schooling using consistent methodology and comparable set of data for a long time horizon for a country undergoing economic transition. Second, the paper aims to verify if returns to schooling in Poland were pro-cyclical or counter-cyclical.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on the human capital theory in estimating the wage returns to years of schooling controlling additionally for unemployment rates at a regional level. Data come from a collection of Polish individual LFS waves for the period 1995–2017.FindingsReturns to schooling in Poland were increasing until 2006 and declining afterwards unveiling the supply side effects domination. The estimates suggested counter-cyclicality of returns in Poland.Research limitations/implicationsUsing LFS data made it impossible to control for ability bias therefore it is possible that the estimates are somewhat biased (the literature however suggests that the extent of the bias is likely to be small). It might still be argued that using consistent methodology for the whole period of analysis still offers valuable insight into returns evolution.Originality/valueThis paper finds a reversal of returns trend after 2006 suggesting the period after accession to EU exhibited a supply side effect domination. The findings on counter-cyclicality of returns to education in Poland have not yet been documented in the literature.

PurposeThis paper discusses the factors to consider when designing studies to measure hiring discrimination against transgender job applicants.Design/methodology/approachThe paper builds on academic literature related to hiring discrimination and transgender employment to build a detailed discussion of the numerous factors and issues inherent in hiring discrimination against transgender job applicants. By isolating and describing a number of relevant considerations, the paper aims to act as a guide for future studies to build upon.FindingsThree types of hiring discrimination studies are discussed: correspondence tests, in-person experiments and student cohort experiments. Three main categories of factors relevant to an experiment’s design are then discussed: the legal context, industry/role factors and transgender population-specific factors. A flow-chart detailing the research design decision-making process is provided.Research limitations/implicationsThe discussion within this paper will act as a reference and a guide for researchers seeking to address the dearth of empirical studies in the literature. The list is not exhaustive; while a number of factors relevant to transgender-specific studies are identified, there may be more that could affect an experiment's design.Originality/valueHiring discrimination against transgender people has been recorded in many surveys, but there is little empirical measurement of this discrimination. To the author's knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the experimental design decisions related to transgender hiring discrimination. In doing so, it provides contributions for two primary audiences: those researching transgender employment issues but who have never conducted a study measuring hiring discrimination; and those who have previously conducted studies on hiring discrimination, but have not done so with reference to transgender job applicants.

PurposeIncreasing digitization has transformed ways of work in modern age. Organizations are increasingly relying on global virtual teams (GVTs) as new forms of working. However, the challenges of configuration of GVTs have been reported to reduce the levels of employee engagement, especially so in multicultural GVTs. Extant research indicates cultural intelligence as one of the drivers of employee engagement in GVTs, though the nature of this relationship has remained unclear. As there is scarce literature on the nature of this relationship, the purpose of this paper is to examine the linkages between cultural intelligence and employee engagement and the authors explain the findings using the identity lens.Design/methodology/approachThis study is an ethnographic inquiry to understand the nature of the relationship between cultural intelligence and employee engagement.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that the inclusionary pressures of non-work identities (national culture) are high in context of GVTs owing to their configuration. However, preferences (alignment or misalignment) of team members either initiate gain cycles or loss cycles, thus effecting the levels of employee engagement. Further, it was found that individual preferences may dynamically change from misalignment toward alignment with improved levels of cultural intelligence among team members of GVTs. The relationship between cultural intelligence and employee engagement has been found to be mediated by trust among team members in GVTs.Originality/valueThis is one of the first papers to understand the dynamics of this relationship in an organizational GVT context. The authors also propose a unique framework combining cultural intelligence, trust and employee engagement in the context of GVTs.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to see whether attitudes toward older workers by managers change over time and what might explain development over time. Design/methodology/approach A unique panel study of Dutch managers is used to track the development of their attitudes toward older workers over time (2010–2013) by focusing on a set of qualities of older workers aged 50 and older. A conditional change model is used to explain the variation in changes by focusing on characteristics of the manager (age, education, gender, tenure and contact with older workers) and of the firm (composition staff, type of work and sector, size). Findings Managers have significantly adjusted their views on the so-called “soft skills” of older workers, like reliability and loyalty. Attitudes toward “hard skills” – like physical stamina, new tech skills and willingness to train – have not changed. Important drivers behind these changes are the age of the manager – the older the manager, the more likely a positive change in attitude toward older workers can be observed – and the change in the quality of contact with older workers. A deterioration of the managers’ relationship with older workers tends to correspond with a decline in their assessment of soft and hard skills. Social implications Attitudes are not very susceptible to change but this study shows that a significant change can be expected simply from the fact that managers age: older managers tend to have a more positive assessment of the hard and soft skills of older workers than young managers. Originality/value This paper offers novel insights into the question whether stereotypes of managers change over time.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on labour market discrimination by introducing an analytical process model that offers a template for the systematic analysis of discrimination within the process of labour market integration. Its usage and contribution to the field is exemplified by applying the proposed model to the case of ageism in labour market integration.Design/methodology/approachFive phases and four actors are distinguished that, added together, compose the proposed analytical process model. In the following, the model is used as an analytical framework for a mapping review, aimed at identifying and critically evaluating the vast and extensive literature on ageism in the process of labour market integration.FindingsThe paper concludes that ageism occurs in all five phases of the integration process, pinpointing potential areas for policy interventions. Furthermore, the authors conclude that the existing literature on ageism in labour market integration is fragmented, with some elements and/or actors within the process so far having received little attention.Originality/valueThe analytical process model developed in this paper provides the scientific community with a tool to systematise the literature, detect underlying mechanisms and uncover existing research gaps, not only for the case of ageism presented here, but for a vast variety of other –isms. In addition, policy makers, trade unions and employers can use the model to better target and tailor anti-discrimination measures in labour market integration.

