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We conducted this realist evaluation study of an organizational health intervention involving 421 low-skilled workers (50% female), half of whom were immigrants, in three companies over six months. Non-profit agencies implemented peer-mentoring and taught peer-mentors and line managers how to enhance social support in order to improve workers’ work situation in a participative way. We formulated five mechanisms of change: the company management encouragement mechanism, the role model mechanism, the peer-mentor support mechanism, the line manager support mechanism, and the participative work improvement mechanism. We combined realist evaluation with a quasi-experimental design and process evaluation in a multi-methods approach. Results of multiple group latent change models and qualitative research showed that intervention-group workers perceived increases in peer-mentor support but not in line manager support. Peer-mentors managed to initiate high-quality improvements at work. Intervention-group workers showed significant reductions in blood pressure. Control-group workers experienced more psychosomatic complaints over time in significant contrast to intervention-group workers. Our results suggest that peer-mentoring offers an effective way for low-skilled workers and immigrants to achieve better health. To improve such health effects, a greater focus on line managers’ work situations is needed to help them provide support.

Wir untersuchen die Auswirkungen von Zuwanderung auf das Arbeitsangebot einheimischer Frauen. Insbesondere betrachten wir die Auswirkung des Anstiegs geringqualifizierter Zuwanderer, die im Haushaltssektor arbeiten, auf hoch- und geringqualifizierte einheimische Frauen. Wir modellieren individuelle Entscheidungen uber die Haushaltsproduktion und testen die wichtigsten Aussagen dieses Modells anhand eines harmonisierten Datensatzes (CNEF). Unsere Stichprobe enthalt Lander mit unterschiedlich groszugiger Familienpolitik. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass mit einem hoheren Anteil an Migranten im Dienstleistungssektor eines lokal begrenzten Arbeitsmarktes die einheimischen hochqualifizierten Frauen ihr Arbeitsangebot erhohen. Gleichzeitig steigt die Partizipationsrate unqualifizierter einheimischer Frauen. Daruber hinaus zeigen wir, dass diese Effekte in Landern mit restriktiverer Familienpolitik starker ausfallen.

Rural migrant workers and urban local low skilled labors are in the urban labor market at the same time. Though with different identities, both bear the characteristics of low degree of education. In order to explore whether there is difference in wages and employment between the two, we made a study based on 519 survey questionnaires in Shenyang City in China. We use the Multinomial logit model to estimate the possible obtained industry, and to examine factors that influence the labor obtained industry, by actual and estimated industry distribution of rural migrant workers and urban local low skill labor, we suggest that employment structure of the two have great disparity for different industries .So the government should deregulate rural rural migrant workers policy, and improve the level of human capital of migrant workers to eliminate the differences.

A recursive system is employed to investigate the indirect effect of out-migration on gross domestic product (GDP) through remittances in South Asia, namely Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Out-migration is further disaggregated by skill level and country of destination (Middle East and other), and their effects on GDP through remittances are examined. The results suggest that migration and remittances have an important significant effect on the GDP of the countries under study. Of the skill categories, the unskilled category has the largest robust indirect effect on GDP. The effects of migration on GDP by country of destination suggest that migration to the Middle East has a robust and significant impact on GDP. There is some evidence of a combination between the altruistic and self-interested motives of migrants’ to remit.

This study examines the impact of inflows of foreign workers on Korean natives' economic performance – namely, employment – through the Employment Permit System, the basis of Korea's system by which to introduce low-skilled immigrants. Using National Employment Insurance data, analyses reveal that the adjustment cost related to the introduction of foreign workers was not substantial over the 2004-2005 period. However, a substitution effect exists between the employment of foreign and native workers in the service industry and among less-educated natives. The results suggest that policy assistance is needed to lessen the impacts caused by inflows of foreign workers and to enhance adjustments within the labor market on a sector-by-sector basis.

