Laborious
Labor Unions and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from New Data
Patrick Flavin, Alexander Pacek & Benjamin Radcliff
Social Indicators Research, September 2010, Pages 435-449
Abstract:
While a growing literature demonstrates the impact of socio-political factors on citizens' quality of life, scholars have paid comparatively little attention to the role political organizations such as labor unions play in this regard. We examine labor organization as a determinant of cross-national variation in life satisfaction across a sample of advanced industrial polities. Our findings strongly suggest that unions increase the life satisfaction of citizens, and that that this effect holds for non-union members as well. Moreover, we also find that labor organization has the strongest impact on the subjective well-being of citizens with lower incomes. We confirm these hypotheses using both individual and aggregate-level data from fourteen nations. We show these relationships to have an independent and separable impact from other economic, political, and cultural determinants. The implications for the study of life satisfaction and of labor unions as political actors in general are discussed.
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Who Creates Jobs? Small vs. Large vs. Young
John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin & Javier Miranda
NBER Working Paper, August 2010
Abstract:
There's been a long, sometimes heated, debate on the role of firm size in employment growth. Despite skepticism in the academic community, the notion that growth is negatively related to firm size remains appealing to policymakers and small business advocates. The widespread and repeated claim from this community is that most new jobs are created by small businesses. Using data from the Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics and Longitudinal Business Database, we explore the many issues regarding the role of firm size and growth that have been at the core of this ongoing debate (such as the role of regression to the mean). We find that the relationship between firm size and employment growth is sensitive to these issues. However, our main finding is that once we control for firm age there is no systematic relationship between firm size and growth. Our findings highlight the important role of business startups and young businesses in U.S. job creation. Business startups contribute substantially to both gross and net job creation. In addition, we find an "up or out" dynamic of young firms. These findings imply that it is critical to control for and understand the role of firm age in explaining U.S. job creation.
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The Labor Market in the Great Recession
Michael Elsby, Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2010, Pages 1-48
Abstract:
From the perspective of a wide range of labor market outcomes, the recession that began in 2007 represents the deepest downturn in the postwar era. Early on, the nature of labor market adjustment displayed a notable resemblance to that observed in past severe downturns. During the latter half of 2009, however, the path of adjustment exhibited important departures from that seen during and after prior deep recessions. Recent data point to two warning signs going forward. First, the record rise in long-term unemployment may yield a persistent residue of long-term unemployed workers with weak search effectiveness. Second, conventional estimates suggest that the extension of Emergency Unemployment Compensation may have led to a modest increase in unemployment. Despite these forces, we conclude that the problems facing the U.S. labor market are unlikely to be as severe as the European unemployment problem of the 1980s.
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The Asceticism Dimension of the Protestant Work Ethic: Shedding Its Status of Invisibility
Peter Mudrack & Sharon Mason
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, August 2010, Pages 2043-2070
Abstract:
Asceticism seems an "invisible" Protestant work ethic (PWE) dimension that has largely been ignored in research. This study, building directly on existing knowledge, investigated the possibility that deference to authority was central to asceticism and the possible ethical implications of this. In 3 samples of employed persons, results demonstrated that highly ascetic individuals were highly authoritarian, were low in advanced moral reasoning, and regarded ethically questionable activities benefiting organizations (but not individuals) as relatively acceptable. However, "hard workers," another PWE dimension, regarded all ethically questionable activities as inappropriate, regardless of the beneficiary, and were less clearly authoritarian. Significant relationships involving the PWE may sometimes be undetectable when combining distinct dimensions, and asceticism merits attention as a distinct PWE component.
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The Things They Carry: Combat, Disability, and Unemployment among U.S. Men
Alair MacLean
American Sociological Review, August 2010, Pages 563-585
Abstract:
Sociologists have long recognized that historical events, such as wars, depressions, and natural disasters, influence trajectories of people's lives and reproduce or alter social structures. This article extends that line of research. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I test three accounts regarding how combat exposure in war affects men's ability to work. The direct cumulative disadvantage account posits that war negatively affects servicemen who see combat, regardless of their pre-combat characteristics. The moderated cumulative disadvantage account suggests that combat most negatively affects men who had lower status before they fought. The turning point account suggests the reverse: combat most negatively affects men who had greater status before they fought. Findings suggest that with regard to disability and unemployment, the effects of combat exposure in war are most consistent with the direct cumulative disadvantage account.
