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Force Participation (force + participation)
Kinds of Force Participation Terms modified by Force Participation Selected AbstractsEFFECTS OF HEALTH AND CHRONIC DISEASES ON LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION OF OLDER WORKING-AGE AUSTRALIANS,AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 2 2009LIXIN CAI This study examines the effects of general health and chronic diseases on the labour force participation of older working-age Australians. To account for potential endogeneity of health status, a simultaneous equation model is estimated and chronic diseases are used as instrumental variables. The effects of chronic diseases on labour force participation are assessed indirectly using the parameters estimated from the simultaneous equation model. The results show that both health status and chronic diseases have significant effects on labour force participation. It also appears that the effects of chronic diseases are more accurately estimated from the simultaneous equation model than from a single equation labour force participation model. [source] Cultural Influences on Immigrant Women's Labor Force Participation: The Arab-American Case,INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2004Jen'nan Ghazal Read Research on the economic activity of immigrant women has flourished in recent years. The current study extends this literature to examine the labor force activity of Arab-American women, a group whose labor market experiences provide an exception to hitherto accepted theoretical explanations. The employment rates of Arab immigrant women rank among the lowest of any immigrant group, while the rates of native-born Arab-American women resemble those of U.S.-born white women. This study examines potential explanations for these differences using data from the U.S. Census and a national mail survey of Arab-American women. Contrary to findings for other immigrant groups, differences among Arab-American women cannot be explained by their human capital characteristics or family resources, but are almost entirely due to traditional cultural norms that prioritize women's family obligations over their economic activity, and to ethnic and religious social networks that encourage the maintenance of traditional gender roles. This study concludes by underscoring the need for additional research on the impact of culture on immigrant women's employment. [source] New Mothers' Labour Force Participation in Italy: The Role of Job CharacteristicsLABOUR, Issue 2005Massimiliano Bratti In this paper we use newly available individual-level data from the Longitudinal Survey of Italian Households to investigate the factors associated with female labour force participation after the birth of the first child. We focus on the role of pre-marital job characteristics and find that new mothers who worked without a contract are less likely to participate, while those who worked in the public sector or in a large private firm have a higher probability of being in the labour force after childbearing. We suggest that these effects could be at least partly attributed to differences in the level of job protection and employment stability enjoyed by workers. This implies that in Italy women with highly protected and stable jobs might find it easier to combine career and family, whereas those who are less sheltered by the legislation might be more likely to be inactive after becoming mothers. [source] Policies to Reconcile Labor Force Participation and Childbearing in the European UnionPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 2 2006Article first published online: 26 JUN 200 A recently published report commissioned by the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities of the European Commission reviews "reconciliation" policies in 30 European countries. Such policies are defined by the report in its title as measures that foster "reconciliation of work and private life" or, more elaborately in the body of the report, as "policies that directly support the combination of professional, family and private life." In this context work means gainful employment, while private life in effect means childbearing. The countries covered are those of the EU 25, two candidate countries (Bulgaria and Romania), and three countries that are part of the European Economic Area (Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein). The report, not formally endorsed by the Commission, was prepared by the EU Expert Group on Gender, Social Inclusion and Employment. Each of the 30 countries was represented by at least one expert. The 96-page report identifies four types of reconciliation policies: childcare services, leave facilities, flexible working-time arrangements, and financial allowances. Descriptions of these policies from the Executive Summary are reproduced below. The full report is accessible at «http://bookshop.eu.int/eubookshop/FileCache/PUBPDF/KE6905828ENC/KE6905828ENC_002.pdf». Although the report makes passing reference to below-replacement fertility in the EU member countries, its focus is clearly directed to measures that could increase the rate of employment, especially female employment. According to the EU's "Lisbon targets" set in 2000, the female employment rate in the EU should be raised to 60 percent of the working-age population by 2010. Based on data for 2003, only eight EU countries have met or exceeded this target. Childbearing is seen as in part responsible for the shortfall. Reconciliation policies could make the Lisbon target for female employment more easily