Formal sector unemployment forces many workers to venture into the informal sector. The activities of day labourers are no exception. The aim of this paper is to address the lack of research on informal labour markets by focusing on the day labourers in Pretoria as a case study and to investigate the employment history of and income earned by day labourers in Pretoria. Day labourers involved in this study were mainly male, young, low skilled, earning low and uncertain levels of income and working under harsh conditions. A significant portion of day labourers in Pretoria previously held formal sector occupations. Long spells of unemployment can make it difficult for day labourers to return to the formal sector. Many activities in the informal sector can never provide a permanent solution to unemployment.

This article studies the implications of temporary emigration for the welfare of a source country. The framework is one of general equilibrium, where the economy's stocks of both capital and labor are endogenously determined by the saving and migration decisions of optimizing agents. Simulations of the model suggest that for realistic values of the parameters, welfare of nonmigrants of the source country is maximized when the migrants are employed abroad for a period in the range of roughly 8�12 years. The ideal duration is found to be an increasing function of the international wage differential, migration costs, and the degree to which the rights of migrants are protected in the host country.

The purpose of this longitudinal study of 255 members of the low-skilled workforce was to enhance insight into the nature of the relations between specific supervisor behavior (social support, positive feedback, task-related communication) and employee well-being. Data were analyzed using latent change models focusing on interindividual change and change–change associations over time. Our results indicated that interindividual differences in the intraindividual change in perceived supervisor behavior were related to changes in indicators of well-being across a 6-month period. These results provide further evidence for longitudinal associations between leader behavior and employee outcomes as well as the necessity of designing specific interventions for low-level managers.

This article considers the struggles faced by Asian states in their attempts to recruit mostly low-skilled temporary labour migrants. The article observes three trends: (1) there is a marked reluct...

Do low-skilled workers benefit from the growth of high-technology industries in their local economy? Policymakers invest considerable resources in attracting and developing innovative, high-tech industries, but there is relatively little evidence on the distribution of the benefits. This paper investigates the labour market impact of high-tech growth on low and mid-skilled workers, using data on UK local labour markets from 2009–2015. It shows that high-tech industries – either STEM-intensive ‘high-tech’ or digital economy – have a positive jobs multiplier, with each 10 new high-tech jobs creating around 7 local non-tradeable service jobs, around 6 of which go to low-skilled workers. Employment rates for mid-skilled workers do not increase, but they benefit from higher wages. Yet while low-skilled workers gain from higher employment rates, the jobs are often poorly paid service work, so average wages fall, particularly when increased housing costs are considered.

We investigate the migration response to state and local variation in minimum wages in the United States. We find that a one dollar difference between two areas’ real minimum wage is associated with 3.1% more migration of low-skilled workers towards the location with the lower minimum wage. The minimum wage does not influence the migration decisions of high-skilled workers.

In this study, the authors analyze leadership behaviors as potential health-promoting resources for low-skilled workers in a highly culturally diverse work setting. The authors hypothesize that subordinates' and supervisors' individual power distance orientations will moderate the effect of subordinates' perceptions of leadership behavior and the subsequent effects on their well-being. Multilevel modeling is used to analyze a sample of data from 474 low-skilled employees (50% immigrants) and 35 direct supervisors from three German companies. Supporting the hypotheses, social support, task-related communication, and positive feedback, as expressions of esteem, are found to positively impact subordinates' well-being, but individual consideration shows no significant effects. Furthermore, results confirm that supervisors' power distance orientation moderates employees' perceptions about supervisors' positive feedback and the subsequent well-being effects. The moderating effect fails to hold for employees' power distance orientation. Results indicate that supervisors can most effectively promote the health of low-skilled workers by showing esteem through positive feedback, but if the supervisor has high individual power distance orientation, the effect is attenuated.

