Suchergebnisse

Trade unions will oppose the employment of temporary agency workers if it is a move to replace workers or to curb union power. Alternatively, trade unions may encourage the employment of agency workers if it leads to higher wages for their members. Using British data from 1998 and 2004, we find no evidence for a negative association between trade union activity and the hiring of agency workers. Wages are typically higher in unionized workplaces; however, the trade union premium is lower in the presence of agency workers. Our results suggest that trade unions cannot effectively oppose the hiring of agency workers.

A firm's decision to employ agency workers may be perceived as a replace- ment of directly employed workers or as way to curb union power, which trade unions would oppose. Alternatively, trade unions may encourage the (tem- porary) employment of agency workers in a firm, if they manage to bargain higher wages for their members. We estimate the relationship between hir- ing agency workers and trade union activity at the workplace, in particular, the type of collective bargaining agreements. We use British data from the Workplace Employment Relations Surveys (WERS) of 1998 and 2004. The empirical association between the employment of agency workers and union strength is weak, but positive. Furthermore, workplaces with collective bar- gaining have lower wages in the presence of agency workers, suggesting that agency workers are hired against the unions.

A firm's decision to employ agency workers may be perceived as a replacement of directly employed workers or as way to curb union power, which trade unions would oppose. Alternatively, trade unions may encourage the (temporary) employment of agency workers in a firm, if they manage to bargain higher wages for their members. We estimate the relationship between hiring agency workers and trade union activity at the workplace, in particular, the type of collective bargaining agreements. We use British data from the Workplace Employment Relations Surveys (WERS) of 1998 and 2004. The empirical association between the employment of agency workers and union strength is weak, but positive. Furthermore, workplaces with collective bargaining have lower wages in the presence of agency workers, suggesting that agency workers are hired against the unions.

SUMMARYMore market orientation may reduce gender wage gaps via its effects on competition in product and labor markets and a generally lower level of regulation in the economy. On the other hand, less regulation and state intervention – which goes along with higher market orientation – may diminish the role of legislature and institutions that influence wage setting and may therefore increase gender wage differentials. In this paper, two very different approaches are used to test the relation between market orientation and gender wage differentials in international data. The first approach employs meta‐analysis data and takes advantage of the fact that many studies already exist which use national data sources to the best possible extent. The second approach uses comparable micro data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), which allows calculating internationally consistent gender wage residuals in the first place. By comparing these two very different methods of data collection we get the robust result that higher levels of market orientation as proxied by the Economic Freedom Index lead to lower gender wage gaps across countries and time periods.

There is a strong debate about who should provide care to young children. Governments offer two alternative types of institutions: formal childcare and parental leave. We assess the effectiveness of these two competing institutions in promoting child development by comparing how a major parental leave extension from one to two years affected Austrian children's long-term outcomes in communities with and without formal childcare facilities for under-3-year-olds. Empirical identification of treatment effects is based on a sharp birthday cutoff-based discontinuity in the eligibility for extended parental leave and geographical variation in formal childcare. We find evidence that the counterfactual mode of care is decisive. If formal childcare is available, the reform induced a replacement of formal childcare by maternal care and had zero (or negative effects) on child outcomes. Whereas if formal childcare is not available, informal childcare was replaced by maternal care, and the reform improved child outcomes. This heterogeneity is driven by the additional time with the mother in the second year of the child's life and not by a change in maternal income. We conclude that care provided by mothers or formal institutions is superior to informal care-arrangements.