achievable and "especially stimulate full time participation." Furthermore, the report suggests, such policies, as a byproduct, could also enhance fertility. Financial allowances, paid directly to families with children, the fourth type of policy discussed by the report, include measures reminiscent of the main thrust of the newly announced proposals for increasing fertility in Russia (see the preceding Documents item in this issue). The report, however, makes no reference to differentiation by parity, a distinctive mark of pronatalist intent. Indeed, it specifies that "family-based tax concessions and family allowances are not part of the reconciliation policy per se," noting, with an apparent element of disapproval, that such provisions "are often based on (and may reinforce the notion of) a traditional breadwinner model by reducing the incentive to work for both spouses." [source] The Rapid Rise of Supermarkets?DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 2 2006W. Bruce Traill A series of articles, many of them published in this journal, have charted the rapid spread of supermarkets in developing and middle-income countries and forecast its continuation. In this article, the level of supermarket penetration (share of the retail food market) is modelled quantitatively on a cross-section of 42 countries for which data could be obtained, representing all stages of development. GDP per capita, income distribution, urbanisation, female labour force participation and openness to inward foreign investment are all significant explanators. Projections to 2015 suggest significant but not explosive further penetration; increased openness and GDP growth are the most significant factors. [source] The stability of correlates of labour force activityACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 5 2009G. Waghorn Objective:, To investigate the stability of correlates of labour force activity among people with affective and anxiety disorders, compared with healthy adults, between 1998 and 2003. Method:, Secondary analyses of multi-stage probability samples of community residents (n1998 = 37 580 and n2003 = 36 088) obtained from repeat administrations of an Australian population survey. Results:, Proportionally, fewer people with affective or anxiety disorders were employed compared with well controls. Extent of employment restrictions, sex, age left school, country of birth, age and educational attainment were strong correlates of labour force participation and current employment. These effects were stable despite improved labour market conditions in 2003. Conclusion:, These results can inform decisions about access to substantial forms of employment assistance. Subgroups of people with anxiety and depression, with severe employment restrictions, low education, low language proficiency, aged 15,24 years, or aged 55 years or more, may require greater access to substantial employment assistance. [source] Joint Taxation and the Labour Supply of Married Women: Evidence from the Canadian Tax Reform of 1988,FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2007Thomas F. Crossley The Canadian federal tax reform of 1988 replaced a spousal tax exemption with a non-refundable tax credit. This reduced the,jointness'of the tax system: after the reform, secondary earners'effective,first dollar'marginal tax rates no longer depended on the marginal tax rates of their spouses. In practice, the effective,first dollar'marginal tax rates faced by women with high-income husbands were particularly reduced. Using difference-indifference estimators, we find a significant increase in labour force participation among women married to higher-income husbands. [source] Facing the Age Wave and Economic Policy: Fixing Public Pension Systems with Healthcare in the Wings,FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2005David A. Wise Abstract There are two overriding problems faced by ageing societies. One is the financing of public pension (social security in US terms) programmes. The other is paying for healthcare. This paper considers the healthcare issue briefly, emphasising that the issue arises primarily because of advances in medical technology. Better medical technology will improve healthcare in the future, but more advanced technologies also cost more. The focus of the rest of the paper is on the public pension problem. The emphasis is on the early retirement incentives inherent in the provisions of most public pension programmes around the world, the reduction in the labour force participation of older people caused by these incentives, and the large fiscal implication of the inducement of older people to leave the labour force. These results are based on the Gruber,Wise ongoing international social security comparison project. [source] Post-industrial division of labour as a systemic barrier for immigrants in the Swedish labour marketGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2003Ann-Katrin Bäcklund Abstract Differences in labour force participation and unemployment rates between indigenous populations and immigrants are common throughout Europe, but the gap seems to be particularly wide in Sweden. Based on studies of workplaces that traditionally employed large numbers of immigrants, but where they are now declining, it is argued that a driving force behind this process of exclusion is to be found in technological and organisational changes. These changes seem to be more pervasive in the Swedish labour market than in other economies in Europe. What is sometimes called the ,Swedish model of working life' has turned into the systemic exclusion of