Synopsis Research on migrant women tends to address the experiences of women located in low skilled, low-paid work like domestic care work in receiving countries. Less attention has been directed towards the mobility and experiences of skilled and elite professional women who, while pursuing their professional careers and livelihood strategies, must also attend to social reproductive roles. Drawing on research with two groups of skilled Ghanaian women – nurses in England and professionals who have returned to Ghana – this paper analyzes how they navigate multiple caregiving responsibilities. The women's movements produced family separations that engendered a myriad of multiscalar strategies to negotiate and reconfigure care relationships and obligations. Among nurses who are not from elite backgrounds, their formal care work and competing caring roles are shaped beyond, but in constant reference to, demands placed on them in multiple local and transnational settings. Among highly skilled migrants, their class status, access to resources and mobility mitigate the challenges of caregiving and the impacts of familial separation. In conclusion, the paper contributes to the literature on skilled migration and care by presenting the gender and class tensions that the combination of professional and personal caregiving create for skilled and mobile African women.

This paper reports about a randomized experiment in which training vouchers of €1000 were given to low-skilled workers. The vouchers increase training participation by almost 20 percentage points in two years, relative to a base rate of 0.45. This increased participation comes at a substantial deadweight loss of almost 60%. Consistent with predictions from human capital theory, we find that vouchers cause a shift towards more general forms of training. We do not find any significant impact of the program on monthly wages or on job mobility. The program does, however, have a significant impact on future training plans. Compared to always-takers, new trainees are more often male, more risk averse, work shorter hours and are less likely to have participated in training prior to treatment. Compared to never-takers, they are more often female, work longer hours and have a somewhat lower formal education level.

In a random search environment with two racial groups each composed of identical numbers of high and low productivity workers, firms use an imperfect screening device (interviews) to control hiring. If inconclusive interviews lead firms to hire majority workers but not minority workers, then the unemployment pool for majority workers is of higher average quality. This can justify the initial hiring choices. The model is calibrated to the market for high-school drop-outs in the USA. Color blind hiring always eliminates racial disparities but is not necessarily beneficial; in the USA it would improve welfare but white unemployment would increase.

This paper uses several decades of US time-diary surveys to assess the impact of low-skilled immigration, through lower prices for commercial child care, on parental time investments. Using an instrumental variables approach that accounts for the endogenous location of immigrants, we find that low-skilled immigration to the United States has contributed to substantial reductions in the time allocated to basic child care by college-educated mothers of non-school age children. However, these mothers have not reduced the time allocated to more stimulating educational and recreational activities with their children. Understanding the factors driving parental time investments on children is crucial from a child development perspective.

This study examined the variable error (VE) for the golf impact position of high and low skilled golfers. A consistent shot type was employed by 20 golfers from 2 skill groups over 10–15 shots with a midiron. Analysis reported similar positional variability across categories. Significant differences were found for the whole group in VE of the distance of various body segments to the ball (p < .001) where variability reduced across the distance of the ball to the midpoint of the stance, compared with the pelvis and shoulders. Alignment variability significantly decreased toward distal segments of the kinematic sequence with VE for the alignment of stance relative to pelvis compared with stance relative to shoulders and pelvis relative to shoulders showing reduced levels (p < .001) in the low skilled golfers. Tilt variability in the frontal plane around the sagittal/anterior-posterior (AP) axis also presented significantly reduced levels from the pelvis to the shoulders (p < .001) with no effect of skill le...

This paper analyzes how companies of immigrant entrepreneurs in knowledge-intensive industries differ from companies of native entrepreneurs with respect to start-up characteristics, firm survival and innovative performance. I focus on immigrants from the “recruitment countries” of south and southeast Europe, who arrived in Germany mainly in the 1970s to fill labor shortages. They are the largest immigrant group in Germany and can be reliably identified via ethnic name coding. Immigrant entrepreneurs are less than half as likely to found a company in a knowledge-intensive industry as native entrepreneurs. Firms owned exclusively by immigrants tend to be smaller and have higher exit rates. After controlling for resources, I found no differences in patenting activity compared to firms owned exclusively by natives. Firms in mixed immigrant/native ownership have no size disadvantage. In that group, exit rates are higher in services but not in manufacturing, and, again, there are no differences in patenting when resources are taken into account. The lower participation of immigrant entrepreneurs in knowledge-intensive industries can be explained by lower education levels, while smaller firm sizes suggest more limited access to capital.