Purpose Casting employers as customers, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between expectations, perceptions and disconfirmation beliefs with the satisfaction of employers regarding the competencies possessed by fresh engineering graduates hired by such employers in the Indian context. Design/methodology/approach Using data collected from 284 employers, the authors have hypothesized and examined a partial mediation model in which disconfirmation beliefs mediate the relationships between expectations and perceptions, and employer satisfaction. Furthermore, the authors have tested if this mediated relationship is moderated by the age and sex of respondents representing employers. Findings Results indicate that employers’ satisfaction can be explained from the framework of the expectancy-disconfirmation theory. Employers’ expectations and perceptions are established to be associated with employers’ satisfaction with new hires, and positive disconfirmation mediates these relationships. Results also indicate that age moderates the effect of predictor variables employers’ expectations and employers’ perception on the mediator disconfirmation. Sex, however, did not moderate any relationship. Practical implications The results demonstrate the usefulness of the expectancy-disconfirmation theory for studying employer satisfaction with competencies of recent engineering graduates in India. Findings are relevant to multiple stakeholders including employers hiring engineering graduates, engineers and technical institutions. Originality/value Expectancy-disconfirmation theory has been successfully applied to measure customer satisfaction in consumer behaviour research, while satisfaction of employers has been studied in the field of organizational behaviour. The paper stands out in the literature as one of its major implications is to extend the expectancy-disconfirmation theory to predict employers’ satisfaction.

Purpose Although the role of green recruitment and selection (GRS) has been widely recognised as an important dimension of green human resource management, no study has ever mapped the terrain of GRS and reviewed the literature. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap while exploring the following questions: How do organisations select candidates in line with their pro-environmental stance? What impact do a company’s corporate environmental sustainability (CES) practices have on attracting pro-environmental job seekers? Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a systematic review of 22 peer-reviewed articles published during the period 2008–2017. The articles were included in the review if they addressed at least one of the two research questions. Findings Some companies choose to apply green criteria when selecting candidates while others do not. In any case, communicating a company’s environmental values and orientation is worth practicing during GRS. Previous studies have identified four mediators (anticipated pride, perceived value fit, expectation of favourable treatment, perceived organisational green reputation/prestige) that intervene between signals of a company’s CES and a job seeker’s perceptions of organisational attractiveness. However, the strength of this effect is influenced by five moderators (pro-environmental attitude, socio-environmental consciousness, desire to have a significant impact through one’s work, environmental-related standard registration, job seeker’s expertise). Originality/value This paper provides the first systematic review of GRS and thus paves the way for future research.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to verify and extend the application of the policy acceptance model (PAM) in the field of green behavior. Under the PAM framework, the authors develop and empirically examine on how employee perception of corporate green policy (perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness) increases the acceptance of corporate green policy, which further leads to two types of employee green behavior. The authors also test the moderating roles of moral reflectiveness and performance orientation on these relationships. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected complete survey data from 223 work professionals in this study. Multiple regression method was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results showed that there were significant positive impacts of two types of employee perceptions of corporate green policy (perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness) on their attitudes toward corporate green policy. Second, this study reported positive relationships between employees’ attitudes toward corporate green policy and their two types of green behavior. Finally, supplemental analyses supported moderated mediation models, that is, moral reflectiveness and performance orientation, respectively, and moderated indirect effects of employee perceptions on green behaviors through attitude toward corporate green policy. Research limitations/implications The data came from a narrow demographic population, which restricts the generalizability of the findings and also raises questions about the specificity of green behaviors manifest in different industries. Besides, this study used cross-sectional, self-reported data, which limits our ability to draw causal conclusions. Practical implications Companies can shape employee perceptions regarding the usefulness and ease of corporate green policy to induce and consolidate employees’ task-related and proactive green behaviors. Social implications This research will help companies to pay more attention to employees’ reflections and attitudes toward green policies, thus effectively promoting employees’ green behavior in the workplace. These actions will further promote the green development of the economy and society. Originality/value The authors extend the PAM framework to the area of green behavior. The PAM is applied to a more micro level of corporate green policy. Further, this paper points out that employees’ instrumental value (performance orientation) and moral trait (moral reflectiveness) moderate the impact of employees’ policy perceptions on their green behaviors.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of traineeships as an active labour policy for young people in Italy. The role of traineeships as a formative experience for improving youth employment is stated by law and the specific evaluation of the regional Quality Traineeships Programme allowed for a more in-depth analysis of the role quality criteria plays in traineeship implementation.Design/methodology/approachSuch evaluation relies on administrative data, while a counterfactual approach was used to compare trainees to unemployed young people registered with Public Employment Services. The impact of traineeships on youth careers was measured in terms of employment probability, but innovatively, the actual placement was measured in terms of both hiring and along a “quality” metric with respect to entry in the labour market. It is reasonable to assume that young people are interested in traineeships as an investment towards a more satisfying career (not just as a gateway to recruitment). At last, the authors introduce a persistency analysis of the effects on youth employment rates.FindingsThe results show that traineeships hinder rapid transition to work, but they are effective stepping-stones for young people seeking a quality career. A benefit of 7 percentage points was estimated on the probability of finding a quality job after completing the traineeship and a long-lasting effect on trainees’ employment rate is demonstrated by the persistency analysis. These benefits are strengthened for participants in the Quality Traineeships Programme, confirming the relevance of desirable learning and contractual conditions in supporting the effectiveness of internships in Italy.Originality/valueAs far as the authors know, this paper is the first study that specifically refers to traineeships as an active policy in Italy and the questions resulting from the research suggest new trends in the debate over the role of policies for supporting youth employment. The administrative archives used in the analysis and the persistence effects on youth employment rates are further innovations to the empirical literature on the effectiveness of Italy’s training programmes.