• Christopher F. Baum, Hans Lööf, Andreas Stephan & Klaus F. Zimmermann (2024), “Estimating the wage premia of refugee immigrants: Lessons from Sweden”. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Prepublication Version.

• Shu Cai, Klaus F. Zimmermann (2024). “Social Identity and Labor Market Outcomes of Internal Migrant Workers”. European Economic Review. Prepublication Version (includes Online Appendix). Published Open Access: 
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104676

• Guogui Huang, Fei Guo, Lihua Liu, Lucy Taksa, Zhiming Cheng, Massimiliano Tani, Klaus F. Zimmermann, Marika Franklin, S. Sandun Malpriya Silva (2023). “Changing impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy 2019–2023 and its decomposition: Findings from 27 countries.” SSM – Population Health, published online 3 December 2023, (2024), Volume 25, March 2024, 101568. OPEN ACCESS. DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101568

• Guogui Huang, Fei Guo, Lucy Taksa, Zhiming Cheng, Massimiliano Tani, Lihua Liu, Klaus F. Zimmermann, Marika Franklin (2023).  “Decomposing the differences in healthy life expectancy between migrants and natives: the “healthy migrant effect” and its age variations in Australia.” Journal of Population Research, published online 29 November 2023, (2024) 41:3, ONLINE VERSION, PDF.

• Guogui Huang, Fei Guo, Zhiming Cheng, Lihua Liu, Klaus F. Zimmermann, Lucy Taksa, Massimiliano Tani and Marika Franklin (2023). “Nativity in the healthy migrant effect: Lessons from Australia.” SSM-Population Health.
  Open Access. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101457

• Amelie F. Constant, Simone Schüller and Klaus F. Zimmermann (2023). “Ethnic spatial dispersion and immigrant identity.” Pre-Publication Version. Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies. Open Access: https://lnkd.in/eT-YvEfN

• Guogui Huang, Fei Guo, Zhiming Cheng, Klaus F. Zimmermann, Lihua Liu, Lucy Taksa, Marika Franklin and Massimiliano Tani (2023). “The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on life expectancy in 27 countries.” Scientific Reports 13, Article number: 8911 (2023). Open Access. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35592-9 

Ends;

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 542, 2020

The short-term Economic Consequences of COVID-19: Occupation Tasks and Mental Health in Canada – Download PDF
by Beland, Louis-Philippe & Brodeur, Abel & Mikola, Derek & Wright, Taylor

GLO Fellows Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur

Author Abstract: In this paper, we document the short-term impact of COVID-19 on labour market outcomes in Canada. Following a pre-analysis plan, we investigate the negative impact of the pandemic on unemployment, labour force participation, hours and wages in Canada. We find that COVID-19 had drastic negative effects on labour market outcomes, with the largest effects for younger, not married, and less educated workers. We investigate whether the economic consequences of this pandemic were larger for certain occupations. We then built indices for whether (1) workers are relatively more exposed to disease, (2) work with proximity to coworkers, (3) are essential workers, and (4) can easily work remotely. Our estimates suggest that the impact of the pandemic was significantly more severe for workers more exposed to disease and workers that work in proximity to coworkers, while the effects are significantly less severe for essential workers and workers that can work remotely. Last, we rely on a unique survey, the Canadian Perspective Survey, and show that reported mental health is significantly lower among the most affected workers during the pandemic. We also find that those who were absent form work because of COVID-19 are more concerned with meeting their financial obligations and with losing their job than those who remain working outside of home, while those who transition from working outside the home to from home are not as concerned with job loss.

The Journal of Population Economics welcomes submissions dealing with the demographic aspects of the Coronavirus Crisis. After fast refereeing, successful papers are published in the next available issue. An example:

Yun Qiu, Xi Chen & Wei Shi (2020): Impacts of Social and Economic Factors on the Transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China, GLO Discussion Paper, No. 494.
REVISED DRAFT NOW PUBLISHED OPEN ACCESS ONLINE: Journal of Population Economics, Issue 4, 2020.

Further publication on COVID-19 of a GLO DP:
GLO Discussion Paper No. 508, 2020
Inter-country Distancing, Globalization and the Coronavirus Pandemic – Download PDF
by Zimmermann, Klaus F. & Karabulut, Gokhan & Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin & Doker, Asli Cansin is now forthcoming OPEN ACCESS in The World Economy doi:10.1111/twec.12969 PREPUBLICATION VERSION

More from the GLO Coronavirus Cluster

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

Ends;

GLO is publishing an influential Discussion Paper series. While Chinese scholars are 4% of all GLO Fellows and Affiliates, the share of papers who have covered issues of the Chinese labor market is 5.5%. Below they are listed with direct link to the freely downloadable papers. It is the objective of various activities of GLO this year in China, see the China program page, to increase the number of GLO members and the number of the Discussion Papers covering China significantly.

