Search

The article presents a study on the impact of tax and minimum wage reforms on the incidence of informality. The authors used measures of the extent of tax evasion, the extent of minimum wage noncompliance, and the size of the informal workforce to measure the incidence of informality. The authors designed optimal minimum wage and tax policies based on tax revenue maximization, and poverty alleviation among workers.

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive portrait of who earns the minimum wage, in terms of the characteristics of the individual that are most important in determining this outcome. Design/methodology/approach -- This study uses individual data from the Annual Income Supplements of the New Zealand (NZ) Household Labour Force Surveys between June 1997 and June 2004. This unit record data allows isolation of workers earning the minimum wage or close to it. A more sophisticated quantitative analysis is also carried out, where the probability of earning at or below the minimum wage is modelled to estimate what individual characteristics are most significant in determining minimum wage status. Findings -- One of the key findings was that individual characteristics (such as age) are much more important than household circumstance or industry affiliations, in terms of the probability of earning minimum wage. Originality/value -- NZ has substantially increased minimum wages for teenagers and adults since 2000. For example, since the youth minimum was introduced in March 1994, it had increased by 52 per cent in real terms by 2004. Consequently, recent NZ experience offers a rare opportunity to isolate who earns the minimum wage and which subgroups are more likely to be potentially impacted by a rising minimum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Only few studies have examined gender wage differentials and the extent of gender discrimination in South Africa. The following analysis covers several years after the end of Apartheid to describe the development of gender wage differentials and discrimination over time. Furthermore, it is also taken into account that labour force participants may have different probabilities of finding employment By estimating selectivity corrected wage regressions it is not only possible to decompose wage gaps into the well-known endowment and discrimination components but also detect the so-called indirect effects that already arise at the selection into employment stage. Results obtained from this approach can drastically change the impression of wage discrimination gained from standard decomposition techniques. African women were found to increasingly suffer from discrimination at the hiring stage, whereas White women are more affected by direct wage discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equal treatment for men and women is an important objective of labour policy in the European Union, largely because there is ample evidence of gender discrimination in the wages of men and women, which are on an average higher for male workers. Research on male-female wage differentials provides evidence of a substantial wage differential favouring men after adjusting for human capital and personal characteristics such as education, age, job tenure, and labour force intermittency. However, few studies take into account the role that job mobility plays in this differential, despite its demonstrated importance in explaining the earnings profile of workers. This paper estimates gender wage differentials for workers who switch jobs and those who keep them in order to see whether job mobility enlarges or reduces the gender gap. The study uses microdata relative to Spanish workers gathered from the Households Panel Study (1994-1997), conducted by the Spanish National Statistics Institute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the unemployment effects of a minimum wage or other institutionally-imposed wage floors. Variables that determine the unemployment effects of minimum wages; Elasticity of the wage in the non-covered sector with respect to the non-covered sector labour force.

Discusses the impact of minimum wages on industrial wages and employment in Greece over the period 1962-1987. Collective bargaining in the country; Arbitration process; Introduction of minimum wage indexation; Evolution of the relative value of minimum wages.

Discusses the effects of minimum wage on employment in Czechoslovakia. Ratio of the minimum wage to the average wage; Variations of exports to market economies; Influence of excess supply of real cash balances on inflation; Temporary fall in the minimum wage; Permanent fall in the minimum wage.

Examines the relationship between minimum wages and labor force participation. Worker responses to minimum wage increases; Correlation between unemployment and labor force participation rates; Supply aspects of the labor market.

Mentioned here are some abstracts and key words of different articles related to manpower. The article "Gender Earnings Differentials Across Individuals Over Time in British Cohort Studies" analyzes gender wage differentials in full-time employment using recently released data from the National Child Development Study and the British Cohort Study 1970. The article "Rent Sharing and the Gender Wage Gap in Belgium" investigates, on the basis of a unique combination of two large-scale data sets, how rent sharing interacts with the gender wage gap in the Belgian private sector.