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is a causal impact of party affiliation of state governors operating within a liberal state legislature on labor market activity of transgender individuals. The common perception is that Republicans are more likely to believe a person’s gender is determined by their sex at birth than Democrats. Such beliefs can influence voting, policies and practices. Design/methodology/approach Survey data on employment outcomes and other individual level characteristics are used from two surveys focusing on transgender individuals for the periods 2008 and 2015. These surveys represent the largest collection of data that examines the experiences of transgender people in the USA. To establish a casual effect, this analysis employs fixed effects Ordinary Least Squares methods and Propensity Score Matching algorithms. Findings Exploiting variations in the party affiliation of governors and liberal state governments, the study finds mixed employment effects of living in a Democratic-governed liberal state. Specifically, this paper shows that transgender people living in such states have an 18 percentage point (or 26 percent) higher likelihood of being employed in the 2008 survey, but a 16.4 percentage point (or 25 percent) lower likelihood of being employed in the 2015 survey. Despite the lower propensity to be out of the labor market in the 2008 sample, results from both surveys indicate a higher likelihood of being unemployed. These findings are robust to the inclusion of additional covariates (including confounders), alternative specifications and different estimation techniques. Heterogeneous effects are also explored. Originality/value To the authors’ current knowledge, this is the first study to systematically investigate the relationship between living in democratically governed liberal states and labor market circumstances of transgender people in the USA. This is the first paper to establish a causal relationship using matching techniques. The paper also provides suggestive evidence of the role of government ideology in influencing the working lives of transgender people.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the time-allocation decisions of individuals who work from home (i.e. teleworkers), and compare them with their commuter counterparts. Design/methodology/approach Using data from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003–2015, the authors analyze the time spent working, and the timing of work, of both commuters and teleworkers. Findings Results show that teleworkers devote 40 percent less time to market work activities than do commuters, and less than 60 percent of teleworkers work at “regular hours,” vs around 80 percent of their commuter counterparts. Using information from the Well-being Module for the years 2012 and 2013, the authors find that male teleworkers experience lower levels of negative feelings while working than do commuters. Originality/value This paper addresses the timing of work of workers working from home; and the instant well-being experienced, exploiting information at diary level.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers across the whole wage distribution, not just at the mean, and the evolution before and after the Great Recession on this gap in Spain.Design/methodology/approachAn extended Mincer-type wage equation is estimated using ordinary least square regression and unconditional quantile regression. Then, the decomposition of the wage gap between workers with fixed-term and permanent contracts for each quantile is made using the Fortin, Lemieux and Firpo decomposition.FindingsThe results show that two workers, with identical characteristics, earn different salaries if they have a different type of contract. However, the wage gap is not constant across the wage distribution. The penalty for temporary workers is wider for higher wages. Moreover, the main part of the gap is due to observed characteristics, but other factors (unobserved characteristics and discrimination) become more relevant in the upper part of the wage distribution.Originality/valueThe study expands upon available studies for Spain in two points. First, it is the first paper to the knowledge that analyse both the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers across the wage distribution and its decomposition. Second, the paper explores what happened before and after the Great Recession. In the years that the paper analyses there is also a labour market reform.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare internal and external job mobility (quits and promotions) as separate mechanisms for workers improving earnings and job fit. Design/methodology/approach The authors sample the core workforce from the British Household Panel Survey, estimating the effects of quits and promotions on two sets of outcomes. The first is subjective; satisfaction with work, pay and hours. The second is objective realities about the job; gross monthly pay and weekly working hours. The authors use linear fixed-effects estimation to control for individual heterogeneity. Findings Quits and promotions are distinctly different mechanisms for improving earnings and job fit. Quits improve measures of job fit (satisfaction with work, pay and hours) but have little effect on earnings. Internal promotions bring earnings growth but have little effect on job fit. The findings shed light what drives “voluntary” mobility; internal mobility may be driven by higher “reservation wages” and career progression, while external mobility may be driven by job matching and the need to find more appropriate work. Social implications Researchers should treat mobile labour markets with scepticism. The growth of “boundaryless careers” may closer resemble a release valve for poor working conditions in a varied market than a growth in new opportunities for earnings and career progression. Originality/value Studies of job mobility overwhelmingly focus on the effects quitting without explicitly comparing this mobility to promotions. This omission gives an incomplete picture of mobility. Bringing promotions back into the discussion, helps to understand why workers commit to internal careers and firm tenure. The paper shows that quits and promotions yield distinctly different outcomes for core workers, despite both mobility types being labelled “voluntary”. Thus, the authors show that inequality in earnings and working conditions is closely tied to access to the “life-chances” of mobility; those who are able to pursue promotion are rewarded objectively; those who quit for a new employer seek a better job fit.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand: whether the changes that have occurred in migrants’ conditions over time are smaller than the differences in their conditions existing across countries; and whether the comparison between immigrants and native-born conditions allows the verification of the levels of disparities between them and, therefore, the relative disadvantage suffered by migrant. After a general overview of the 28 European Union countries, this paper analyses the changes that have occurred from 2006 to 2017 in the conditions of migrants in the labour market in the big five European countries (Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the UK).Design/methodology/approachVarious statistical methodologies were used. First, to gain an overall picture, taking into account both the spatial and the temporal dimensions, dynamic factor analysis (DFA) was applied. Second, time-dependent and cross-sectional time-series models were estimated to better understand the DFA results.FindingsThe results highlight very different scenarios in terms of labour market vulnerabilities, both affecting immigrants and native-born workers. The results also highlight the existence of a very complex framework, due to the high heterogeneity of immigrants’ characteristics and labour market capacities to integrate migrants and also to promote good conditions for the native-born population.Originality/valueThe picture emerging from this study and the evaluation of the policies and legislation in force to cope with migration and to promote integration suggests some reflections on the most efficacious actions to take in order to improve migrants’ integration, counteracting social exclusion and promoting economic growth.