immigrant labour. [source] The Onset of Health Problems and the Propensity of Workers to Change Employers and OccupationsGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2003Jodi Messer Pelkowski Although many studies have investigated how poor health affects hours of work and labor force participation, few have examined the extent to which individuals adapt in order to remain in the labor market. Individuals experiencing health problems may move to different types of work in order to remain in the labor force or to reduce the negative labor market consequences of illness. This paper investigates the movement between employers, and among occupation categories when changing employers, using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). One advantage of the HRS is that its questions on life-cycle employment and health patterns permit a long-term perspective on job mobility that is unavailable in most other datasets. Workers with health problems are more likely than healthy workers to remain with their current employer than to switch employers. But among those who switch employers, those with health problems are more likely to change broad occupational categories than are healthy workers. While many individuals remain with the same employer after the onset of health problems, many do switch employers and occupations, even in the presence of ADA legislation. [source] Dynamics of work limitation and work in AustraliaHEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 6 2010*Article first published online: 5 JUN 200, Umut Oguzoglu Abstract This paper examines the impact of self-reported work limitations on the labour force participation of the Australian working age population. Five consecutive waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey are used to investigate this relationship. A two-equation dynamic panel data model demonstrates that persistence and unobserved heterogeneity play an important role in work limitation reporting and its effect on labour force participation. Unobserved factors that jointly drive work limitation and participation are also shown to be crucial, especially for women. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Measuring the effect of husband's health on wife's labor supplyHEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 6 2006Michele J. SiegelArticle first published online: 31 JAN 200 Abstract A sizable proportion of women remain married well into late life and an increasing proportion of them participate in the labor force. Since women tend to marry men older than themselves and men tend to experience serious illnesses at younger ages than women, women frequently witness declining health in their husbands. This is likely to affect a wife's labor,leisure trade-off in offsetting ways. Prior studies have not sought to disentangle the effect of a husband's poor health on his wife's reservation wage from the income effect of his ill health. We argue that, if we control for husband's earnings, the coefficient of husband's health in models of his wife's labor force participation (and hours of work) will reflect, in part, her preference over whether to decrease her labor supply to provide health care for her husband or whether to instead increase it to purchase this care in the market. However, husband's earnings are likely to be endogenous in these models due to unobserved characteristics common to husbands and wives. We find that the estimated effect of husband's health depends on whether we instrument for husband's earnings and on the health measure used. This is indicative of the importance of using a variety of health measures and controlling for husband's earnings, and their endogeneity, in future research on the effect of husband's health on wife's labor supply. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Health status and labour force participation: evidence from AustraliaHEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2006Lixin Cai Abstract This paper examines the effect of health on labour force participation using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The potential endogeneity of health, especially self-assessed health, in the labour force participation equation is addressed by estimating the health equation and the labour force participation equation simultaneously. Taking into account the correlation between the error terms in the two equations, the estimation is conducted separately for males aged 15,49, males aged 50,64, females aged 15,49 and females aged 50,60. The results indicate that better health increases the probability of labour force participation for all four groups. However, the effect is larger for the older groups and for women. As for the feedback effect, it is found that labour force participation has a significant positive impact on older females' health, and a significant negative effect on younger males' health. For younger females and older males, the impact of labour force participation on health is not significant. The null-hypothesis of exogeneity of health to labour force participation is rejected for all groups. