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This paper addresses the issue of school students’ part-time employment in the last year of compulsory education, and its impact on educational outcomes. Estimating the causal effect is not straightforward. Firstly, those who obtain part-time employment could have certain unobservable characteristics, which also have an impact on their educational outcomes. Secondly, the decisions to work part-time while still in school and to continue education after age 16 might be made simultaneously, which leads to a problem with endogeneity. To account for this, I apply an instrumental approach and a recursive bivariate probit estimation. My results suggest that working part-time during the last year of compulsory education has a negative impact on educational achievements and on participation in education in the subsequent year.

The 2004 accession of Eastern European countries to the EU has generated concerns about the influx of low-skill immigrants to those countries which did not impose restrictions to immigration, namely Ireland, Sweden, and the UK. However, there is lack of recent systematic evidence on the level of immigration and the quality of the new immigrants. We focus on the UK and combine the British and the European Labour Force Surveys to analyse whether immigration to the UK has changed substantially before and after the 2004 EU enlargement, and as a consequence of the recent economic downturn. We analyse 1) trends of immigration into the UK of people from Eastern European countries, and how these trends compare to trends in immigration from Western European countries; and 2) how such immigrants fare in the British labour market in terms of employment probability, wages, and job quality compared to British natives, to earlier immigrants, and to people in the country of origin. Keywords: East-West migration, UK labour market, immigrant assimilation JEL Classification: F22; J30; J61

The 2004 accession of Eastern European countries (EU8) to the European Union has generated concerns about the influx of low-skill immigrants to the Western member states (EU15). Only three countries, namely Ireland, Sweden, and the UK, did not impose restrictions to immigration from Eastern Europe. Did the elimination of barrier to immigration have an impact on the quality of immigrants arriving to the UK? Using EU15 immigrants as a control group, we find systematic differences between EU8 immigrants arrived before and after the enlargement. The elimination of barriers to immigration seems to have changed the quantity and quality of EU8 immigrants to the UK.

This paper addresses the issue of the gender pay gap in the formal and informal labour markets in Poland. The authors verify the hypothesis of the existence of a gender pay gap in informal work and compare this gap with the one observed in the formal (registered) labour market. Various analyses of available data show that size and characteristics of gender pay gap differ depending on the level of earnings. The inequality of earnings among unregistered women and men is more pronounced at the bottom tail of the earnings distribution. In the case of formal employees, inequality at the top of the distribution tends to be larger, confirming the existence of a "glass ceiling". The decomposition of the gender pay gap for selected quintiles indicates that it would be even higher if women had men's characteristics. A possible explanation of the results is the lack of minimum wage regulations in the informal market and the greater flexibility in agreement on wages in the higher quantiles.

The paper focuses on the social safety nets in Russian Federation and Ukraine in the view of changes on the labour market since the beginning of economic transition. We showed that many past phenomena (e.g. restructuring of the economy, wage and pension arrears, new groups at-risk-of-poverty, demographic transition) caused a need to change an old type social safety net (SSN) into the new one, better adapted to emerging more liberal economy problems. Additionally, we analysed some gender specific issues related to social security that are caused mainly by inequalities in the labour market. Differences of earnings between men and women in Russia caused by sector segregation account for seem to be more important than the gap between gender earnings attributed to the position. In Ukraine the main contributors to gross gender differential of log earnings (that equals to 32%) explained by our model are sector segregation and occupation. We also pointed out to future policy challenges in the area of social security systems in both countries. The retirement reforms introduced recently are a step in the right direction, although their impact will not be felt for a number of years. Other reforms, with more immediate results, are necessary. Social safety nets should be made more efficient and social benefits should be better targeted.