Purpose Education-job mismatches, especially overeducation or vertical mismatch, are generally found to lower the worker’s job satisfaction, which may generate the counter-productive behaviors, such as high rates of absenteeism and turnover in developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of educational mismatches from their both forms and dimensions (match, overeducation, horizontal mismatch and double mismatch) on the job satisfaction among university graduates in Cambodia. Design/methodology/approach To deal with the sample selection bias owing to the unobserved job satisfaction of unemployed graduates, this paper applies the Heckman probit model on a survey conducted with 19 higher education institutions in Cambodia. Findings Results indicate that a half of graduates suffer at least one type of educational mismatch and the both forms of mismatches adversely affect the job satisfaction with the strongest impact from the double mismatch case. Research limitations/implications The authors take into account the sample selection bias, but are not able to deal with the unobserved heterogeneity, such as individual competences and preferences. With the panel data, it would be possible to isolate those individual fixed effects. Practical implications The findings underline the importance of improvement in the quality of higher education in Cambodia that seems to play a main role in this education-job mismatch problem. Creating the occupational counseling for the high school students would be also helpful to orientate students to the majors strongly needed by the labor market. Originality/value This paper focuses on all forms and dimensions of mismatches and takes into account the sample selection bias in the context of a low-income country where the increasing rate of enrollment in higher education seems to be accompanied by an increasing rate of education-job mismatches. Previous research works focused mostly on overeducation and in developed countries.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on learning by exporting by investigating whether an increase in the complexity of exported products contributes to higher productivity at the firm level. Design/methodology/approach The study implements an empirical analysis for Estonian manufacturing firms involved in exporting for the period 2008–2014, adding product complexity as an explanatory variable in the production function estimation. An increase in product complexity is interpreted as an indirect proxy for an increase in firm capabilities, capturing both tangible and intangible elements of competitiveness and reflecting the learning effects. Findings A relatively weak correlation between product complexity and productivity was found using a simple OLS estimation – exporters with higher product complexity have generally higher productivity levels. Somewhat surprisingly, no evidence for the learning by exporting was found among exporters, meaning that the increased complexity does not seem to be a channel for productivity upgrading. This result seems to be robust, irrespective of estimation methods and sampling preferences. Research limitations/implications The sample is representative of exporting firms. Practical implications The results show that the pursuit to more complex product does not necessarily contribute to productivity for exporting firms. The findings suggest that the firm-level upgrading due to increased export orientation is likely to take place through the other channels like moving up in global value chains and differentiating by product quality. Originality/value This is one of the first papers to investigate the effect of product complexity on productivity at a firm level. The results provide new insights into the learning-by-exporting hypothesis, with focus on potential learning among the existing exporters.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the true level of discrimination against openly gay and lesbian applicants in hiring decisions in OECD countries as well as on its determinants.Design/methodology/approachThe author presents an overview of all studies conducted in order to test for discrimination against homosexual applicants in the labor market by the correspondence testing method. Moreover, the author performs a meta-analysis of correspondence tests from 18 separate studies conducted in OECD countries to test sexual orientation discrimination, containing more than 70 estimates of effects and representing a total of more than 50,000 resumes sent to employers. In addition to presenting overall results, the author focus on subgroups of specific correspondence tests in order to highlight the differences across gender, type of jobs, procedure, continent and type of information provided in applications.FindingsThe author provides evidence that sexual orientation discrimination occurs in the labor market in OECD countries, such that openly homosexual applicants face similar discrimination as ethnic minority applicants. Discrimination is significantly greater in the selection process for low-skilled than for high-skilled jobs. In the selection process for low-skilled jobs, lesbian candidates face significantly lower discrimination than gays (except in jobs that are considered “women’s” jobs). Discrimination is significantly higher in Europe than in North America. Moreover, the way sexual orientation is signaled may influence the level of discrimination found. Finally, discrimination against homosexual applicants is not only a matter of preferences: providing more positive information in applications significantly reduces the level of discrimination.Originality/valueThis paper offers the first quantitative analysis of sexual orientation discrimination in OECD countries through meta-analyses.

PurposeCareer interruptions of employees imply important issues for both firms and individuals, including a possibly lower compensation after returning to a job. Different compensation components are explored, as bonus payments frequently complement fixed salaries for many employees, making various channels of lower compensation possible. This paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a yearly salary survey among a rather homogeneous group of professionals and middle managers from the German chemical sector, which contains detailed information on compensation components next to individual and job characteristics. The incidence and duration of past career interruptions act as the most important independent variables. Mincer-type wage regressions are complemented by estimations on wage increases.FindingsThe results show that career interruptions are more related to lower subsequent bonus payments than they are to fixed salaries. Furthermore, interruptions caused by unemployment are associated with higher interruption pay gaps than those resulting from other reasons such as parental leave. The results even hint for catch-up effects following parental leave with regard to higher wage increases compared to individuals without interruptions. Career interruptions are more prevalent for female managers offering an explanation for a considerable part of gender pay gaps. Wage losses after career interruptions are more pronounced for male employees than they are for females, though.Originality/valueThis study extents the literature by disentangling the relation of career interruptions and different compensation components, bonus payments next to fixed salaries in particular. The role of interruption type and gender are also taken into account so that the paper deepens the understanding of the role of past career interruptions for employees’ remuneration.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a measurement of creativity-oriented HRM systems that improve organizational creativity. This paper also aims to explore the mechanisms between them by investigating the mediating role of innovative culture and the moderating role of customer orientation.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a sample of 82 knowledge-intensive companies with 780 respondents consisting of 145 HR professionals, 512 core knowledge workers and 123 top managers in China. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis are used to validate the measure of creativity-oriented HRM systems and test hypotheses.FindingsThis study finds that creativity-oriented HRM systems are composed of three dimensions, which are creative skill-enhancing practices, intrinsic motivation-enhancing practices and empowerment-enhancing practices. These practices significantly improve organizational creativity through innovative culture. Furthermore, customer orientation moderates the effect of innovative culture on organizational creativity in such a way that the positive relationship is stronger when customer orientation is high.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the strategic human resource management literature by developing and validating a measure of creativity-oriented HRM systems. Moreover, it also explores the mechanism between creativity-oriented HRM systems and organizational creativity based on a complementary perspective of innovativeness, which underlines the important mediating effect of innovative culture. More importantly, the authors propose the significance of absorbing knowledge and information from customers and put forward the moderating role that customer orientation plays, especially in an emerging country context such as China.