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The impact of inflammatory bowel disease on labor force participation: Results of a population sampled case-control studyINFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES, Issue 6 2002Annelies Boonen Abstract Introduction Inflammatory bowel diseases are chronic conditions that might cause a severe impact on social life. The aim of the study was to assess employment, chronic work disability, and sick leave in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Methods A postal questionnaire was sent to 984 patients with inflammatory bowel disease and 1504 controls. Age- and gender-adjusted employment and chronic work disability ratios and rates were calculated using indirect standardization. In subjects in paid employment, proportions of those having an episode of sick leave and lost workdays were analyzed. Logistic regression was used to assess the contribution of age, gender, education, and course of disease. Results The results of 680 (69%) patients and 715 (48%) controls could be analyzed. For the entire group of patients, employment was 6.5% lower, compared with controls (95% CI: 4.0,9.0). Chronic work disability was 17.1% higher than expected (95% CI: 15.1,19.1). In those in paid employment, 62% of patients compared with 53% of controls had experienced one or more episodes of sick leave during the past year (p = 0.002). This resulted in 19.2 versus 11.8 days of sick leave per subject per year for patients and controls respectively (p = 0.002). Relative to controls, the risk of chronic work disability was more increased in younger (p = 0.02) and higher educated (p = 0.02) patients. Course of disease contributed to chronic work disability and sick leave. Conclusion IBD has a significant impact on labor force participation that is higher in CD compared with UC and highest in younger and more highly educated patients. [source] Female labour force participation in greater santiago, Chile: 1957,1997.JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2005A synthetic cohort analysis By using a synthetic cohort methodology, this paper contributes to the analysis of the evolution of female labour force participation in Chile over the last forty years. We decompose the participation rate in terms of age, year and cohort effects. The results of the estimations show that the age effect significantly explains the participation rate. Cohort variables are also important, enabling us to identify cohort effects associated with both, the number of children and the level of schooling of the group. In turn, contemporary variables are relevant, in particular the cyclical component. All this indicates that the changes in the participation rate may be due in the first place to increases in the number of women in the age groups where the participation rate is higher. Secondly, the increase in the participation rate is due to effects that are associated with different behaviours in the succeeding cohorts of women; and, finally, contemporary variables seemingly have very small importance. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Change in Work-Family Conflict Among Employed Parents Between 1977 and 1997JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 1 2009Kei M. Nomaguchi Using data from two national surveys (N = 2,050), this paper examines what accounts for the increase in the sense of work-family conflict among employed parents between 1977 and 1997. Decomposition analysis indicates that the increases in women's labor force participation, college education, time pressure in completing one's job, and the decline in free time were related to the increase. Fathers in dual-earner marriages experienced a particular increase in work-family conflict. With the same amount of time spent with children, parents felt greater work-family conflict in 1997 than in 1977. Although masked by the overall increase, some trends, such as the increases in intrinsic job rewards, time with children, and egalitarian gender attitudes, contributed to a decline in work-family conflict. [source] Satisfaction With Work and Family Life: No Evidence of a Cultural ReversalJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 1 2003K. Jill Kiecolt Hochschild (1997) argued that in recent decades the rewards of work have increased relative to those of family life and that this cultural reversal has aggravated the time bind that families face by increasing working hours. To the contrary, pooled data from the 1973,1994 General Social Surveys indicate that in working families, women have shifted away from finding work more satisfying than home toward finding home a haven. Moreover, were it not for women's growing labor force participation and the changing distribution of marital status, the shift would have been even larger. Men's relative work,home satisfaction has been stable. Finally, finding work a haven is unrelated to weekly working hours, and it has not contributed to any increases in working hours over time. [source] A graphical chain model for reciprocal relationships between women's gender role attitudes and labour force participationJOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES A (STATISTICS IN SOCIETY), Issue 1 2008Ann Berrington Summary., We use a graphical chain model to investigate the reciprocal relationships between changes in women's labour force participation following entry into parenthood and changes in gender role attitude. Results suggest that attitudes are not fixed and that revision of these attitudes in the light of recent life course events is an important process. The adaptation of attitudes to events appears to be stronger than the selection of individuals on the basis of attitudes. We show that it is not entry into parenthood as such, but the change in economic activity that is related to this event that is associated with attitude change. [source] New Mothers' Labour Force Participation in Italy: The Role of Job CharacteristicsLABOUR, Issue 2005Massimiliano Bratti In this paper we use newly available individual-level data from the Longitudinal Survey of Italian Households to investigate the