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Estimates of College Football Player Rents
Robert Brown
Journal of Sports Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Past research indicates that top college football players generate over $500,000 annually in team revenues, well beyond the effective compensation of an athletic scholarship. This article supplements past empirical literature using the most comprehensive, detailed financial information yet compiled on college athletics. An alternative method estimates an equations system to account for the endogeneity of both a team's premium players and its overall performance. Estimates show that the marginal revenue product of a premium college football player - one drafted into the National Football League (NFL) - exceeds $1 million in 2004-2005 football revenues, over 30% higher than in previous estimates from 1988-1989 revenues.
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Entrepreneurship and Occupational Choice: Genetic and Environmental Influences
Nicos Nicolaou & Scott Shane
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, October 2010, Pages 3-14
Abstract:
We applied quantitative genetics techniques to a sample of 347 pairs of monozygotic and 303 pairs of dizygotic twins taken from the MIDUS database to examine the influence of genetic factors on the variation across people in the tendency to be self-employed and to choose other occupations. We found that a heritability hypothesis is supported for the tendency to be self-employed, both currently and ten years prior, with no influence of the shared environment. We also found that this heritability is substantive for male as well as female twins. Moreover, we found support for a heritability hypothesis for the intention to be self-employed in the future and for a bivariate heritability model between entrepreneurial intentions and the tendency to be self-employed. Finally, we found support for a heritability hypothesis for other occupational choices, specifically the choice to be a teacher, manager or salesperson.
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Silja Bellingrath, Nicolas Rohleder & Brigitte Kudielka
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, forthcoming
Abstract:
To test whether chronic work stress is accompanied by altered immune functioning, changes in lymphocyte subsets and in lymphocyte production of cytokines were examined in reaction to acute psychosocial stress. Work stress was measured according to Siegrist's effort-reward-imbalance (ERI) model. ERI reflects stress due to a lack of reciprocity between costs and gains at work. Overcommitment (OC) is conceptualized as a dysfunctional coping pattern mainly characterized by the inability to withdraw from work obligations. Fifty-five healthy teachers (34 women, 21 men, mean age 50.0±8.47 yrs.) were exposed to a standardized laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test). Lymphocyte subset counts and lymphocyte production of tumor-necrosis-factor (TNF)-α, interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-2, -4, -6 and -10 were measured before and after challenge. High levels of ERI and OC were associated with lower natural killer (NK) cell (CD 16+/56+) numbers whereas high levels of OC were related to a lower increase in T-helper cells (CD4+) after stress. Furthermore, subjects with higher ERI showed an overall increased pro-inflammatory activity, with higher TNF-α production at both time points and elevated pre-stress IL-6 production. IL-10 production decreased with higher ERI after stress. The ratios of TNF-α/IL-10 and IL-6/IL-10 were significantly increased in subjects high on ERI. Finally, OC was associated with higher IL-2 production post-stress. The present findings suggest a dampened innate immune defence, reflected in lower NK cell numbers together with an increased pro-inflammatory activity in teachers high on ERI and OC. Such pathways could partly be responsible for the increased vulnerability for stress-related diseases in individuals suffering from chronic work stress.
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The Declining Relative Status of Black Women Workers, 1980-2002
Raine Dozier
Social Forces, June 2010, Pages 1833-1857
Abstract:
During the 1980s and 1990s, industrial restructuring led to a marked increase in wage inequality. Women, however, were not as negatively affected by declining manufacturing employment because their pay was relatively low within the industry, and their already high representation in the service sector provided access to newly created opportunities. However, black and white women did not fare equally and the black-white wage gap more than doubled. As both black and white women increased their representation as professionals and managers, black women became more likely to earn low wages within these occupations. Black degree holders also lost ground as they were unable to keep pace with the remarkable gains made by white women degree holders. The growth in black-white wage inequality, then, was not due to black women's relegation to "bad jobs." Instead, as women increased their share of "good jobs," white women disproportionately benefitted.