The two top GLO authors among GLO Discussion Paper authors are Xi Chen from Yale University, who is also the GLO Cluster Lead on “Environment and Human Capital“, and Zhong Zhao of Renmin University of China.They have contributed both equal numbers of papers. They stand together for nearly 60% of all research.

Michele Bruni, EU Resident Expert and Team Leader, EU-China SPRP and based in Beijing has worked on the demographic situation of China. His GLO Discussion Paper No. 222 on China (see link below) is summarized as:

“China still lags behind Europe along the path of the demographic transition and therefore is still much younger. However, due to the speed with which the fertility rate dropped and life expectancy increased, China’s ageing process will proceed at a very fast rate and around the middle of the century the population of China is projected to be as old as that of France and the UK and older than that of the USA. The paper tries to evaluate the labor market and welfare implications of this process, also by an economic indicator of dependency and socioeconomic burden.”

Xi Chen	Zhong Zhao	Michele Bruni

DP #; Title, Authors

242 Unintended Consequences of China’s New Labor Contract Law on Unemployment and Welfare Loss of the Workers – Download PDF
by Akee, Randall & Zhao, Liqiu & Zhao, Zhong

238 Returns to higher education subjects and tiers in China – Evidence from the China Family Panel Studies – Download PDF
by Kang, Lili & Peng, Fei & Zhu, Yu

222 Ageing, the socioeconomic burden, labour market and migration. The Chinese case in an international perspective – Download PDF
by Bruni, Michele

204 The Power of the Government: China’s Family Planning Leading. Group and the Fertility Decline since 1970 – Download PDF
by Chen, Yi & Huang, Yingfei

177 Technological catching-up, sales dynamics and employment growth: evidence from China’s manufacturing firms – Download PDF
by Dosi, Giovanni & Yu, Xiaodan

159 Do Skewed Sex Ratios Among Children Promote Parental Smoking? Longitudinal Evidence from Rural China – Download PDF
by Chen, Xi

130 Do Migrant Students Affect Local Students’ Academic Achievements in Urban China? – Download PDF
by Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell

127 What Drives Spatial Clusters of Entrepreneurship in China? Evidence from Economic Census Data – Download PDF
by Zheng, Liang & Zhao, Zhong

120 Where Are Migrants from? Inter- vs. Intra-Provincial Rural-Urban Migration in China – Download PDF
by Su, Yaqin & Tesfazion, Petros & Zhao, Zhong

80 The Heterogeneous Impact of Pension Income on Elderly Living Arrangements: Evidence from China’s New Rural Pension Scheme – Download PDF
by Cheng, Lingguo & Liu, Hong & Zhang, Ye & Zhao, Zhong

56 Happiness in the Air: How Does a Dirty Sky Affect Mental Health and Subjective Well-being? – Download PDF
by Zhang, Xin & Zhang, Xiaobo & Chen, Xi

53 The Impact of Social Pensions on Intergenerational Relationships: Comparative Evidence from China – Download the PDF
by Chen, Xi & Eggleston, Karen & Ang, Sun

37 On the exposure of the BRIC countries to global economic shocks  – Download PDF
by Belke, Ansgar & Dreger, Christian & Dubova, Irina

32 Smog in Our Brains: Gender Differences in the Impact of Exposure to Air Pollution on Cognitive Performance  – Download PDF
by Chen, Xi & Zhang, Xiaobo & Zhang, Xin

Ends;

Asian and Australasian Society of Labour Economics (AASLE) 2018 Conference.

Klaus F. Zimmermann (GLO and UNU-MERIT), President of the Global Labor Organization (GLO), is visiting South Korea in December and will present the paper. The research is joint work with Olga Nottmeyer, Simone Schüller and Tanika Chakraborty.  The conference takes place in Seoul, South Korea, from 13-15 December, 2018.

Zimmermann was already contributing to the AASLE 2017 inaugural conference in Canberra from 7-9 December, where he presented two papers, one in a GLO session, supporting the event. More information.

Ends;

On May 23, 2018 three GLO sessions will contribute to the success of the 25th EBES conference in Berlin:

GLO Policy Panel on: “Mobilizing Human Resources in Africa”

GLO Research Paper Session  on: “Wellbeing”

GLO “Thematic Research Cluster” Session

!! At the 25th EBES/GLO Conference – Berlin, Germany, May 23, 2018!!