factors associated with female labour force participation after the birth of the first child. We focus on the role of pre-marital job characteristics and find that new mothers who worked without a contract are less likely to participate, while those who worked in the public sector or in a large private firm have a higher probability of being in the labour force after childbearing. We suggest that these effects could be at least partly attributed to differences in the level of job protection and employment stability enjoyed by workers. This implies that in Italy women with highly protected and stable jobs might find it easier to combine career and family, whereas those who are less sheltered by the legislation might be more likely to be inactive after becoming mothers. [source] Regional Labour Market Adjustment: Are Positive and Negative Shocks Different?LABOUR, Issue 2 2002Sari Pekkala This paper analyses regional labour market adjustment in the Finnish provinces during 1971,96. It investigates the interrelations of employment, unemployment and labour force participation to examine how a change in labour demand is adjusted to. The study questions the usual assumption that positive and negative shocks evoke similar adjustment processes. Instead, we test for the possibility that the effects of positive and negative shocks are asymmetric. The analysis reveals that there is little asymmetry in the adjustment to region-specific labour demand shocks, but adjustment to total (region-specific plus common component) shocks displays more asymmetry. The region-specific component of a labour demand shock has short-lived effects on unemployment and participation, and its effect on employment is very small but permanent [persistent?]. Initially, most of the fall in employment is absorbed by the unemployment and participation rate, but after a few years migration plays a larger role in the adjustment process. [source] A Cross-country Comparison of Attitudes Towards Mothers Working and their Actual Labor Market ExperienceLABOUR, Issue 4 2000James W. Albrecht In this paper, we use data from the International Social Survey Project to present a cross-country comparison of attitudes about the labor force participation of mothers. We also estimate earnings functions and probits for full-time work and examine whether there is a link between attitudes and women's actual labor market experience across countries. We find that while a woman's own attitude about work does not directly influence her wage, it does influence the probability that she works full time. [source] The nonprofit leadership deficit: A case for more optimismNONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, Issue 3 2009Janet L. Johnson Recent headlines claim that a looming nonprofit leadership crisis will soon be precipitated by retiring baby boomers. Analysis of baby boom demographics, using national census data on the age distribution and other demographic characteristics of top leaders by sector, confirms the aging nonprofit workforce. However, the issue of whether the aging workforce portends a nonprofit leadership crisis, when analyzed within a theoretical framework of supply and demand in the market for nonprofit executives, reveals flaws in most commentaries about the leadership crisis. Workings of the labor market and nonprofit organizations themselves suggest trends that could be expected to affect labor supply and demand and mitigate a leadership deficit. Reasonable,and likely,market and organizational adjustments, including higher executive pay, increased labor force participation of older workers, skill acquisition of younger workers, possible consolidation of nonprofit organizations, board and volunteer skill sharing, and even venture philanthropy, can be expected to moderate the shock of baby boom retirements, much in the way that schools, job markets, and housing markets have accommodated the movement of this "bulging" generation through earlier decades of their lives. [source] Labour force participation rates at the regional and national levels of the European Union: An integrated analysis*PAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 4 2007J. Paul Elhorst Space-time data; multilevel analysis; spatial autocorrelation; labour force participation; labour market policy Abstract., This study investigates the causes of variation in regional labour force participation rates in a cross-country perspective. A microeconomic framework of the labour force participation decision is aggregated across individuals to obtain an explanatory model of regional participation rates in which both regional-level and national-level variables serve as explanatory variables. An appropriate econometric model of random coefficients for the regional variables and fixed coefficients for the national variables is developed, further taking into account that observations may be correlated over time and in space and that some of the explanatory variables are not strictly exogenous. This model is estimated for men and for women, using annual 1983,1997 Eurostat data from 157 regions across 13 EU countries. The hypotheses that regional participation rates in the EU are determined by a common structure and that labour force participation can be encouraged by a common policy must be strongly rejected. [source] Regional labor markets in Finland: Adjustment to total versus region-specific shocksPAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2002Sari Pekkala Labor market; employment; unemployment; migration; shock adjustment Abstract This article analyses regional labor market adjustment in the Finnish