摘要:

Abstract.Will European economic and monetary union bring about a unification of European labour markets, and is there likely to be a convergence of patterns of labour market organisation among Community countries? The evidence discussed suggests that a major increase in unskilled mobility across the EC is unlikely, at least concerning EC citizens. Among skilled labour, a major increase in international mobility is also unlikely on account of differences in skill organisation among countries. In contrast, the integration of European capital is causing some integration of enterprise internal labour markets across national borders as firms seek to integrate their managerial and technical workforces. In the “high‐tech” area, skills are in a state of flux, and the possibility that European labour markets will emerge is much stronger than for other categ

ISSN:1121-7081    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00052.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Abstract.The article evaluates the EC Equality Directives in matters of social security adopted by the Council in 1978 and 1986. We ask whether these EC Directives are appropriate instruments to reduce manifest disadvantages women face in the national social security systems. In the first part, some features are singled out in the European pension systems which are particularly disadvantageous to women. In the second, the EC Directives are analysed with respect to their material scope and the underlying normative concepts. Thirdly, some problems with respect to the legislative implementation of the Social Security Directives in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany are discussed. It is argued that the Directives, in prescribing equal treatment, do not lead to substantial improvement for women.

ISSN:1121-7081    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00053.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Abstract.A lot of research has been made on macroeconomic spending on the financing of retirement, most of it taking into account demographic evolution. On the other hand, little research has gone into international comparisons that shed more light on the standards of living that are guaranteed after retirement, and on the flexibility and accessibility of public pension schemes. It is a study of this type that we have carried out for 11 member‐states of the EEC (Greece having been left out because of its lack of statistics).In this article, we construct an index that reflects the levels of protection that are offered to the aged by the “first pillar” and under the most general conditions. On the basis of a series of important criteria (conditions for access, flexibility, intervention levels, etc.), we calculated an average of the scores for each criterion. These averages are then used to obtain a general score for each country, ranking them against each other relative to the quality of their respective pension sc

ISSN:1121-7081    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00054.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Abstract.Unemployment is and will be for the foreseeable future one of the major issues of economies in transition. Not onIy is unemployment in post‐communist economies a socially explosive problem; what happens on the unemployment front allows us to also make inferences about the state of the transition process in general. In this paper we look at Polish unemployment as it evolved from January 1990 to June 1991. A framework is developed which allows us to discuss flows into and out of unemployment. In analyzing the determinants of the various flows we discuss the macroeconomic environment brought about by the reforms and the role of prices and wages. However, we stress above all institutional and structural factors which have an impact on labour flows in the Polish post‐communist economy. The stocks of several variables are also analyzed. We relate the trends of some unemployment stocks (especially the stocks of school leavers and group layoffs) to the trend of the overall stock of unemployment. We also look at the trends of vacancies and of various UIV ratios and touch upon the short run and long run trends of employment by sector. The main conclusion of the paper is that the high level of unemployment in Poland is neither due to the elimination of hidden unemployment (it actually increased in 1990!) nor a result of restructuring. The level of unemployment is high because of large inflows from outside the labour force and because hirings have been much fewer than in previous years while separations have only been slightly grea

ISSN:1121-7081    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00055.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Abstract.The paper briefly investigates theoretical arguments for mismatch unemployment; it presents a vacancy‐unemployment curve for Germany and investigates various reasons for outward shifts of the curve. Both variables, unemployment and vacancies, are decomposed into flows and duration to identify the underlying processes of these shifts. The analysis of the components with the help of change‐duration curves shows adverse trends for unemployment and vacancies over the business cycles. Unemployment duration has increased while vacancy duration has decreased. Mismatch in the labour market can therefore hardly be blamed to have been an obstacle for economic expansion in the German economy during the 1980s. Persistently high unemployment in Germany has to be interpreted as a hysteresis process which was driven by macroeconomic policies, increasing labour supply and restructuring imbedded in the German institutional framew

ISSN:1121-7081    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00056.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Abstract.The availability and international comparability of migration statistics pose a severe handicap to analysis and policy debate. This paper explores a few of the underlying policy and conceptual issues at stake and identifies some of the institutional factors contributing to the slow and uncertain in progress in this field.Three main issues are discussed: the statistical definitions of migration; the administrative sources of data; and the international initiatives to improve the comparability of statistics.At the beginning of the 1990s the context appears promising for a renewed effort of national and international organizations and statistical agencies. New opportunities and challenges for the improvement of migration statistics are being developed.

ISSN:1121-7081    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00057.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Abstract.The article intends to point out some of the main changes that are taking place in the structure of the labour market in Europe and the role played by the recent waves of immigration from Third World countries.The main features of these new migratory flows are that they involve a much larger number of states, both as sending and as receiving countries. Secondly the majority of the migrants workers tend to hold secondary labour market jobs or to work in the informal sector. These two aspects make today's international migrations very different from the intraeuropean migratory waves that concerned a much lower number of countries and were directed towards industrial areas.

ISSN:1121-7081    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00058.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Abstract.From the point of view of an individual household there are two major types of private cost of children, viz. direct household expenditure for the offspring plus (usually) mothers' foregone earnings. Both aspects have been studied theoretically and empirically, but thus far only separately. The joint empirical analysis of these main costs of children are the subject of this paper. Employing the Austrian Consumer Survey of 1984/85 and 1983's Microcensus, household expenditure on one, two and three childrenandmothers' foregone earnings are estimated for a comparable sample of households.In order to estimate household expenditure on children a modified Prais‐Houthakker model has been employed. Labour force participation functions as well as human‐capital wage equations were estimated using a multinomial logit model and allowing for both the impact of career interruptions and part‐time work. Through simulation on the basis of these estimates we arrive at comparable life‐time earnings of women with no, one, two or three children. We then add the relevant differences to the expenditure on children to obtain the “total” private cost of children.Being aware of the limitations of our analysis–not all monetary private outlays and no public expenditure are included, no consideration of children's benefits to parents, etc. ‐ we can nevertheless draw some tentative conclusions: there are decreasing marginal costs for the second child and rather constant costs for the third child, except for the case of “low attachment“ to the labour force, where marginal cost also declines for the third child. Assuming utility maximizing households, one could arrive at a policy prescription for raising birth rates: find a means to reduce foregone earnings which appear to be a major deterrent to having

ISSN:1121-7081    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00059.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY