Public support to families with pre-school children can be in the form of cash benefits (e.g. child allowances) or of “in-kind” support (e.g. care services such as kindergartens). The mix of these support measures varies greatly across OECD...

This paper investigates the role of policies and institutions for aggregate labour market dynamics during the global financial crisis using firm-level data. The use of firm-level data is important if firms are heterogeneous in their labour input...

We examine the determinants of the within-industry decline of the labour share, using industry-level annual data for 25 OECD countries, 20 business-sector industries and covering up to 28 years. We find that total factor productivity growth – which...

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...

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...

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...

This report provides an overview of Australia’s labour market policies, with a focus on income support benefits and employment assistance for people of working age. It traces historical developments partly since 1990 and since 1978 in the case of...

La Suisse est, parmi les pays de l’OCDE, l’un de ceux où il y a la plus forte proportion d’immigrés – 27 % des personnes en âge de travailler sont nées à l’étranger – et la question de l’immigration occupe une place importante, tant dans l’agenda...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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”...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...