Purpose Workplace thriving is a psychological state that promotes employee health and development. In addition to presenting a useful instrument that captures the nature of a thriving work life in China, the purpose of this paper is to investigate important factors that influence one’s thriving status within this national context. Design/methodology/approach Using diverse approaches across different samples, Study 1 contextualized the content of a workplace thriving scale (WTS) to fit the Chinese context. Study 2 tested the effects of learning goal orientation, exploration at work and role ambiguity on workplace thriving, employing a mediation model. As a supplement, Study 3 examined the test–retest reliability of workplace thriving. Findings Study 1 confirmed that in the Chinese setting, workplace thriving is a higher order construct represented by both a sense of learning and a sense of vitality. Study 2 found that learning goal orientation and exploration at work fostered thriving, while role ambiguity reduced thriving. Also, exploration mediated the relationship between learning goal orientation and thriving. Study 3 verified that the WTS was reliable over time in the Chinese setting, further increasing the reliability of results from Studies 1 and 2. Originality/value By rigorously and formally contextualizing the concept/construct of workplace thriving in China, this paper is informative for future research on thriving at work in Eastern cultures.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of an increase in the relative supply of immigrants on natives’ task reallocation, with a focus on Germany. Specifically, it investigates whether natives, as a response to increased immigration, re-specialise in communication-intensive occupations, where they arguably have a comparative advantage due to language proficiency. Design/methodology/approach The analysis uses regional data from the German Labour Force Survey between 2002 and 2014. To derive data on job tasks requirements, it employs the US Department of Labor’s O*NET database, the results of which are tested through a sensitivity analysis using the European Working Condition Survey and the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies data sets. Findings The paper finds that indeed German workers respond to increasing immigration by shifting their task supply and providing more communication relative to manual tasks. Importantly, the decrease in the supply of communication tasks is stronger and more robust than the increase in the supply of manual tasks, pointing to a potential displacement effect taking place between natives and immigrants, alongside task reallocation. This would suggest that countries with relatively more rigid labour markets are less responsive to immigration shocks. Moreover, it suggests that labour market rigidity can minimise the gains from immigration and exacerbate employment effects. Originality/value The paper not only investigates task reallocation as a result of immigration in a different institutional context and labour market functioning, but the results feed into broader policy and scholarly discussions on the effects of immigration, including questions about how the institutional context affects labour market adjustment to immigration, worker occupational mobility in a more rigid labour markets and the fine balance needed between flexibility and rigidity.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, the relationship between crowding perceptions (i.e. employees’ perceptions of insufficient personal space due to offices’ physical constraints) and deviant workplace behaviors (DWBs) directed at both the organization as a whole (DWB-O) and individuals (DWB-I); and second, privacy invasion from supervisors and peers as a mediator. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 299 respondents working in open-plan offices at four medium-to-large sized IT-based companies. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, the paper suggests that under crowding conditions employees can perceive the physical workspace as a space-related resource that is threatened leading them to engage in DWBs out of a conservation strategy. Findings Structural equation modeling results significantly supported main effects of employees’ crowding perceptions on the two types of DWBs, with privacy invasion from supervisors and peers as full mediator. Research limitations/implications The study could suffer from mono-method/source bias, and specificities of the studied IT-based companies and their work can raise concerns about the generalizability of the results. Practical implications The findings indicate that a proper physical office arrangement can be a useful tool for managers in combating employee DWB. Originality/value To date, the origin of workplace deviance has mainly been investigated in terms of the psychosocial work environment; however, the physical labor conditions (i.e. the layout of buildings, furniture, workspace, air conditioning, workplace density, etc.) have received little systematic attention.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to observe how the cohabiting lesbian earnings differential in the USA has changed since the early 2000s, a time period during which the lesbian, gay and bisexual rights movement has been very successful.Design/methodology/approachThe author analyzes the 2012–2017 American Community Survey using Mincer-style income regressions.FindingsThe author finds that cohabiting lesbians earn approximately 11 percent less than married heterosexual women. The earnings penalty has emerged as a result of the disproportionately large penalty young lesbians’ experience. While older lesbians (over 45) do not experience an earnings penalty, younger lesbians appear doubly disadvantaged. They now face a lesbian wage gap of approximately 24 percent in addition to the previously documented gender wage gap.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper shows that cohabiting lesbians earn approximately 11 percent less than married heterosexual women. The earnings penalty has emerged as a result of the disproportionately large penalty young cohabiting lesbians experience. While older cohabiting lesbians (over 45) do not experience an earnings penalty, younger cohabiting lesbians face a wage gap of approximately 24 percent.Originality/valueThe study finds, contrary to most previous research, a cohabiting lesbian earnings penalty instead of premium. The findings highlight that there is considerable heterogeneity in the economic experience of cohabiting lesbians, and that young cohabiting lesbians comprise a particularly vulnerable population.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of two policies (an extension of the waiting period before entitlement to unemployment insurance (UI) and an intensification of counselling) targeted at unemployed school-leavers in Belgium on unemployment duration and on the quality of work.Design/methodology/approachThe length of both policies is sharply determined by two distinct age thresholds. These thresholds are exploited to estimate the impact within a regression discontinuity design using a large administrative data set of all recent labour market entrants.FindingsThe longer waiting period does not significantly impact job finding while the Youth Work Plan does increase the job-finding rate eight months after the onset of the programme. The accepted wage is unaffected, but both policies lower the number of working days resulting in lower earnings. This effect is especially prevalent for youth from low-income households.Research limitations/implicationsFor both policies, participation was delineated by an age cut-off which was only four months apart. This sizeably reduced the width of the age window to detect a corresponding discontinuity in behaviour and hereby also the statistical power of the estimator. Additionally, due to confounding policies the estimated effects are local treatment effects for highly educated youth around the age cut-offs.Social implicationsThe findings suggest that threatening with a sanction is not the right instrument to activate highly educated unemployed school-leavers. While supportive measures appear to be more effective, this may be partly a consequence of acceptance of lower quality jobs due to liquidity constraints and of caseworkers giving misleading advice that temporary jobs are stepping stones to long-term employment.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to estimate the impact of changing the waiting period in UI. The paper adds to the existing literature on the effects of counselling and UI design on employment and job quality.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how potential exposure to missionary activity impacts both English language proficiency and labor market earnings of male and female immigrants to the USA. Design/methodology/approach This study uses the pooled files of the American Community Survey (2005–2009). To estimate the relationship between the missionary activity of both Protestants and Catholics on an immigrant’s English language proficiency using a linear probability model and their labor market earnings using the human capital earnings function that is estimated with an ordinary least squares model. Among other relevant variables, the analysis controls for the colonial heritage of the immigrant’s country of origin. Findings Overall, and within colonial heritages, the results indicate that male and female immigrants from countries with a higher concentration of Protestant missionaries tend to exhibit higher levels of English language proficiency and earnings, and those from countries with a greater concentration of Catholic missionaries exhibit lower levels of both, compared to countries with lower concentrations of missionaries. Furthermore, a greater proficiency in English enhances earnings. One of the important implications of the findings in this paper is that a “missionary variable” often used in other studies is too aggregate and may mask important findings because of strikingly different effects of Protestant and Catholic activities and characteristics of the missionaries. Originality/value This study explores for the first time how, through a missionary concentration variable, potential exposure to missionary activity impacts the English language proficiency and earnings of immigrants.