N°
132
27 Mar 2012
Income Distribution and Poverty in Russia Irina Denisova
The paper is a survey of literature and statistical sources on poverty and inequality in Russia in the 1990s and the 2000s. It serves as a background to OECD (2011), the OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Review of the Russian Federation that was released in 2011. We start with an overview of...
N°
131
09 Jan 2012
Eligibility Criteria for Unemployment Benefits Danielle Venn
Eligibility criteria for unemployment benefits, which require recipients to actively look for work, take
up suitable job offers or take part in active labour market programmes (ALMPs), or risk benefit sanctions,
can play an important role in offsetting the negative impact of generous...
N°
130
10 Jan 2012
The Impact of Publicly Provided Services on the Distribution of Resources Gerlinde Verbist, Michael Förster, Maria Vaalavuo
This paper looks at how the income distribution in countries changes when the value of publicly-provided services to households is included. We consider five major categories of public services: education, health care, social housing, childcare and elderly care. On average across OECD...
N°
128
02 Feb 2012
The Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and Their Children in Switzerland Thomas Liebig, Sebastian Kohls, Karolin Krause
Switzerland is among the OECD countries with the largest immigrant populations – 27% of the working-age population are foreign-born – and the issue of immigration is high on both the policy agenda and in the public debate. Given the numerous debates around this issue in Switzerland, one could...
N°
127
10 Nov 2011
The Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their Children in Austria Karolin Krause, Thomas Liebig
With 17% of the working-age population in 2010 being foreign-born, Austria has one of the largest shares of working-age immigrants in the OECD. As in other European OECD countries, the migration landscape in Austria has been shaped by the recruitment of low-educated labour migrants prior to the...
N°
126
29 Nov 2011
Are Recent Immigrants Different? A New Profile of Immigrants in the OECD based on DIOC 2005/06 Sarah Widmaier, Jean-Christophe Dumont
Increasing international migration and changing immigrant populations in OECD countries make international comparable data on migrant populations essential. These data should be updated regularly to capture a detailed picture of migrant populations. This document presents the first results of...
N°
125
07 Oct 2011
Earnings Volatility and its Consequences for Households Danielle Venn
Many workers experience large fluctuations in before-tax labour earnings from one year to the next, due to changes in working hours, movements in and out of work and changes in pay. Youth entering the labour market and workers in non-standard jobs (such as temporary employment or...
N°
124
02 Nov 2011
Is the European Welfare State Really More Expensive? Willem Adema, Pauline Fron, Maxime Ladaique
Part I of this paper first presents information on trends and composition of social expenditure as in the OECD Social Expenditure database for the years 1980 – 2007. Over this period, public social expenditure as a percentage of GDP, on average across OECD, increased from 15.6% to 19.2%. Public...
N°
123
01 Sep 2011
Aggregate Earnings and Macroeconomic Shocks Andrea Bassanini
I examine the effect of labour market policies and institutions on the transmission of macroeconomic shocks to the labour market, using both aggregate and industry-level annual data for 23 OECD countries, 23 business-sector industries and up to 29 years. I find that high and progressive labour...
N°
122
04 Oct 2011
Redistribution Policy and Inequality Reduction in OECD Countries Herwig Immervoll, Linda Richardson
We use a range of data sources to assess if, and to what extent, government redistribution policies have
slowed or accelerated the trend towards greater income disparities in the past 20-25 years. In most
countries, inequality among "non-elderly" households has widened during most phases of the...
N°
121
01 Sep 2011
Over-Qualified or Under-Skilled Glenda Quintini
Mismatches between workers’ competences and what is required by their job are widespread in OECD countries. Studies that use qualifications as proxies for competences suggest that as many as one in four workers could be over-qualified and as many as one in three could be under-qualified for...
N°
120
01 Sep 2011
Right for the Job Glenda Quintini
Ensuring a good match between skills acquired in education and on the job and those required in the labour market is essential to make the most of investments in human capital and promote strong and inclusive growth. Unfortunately, in the OECD on average, about one in four workers are...
N°
119
12 Dec 2011
The Labour Market Effects of Unemployment Compensation in Brazil Alexander Hijzen
This paper analyses the impact of unemployment insurance and severance pay on the duration of nonemployment and transitions from non-employment to formal salaried employment, informal salaried employment and self-employment. It makes use of panel data from the Pesquisa Mensal de Emgrego, a...
