Heather Dickey

Regional Earnings Inequality In Great Britain: Evidence From Quantile Regressions

Earnings inequality in Great Britain has increased substantially over the last two decades at both the national and regional levels. This paper examines the changes that have taken place within both the national and regional distributions of earnings in Great Britain over the period 1976 to 1995. The estimation of national OLS and quantile regressions highlights those factors that have contributed to the rise in national earnings inequality, while the estimation of regional quantile earnings equations reveal the causes of increasing regional earnings inequality..

Utilisation of eye-care services: The effect of Scotland's free eye examination policy

PURPOSE To examine how the introduction of free eye examinations in Scotland affected peoples use of eye care services. Particularly, to assess if more people are now having their eyes examined regularly, and whether there are differences in the way people responded to the policy across socio-economic groups. METHODS Using the British Household Panel Survey, eye test uptake and frequency in Scotland is compared to the rest of the UK pre and post policy. Propensity to have eye tests and responsiveness to the policy is compared across socio-economic groups. In addition, using data available from a chain of private ophthalmic opticians, clinical characteristics of eye examination patients are compared pre- and post-policy. RESULTS There is evidence that suggests that people responded positively to the policy. In particular, a higher percentage of people in Scotland have their eyes tested after the free eye care policy was introduced. Interestingly, the response to the policy varies between the different socio-economic groups. For the highest earners and most educated groups, the proportion of people having an eye test increased more than for those groups with lower income or lower education. CONCLUSIONS Although the policy succeeded in getting more people to have their eyes tested, the socio-economic differences observed suggest that the policy has not reached the more vulnerable segments in society to the same extent, in particular, those with low education and low income. As a result, eye care services utilisation inequalities have widened in Scotland after the free eye care policy was introduced.

Is it all about money? An examination of the motives behind moonlighting

Multiple-job holding is an important labour market phenomenon. In this article, we examine individuals’ motives for multiple-job holding. Specifically, we estimate an empirical model of the motivation for moonlighting assuming that individuals hold a second job for either financial or for nonpecuniary motives. Our results contribute to a better understanding of multiple-job holding. We find that multiple-job holding is used by individuals as a way to deal with the financial difficulties or the increased financial commitments in their household. Individuals are more likely to moonlight for money in the early stages of their adult life. Finally, individuals with more labour market experience are more likely to moonlight for pecuniary than nonpecuniary reasons.

Integration and Mobility of Eastern European Migrants in Scotland

This paper explores theoretical and practical issues related to employment migration and integration of Eastern European migrants in Scotland. Emerging mobile lifestyles create different patterns of living and working ‘on the move’, which challenge existing social policies. By drawing on theorizations of mobility and integration from economics and geography, we propose a broader conceptualization of integration that recognizes the changing migration trajectories of Eastern European migrants. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the collection and analysis of data gathered from individual interviews and survey data in order to investigate the relationships between the movement of migrants, integration and employment.

The impact of migration on regional wage inequality : a semiparametric approach

According to economic theory, regional migration is a primary mechanism through which regional wage convergence is predicted to occur. However, this does not necessarily imply that regional migration has an equalizing effect on regional inequality. Despite considerable literatures on regional migration and regional wage inequality, little attention has focused on the relationship between the two. This paper investigates one of the primary mechanisms through which migration affects individual regions wage distributions. It adopts a semiparametric procedure to examine how the regional wage distributions in Great Britain have changed as a result of migration using British Household Panel Survey data for 1991–2007.

Regional Earnings Inequality in Great Britain: Evidence from Fixed-Effects Regressions

Earnings inequality in Great Britain has increased substantially over the last two decades at both the national and regional levels. This paper examines the determinants of regional hourly earnings over the period 1976-95 by estimating regional fixed-effects earnings equations. Using panel data from the New Earnings Survey, individual-specific heterogeneity is controlled for, and superior estimates of the factors affecting regional earnings are obtained. Increasing returns to skill, increasing industrial differentials, and increasing premiums for older workers are found to have contributed to increasing regional earnings inequality, and consequently rising earnings inequality at the national level. Copyright 2007 The Author. Journal compilation CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007.

Labour Market and Social Integration of Eastern European Migrants in Scotland and Portugal

This article investigates the factors influencing the labour market performance and social integration of Eastern European migrants in two regions within Scotland and Portugal. Given the potential links between these outcomes, measures of labour market success and integration into the host community are examined from a multi-dimensional perspective, including by modelling these jointly within a statistical framework. The main findings indicate the importance of a range of factors for labour market and social integration, which change with time and cannot be limited to any definable set of goals. In particular, proficiency in the host country’s language plays a key role in obtaining a highly paid job and social integration, but not for the probability of employment. Further, maintaining family links and cultural identity often outweigh the importance of being integrated into host communities. Other human capital factors, especially whether the job matches skills and qualifications, strongly influence some labour market outcomes, whilst migrant network variables are important for integration more widely. Focus on the immediate earnings and having a job tends to be prioritised over career progression, which can lead to better integration. Drawing on the insights from economics and human geography, this paper stresses that these findings hold both in the separate and joint modelling approaches. The effect of the influences is also found to be generally similar in Scotland and Portugal. However, some significant differences are detected between the host communities with regards to the impact of previous migration and friendship on social integration and age on employment.

“Doctor my eyes”: A natural experiment on the demand for eye care services

Preventive health care is promoted by many organisations from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to regional and national governments. The degree of cost-sharing between individuals and the health care service affects preventive service use. For instance, out-of-pocket fees that are paid by individuals for curative services reduce preventive care demand. We examine the impact of subsidised preventive care on demand. We motivate our analysis with a theoretical model of inter-temporal substitution in which individuals decide whether to have a health examination in period one and consequently whether to be treated if required in period two. We derive four testable hypotheses. We test these using the subsidised eye care policy introduced in Scotland in 2006. This provides a natural experiment that allows us to identify the effect of the policy on the demand for eye examinations. We also explore socio-economic differences in the response to the policy. The analysis is based on a sample from the British Household Panel Survey of 52,613 observations of people, aged between 16 and 59 years, living in England and Scotland for the period 2001-2008. Using the difference-in-difference methodology, we find that on average the policy did not affect demand for eye examinations. We find that demand for eye examinations only increased among high income households, and consequently, inequalities in eye-care services demand have widened in Scotland since the introduction of the policy.