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the school-to-work transition of young people from subsequent school exit cohorts between 2001 and 2012 in Egypt, thus, presenting an early evidence on the adjustments of the labor market in terms of patterns of youth transition to a first job following the 2011 Egyptian uprising.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis compares the early employment outcomes of those who left school after the January 25, 2011 uprising to that of those who left before 2011. The authors also separately control for the cohorts who left school in 2008 and 2009, in an attempt to disentangle any labor market adjustments that might have happened following the financial crisis, and before the revolution. Using novel and unexploited representative data from the 2014 Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE), the authors estimate the probability of transition to any first job within 18 months from leaving education and that of the transition to a good-quality job, controlling for the year of school exit. The authors also estimate the hazard of finding a first job and a good-quality job using survival analysis.FindingsSchool exit cohorts of 2008–2009 (following the financial crisis) and those of 2011–2012 (in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings) experienced a significantly higher likelihood of finding a first job within 18 months than that of the cohorts of 2001–2007. However, this came at the expense of the quality of job, conditional on having found a first job. The results of the hazard model show that school leavers after 2008 who were not able to transition to a job shortly after leaving school experienced longer unemployment spells than their peers who left school before 2007. The odds of finding a good-quality job appears to decline with time spent in non-employment or in a bad-quality first job.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to a limited, yet growing, literature on how school-to-work transition evolved during the global financial crisis and the Egyptian 2011 revolution. Using data from SYPE 2014, the most recent representative survey conducted in Egypt on youth and not previously exploited to study youth school-to-work transition, the paper investigates the short-term adjustments of the youth labor market opportunities during that critical period of Egypt and the region’s history.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to consider the enrolment at university and the subsequent possible dropout as a piece of the school-to-work transition and ask whether it improves or worsens the labour market outcomes a few years after graduation from the high school.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis exploits data from the upper secondary graduate survey by ISTAT on a cohort of high school graduates and investigates the effect of dropping out four years after graduation. The labour market outcomes of university dropouts are compared to the outcomes of high school graduates who never enrolled at university. A propensity score matching approach is applied. The model is also estimated on the subsamples of males and females.FindingsThe findings show that spending a period at university and leaving it before completion makes the transition to work substantially more difficult. Both the probability of being NEET and getting a bad job increase in the case of dropout, while no relevant effect is found on earnings. Moreover, the impact of university dropout tends to be more harmful the longer the spell from enrolment to dropping out. Separate estimates by gender point out that females appear to be relatively more affected in the case of dropping out without a fallback plan.Originality/valueWhile the existing studies in the literature on the school-to-work transition mostly focus on the determinants of the dropout, this paper investigates whether and how the employment outcomes are affected by dropping out in Italy. Moreover, university dropouts are compared to high school graduates with no university experience, rather than to university graduates. Finally, evidence on the mechanisms driving the effect of dropping out is provided, by considering timing and motivations for dropping out.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to apply an intersectional analysis to assess the impact of structural factors on the risk of being a NEET for youth in Spain. The author study if inequalities have changed after the economic crisis, once youth policies designed to improve the Spanish school-to-work transition (SWT) system were implemented.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on microdata from the Spanish Survey on Income and Living Conditions, the paper compares the probability of becoming not in employment, education or training (NEET) of young men and women born inside or outside Spain and living in different types of households.FindingsAlthough unemployment rates have improved since the end of the crisis, the situation regarding youth employment, poverty and inequalities remains challenging. Gender and other structural differences are usually ignored in policy debates and in the measures adopted to fight youth unemployment, leading to the persistance of inequalities.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis illustrates new lines and trajectories in the segmentation of youth labor markets along the lines of gender, household and country of origin.Practical implicationsThe findings highlight the need for introducing an analysis of the different sources of vulnerability in policy designs in order to promote a real and sustainable change in SWTs.Originality/valueThe contribution of this research to the literature on NEET and SWT is to introduce a framework that allows for the intersectional analysis of gender and other structural inequalities.

Purpose Increased investments in employee further training have resulted in a growing interest in ensuring and improving the quality of these measures. However, little is known about the operational decision to initiate an evaluation of further training. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate under which circumstances firms decide to evaluate training measures. Design/methodology/approach The study analyzes the evaluation decision of firms and external suppliers, and differentiates between internal and external further trainings. Theoretically, two goals of evaluations – monitoring and feedback – and their relevance for the decision makers are considered. Using a unique linked employer–employee data set, the study employs multi-level models to analyze three influencing factors on the evaluation decision: characteristics of the further training measure itself, the employees and the employers. Findings The results show that evaluation decisions are not based on general organizational practices but on case-by-case cost-benefit considerations. Interestingly, firms are more likely to evaluate internal further training measures than external ones. Therefore, evaluations seem to be more frequently used as a feedback instrument than for the purpose of monitoring. For external further training measures, firms seem to trust market mechanisms as a monitoring instrument, instead of conducting an internal evaluation. Originality/value Although further training has become increasingly important, little is known about firms’ quality management in this respect. This paper provides a theoretical framework for the usage of evaluation procedures and analyzes firms’ strategies for ensuring quality based on a large set of variables to give new insight into the organizational decision-making processes.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of empirical research on welfare magnetism and to assess the size and scope of the welfare magnet effect on the non-EU migrants in selected immigration countries of the European Union.Design/methodology/approachA conditional logistic regression model with interactions is used to estimate the strength of the welfare magnet effect, while controlling for demographic characteristics of the migrants and country-specific economic indicators. Data, used for estimation, comes from the Immigrant Citizen Survey, which provides a large, representative sample of first-generation (i.e. non-EU born) migrants. Various measures of welfare generosity are tested to assure the robustness of the results.FindingsThe coefficients suggest that the welfare magnet effect is present and significant in some immigrant groups, although it can have a negative impact on location decisions in other cases. Similar results are obtained for wage and unemployment indicators.Research limitations/implicationsResults corroborate the welfare magnet hypothesis, which states that more generous welfare states should expect greater clustering of negatively-selected (i.e. lower educated) migrants. One potential limitation comes from the sample size, which does not allow for more general conclusions.Practical implicationsHeterogeneous effects of basic economic indicators in different demographic groups show that aggregate immigrant flows, used widely in the literature, can provide biased estimates of welfare magnet effect.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the available literature by using representative, recently collected data and employing a more complete list of controls in a quantitative analysis of migration decisions.