N°
118
06 Sep 2011
Early Maternal Employment and Child Development in Five OECD Countries Maria del Carmen Huerta, Willem Adema, Jennifer Baxter, Miles Corak, Mette Deding, Matthew C. Gray, Wen-Jui Han, Jane Waldfogel
More mothers with young children are in paid work than in the past. There is a long-running
debate on possible negative effects of maternal employment on child development. For the
first time, this paper presents an initial comparative analysis of longitudinal data on maternal
employment...
N°
117
28 Mar 2011
What Drives Inflows Into Disability? Ana Llena-Nozal, Theodora Xenogiani
This paper investigates the dynamic effects of health shocks on labour market transitions to disability, employment and other non-employment pathways. It uses longitudinal data to estimate time discrete duration models for three countries: Australia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Both...
N°
116
20 Sep 2011
Cooking, Caring and Volunteering: Unpaid Work Around the World Veerle Miranda
Household production constitutes an important aspect of economic activity and ignoring it may lead to incorrect inferences about levels and changes in well-being. This paper sheds light on the importance of unpaid work by making use of detailed time-use surveys for 25 OECD member countries and...
N°
115
17 Jan 2011
The Role of Short-Time Work Schemes during the 2008-09 Recession Alexander Hijzen, Danielle Venn
The present paper provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the impact of short-time work (STW) schemes during the 2008-09 crisis. The analysis covers 19 OECD countries, 11 of which operated a short-time work scheme before the crisis, five countries introduced a new scheme during...
N°
114
09 Dec 2010
International Migrants in Developed, Emerging and Developing Countries Jean-Christophe Dumont, Gilles Spielvogel, Sarah Widmaier
Increasing international mobility makes international comparable data even more important, to depict global migration patterns and its characteristics, not only in receiving countries but also in origin countries. This paper provides a detailed picture of immigrant and emigrant populations...
N°
113
07 Dec 2010
Activation Policies in Japan Nicola Duell, David Grubb, Shruti Singh, Peter Tergeist
The Japanese labour market is characterised by high employment rates for men and older workers, and a low unemployment rate. Over the past two decades, female participation has risen, while disparities in the labour market conditions of workers have grown. Further efforts are needed to promote...
N°
112
21 Oct 2010
Activation Policies in Switzerland Nicola Duell, Peter Tergeist, Ursula Bazant, Sylvie Cimper
This report examines the performance of public employment services and the effectiveness of
activation strategies in Switzerland. It covers the role of the key actors in labour market policy, the
placement function of the Public Employment Service (PES), the structure of out-of-work benefits...
N°
111
05 Apr 2011
Economic Determinants and Consequences of Child Maltreatment Lawrence M. Berger, Jane Waldfogel
Substantial numbers of children in the advanced industrialized countries experience child abuse and
neglect each year, resulting in considerable social, emotional, and economic costs to both the children
themselves and to their societies as a whole. Yet, whereas scholars and policymakers have...
N°
110
04 Oct 2010
Distributional Consequences of Labor Demand Adjustments to a Downturn Herwig Immervoll, Olivier Bargain, Andreas Peichl, Sebastien Siegloch
Macro-level changes can have substantial effects on the distribution of resources at the household level. While it is possible to speculate about which groups are likely to be hardest-hit, detailed distributional studies are still largely backward-looking. This paper suggests a straight forward...
N°
109
22 Oct 2010
Decomposing Notional Defined-Contribution Pensions Edward R. Whitehouse
This paper compares notional defined-contribution pension schemes (also known as notional accounts) with two alternative designs of earnings-related pension schemes: points systems and definedbenefit plans. It examines, in detail, four economic advantages of notional accounts that deliver...
N°
108
31 Aug 2010
Earnings of Men and Women Working in the Private Sector Anna Christina D'Addio, Herwig Immervoll
The OECD’s "Average-Wage" (AW) concept is commonly used as a benchmark for tax-benefit and pension modeling. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether it is possible to use richer sets of earnings data in order to customize these modeling exercises to the situation of different groups of...
N°
107
06 July 2010
Institutional Determinants of Worker Flows Andrea Bassanini, Andrea Garnero, Pascal Marianna, Sebastien Martin
There is little cross-country comparative evidence on the way labour market institutions shape gross
job and worker flows, by and large because comparable data for many countries are scarce. By using a
unique harmonised dataset on hirings and separations at the industry-level for a large...