The aim of this paper is to examine the issues of gender disparities in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, with a special focus given to countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)1. The analysis is conducted in several dimensions: labour participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment, and health and demography2. Beside the comparative study of in region differentials” done for the CIS, I analyze the trends in gender disparities in comparison to: EU-12 and EU-15, using data for the period 1985-2005. The study confirms the existence of slightly different paths in which gender disparities have evolved over time. While in EU-15 women participation in labour market, their remuneration, and position in public life have significantly increased, in majority of the CIS countries a gradual decrease of female labour activity was reported. In addition female representation in politics and public life has shrunken after and during the transition period. On the other hand in such fields as secondary and tertiary education attainment, health, and demography male population in the CIS region has became more disadvantaged, which also leads to enlarging gender gap.

Current report aims to identify major existing gaps in the five socio-economic dimensions (economic, human, openness, environmental, and institutional) and to reveal those gaps which could potentially hinder social and economic integration of neighbor states with the EU. To achieve this, the authors aim to assess the existing trends in the size of the gaps across countries and problem areas, taking into consideration the specific origin of the gap between EU15/EU12, on the one hand, and FSU republics, EU candidates and West Balkan countries, on the other hand. The paper is structured as follows: 1. A review of literature on the determinants of growth and development and the analysis of the catching up process between countries or groups of countries. 2. An analysis of the historic roots and origins of the development gap, and its evolvement over time. 3. A review of literature sources, draft analysis of primary statistical data, and qualitative explanations of gaps and divergences in selected development issues across the following socio-economic dimensions: level of economic development and convergence rates based on Real GDP (application of methodology testing β and σ convergence to the set of countries analyzed); * quality of life and its components (poverty, inequality, health status and health care, access to fresh water and sanitation facilities, subjective perceptions of well-being); * human capital and labor market development, including level of education and public spending on education, its accessibility and quality, main differences in labor market development (employment participation rates and levels of unemployment, new jobs creation and labor protection legislation); * innovation potential, including R&D, information and communication technologies, and institutional environment; * openness and trade potential, including trade in goods and services, FDI stocks, trade regime and performance in logistics and infrastructure; * environmental performance in terms of environmental stresses, efforts aimed at their reduction, and institutional capacity; * business climate, political institutions, and other institutional indicators (econometric analysis). 4. A test econometric analysis of development gaps across selected dimensions by using a Principal Components Method (PCM). The results are further presented in the form of ranks of countries analyzed reflecting their distances from EU15 in respective aggregate averages. Special attention is paid to gender-related development issues. Respective issues in human capital and labor market study, as well as variables included into PCM analysis were supplemented with relative gender data. Several conclusions finalize the report.

Current report aims to identify major existing gaps in the four socio-economic dimensions (economic, human, environmental, and institutional) and to reveal those gaps which could potentially hinder social and economic integration of neighbor states with the EU. To achieve this, the authors aim to assess the existing trends in the size of the gaps across countries and problem areas, taking into consideration the specific origin of the gap between EU15/EU12, on the one hand, and FSU republics, EU candidates and West Balkan countries, on the other hand. The paper is structured as follows: (1) An analysis of the historic roots and origins of the development gap, and its evolvement over time. (2) A review of literature sources, draft analysis of primary statistical data, and qualitative explanations of gaps and divergences in selected development issues across four socio-economic dimensions: * level of economic development and convergence rates based on real GDP (application of methodology testing β and σ convergence to the set of countries analyzed); * quality of life and its components (poverty, inequality, health status and Heath care, access to fresh water and sanitation facilities, subjective perceptions of well-being); * human capital and labor market development, including level of education and public spending on education, its accessibility and quality, main differences in labor market development (employment participation rates and levels of unemployment, new jobs creation and labor protection legislation); * innovation potential, including R&D, information and communication technologies, and institutional environment; * environmental performance in terms of environmental stresses, efforts aimed at their reduction, and institutional capacity; * business climate, political institutions, and other institutional indicators (econometric analysis). (3) A test econometric analysis of development gaps across selected dimensions by using a Principal Components Method (PCM). The results are further presented in the form of ranks of countries analyzed reflecting their distances from EU15 in respective aggregate averages. Special attention is paid to gender-related development issues. Respective issues in human capital and labor market study, as well as variables included into PCM analysis were supplemented with relative gender data. Several preliminary conclusions finalize the report.