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to estimate the relative importance of gender discrimination and differences in household responsibilities as determinants of the male–female pay gap.Design/methodology/approachIt parses out the relative importance of those two factors by using the pay between gay men vs lesbian women as a comparison group that should reflect only gender discrimination. Subtracting the pay gap between gay men and lesbians (reflecting only gender discrimination) from the male–female pay gap for their heterosexual counterparts (reflecting both gender discrimination and household responsibilities) provides evidence of the relative importance of gender discrimination and household responsibilities in explaining the male–female pay gap.FindingsThe results show that essentially all of the male–female pay gap is attributed to differences in household responsibilities.Originality/valueThis paper advances the literature of gender wage gap by using a novel comparison group – gay men vs lesbian women – to estimate the relative importance of gender discrimination and differences in household responsibilities as determinants of the male–female pay gap.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role of access to skilled labor in explaining firms’ sales growth subject to the controlling influence of a wide range of firm-specific characteristics and country-level economic and non-economic factors.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis uses a consistent and large firm-level data set from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys that includes 138 developing countries. An instrumental variables model with a GMM estimator is used for estimating the impact of access to skilled labor on firm performance. In order to obtain more robust estimators, the analysis introduces country-level controls reflecting the influence of economic and institutional factors, such as economic and financial development, institutional governance, education and technological progress.FindingsThe results document a significant and positive association between access to skilled labor and firm performance in the developing world. The explanatory power of access to skilled labor remains broadly robust after controlling for a wide range of firm-specific characteristics: sectoral and geographical influences matter. The results also show that the association between labor skill constraints and firm performance is mitigated by country-level factors but in diverse ways. Development, institutions, education and technological progress exert various mitigating effects on firm-level behavior regarding access to skilled labor.Originality/valueThe paper’s novel contribution is threefold: first, it uses joint firm, sector and country-level information to analyze the role of access to skilled labor on firm performance; second, it uses consistently produced information at the firm level from 138 developing countries; and, third, it considers the controlling impact of a wide range of country-level factors that reflect a country’s overall development, institutions and evolution.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between aged care employees’ perceived job quality and intention to stay in current aged care facilities, mediated by work-life interference.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses the nationally representative employee–employer matched data from the 2012 National Aged Care Workforce Census and Survey in Australia. It applies the theoretical lens of the Job Characteristics Model and a mediation analytical model that controls for a rich set of employee, employer and regional characteristics.FindingsThis paper finds that higher perceived job quality positively correlates with greater intention to stay and that work-life interference mediates the relationship between perceived job quality and intention to stay.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper cannot make inference about causal relationship. Future studies on the aged care workforce should collect longitudinal data so that time-invariant unobservables can be eliminated in econometric modelling.Practical implicationsEfforts by the aged care sector to design quality jobs are likely to have significant positive correlation with the intention to stay, not only because employees are less likely to leave higher quality jobsper se, but also because higher quality jobs interfere less in the family lives of aged care workers, which itself is associated with greater intention to stay.Originality/valueThe results add to a small literature that has investigated how work-family variables can mediate between interventions that organisations put in place to improve work-life balance, and employee outcomes.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the matching process before and after the Great Recession in the Netherlands. The Dutch case is interesting because it is characterised by increasing matching efficiency. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses data from 2001 to 2014 to study the Dutch labour market matching process accounting for the three labour market states and their heterogeneities. Findings The elasticity of hires with respect to the short-term employed was significant, positive and countercyclical, while elasticities relating to new entrants were procyclical. The matching function (MF) displays constant returns to scale (CRTS) when using an alternative labour supply (LS) measure that includes the short-term employed as jobseekers. The findings are at odds with the idea of mismatch and a shortage of skills. Search frictions for employers were lower and vacancies were filled faster. This can be related to the fact that in a loose labour market context with increasing short-term employment, employers increase their hiring of employed workers which generates negative externalities on unemployed. Originality/value The implications concern the specification of the MF and the CRTS assumption when using unemployment as a LS measure.

Purpose This paper presents rESSuME: Employability Skills Social Media SurvEy, which is a tool developed to understand if and how employers screen candidates’ social media (SM) to identify personal employability attributes. In doing so, the purpose of this paper is to shed light into the potential mismatch between the personal purpose of SM and recruiters’ job-related use of this data. Design/methodology/approach rESSuME maps personal employability attributes to elements of Facebook (FB). It was delivered to 708 employers in the UK and the USA. The 415 completed surveys were statically analysed. Findings More than 75 per cent of those surveyed use FB to screen most candidates. Loyalty and reliability are the personal attributes employers most search for. They look for personal attributes examining posts, comments and photos. Country and gender differences are also reported. While in the USA, they focus on determining whether candidates have good appearance, in the UK they are more interested in gauging if candidates are reliable. Females are more concerned with establishing whether candidates display common sense than their male counterpart. Originality/value This work is the first to articulate a rationale and systematic approach to screen candidates’ SMPs to: identify personal employability attributes and systematically map personal attributes to features of FB. Thus, it contributes a novel, systematic and structured tool to do so: rESSuME. It is the largest study with recruiters to date and the first to provide empirical evidence on how candidates’ SMPs are screened: what personal employability attributes do recruiters looked for in SMPs; and what sections and features of FB do recruiters looked at to identify the candidates’ personal employability attributes.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate if public provision of employment support services to youth leads to reduced informality and increased wages in transition economies.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses the school-to-work transition data sets of the International Labor Organization for seven transition economies of Southeast Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The author focuses on two econometric issues: the selectivity into informal employment and the endogeneity of the public employment support service provision with respect to informal employment and wages. The authors achieves identification by employing internal regressors which are uncorrelated with the product of heteroskedastic errors, a-la Lewbel (2012), as the author could not prove the external validity of the commonly used external instruments in similar contexts.FindingsResults suggest that the public provision of employment support services matters for relegating informal employment, but not for wages, in general. Placement in education or training programs is most powerful in reducing informal employment among the four different employment support services, while only advice for job search works positively for wages probably through enabling better match.Social implicationsIncreasing budget allocations, varying the array of public employment support measures, enhanced targeting, and advancement of the profiling system may significantly contribute to strengthening the public employment support service effect on youth employment in transition economies.Originality/valueThe paper brings a couple of novelties to the current literature. First, it is among the early papers dealing with the issue of informality, public employment support service and labor market prospects of youth in general in a rigorous manner. Second, it fills an important gap for transition economies which were less researched due to the long-lasting transition process as well due to data scarcity. Third, it utilizes the recently collected School-to-Work Transition Surveys (SWTS). Finally, and likely most importantly, it thoroughly addresses the issues of selectivity bias and endogeneity of PESS by utilizing a recent approach of Lewbel (2012) whereby internally generated variables are used as instruments. Hence, the paper accounts for the endogeneity stemming from unobservables in a novel manner, contrary to the common approaches in the literature based either on propensity score matching addressing selectivity on observables only, or relying on commonly used instruments in the labor market literature – mainly regional employment variables – whose external validity is easily disputed.