N°
106
14 Apr 2010
Rising Youth Unemployment During The Crisis Stefano Scarpetta, Anne Sonnet, Thomas Manfredi
The global economic crisis has hit youth very hard. In the OECD area, the youth (15-24)
unemployment rate rose by 6 percentage points in the two years to the end of 2009, to reach almost 19%.
There are currently nearly 15 million youth unemployed in the OECD area, about four million more than...
N°
105
04 Oct 2010
Trends in Pension Eligibility Ages and Life Expectancy, 1950-2050 Rafal Chomik, Edward R. Whitehouse
The pensionable age is the most visible parameter of retirement-income systems. This paper surveys pensionable ages in the OECD for a period of a century: back to 1950 and forward to 2050. Average pensionable age in OECD countries dropped by nearly two years during the second half of the 20th...
N°
104
18 Mar 2010
Israeli Child Policy and Outcomes John Gal, Mimi Ajzenstadt, Asher Ben-Arieh, Roni Holler, Nadine Zielinsky
This report presents an overview of child policy in Israel. It covers a wide range of services and
policies that are intended to further the wellbeing of children in Israel or that have an impact upon the
wellbeing of children, including the fields of education, health, cash transfers, taxation...
N°
103
19 Mar 2010
Reforming Policies on Foreign Workers in Israel Adriana Kemp
Since the early 1990s, Israel has enacted a managed migration scheme for low-skilled foreign workers.
Originally designed to replace Palestinian cross-border workers from the Occupied Territories in the
secondary labour market, in 2007 foreign workers comprised 8.7% of the private-sector labour...
N°
102
18 Mar 2010
Labour Market and Socio-Economic Outcomes of the Arab-Israeli Population Jack Habib, Judith King, Assaf Ben Shoham, Abraham Wolde-Tsadick, Karen Lasky
Ce rapport s’intéresse à certains des principaux facteurs à prendre en compte concernant la situation
des arabes israéliens sur le marché du travail : les écarts dans le capital humain (éducation, connaissance de
l'informatique, maîtrise de l’hébreu) ; le lieu de résidence, la périphérie...
N°
101
28 May 2010
Trends in South African Income Distribution and Poverty since the Fall of Apartheid Murray Leibbrandt, Ingrid Woolard, Arden Finn, Jonathan Argent
This report presents a detailed analysis of changes in both poverty and inequality since the fall of Apartheid, and the potential drivers of such developments. Use is made of national survey data from 1993, 2000 and 2008. These data show that South Africa’s high aggregate level of income...
N°
100
07 Jan 2010
Minimum Income Benefits in OECD Countries Herwig Immervoll
Almost all OECD countries operate comprehensive minimum-income programmes for working-age individuals, either as last-resort safety nets alongside primary income replacement benefits, or as the principal instrument for delivering social protection. Such safety-net benefits aim primarily at...
N°
99
18 Nov 2009
Happiness and Age Cycles - Return to Start...? Justina A.V. Fischer
Previous happiness research has explicitly assumed that subjective well-being is U-shaped in age.
This paper sheds new light on this issue testing several functional forms. Using micro data from the World
Values Survey on 44 000 persons in 30 economically advanced OECD countries with long...
N°
98
23 Nov 2009
Activation Policies in Finland Nicola Duell, David Grubb, Shruti Singh
This report examines the performance of the Public Employment Service (PES) and the effectiveness
of activation strategies in Finland. It covers the role of the key actors, the placement function of the PES,
the structure of out-of-work benefits and the related incentives and disincentives for...
N°
97
29 Oct 2009
Children of Immigrants in the Labour Markets of EU and OECD Countries Thomas Liebig, Sarah Widmaier
This document provides a first comparative overview of the presence and outcomes of the children of immigrants in the labour markets of OECD countries, based on a collection of data from 16 OECD countries with large immigrant populations. Its key findings are the following:
• In about half of...
N°
96
02 Dec 2009
Income Distribution and Subjective Happiness Claudia Senik
This survey summarises the insights that the new literature based on subjective data has shed on the
issue of income inequality and income comparisons. It reviews the various channels that relate income
distribution and subjective well-being. It considers the welfare effect of income gaps in...
N°
95
15 Sep 2009
Looking Inside the Perpetual-Motion Machine Andrea Bassanini, Pascal Marianna
In the economic literature there is an increasing interest in the process of job creation and destruction as well
of hirings and separations. Many studies suggest that idiosyncratic firm-level characteristics shape both job and
worker flows in a similar way in all countries. Others argue that...