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Sharing the wealth: Social comparisons and pay dispersion in the CEO's top team
James Fredrickson, Alison Davis-Blake & Gerard Sanders
Strategic Management Journal, October 2010, Pages 1031-1053
Abstract:
The antecedents and consequences of pay dispersion are studied using theory that focuses on the social comparisons that occur among members of the CEO's top team. Results from a sample of large public firms indicate that when members of this elite group were similar on a variety of dimensions, and thus likely to compare their pay, the board allowed less dispersion. In addition, pay dispersion was negatively related to company performance, particularly when it exceeded what could be justified by characteristics of the industry, firm, or team. But the strength of that relationship depended on how uniformly members of the team would benefit from subsequent performance gains. Specifically, the negative effect was particularly strong in firms where major differences in compensation - that is, some executives were given significantly more stock options - combined with a volatile stock price to provide only a few team members with the opportunity to realize very large financial gains in the future. The study demonstrates that the social-psychological factors that affect comparisons among members of the CEO's top team impact the board's pay setting process, which in turn affects pay dispersion, and ultimately firm performance.
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The Effect of Creative Labor on Property-Ownership Transfer by Preschool Children and Adults
Patricia Kanngiesser, Nathalia Gjersoe & Bruce Hood
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recognizing property ownership is of critical importance in social interactions, but little is known about how and when this attribute emerges. We investigated whether preschool children and adults believe that ownership of one person's property is transferred to a second person following the second person's investment of creative labor in that property. In our study, an experimenter and a participant borrowed modeling-clay objects from each other to mold into new objects. Participants were more likely to transfer ownership to the second individual after he or she invested creative labor in the object than after any other manipulations (holding the object, making small changes to it). This effect was significantly stronger in preschool children than in adults. Duration of manipulation had no effect on property-ownership transfer. Changes in the object's identity acted only as a secondary cue for children. We conclude that ownership is transferred after an investment of creative labor and that determining property ownership may be an intuitive process that emerges in early childhood.
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Edward Mungai & Ramakrishna Velamuri
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, forthcoming
Abstract:
Parental self-employment has been shown to have a positive influence on offspring's subsequent choice of self-employment as a career. Previous studies have, however, not considered its dependence on parental performance in self-employment and at what stage of the offspring's development (late childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood) this influence is highest. This article uses social learning and career development theories to argue that first, parental influence may not exist in case of parents' economic failure in self-employment, and second, that when it does occur, it is more pronounced when the offspring is a young adult. Using the United States Panel Study of Income Dynamics data set, we find empirical support for our hypotheses.
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The Value of Layoffs and Labor Market Conditions as Signals of Worker Quality
Stephen Kosovich
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2010
Abstract:
Empirical studies in the job displacement literature have found that workers face significant earnings losses on average when they are permanently displaced from jobs. Previous work also finds that the costliness of job loss varies widely and that some of this variation may result from the differences between layoffs and plant closings. Layoffs provide hiring firms worker specific information about productivity but plant closings do not. This paper extends the understanding of the costs of job loss by presenting a theoretical motivation that indicates that labor market conditions can influence the information contained in a layoff. The empirical results from the Displaced Worker Supplement support this model and suggest that when the local unemployment rate is high, less information is transmitted by a layoff concerning worker quality, for the sample of white-collar workers.
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Jojanneke van der Toorn, Mihály Berkics & John Jost
Social Justice Research, September 2010, Pages 189-210
Abstract:
This research addresses system justification tendencies in the United States and Hungary and their potential to shape reactions to equity-equality tradeoffs in the workplace. Participants in both nations were asked to rate the fairness of, their satisfaction with, and the typicality of four hypothetical work situations. These scenarios differed in terms of which distributive justice principle was violated (equity or equality) and whether the violation favored the participant or the co-worker (self or other). While the mean level of system justification was lower in Hungary than in the U.S., multilevel models revealed that in both societal contexts the motivation to justify the system was associated with participants' perceptions of justice in the workplace. Based on the characteristics of the two social systems, however, these tendencies played out differently. Specifically, for the U.S. participants system justification was associated with more favorable views of work situations that emphasized equity over equality and that rewarded the self over others, whereas for Hungarian participants system justification was associated with more favorable views of work situations that emphasized equality over equity and that rewarded others over the self. Results also revealed that Americans (but not Hungarians) who scored higher on system justification perceived as fairer that which they perceived as more typical of their society. Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests that the psychological transfer of legitimacy from socialism to capitalism in Hungary remains incomplete.
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Nico Dragano, Johannes Siegrist & Morten Wahrendorf
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, forthcoming
Background: Recent analyses explored associations of welfare state regimes with population health, with particular interest in differences between social protection-oriented versus more liberal regimes. Little is known about such associations with work-related health. The aims of this contribution are (1) to study variations of quality of work according to type of welfare regime and (2) to analyse differences in the size of effects of quality of work on workers' health according to type of welfare regime.