Globalization with its many side-effects on working life is seen to pose accentuated risks especially for women and low skilled workers – resulting in increasing polarization of job quality. In contrast to “universal theories”, institutional theories claim changes in work life might vary according to the institutional and cultural frameworks which mediate the global pressures of change. This study analyses job quality trends in Finland at the intersection of class and gender. The results, based on the Finnish Quality of Work Life survey (1977–2013), find no clear evidence of polarization. In line with the institutional theory’s prediction of a low risk of polarization in coordinated and inclusive Nordic countries, improvements have occurred for blue-collar workers in terms of autonomy and opportunities for development at work, reducing the gap between social classes. Furthermore, the negative sides of work life, such as insecurity and time pressures have become common experiences regardless of social class. The ‘welfare state paradox’ hypothesis on the comparative disadvantage of women in higher positions in the labour market does not gain support in 2013: the upper-white collar women have attained roughly similar levels of job quality to their male counterparts.

We investigate a market in which experts have a moral hazard problem because they need to invest in costly but unobservable effort to identify consumer problems. Experts have either high or low qualification and can invest either high or low effort in their diagnosis. High skilled experts are able to identify problems with some probability even with low effort while low skilled experts here always give false recommendations. Experts compete for consumers by setting prices for diagnosis and service. Consumers can visit multiple experts, which enables an endogenous verifiability of diagnosis. We show that with a sufficient number of high skilled experts, stable second-best and perfectly non-degenerate equilibria are possible even with flexible prices, although they depend on transactions costs being relatively low. By contrast, with a small share of high skilled experts in the market, setting fixed prices can be beneficial for society.

The Dunning-Kruger effect states that low performers vastly overestimate their performance while high performers more accurately assess their performance. Researchers usually interpret this empirical pattern as evidence that the low skilled are vastly overconfident while the high skilled are more accurate in assessing their skill. However, measurement error alone can lead to a negative relationship between performance and overestimation, even if skill and overconfidence are unrelated. To clarify the role of measurement error, we restate the Dunning-Kruger effect in terms of skill and overconfidence. We show that we can correct for bias caused by measurement error with an instrumental variable approach that uses a second performance as instrument. We then estimate the Dunning-Kruger effect in the context of the exam grade predictions of economics students, using their grade point average as an instrument for their exam grade. Our results show that the unskilled are more overconfident than the skilled. However, as we predict in our methodological discussion, this relationship is significantly weaker than ordinary least squares estimates suggest. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

We use micro data on skills to analyze the human capital of entrepreneurial and incumbent plants in U.S. manufacturing over 2005-2013. We find a large drop in cognitive skills in entrepreneurial plants. This has long-term implications since initial cognitive skills at the plant level predict future skills and growth rates. The gap between entrant and incumbent skills increases with exposure to Chinese imports, with entrants' skills falling and those of incumbents increasing. Import competition explains between 17%-60% of the skill differential between entrants and incumbents. While high skilled incumbents grow faster than low skilled establishments in exposed industries, the evidence for entrants is weaker. Overall, we find that entrepreneurial firms and incumbents are acquiring different skill sets, leaving entrants more exposed to the risk of automation or offshoring.

This article considers skill requirements in retail work, drawing on the example of high-end fashion retailing. It considers debates about the required ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ elements of skill for such work. Drawing on Cockburn’s typology – skill residing in the worker; in what is required to perform a job; and as a socially constructed political concept – it seeks to offer a more nuanced discussion of the nature of skills in retail work beyond the usual characterization of such work as being inherently low skilled. Data are reported from 37 interviews with managers, supervisors and employees in a range of high-end fashion retailing outlets. The article recognizes how this work was seen as skilled by the interviewees, particularly with regard to the desired product knowledge and selling ability required for such work. Lastly, it seeks to refine Cockburn’s typology in understanding skill requirements in retail work.