PurposeIndicators for quality of schooling are not only relatively new in the world but also unavailable for a sizable share of the world’s population. In their absence, some proxy measures have been devised. One simple but powerful idea has been to use the schooling premium for migrant workers in the USA (Bratsberg and Terrell, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to extend this idea and compute measures for the schooling premium of immigrant workers in the USA over a span of five decades.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors focus on the schooling premia for the Latin American and the Caribbean region and compare them to those of migrants from other regions, particularly from East Asia and Pacific, India, Northern Europe and Southern Europe, all relative to immigrants from former Soviet Republics. The available data allow us to measure such premia for workers who graduated from school, either at the secondary or tertiary levels, in their home countries between 1940 and 2010.FindingsThe results show that the schooling premia in Latin America have been steadily low throughout the whole period of analysis. The results stand after controlling for selective migration in different ways. This contradicts the popular belief in policy circles that the education quality of the region has deteriorated in recent years. In contrast, schooling premium in India shows an impressive improvement in recent decades, especially at the tertiary level.Originality/valueIn this paper, the authors extend the idea of computing schooling premium for migrant workers in the USA (Bratsberg and Terrell, 2002) and present comparative estimates of the evolution of schooling premia in 17 Latin American countries for both secondary and tertiary schooling levels.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess field experiments of labour and product markets that have attached photos to identify applicants (in the case of labour markets) or sellers/crowd funders (in the case of product markets).Design/methodology/approachThe experiments seek to identify the contribution of attractiveness, race/ethnicity, skin colour, sexual orientation or religion to the behaviour of agents in markets. These experiments attach photos to CV to signal attractiveness, or the basis of being tested such as race/ethnicity, skin colour or religion.FindingsMany experiments report significant findings for the impact of attractiveness or the identity revealed on positive callbacks to applicants.Research limitations/implicationsThe issue considered here, however, is to what extent it is attractiveness or other perceived characteristics that may have had an impact on the behaviour recorded in the experiments. The results of the studies covered in this paper, to a lesser extent those of Weichselbaumer (2004) and Baert (2017), are compromised by including photos, with the possibility the responses received were influenced not only by the basis being tested such as attractiveness, race/ethnicity or religion but by some other characteristic unintended by the researcher but conveyed by the photo.Practical implicationsThere is evidence in the experimental work of a range of characteristics that photos convey of individuals and their impact on labour and product market outcomes such as success in obtaining a positive response to job applications and success in obtaining funding to finance projects in the product market. Suggestions are made for future experiments: evaluation of photos for a range of characteristics; use of a “no photo” application together with the photo applications; and evaluation of responses for any bias from unobservable characteristics using Neumark (2012).Originality/valueThis paper discusses for the first time three questions with some tentative answers. First, the researcher faces introducing further unobservable characteristics by using photos. Second, the researcher cannot fully control the experimental approach when using photos. Third, the researcher is able to accurately evaluate the impact of the photos used on the response/probability of call back. Field experiments using photos need to ensure they do this for the range of factors that have been shown to affect judgments and therefore potentially influence call back response. However, the issue remains whether the researcher has, in fact, identified all potential characteristics conveyed by the photos.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore whether single and married female job candidates’ un/employment histories differentially affect their chances of obtaining interviews through China’s internet job boards, and to consider whether firms’ discrimination against, and/or preference for, candidates who are un/employed vary with the duration of unemployment spells.Design/methodology/approachResumes of fictitious applicants are carefully crafted in terms of realistic work histories and educational backgrounds. Candidates’ experiences of unemployment and the revelation of their marital status are controlled. Over 7,000 applications are submitted to real job postings. Callbacks are carefully tracked and recorded. Linear probability models are employed to assess the roles of particular characteristics.FindingsThe marital status of female candidates affects how recruiters screen their applications. While current spells of unemployment, whether short or long term, significantly reduce married women’s chances of obtaining job interviews in the Chinese context, they strongly increase the likelihood that single women will be invited for interviews. Chinese firms appear to “forgive” long-term gaps in women’s employment histories as long as those gaps are followed by subsequent employment.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to explore how marital status affects the ways that firms, when hiring, interpret spells of unemployment in candidates’ work histories. It is also the first to explore the effects of both marital status and unemployment spells in hiring in the context of China’s dynamic internet job board labor market.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain prevalent earnings differentials in Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC’s) private sectors between skilled local and migrant labor and provide estimates of potential price distortions to underlie future market-based corrective policies that increase participation of locals in private employment.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses an individual-level data set on workers’ earnings and productivity-related characteristics to decompose estimated earnings differentials at the mean level and at various percentiles of the earnings distribution via well-established decomposition approaches.FindingsResults show that the real earnings differential between locals and Asians decreases at higher earnings, while that between locals and non-GCC Arabs are relatively stable. Both are characterized by overpayment of locals, that is, self-inflicted by current nationalization policies. Higher earnings of Westerners are due to their superior productivity-related characteristics.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the lack of official individual-level data on workers’ productivity-related characteristics, this paper is compelled to utilize an open-source primary data set. Despite the data set’s ability to reproduce officially published aggregates and produce sound econometric results, findings are not entirely proof against sampling bias.Practical implicationsThe paper demonstrates that the failure of GCC’s nationalization policies is self-inflicted by the current quota system and by the lack of legislative frameworks that ensure equal pay for equal work. Effective nationalization ought to be market based, rather than by fiat.Originality/valueThe paper is the first to analyze GCC’s private earnings differentials at the individual level and provides micro-econometric evidence on existing price distortions.