provinces during 1976,2000. We investigate the inter-relations of employment, unemployment, labor force participation, and migration to see how a change in region-specific and total labor demand is adjusted. The analysis reveals that region-specific labor demand shocks adjust mainly via participation, whereas total shocks are adjusted by unemployment. The region-specific component of labor demand shock has shorter-lived effects on unemployment and participation, but its effect on employment is permanent. Conversely, total shocks leave no permanent effect. Migration is more important in the region-specific case where, after a few years, it acquires a large role in the adjustment process. [source] Alan Greenspan on the Economic Implications of Population AgingPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 4 2004Article first published online: 15 DEC 200 At the 2004 annual symposium of central bank leaders sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, devoted his opening remarks on 27 August to a discussion of the economic implications of population aging. The full text of his remarks is reproduced below. Greenspan's high prestige and great influence on US economic policy lend special interest to his views on this much-discussed subject (see also the next Documents item in this issue). He outlines the coming demographic shift in the United States in language that is characteristically cautious and qualified. (The elderly dependency ratio will "almost certainly" rise as the baby boom generation retires, Greenspan says, although elsewhere he terms the process, more accurately, inexorable.) The main factor responsible for population aging he identifies as the decline of fertility. Immigration is an antidote, but, to be effective, its size would have to be much larger than is envisaged in current projections. Greenspan's assessment of the economic consequences of the changing age structure highlights the prospect of a deteriorating fiscal situation in the United States: chronic deficits in the Social Security program over the long haul, assuming that existing commitments for benefits per retiree are met, and even greater difficulties for the health care system for the elderly,Medicare,in which the effects of increasing numbers in old age are amplified by advances in medical technology and the bias inherent in the current system of subsidized third-party payments. The sober outline of policy choices imposed by population aging,difficult in the United States, but less so, Greenspan notes, than in Europe and Japan,underlies the need for counteracting the declining growth of the population of labor force age through greater labor force participation and later retirement. Beyond that, growth of output per worker can provide the key "that would enable future retirees to maintain their expected standard of living without unduly burdening future workers." This requires continuation of policies that enhance productivity, such as deregulation and globalization, and greater investment. In turn, the latter presupposes greater domestic saving, both personal and by the government, as the United States cannot "continue indefinitely to borrow saving from abroad." Demographic aging requires a new balance between workers and retirees. Curbing benefits once bestowed is difficult: only benefits that can be delivered should be promised. Public programs should be recalibrated, providing incentives for individuals to adjust to the inevitable consequences of an aging society. [source] The IMF on Policies Responding to Demographic ChangePOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 4 2004Article first published online: 15 DEC 200 In its semiannual report World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund presents its analysis of major economic policy issues and assessment of economic prospects, along with more detailed treatment of a selected current topic. The special topic in the 300-page report published in September 2004 is "The Global Demographic Transition," treated in Chapter III of the document. An excerpt from the section of that chapter titled "Policies to Meet the Challenges of Global Demographic Change" is reproduced below with the permission of the IMF. Footnotes and the figure included in the excerpt have been renumbered. The title of Chapter III is "How Will Demographic Change Affect the Global Economy?" The tone of the discussion is set by the opening epigraph, a quotation from the UK's 1949 Report of the Royal Commission on Population: "It seems possible that a society in which the proportion of young people is diminishing will become dangerously unprogressive, falling behind other communities not only in technical efficiency and economic welfare, but in intellectual and artistic achievement as well." Accordingly, the focus of the analysis, like that of the commentary by US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan reprinted in the preceding Document item in this issue, is on the consequences of population aging and on the desirable policy responses to that process. The discussion broadly parallels Greenspan's but with a wider compass, including some consideration of the effects of aging in developing countries. It emphasizes the need for counteracting adverse effects of demographic change through a combination of policy measures, since "the size of the reforms" (such as increasing labor force participation, inducing later retirement, and attracting more immigrants) "that would be needed in any single area [is] sufficiently large that they would be politically and economically difficult to achieve." [source] Can