While there is a vast literature considering the labour market effects of immigration, less has been done to investigate how immigration affects the educational choices of young natives. Using Italian provincial data and an instrumental variables strategy, we show that the recent increase in the immigration of low skilled labour has produced human capital polarization, i.e. the contemporaneous increase in the share of natives with less than high school and not enrolled in school and in the share with a college degree or enrolled in college. This evidence is stronger for males than for females. We adapt the standard Card's model of educational choice and spell out under what conditions human capital polarization occurs. We estimate wage equations by gender and find that these conditions are satisfied, especially for Italian males.

Summary A regression discontinuity approach is used to analyse the effect of the legislated increase in the UK national minimum wage that occurs at age 22 years on various labour market outcomes. Using data from the Labour Force Survey we find an increase of 3–4 percentage points in the rate of employment of low skilled individuals. Unemployment declines among men and inactivity among women. We find no such effect before the national minimum wage was introduced and no robust impacts at age 21 or 23 years. Our results are robust to a range of specification tests.

We have developed a new driving assistant system that can help low-skilled drivers improve their driving skill. There are three key contributions. First, we have developed a statistical method to extract distinctions between high- and low-skilled drivers based on AdaBoost, which selects a small number of critical operation features between high- and low-skilled drivers. The second is that a driving skill evaluation model is built based on extracted features. Finally, we performed a series of experiments using a driving simulator, in which advice based on extracted features was supplied to low skilled drivers. Result shows advices were effective improved drivers' driving skill.

We have developed a new driving assistance system that can help low-skilled drivers improve their driving skills. We did this in three steps. First, we developed a statistical method to extract distinctions between high- and low-skilled drivers on the basis of AdaBoost, which selects a small number of critical operation features between high- and low-skilled drivers. Second, we built a driving skill evaluation model on the basis of the extracted features. Finally, we performed a series of experiments using a driving simulator, in which advice based on extracted features was supplied to low-skilled drivers and was expected to improve their driving skill. We also proposed an index for evaluating driving skill change, and results show the advice effectively improved the drivers' driving skills. Language: en

High-skilled migration has always been given priority and even encouraged by international and national policy. At the same, international agreements for low-skilled migration tend to restrict it. Human capital is considered valuable according to educational levels and working abilities, which puts undocumented migrants in a difficult economic position. The NAFTA area is no exception: while the migration of professionals is given priority by mechanisms like the TN and H1 visas, there is still no agreement to relieve the situation of unskilled immigration across the border from Mexico to the US and Canada in search of a better life. At the same time, migration between Canada and the US is much freer, even though professionals are also given priority; after NAFTA, Canada has even experienced brain drain to the US. The main question is how to reduce unfair differences in policies that prioritize the mobility of certain individuals based on their qualifications. Method: This paper analyzes and compares NAFTA’s impact on policies for high- vs. low-skilled migration. It also uses the author’s ethnographic studies to express the view of migrants on how human capital should be managed internationally.

This paper demonstrates that immigration decisions respond to differences in local labor market conditions by documenting the change in low-skilled immigrant inflows in response to supply increases among the US-born. Using pre-reform welfare participation rates as an instrument for changes in native labor supply, I find that immigrants prefer cities with fewer welfare leavers over cities with larger reform-induced supply shifts. The extent of the selection is substantial: for each additional native woman working in a city as a result of welfare reform, 0.8 fewer female immigrants choose to live and work there. These results provide direct evidence that international migration flows tend to equilibrate returns across US local labor markets.

