Rafael Muñoz de Bustillo

Determinants of job insecurity in five European countries

This article studies the determinants of subjective job insecurity in five European countries (Belgium, Finland, Germany, Spain and The Netherlands), using data from the WageIndicator web survey. The impact of different variables is estimated using logistic regression.The analysis shows that differences in subjective job insecurity of women are explained by their objective situation in the labour market. In contrast, subjective insecurity increases with age; education reduces job insecurity, as do wages, except at very high wage levels; having a temporary — but not — a part-time — contract contributes to insecurity, which points to the different nature of the two types of contract.This article studies the determinants of subjective job insecurity in five European countries (Belgium, Finland, Germany, Spain and The Netherlands), using data from the WageIndicator web survey. The impact of different variables is estimated using logistic regression.The analysis shows that differences in subjective job insecurity of women are explained by their objective situation in the labour market. In contrast, subjective insecurity increases with age; education reduces job insecurity, as do wages, except at very high wage levels; having a temporary — but not — a part-time — contract contributes to insecurity, which points to the different nature of the two types of contract.

Measuring More than Money

Job quality is a crucial link between the economy and well-being. This original book proves that it can and should be measured, proposing a theoretically based multidimensional ‘Index of Job Quality’ that is tested in the EU member States. The index proves particularly useful to measure the differences in job quality by country, occupation, gender and age.

Health care utilisation and immigration in Spain

The aim of this work was to analyse the use of health care services by immigrants in Spain. Using a nationally representative health survey from 2006–2007 and negative binomial and hurdle models, it was found that there is no statistically significant difference in the patterns of visits to general practitioners and hospital stays between migrants and natives in Spain. However, immigrants have a lower access to specialists and visit emergency rooms with a higher frequency than nationals.

From guests to hosts: immigrant-native wage differentials in Spain

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyse immigrant-native wage differentials in Spain. Design/methodology/approach - The paper exploits the Findings - The paper finds that, in absolute terms, the latter component grows across the wage distribution, reflecting the existence of a kind of glass ceiling, consistent with the evidence of over-education found in previous research. Originality/value - The paper for the first time explores earnings differentials between immigrant and Spanish workers using a nationally representative database. In addition, standard errors are computed in order to determine if the gaps are statistically significant, a task not addressed by previous works. Finally, the work is relevant as Spain has become a host country only a few years ago.

Raining stones? Female immigrants in the Spanish labour market

The aim of this paper is to analyze how female migrants fare in the labor market in Spain, a country that has experienced impressive immigration flows during the last decade. Particularly, we explore the differential access to employment and the earnings penalty faced by this group considering the interaction between two potential sources of disadvantage for migrant women: gender and migrant condition. Our findings suggest that migrant women do face this double negative disadvantage. In both cases, we find an economically significant gap, at least for migrants from non-developed countries. Regarding the former, the larger unemployment rate of female migrants is not explained by observable characteristics. In the case of earnings differential, although human capital endowments play a relevant role, both the unexplained earnings penalty associated with gender and migrant status slightly rise across the distribution of wages, suggesting the existence of a sort of glass ceiling for female immigrants.

From Sending to Host Societies: Immigration in Greece, Ireland and Spain in the 21st Century

In a relatively short period of time, new immigration patterns have changed the geography of immigration of the EU15, bringing three old emigration countries, Ireland, Spain and Greece, to the forefront of the new immigration wave. This article studies the analogies and differences of the recent immigration experience of this group of countries, focusing on the demographic characteristics of the immigrants (origin, sex, gender and education), labour market insertion (wages, labour market segregation and quality of matching) and overall economic performance in terms of poverty rates.

Utilización de los servicios públicos de salud por parte de la población inmigrante latinoamericana en España

Objetivo. Identificar los patrones de utilizacion de los servicios publicos de salud en Espana por parte de la poblacion inmigrante latinoamericana en comparacion con la poblacion local. Material y metodos. Se uso la informacion procedente de la Encuesta Nacional de Salud 2006 sobre la frecuencia de visitas a medicos de familia, medicos especialistas, servicios de urgencia y hospitalizaciones. La explotacion se basa en el analisis descriptivo (contrastes de igualdad de medianas, proporciones y distribuciones) y el analisis multivariante (modelos binomiales negativos y probit). Resultados. El patron de utilizacion de los servicios de salud por parte de los inmigrantes latinoamericanos resulta distinto del de la poblacion local, salvo en el caso de las hospitalizaciones. Los resultados del analisis multivariante indican que solo se aprecian diferencias estadisticamente significativas en el caso de hospitalizaciones (probabilidad de hospitalizacion 2.8% superior para latinoamericanos en ultimo ano) y de urgencias (0.205 visitas mas que los espanoles en el ultimo ano). Conclusiones. No se aprecian diferencias importantes entre el patron de utilizacion de los servicios de salud de inmigrantes latinoamericanos y poblacion nacional, con la excepcion de una mayor utilizacion de los servicios de urgencias por los primeros.

Supplementary private pensions and saving: evidence from Spain*

This paper analyzes the effect of private supplementary pensions (and the tax reliefs that aim to stimulate such plans) on national saving in Spain. It tries to test the alleged positive effects of private pension plans on savings. Using a longitudinal dataset and fixed-effects methods, we find that tax-favored contributions to a pension fund are not associated with a lower consumption level, which implies that this policy does not increase national saving. The empirical results on the impact of contributions on private household wealth are less clear.

Those were the days, my friend: The public sector and the economic crisis in Spain: The Impact of Policy Retrenchment in Europe

The goal of this volume is to study this ‘public sector shock’. While budgetary reforms seek to ensure a more balanced and sound economic policy, they may generate new work inequalities among public sector employees, most particularly among women, who account for a considerable proportion of public sector employment. Cuts in education and training may also have an impact on the quality of human capital in both the public and private sectors, despite the fact that the recent crisis has shown the value of education as employees with better skills and training are more likely to maintain their jobs and incomes.

Working Life and Retirement Pensions in Spain: The Simulated Impact of a Parametric Reform

This article aims to offer an ex ante evaluation of the impact of a parametric reform of the Spanish pension system that would involve increasing the reference period used to calculate benefits, an approach proposed many times by various actors in the socioeconomic field. Such gradual change may be categorized as a non-structural reform of the pension system. This contrasts with reforms of a structural nature that have been very popular in Latin America and elsewhere, involving the creation of defined contribution individual account schemes. As regards the parametric reform proposed in this article, the main findings indicate that it would have a small but negative impact on pension income for pensioners and would reduce income distribution.