Alison L. Booth

Temporary Jobs: Stepping Stones or Dead Ends?

In Britain about 7% of male employees and 10% of female employees are in temporary jobs. In contrast to much of continental Europe, this proportion has been relatively stable over the 1990s. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we find that temporary workers report lower levels of job satisfaction, receive less work-related training, and are less well-paid than their counterparts in permanent employment. However, there is evidence that fixed-term contracts are a stepping stone to permanent work. Women (but not men) who start in fixed-term employment and move to permanent jobs fully catch up to those who start in permanent jobs.

Is There a Glass Ceiling over Europe? Exploring the Gender Pay Gap across the Wages Distribution

Using harmonized data for the years 1995–2001 from the European Community Household Panel, the authors analyze gender pay gaps by sector across the wage distribution in eleven countries. In estimations that control for the effects of individual characteristics at different points of the distribution, they calculate the part of the gap attributable to differing returns between men and women. The magnitude of the gender pay gap, thus measured, varied substantially across countries and across the public and private sector wage distributions. The gap typically widened toward the top of the wage distribution (the “glass ceiling” effect), and in a few cases it also widened at the bottom (the “sticky floor” effect). The authors suggest that differences in childcare provision and wage setting institutions across EU countries may partly account for the variation in patterns by country and sector.

Training and Labour Market Flexibility: Is There a Trade‐off?

This paper explores the nexus between work-related training and labour market ‘flexibility’ (which we proxy by contract type, part-time employment and lack of union coverage), using the first five waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) conducted over the period 1991–5. Our results show that workers on short-term employment contracts, who are working part-time or are not covered by a union collective agreement, are significantly less likely to be involved in any work-related training to improve or increase their skills. These findings suggest that there is a trade-off between expanding the more marginal forms of employment and expanding the proportion of the work-force getting work-related training.

A sticky floors model of promotion, pay, and gender

Abstract According to raw data from the British Household Panel Survey, full-time women are more likely than men to be promoted. Controlling for observed and unobserved individual heterogeneity, we find that women are promoted at roughly the same rate as men, but may receive smaller wage increases consequent upon promotion. To help explain these phenomena, we construct a new “sticky floors” model of pay and promotion. In our model, women are just as likely as men to be promoted but find themselves stuck at the bottom of the wage scale for the new grade.

Job Satisfaction and Family Happiness: The Part-time Work Puzzle

Using fixed effects ordered logit estimation, we investigate the relationship between part-time work and working hours satisfaction; job satisfaction; and life satisfaction. We account for interdependence within the family using data on partnered men and women from the British Household Panel Survey. We find that men have the highest hours-of-work satisfaction if they work full-time without overtime hours but neither their job satisfaction nor their life satisfaction are affected by how many hours they work. Life satisfaction is influenced only by whether or not they have a job. For women we are confronted with a puzzle. Hours satisfaction and job satisfaction indicate that women prefer part-time jobs irrespective of whether these are small or large. In contrast, female life satisfaction is virtually unaffected by hours of work. Women without children do not care about their hours of work at all, while women with children are significantly happier if they have a job regardless of how many hours it entails.

Acquiring Skills: Market Failures, Their Symptoms and Policy Responses.

List of figures List of tables Preface List of contributors 1. Introduction: does the free market produce enough skills? Alison L. Booth and Dennis J. Snower Part I. Market Failures: the Causes of Skills Gaps: 2. Transferable training and poaching externalities Margaret Stevens 3. Credit constraints, investment externalities and growth Daron Acemoglu 4. Education and matching externalities Kenneth Burdett and Eric Smith 5. Dynamic competition for market share and the failure of the market for skilled labour David Ulph 6. The low-skill, bad-job trap Dennis J. Snower Part II. Empirical Consequences of Skills Gaps: 7. Changes in the relative demand for skills Stephen Machin 8. Skill shortages, productivity growth and wage inflation Jonathan Haskel and Christopher Martin 9. Workforce skills, product quality and economic performance Geoff Mason, Bart Van Ark, and Karin Wagner 10. Workforce skills and export competitiveness Nicholas Oulton Part III. Government Failures and Policy Issues: 11. Market failure and government failure in skills investment David Finegold 12. Training implications of regulation compliance and business cycles Alan Felstead and Francis Green 13. On apprenticeship qualifications and labour mobility Alison L. Booth and Stephen Satchell 14. Evaluating the assumptions that underlie training policy Ewart Keep and Ken Mayhew 15. Conclusions: government policy to promote the acquisition of skills Dennis J. Snower and Alison L. Booth Index.

Earnings, Productivity, and Performance-Related Pay

Jobs with performance‐related pay (PRP) attract workers of higher ability and induce workers to provide greater effort. We construct an integrated model of effort and sorting that clarifies the distinction between observable and unobservable ability and the relationship between earnings and productivity. Predictions are tested against data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The PRP raises wages by 9% for men and 6% for women. Theoretical calculations show that these estimated earnings differentials represent average productivity differentials net of monitoring costs at the marginal firm using PRP but not of the disutility of additional effort expended by workers.

Job Tenure and Job Mobility in Britain

Using work-history data from the British Household Panel Survey, the authors examine job mobility and job tenure over the period 1915–90. British men and women held an average of five jobs over the course of their work lives, and half of all lifetime job changes occurred in the first ten years. Separation hazards were higher for more recent cohorts, implying an increase in job instability. As jobs accumulated, average tenure lengthened, but the proportion of involuntary separations increased. For both men and women, the rise in job instability was particularly marked in the lowest occupational classification. In general, job insecurity was greater for men than women.

Private sector training and graduate earnings

This paper uses a survey of British graduates to estimate the impact of employer-provided training on the earnings of men and women graduates. The results indicate that, although the training impact is reduced after controlling for endogeneity, some forms of training have a considerable impact. However, there are substantial gender differences in the earnings impact of various typ es of training. Moreover, men graduates are more likely to receive training than otherwise identical women. Copyright 1993 by MIT Press.

Unions, Work-Related Training, and Wages: Evidence for British Men

Using data for the years 1991–96 from the British Household Panel Survey, the authors investigate how union coverage affected work-related training and how the union-training link affected wages and wage growth for a sample of full-time men. Relative to non-covered workers, union-covered workers were more likely to receive training and also received more days of training. Among workers who received training, those with union coverage enjoyed greater returns to training and higher wage growth than did those without. While some of these results have been found in previous studies, others are new. The wage results, in particular, suggest a need for rethinking the conventional view that union wage formation in Britain reduces the incentives to acquire work-related training.