N°
94
10 Sep 2009
Jobs for Immigrants Thomas Liebig
Evidence from many OECD countries shows that immigrants, in particular recent arrivals, tend to
be especially affected by an economic downturn. The available tentative evidence on unemployment
suggests that this is also the case in Norway in the current downturn, particularly with respect to...
N°
93
16 Sep 2009
The Welfare Effects of Social Mobility Justina A.V. Fischer
The question whether a socially mobile society is conducive to subjective well-being (SWB) has
rarely been investigated. This paper fills this gap by analyzing the SWB effects of intergenerational
earnings mobility and equality in education at the societal level. Using socio-demographic...
N°
92
13 Nov 2009
How Expensive is the Welfare State? Willem Adema, Maxime Ladaique
This paper first presents information on trends and composition of social expenditure across the OECD. Gross public social expenditure on average across OECD increased from 16% of GDP in 1980 to 21% in 2005, of which public pensions (7% of GDP) and public health expenditure (6% of GDP) are the...
N°
91
10 Aug 2009
Should Pension Systems Recognise "Hazardous and Arduous Work"? Asghar Zaidi, Edward R. Whitehouse
Special pensions for workers in hazardous or arduous jobs have long been a feature of the
pension landscape and, recently, they are the subject of a great deal of debate in the pension arenas of
many OECD countries. Such pensions are historically rooted in the idea that people who work...
N°
90
20 Aug 2009
Going Separate Ways? School-to-Work Transitions in the United States and Europe Glenda Quintini, Thomas Manfredi
This paper derives school-to-work transition pathways in the United States and Europe between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. To do so, it uses Optimal Matching, a technique developed to sequence DNA. The key advantage of using this technique is that, rather than focusing on a specific...
N°
89
02 July 2009
Legislation, Collective Bargaining and Enforcement Danielle Venn
This paper presents updated estimates of the OECD employment protection indicators for 30 OECD
countries and 10 emerging economies and considers important aspects of employment protection other
than those provided in legislation. Collective agreements often contain provisions relating to...
N°
88
03 June 2009
Towards a Framework for Assessing Family Policies in the EU Henning Lohmann, Frauke H. Peter, Tine Rostgaard, Katharina Spiess
This report presents the results of a first attempt to create a framework for assessing the performance
of national family policies. The report is part of a joint EU and OECD project, which aims to help the EU
Government Expert Group on Demographic Issues in evaluating national family policies....
N°
87
05 June 2009
Investment Risk and Pensions Edward R. Whitehouse, Anna Christina D'Addio, Andrew Reilly
The current financial and economic crisis has highlighted the importance of investment risk for
pension systems. In particular, the dramatic spread of defined-contribution pension provision around the
world means that investment risk has a direct effect on living standards in old age. This...
N°
86
08 Apr 2009
Pension Reform in Chile Revisited Augusto Iglesias-Palau
The paper describes Chile’s pension reform of 1980, which replaced the existing pay-as-you-go
public pension programs by a new funded pension program managed by private companies (the "AFP´s").
It comments on the main results of this reform so far, and identifies the current challenges faced by...
N°
85
08 Apr 2009
Inequality, Poverty and Social Policy: Recent Trends in Chile Osvaldo Larrañaga
This report aims to outline the main trends in income distribution and poverty in Chile, as well as
the role of social policy in these areas. The report includes five sections. First, it discusses recent trends in
income inequality and poverty, including a brief overview of the data available...
N°
84
09 Apr 2009
Pension Schemes for the Self-Employed in OECD Countries Jongkyun Choi
The self-employed workers make up a small but significant minority of the workforce in many OECD
countries. Moreover, transitions into and out of self-employment have become much more common for a
larger group of workers. It is therefore of critical importance to review and assess the pension...
N°
83
23 Mar 2009
Work, Jobs and Well-Being across the Millennium Andrew E. Clark
This paper uses repeated cross-section data ISSP data from 1989, 1997 and 2005 to consider
movements in job quality. It is first underlined that not having a job when you want one is a major source
of low well-being. Second, job values have remained fairly stable over time, although workers...
N°
82
23 Mar 2009
Child Well-Being and Sole-Parent Family Structure in the OECD Simon Chapple
This paper addresses the causal impact of being raised in a sole-parent family on child well-being
across the OECD. The question is answered by a cross-OECD meta-analysis and a literature review. There are widely varying rates of sole parenthood across the OECD. Rates of sole parenthood
have...
