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This article introduces the metaphor of the iceberg in the labour market. While policy in most OECD countries has historically focussed on reducing unemployment (the tip of the iceberg), the group of inactive people (below the waterline) is much larger. Therefore, we point to the clear limitations of the unemployment rate as the (single) key macro-economic indicator of the health of the labour market. A parsimonious dashboard approach utilising the unemployment-to-population ratio and the inactivity-to-population ratio as two highly appropriate and complementary measures is defended. We show that the ratio of these two indices varies greatly between countries, which calls for different policies for different countries.

In a sample of 3274 full-time Belgian workers, this article found that 62% of workers went to work while being sick (sickness presenteeism) at least once over the past 12 months. Of all workers who did not show sickness presenteeism themselves, another 6 out of 10 saw or heard about sickness presenteeism in their own organization. Women were more likely to report sickness presenteeism than men and junior workers were more prone to sickness presenteeism than senior workers. Education did not explain the choice for sickness presenteeism. Satisfaction with the supervisor had a direct negative effect on sickness presenteeism. Finally, indirect effects were found between satisfaction with the supervisor and sickness presenteeism via the prevalence of stress. While previous studies showed that good supervisor support can make sick workers more productive when they show up at work, this study shows that good supervisor support makes sick workers stay at home.

Abstract:This study is the first to estimate the effects of the sending-off of a player on the full-time results in international club soccer. To this end, we analyze data of more than 2,000 recent matches in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. We find that, when home teams receive a red card, it harms their goal scoring and victory probabilities. By contrast, a red card for away teams can have a positive, negative, or neutral effect for them, depending on the timing of the player dismissal.

The authors investigate the importance of employer preferences in explaining sticky floors, the pattern in which women are less likely, as compared to men, to start to climb the job ladder. The authors perform a randomized field experiment in the Belgian labor market and test whether hiring discrimination based on gender is heterogeneous by whether jobs imply a promotion (compared to the applicants’ current position). The findings show that women receive 33% fewer interview invitations when they apply for jobs that imply a first promotion at the functional level. By contrast, the results show that their hiring chances are not significantly affected by the authority level of the job.

The authors empirically test the cross-sectional relationship between hiring discrimination and labor market tightness at the level of the occupation. To this end, they conduct a correspondence test in the youth labor market. In line with theoretical expectations, results show that, compared to natives, candidates with a foreign-sounding name are equally often invited to a job interview if they apply for occupations for which vacancies are difficult to fill; but, they have to send out twice as many applications for occupations for which labor market tightness is low. Findings are robust to various sensitivity checks.