Methods: The authors use cross-sectional and longitudinal data from two studies (‘Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe' and the ‘English Longitudinal Study on Ageing') with 9917 employed men and women (aged 50 to 64) in 12 European countries. Psychosocial quality of work is measured by low control and effort-reward imbalance at work. Depressive symptoms are introduced as a health indicator. Linear multilevel models and logistic regression analyses are performed to test the hypotheses. In addition to the welfare regime typology, the authors introduce labour policy and economy-related macro indicators.
Results: Between-country variations in quality of work are largely explained by macro indicators and welfare regimes, with poorer quality of work in countries with less emphasis on older workers' protection. Moreover, in the Liberal and Southern welfare regime, effects of quality of work on depressive symptoms are relatively strongest (adjusted ORs varying from 1.45 to 2.64).
Conclusion: Active labour policies and reliable social protection measures (eg, Scandinavian welfare regime) exert beneficial effects on the health and well-being of older workers. More emphasis on improving quality of work among this group is warranted.
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Job security regulations in Western democracies: A fuzzy set analysis
Patrick Emmenegger
European Journal of Political Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the determinants of job security regulations - here understood as restrictions on hiring and firing - in Western democracies. Unlike previous studies, the analysis reveals three different paths to high levels of job security regulations. The first path covers the Southern European state capitalist countries. In these countries, conflicts between forces pushing for liberal democracy and groups alienated from modernisation have led to high levels of statism and crowded out other societal actors. Job security regulations were enacted relatively early in order to provide social security by means available to the state. Due to fragmented welfare states, job security regulations have remained one of the most important pillars of the social protection regime. The second path covers the Continental European managed capitalist countries and is also characterised by high levels of statism. In these countries, repressive governments employed a stick-and-carrot strategy to weaken the labour movement and tie the loyalties of the individual to the state. After the Second World War, these countries developed corporatist intermediation systems and encompassing and generous welfare states. Finally, the third path covers the Nordic managed capitalist countries. This path is characterised by a high degree of non-market coordination, strong labour movements and few institutional veto points. In the Nordic managed capitalist countries, job security regulations traditionally have been subject to collective agreements. However, in the 1960s, labour movements succeeded in pushing through the public legislation of job security despite opposition from employers' associations. Methodologically, this article demonstrates that cross-national differences in the level of job security regulations can only be explained if the methods used allow for complex causality. In contrast, methods which focus on ‘net effects' do not offer satisfactory explanations for the cross-national differences in the level of job security regulations.
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Who asks and who receives in salary negotiation
Michelle Marks & Crystal Harold
Journal of Organizational Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The influence of individual differences and negotiation strategies on starting salary outcomes was investigated. A sample of 149 newly hired employees in various industry settings participated in this study. Results indicated that those who chose to negotiate increased their starting salaries by an average of $5000. Individuals who negotiated by using competing and collaborating strategies, characterized by an open discussion of one's positions, issues, and perspectives, further increased their salaries as compared to those who used compromising and accommodating strategies. Individual differences, including risk-aversion and integrative attitudes, played a significant role in predicting whether or not individuals negotiated, and if so, what strategies they used.
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Unveiling the United States Acupuncture Workforce
Steven Stumpf, Mary Hardy, D.E. Kendall & Clifford Carr
Complementary Health Practice Review, January 2010, Pages 31-39
Abstract:
Acupuncture was first legalized in Maryland in 1973. By the end of 2009, regulatory legislation had passed in all but six states. The growth of acupuncture is most commonly measured by its well-documented demand as a treatment modality and the rapid increase in the number of licensees. Much less documented is a puzzling stagnation in work opportunities and income. As many as half of all licensees, on graduation and licensure, may be unable to support themselves by working in their chosen profession. However, unlike other well-established complementary and alternative health professions, such as chiropractic and massage, acupuncture is conspicuously absent from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics occupations manual, with only a handful of secondary and incomplete studies available, which together provide an inexact picture of the workforce. In this article, the authors review seven reports that provide limited information including hours worked, income, and practice type. Although data from these published articles are not standard, it can be reasonably concluded from the available information that, over the past decade, 50% of the licensed acupuncture (LAc) workforce is working less than 30 hr weekly; 50% are earning less than $50,000 on average; and the number of LAcs working independently in practice, either in their own office or sharing one, has increased from approximately 75% to 90%. Suggestions are presented for conducting a much needed comprehensive analysis of the acupuncture workforce.