The automation and out-sourcing of routine, codifiable tasks are seen as driving polarization in labor markets in high-income countries. This paper first offers several explanations for why developing countries might show differing dynamics, at least for the present. Census data then confirms this, showing on average no evidence of polarization in developing countries. However, incipient polarization in a few countries as well as major drives to automate in some large, labor intensive producers suggests this may not remain the case. This raises concerns first about the impact on equity within those countries, but second the possibility that the traditional flying geese pattern"-- whereby low skilled jobs are progressively off-shored to poorer and poorer countries -- may be short circuited.

Multidimensional and dynamic talent models represent the current state of the art, but these demands have hardly ever been implemented so far. One reason for this could be the methodological problems associated with these requirements. This paper will present a proposal for dealing with this, namely for examining the development of young soccer players holistically. The patterns formed by the constructs net hope, motor abilities, technical skills and biological maturity were examined, as well as the way in which these holistic patterns are related to subsequent sporting success. 119 young elite soccer players were questioned and tested three times at intervals of one year, beginning at the age of 12. At the age of 15, the level of performance reached by the players was determined. At all three measuring points, four patterns were identified, which displayed partial structural and high individual stability. The highly skilled players, scoring above average on all factors – but not necessarily those having the highest overall scores –, were significantly more likely to advance to the highest level of performance. Failure-fearing fit players, i.e. physically strong, early developed players but with some technical weaknesses, have good chances of reaching the middle performance level. In contrast, none of the achievement-oriented, highly skilled, late-matured or late-matured, low skilled players reached the highest performance level. The results indicate the importance of holistic approaches for predicting performance among promising soccer talents in the medium-term and thus provide valuable clues for their selection and promotion.

Jurisdictions across the United States have adopted "ban the box" (BTB) policies preventing employers from conducting criminal background checks until late in the job application process. Their goal is to improve employment outcomes for those with criminal records, with a secondary goal of reducing racial disparities in employment. This paper, uses variation in the details and timing of state and local BTB policies to test BTB's effects on employment for various demographic groups. It finds that BTB policies decreases the probability of being employed by 3.4 percentage points (5.1%) for young, low-skilled black men, and by 2.3 percentage points (2.9%) for young, low-skilled Hispanic men. These findings support the hypothesis that when an applicant's criminal history is unavailable, employers statistically discriminate against demographic groups that are likely to have a criminal record. [Working Paper 22469]

We study voting over higher education finance in an economy with risk averse households who are heterogeneous in income. We compare four different systems and analyse voters' preferences among them: a traditional subsidy scheme, a pure loan scheme, income contingent loans and graduate taxes. Using numerical simulations, we find that the poor prefer the subsidy scheme over the other systems, even though they pay part of the taxes. We also find that majorities for income contingent loans or graduate taxes become more likely as risk aversion rises or the income distribution gets more equal. Copyright 2014 Oxford University Press 2012 All rights reserved, Oxford University Press.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of employers as “institutional” factors in the creation of segmentation in the labour market. Industrial structure defines segments of the labour market (the employer) based on the nature of demand, and with the impact on the individual workers or groups based on their personal characteristics.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical work is within the Dublin labour market, which experienced the largest increase in availability of migrant workers under immigration policies of the Celtic Tiger state. Focused on the sectors of catering, cleaning and security as low‐skilled service sector providers, the analysis is based on 24 semi‐structured interviews with employers selected based on a database of a cross‐section of all employers in the selected sectors in Dublin.FindingsSemi‐structured interviews reinforce state policies as key institutional factor underlying migrant labour trends and experiences, but perspectives of the employers in low‐end service industries reveal additional insights. In addition to using migrant labour as a means of cost cutting, the daily actions of employers reveal cultural stereotyping of workers, making them an elemental component “exploiting” the trends facilitated by state immigration policies.Originality/valueAlthough a large body of research on migration into Ireland during the Celtic Tiger years is available, little of it has focused on labour market processes. More broadly, in attempting to understand labour market processes and the creation of segmentation there needs to be a triangulation of processes of supply, demand and state policies; and employers are key players in shaping demand and exploiting supply trends.

