Keith A. Bender

Job Satisfaction of the Highly Educated: The Role of Gender, Academic Tenure, and Earnings

The determinants of job satisfaction are estimated for PhD-level scientists in the United States across academic and nonacademic sectors. In initial estimates, female scientists report lower job satisfaction than males in academia but higher job satisfaction than males in the nonacademic sector. While academic scientists with tenure have substantially greater job satisfaction than nonacademic scientists, we show that the magnitude of this influence varies by gender. After correcting for the lower evaluation placed by females both on earnings and on tenure, female academic scientists actually match nonacademic scientists in reporting greater job satisfaction than men.

The Central Government-Private Sector Wage Differential

Since Ehrenberg and Schwarz (1986) there has been a plethora of articles investigating the relationship between public and private sector wages. This article examines part of this post 1986 literature by reviewing articles that examine central government-private sector wage differentials. In sum, most articles find that there is a premium paid to central government workers, although the premium has declined in recent years. In developing countries, however, the differential is usually negative. Women and minorities tend to do better in the public sector relative to their private sector counterparts. The evidence on union premiums between sectors is mixed, although the premium tends to be higher in the private sector. However public sector union workers do not do much better than private sector union members. The magnitude of all of the wage differentials discussed are sensitive to the estimation technique and data source used. The most common explanation for the public sector wage premium is economic rent accruing to government workers, although the public sector wage determination literature suggests that the differential is due to returns to political and ‘vote producing’ activities not relevant in the private sector.

Trade union membership, tenure and the level of job insecurity

Recently there have been suggestions that job insecurity is on the increase. Two factors which may explain this are the reduced role of the trade unions and increasing flexibility in the labour market with an associated reduction in the proportion of workers in permanent fulltime employment. For the first time the relationship between trade union membership, tenure and the workers perception of job insecurity is examined using British data (drawn from the 1986/7 Social Change and Economic Life Initiative). Econometric evidence supports in part the view that while job insecurity encourages workers to join trade unions, overall trade unions tend to increase job security and also suggests that there is a strong relationship between tenure and job insecurity.

The Well-Being of Retirees: Evidence using Subjective Data

While previous economic research focuses on the financial well-being of retirees, this paper examines the determinants of overall well-being of retirees. Using data from the 2000 Health and Retirement Study, the strongest predictor of retirement well-being is the reason for entering retirement. If individuals were “forced” to retire, their well-being is significantly lower than those who chose to retire. This indicates the importance of expectations on retirement satisfaction. Additionally, health, current income, and comparison retirement income have important roles in determining overall well-being.

Relative Earnings in the UK Public Sector: The Impact of Pay Reform on Pay Structure

The manner in which pay is determined has undergone fairly substantial changes in parts of the UK public sector in the last 15 years. The provision of some services has been subject to ‘market testing’ while other services are no longer provided by the public sector and have been contracted out. In still other areas of the public sector, most noticeably the civil service, decisions over pay have been decentralised and pay advances have been increasingly linked to individual performance. The thrust of reform has been to ensure that the same disciplines which influence pay in the private sector of the economy come to bear on pay in the public sector.

TEST STATISTICS AND CRITICAL VALUES IN SELECTIVITY MODELS

The Heckman two-step estimator (Heckit) for the selectivity model is widely applied in Economics and other social sciences. In this model a non-zero outcome variable is observed only if a latent variable is positive. The asymptotic covariance matrix for a two-step estimation procedure must account for the estimation error introduced in the first stage. We examine the finite sample size of tests based on alternative covariance matrix estimators. We do so by using Monte Carlo experiments to evaluate bootstrap generated critical values and critical values based on asymptotic theory.

Educational mismatch and the careers of scientists

Previous research confirms that many employees work in jobs not well matched to their skills and education, resulting in lower pay and job satisfaction. While this literature typically uses cross-sectional data, we examine the evolution of mismatch and its consequences over a career, by using a panel data set of scientists in the USA. The results show that both the incidence of mismatch and its negative consequences appear concentrated among those late in careers. This suggests that past studies of mismatch may exaggerate the degree of inefficiency in labor market matching.

Decentralization and Pay Reform in Central Government: a Study of Three Countries

Over the past decade central governments of the UK, Sweden and Australia have engaged in significant reforms in the way they pay their employees. These reforms have generally taken the form of the decentralization of pay bargaining and the individualization of pay. This paper details the policies that have been implemented in central government in these countries and presents some preliminary results on the effects of these. While the actual implementation has varied quite substantially across the countries and the analysis of the outcomes must be regarded as preliminary, there is some evidence that the reforms have led to an increase in earnings dispersion

The Role of Job Attributes in Understanding the Public-Private Wage Differential

This study uses a unique data set for Great Britain to investigate the impact of differences in job attributes on the public-private wage differential. The study reveals that (1) there are substantial differences in wage structure between the two sectors, particularly finding that the public-sector wage structure is less sensitive to differences in the attributes of jobs, and (2) differences in job attributes play in a major role in accounting for pay differences across sectors.

The Effect of Local Area Unemployment on Compensating Wage Differentials for Injury Risk

Compensating wage differential (CWD) theory assumes that workers can always find a job without undesired characteristics, which forces firms with disamenities to pay a CWD. However, a simple theoretical variation of standard CWD theory shows that if there is a probability of job loss due to involuntary unemployment, the CWD is lower. When this probability is proxied by local unemployment rates, we find a downward bias in typical estimated CWDs using cross-sectional data that span many local labor markets. Estimates from the Current Population Survey data show that the bias can be quite large, which in turn impacts the implicit value of injury estimates.