OECD Countries Afford Demographic Change?THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2007Ross Guest This article provides new calculations on the effects of demographic change on living standards in all 30 OECD countries using the latest demographic projections up to 2050 from the United Nations, World Population Prospects, 2004 Revision. The calculations include several potential dividends that could offset, at least in part, the costs of a lower working age population share. The effects of demographic change calculated here are mechanical in that there is no explicit optimising behaviour. In the worst case scenario, which assumes zero potential dividends and no increase in labour force participation rates, the negative effect of demographic change on living standards among OECD countries over the whole period from 2006 to 2050 ranges from zero to 28 per cent, with an average over all countries of 15.5 per cent. In the best case scenario the average effect is zero. About half of the difference between the best and worst case scenarios is accounted for by higher labour force participation and about half by the potential dividends from demographic change. [source] Configurations of gender inequality: the consequences of ideology and public policy1THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 4 2009Hadas Mandel Abstract This paper gathers a wide range of indicators into distinctive profiles to show how configurations of gender economic inequality are shaped by both welfare state strategies and gender role ideologies. When multiple aspects of gender inequality are assembled together, it becomes evident that all societies exhibit both gender-egalitarian and inegalitarian features. These tradeoffs can best be understood through the ideological and institutional contexts in which they are embedded. Empirical illustrations are provided for fourteen advanced societies by analysing the major expressions of gender inequality; from women's economic wellbeing and financial autonomy, through labour force participation and continuity of employment, to occupational attainments and economic rewards. The analysis confirms the existence of distinctive profiles of gender inequality and their affinity to normative conceptions of the gender order and ideal types of welfare state institutions. [source] Women and class structure in contemporary Japan1THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2001Sawako Shirahase ABSTRACT The main purpose of this study is to examine how to determine the class position of women, especially married women, in Japan. This study examines three different approaches to conceptualizing women's position in the class structure: the conventional approach, the individual approach, and the dominance approach. Since 1975, the overall rate of female labour force participation in Japan has increased, and given this growth, particularly of employees working outside home, I discuss whether the increased entry of women, particularly married women, into the labour market challenges the conventional way of assigning class positions to women by simply deriving them from their husband's class positions. The data set used in this study is derived from the 1995 Japanese Social Stratification and Mobility Survey. An examination of class distributions suggests that the pictures of macro-class structure provided by the conventional approach and the dominance approach show very little difference. Married women who belong to the female-dominant family still form a very small minority of all married women in the society. Furthermore, the male-dominant family shows the greatest stability over the life course whereas the female-dominant family, where the wife experiences with-drawal from the labour market, is least stable. The increasing number of married women in the labour market, thus, has not yet become a major threat to the conventional way of assigning women to a class position in contemporary Japan. Women, even among those working on a full-time basis, perceive their position in the stratification system using not only their own work, but also their husband's. In contrast, men's perception is determined by their own education and employment, not by their wives'. This asymmetry in the effect of the husband's class and of the wife's class on class identification is related not only to gender inequality within the labour market but also to the division of labour by gender within the household. [source] Schooling, Literacy, Numeracy and Labour Market SuccessTHE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 245 2003Barry R. Chiswick The present paper uses data from the 1996 Australian Aspects of Literacy survey to examine the effects on labour market outcomes of literacy, numeracy and schooling. The survey includes a range of literacy and numeracy variables that are highly intercorrelated. A ,general to specific' approach identifies the most relevant literacy and numeracy variables. Including the others adds little explanatory power. Among males and females separately, approximately half of the total effect of schooling on labour force participation and on unemployment can be attributed to literacy and numeracy (the indirect effect) and approximately half to the direct effect of schooling. There is apparently no indirect effect of labour market experience through literacy and numeracy on participation or unemployment. The direct and total effects of experience are the same. Similarly, the direct and total effects of literacy and numeracy are reasonably similar to each other. 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