A major feature of the contemporary Australian labour market is the declining participation of prime-age men, in particular those with low education levels. Using Census data for 1996 and 2006, this paper explores how occupational sex segregation - a concept traditionally used to explain female employment outcomes - has shaped low-skilled men's employment opportunities in Australia. The empirical evidence shows that employment for workers with limited levels of educational attainment has expanded most rapidly in occupations that are female-dominated. Men are not increasing their share of employment in these occupations. This evidence supports the argument that sex segregation in employment opportunities has contributed to men's withdrawal from the labour force. The paper concludes by discussing the relative usefulness of occupational sex segregation as a theoretical framework for understanding low-skilled men's labour market situation.

We provide the first analysis of the short-run causal impact of immigrant inflows on native populations at the local labor market level. Using published statistics from the American Community Surveys of 2000–2010, we examine how immigrant inflow shocks to a metropolitan area affect native populations. We find that immigrant inflows are associated with increases in local native populations on an annual basis but that these OLS estimates are generally upward biased. Our IV results are purged of this bias, but we still find that an additional immigrant increases the low skill native population by 0.4–0.7 in the concurrent period. To explain this result, we show that immigrant inflows lead to declines in outflows of low skill natives from affected MSAs. This is most pronounced in MSAs from which relocation is arguably more costly, which may disproportionately affect the low skilled. We find short-run responses among high skill natives that are consistent with displacement. The decline in high skilled native populations is driven by high skilled immigrant inflows, and high skilled outflows increase from affected MSAs. We show that these short-run changes are obscured in specifications using longer-run population changes and conclude that the short-run impact of immigrants on native populations differs markedly from their longer-run impact.

Using microdata from the 2000 Census, we analyze how the employment rates of foreign-born and US-born men vary with education. After a period of adjustment during the first few years upon arrival, the overall employment rate of immigrant men quickly approaches that of US natives. Among those with the lowest education levels, immigrants exhibit substantially higher rates of employment than comparable natives. This pattern is consistent with a simple theoretical model of migrant selectivity that jointly considers a potential migrant's decisions regarding where to locate and whether to work.

Previous studies on low-skilled single mothers focus generally either on the binary welfare use or work decision. However, work among welfare participants has increased steadily since the mid-1990s. This study estimates the role of the 1993 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) expansion on the decline of welfare caseloads using a bivariate probit model. Using monthly Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) information, I find that the 1993 EITC expansion has at least the same effect on reducing welfare use as the welfare reform initiatives. Moreover, the elasticity estimates indicate that single mothers, especially those who were not employed and dependent solely on welfare before the expansion, were the most responsive to the policy initiatives. Finally, the increase in work among welfare participants is due to the relative ineffectiveness of the policies in reducing the net population of those who are on welfare and work simultaneously.

The author explores trends of low-skilled migrant labor in Japan before as well as after the global economic crisis, reviews the development of migration policies especially related to low-skilled migrants, and examines new empirical findings and draws some implications for migration policy reform in Japan. In the empirical analysis, the author stresses the effects of production fragmentation on low-skilled labor, the effects of the declining youth population on mismatches in the labor markets, and those of employment strategies by enterprises on the employment of nationals as well as foreigners at the local level. Finally, the author insists on the necessity for Japan to strengthen integration policy at the local level, in addition to immigration control policy at the national level, within the context of developing economic integration in the East Asian region.

The Joyce Foundation’s Shifting Gears initiative was launched in 2007 with the goal of increasing the number of workers in six Midwestern states who earn credentials that are valued by employers in their local labor markets. This chapter summarizes the policies adopted by Illinois and Wisconsin to support the implementation of career pathways and bridge programs to both improve the employment opportunities of low-skilled, low-income adults and enhance the competitiveness of the regional workforce.

Modern societies would potentially reap large benefits from upgrading low skilled's education. However, this is difficult to put into practice because employers are reluctant to train low skilled and because low skilled are unwilling to participate. To circumvent this potential market imperfection, a large supply of formal education in Sweden is complemented with the eligibility of enrollees for financial support. This study uses detailed data on Swedish siblings aged 24–43 in 1994 to evaluate the impact on annual earnings. The estimated average return was 4.4% in 2004. Calculations indicate that this is barely sufficient to cover society's total costs.

This paper examines the link between crime and labor market opportunities in Japan. To consider this link, we estimate the crime supply function first introduced by Becker using panel data for Japanese prefectures. The main empirical results are as follows. First, we expect that increasing the number of police will reduce crime, regardless of its type (i.e. whether referring to total crime, violent crime or larceny). Second, crime rates are generally lower in prefectures where a low-skilled individual can find a job more easily. Third, the effects of wages for low-skilled workers on crime, especially larceny, are significantly negative, whereas average wages in a prefecture do not appear to affect crime. Fourth, the prefectures with lower educational standards are expected to suffer more crime than other prefectures. Finally, prefectures with higher Gini coefficients on schooling years are also expected to suffer more crime than other prefectures.

Der Beitrag thematisiert die Strukturen und Entwicklungsdynamiken industrieller Einfacharbeit und vertritt entgegen anderslautender Diagnosen die These, dass diese kein Auslaufmodell in der Wissensgesellschaft ist. Auf der Basis empirischer Befunde wird gezeigt, dass von einem stabilen Sockel der Einfacharbeit auszugehen ist und zahlreiche Kernzonen dafür in der Industrie identifiziert werden können. Das Beispiel der Ernährungsindustrie verdeutlicht, dass einfache, gering qualifizierte Tätigkeiten ein zentrales Moment in der Produktion und Verpackung von Lebensmitteln sind. Zwar sind die Arbeitsanforderungen auf einem niedrigen Niveau, dennoch ergeben sich verschiedene arbeitsorganisatorische Muster von mehr oder weniger angereicherter Einfacharbeit.

Beschäftigte in Tätigkeiten, für die keine Berufsausbildung erforderlich ist (einfache Arbeit), gelten schon seit längerem als problematische Personengruppe des Arbeitsmarkts. Anhand der Daten des IAB-Betriebspanels setzt sich dieser Beitrag mit der Entwicklung der einfachen Arbeit seit 2001 aus der betrieblichen Sicht auseinander und untersucht den Einfluss der jüngsten Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise auf das Beschäftigungssegment der einfachen Arbeit. Dabei wird deutlich, dass die Entwicklung der einfachen Arbeit von sektorspezifischen Besonderheiten geprägt ist. Die Ergebnisse von Differenz-von-Differenzen-Regressionen zeigen ferner für die von der Krise betroffenen Betriebe, dass der Beschäftigungsverlust zwischen 2008 und 2009 für die Beschäftigten in Tätigkeiten, für die keine Berufsausbildung erforderlich ist, mit fast 10% wesentlich größer war, als bei den Beschäftigten in qualifizierten Tätigkeiten (-3,3%).

Low-skilled immigrants represent a signi…cant fraction of the labor employed in service sectors that are close substitutes of household production like housekeeping and babysitting services. This paper studies whether the increased supply of low-skilled immigrants has led high-skilled women, who have the highest opportunity cost of their time, to change their time use decisions. Exploiting cross-city variation in immigrant concentration, we …nd that low-skilled immigration has increased hours worked by women with a professional degree or a Ph.D. The estimated magnitudes suggest that the low-skilled immigration ‡ow of the period 1980-2000 increased by approximately 45 minutes a week the average time of market work of women belonging to this group. We also …nd that the fraction of highly educated women working more than 50 (and 60) hours a week increases with low-skilled immigration. Consistently, we …nd a decrease in the time women in this education group spend in household work and an increase in their reported expenditures on housekeeping services. Except for smaller but �