Policy Panel on: “Mobilizing Human Resources in Africa”

Ernest Ngeh Tingum (University of Cape Town, South Africa): A research agenda for trade developments in Africa

Martin Kahanec (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary) with Martin Guzi (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic): A research agenda concerning subjective and objective evaluations of living wages in Africa

Kea Tijdens (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, and WageIndicator Foundation): A research agenda focussing on informal labour markets in Africa

Tilman Brück (International Security and Development Center, Berlin, Germany and London School of Economics, UK): Employment Creation and Peace Building

Almas Heshmati (Jönköping International Business School, Sweden, and Sogang University, South Korea; GLO Cluster Lead Africa): GLO Thematic Cluster on Labor Markets in Africa

SESSION CHAIR: Kea Tijdens (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, and WageIndicator Foundation) and Christoph Kannengießer (CEO, German African Business Association), invited 

 Abstracts:

TINGUM: Micro data of the Regional Program Enterprise Development for Cameroon’s manufacturing firms in 2009 reveal that most firms were technically inefficient, but that firms in the food processing sector, followed by wood and furniture were most efficient. Firms with 5 to 20 years of operation experience were found to be more efficient. Results show that a higher level of efficiency, firm size, foreign ownership, lower tax rates, producing in the industrial zone, and being in the food processing and textile sectors are the major determinants of the propensity to export and for the decision to export or not. The policy recommendation is that, there is still room for technical efficiency improvements with existing firm technologies. In the near future, however, new technologies must be introduced to sustain higher efficiency levels and reduce related production costs. More so, in order to promote efficiency and export performance, polices should be designed at attracting FDIs more especially in the food processing and textile sectors. Follow-up research is urgently needed, for Cameroon and other African countries. (See Ngeh Ernest Tingum (2014) Technical Efficiency and Manufacturing Export Performance in Cameroon, A Firm Level Analysis, Ph.D. (Economics) Dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.)

KAHANEC with GUZI: Living wages are increasingly used to assess the economic adequacy of legal minimum wages. Different approaches have been developed to estimate the cost of living for a family of a particular size across countries. In this paper the calculated living costs are contrasted with the subjective measures of minimum family income necessary to secure a decency. The aim of this effort is to understand that the subjective and objective evaluations of living wages have direct relevance to the concerns of societies and individuals. Data from different sources are put together (including available national surveys and WageIndicator Cost of Living surveys that include question on minimum family income) to gather information for the number of African countries. The calculated living costs are obtained from the reports of Global Living Wage Coalition and WageIndicator that estimate the living wages in developing countries. In addition to informing policy, this research will show that living wages provide a meaningful metric of economic adequacy that reflects the needs of workers and their cost of living.

TIJDENS: In recent decades, the informal economy has evoked considerable interest from researchers, aiming to estimate and explain its size in developing countries. Over the years a variety of views on informality have proliferated and the range of indicators has been broadened accordingly, as can be grasped from ILO, IMF and World Bank publications. The topics of discussion focus around the status of micro-entrepreneurs, informal or unregistered workers in formal enterprises, and in/exclusion from the benefits and rights incorporated in labour laws and social security systems. The plurality of views tends to collide with the limited possibilities to empirically test the dimensions suggested, often resulting in a return to simple dichotomies. Based on merged data of comparable face-to-face surveys sampled from national establishment registers in nine countries: Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo (2006-2014) the authors developed an index for job-based informality: an 11-point interval scale, ranging from 0=very informal to 10=very formal, based on employment status, agreed working hours, earnings in cash or in kind, and contribution and entitlement to social security. Working in a small establishment is the most important factor determining a low score on the index, and so are workers in trade, transport and hospitality, and having a low education. The more informal workers are, the lower their wages, and the more they are working more than 48 hours. A research agenda for Africa should include detailed empirical measurement and analysis of the multi-dimensional concepts of informal work, to underpin policies related to formality in labour markets. (See Tijdens KG, Besamusca J, Van Klaveren M (2015) Workers and labour market outcomes of informal jobs in formal enterprises. A job-based informality index for nine sub-Saharan African countries, European Journal of Development Research, 1 – 19, doi: 10.1057/ejdr.2014.73)

BRÜCK: An increasing share of the poorest people in the world live under the shadow of violent conflict, weak institutions or humanitarian emergencies, in particular in Africa. Their behavior and welfare and the means to support these people effectively is not very well understood academically, in part as a result of the poor availability of data in this field. Recent advances in this field have focused on understanding the impact of conflict on human capital, analyzing how employment and entrepreneurship can contribute to peacebuilding, learning about the interactions between conflict and migration, and the development of tools of conduct rigorous impact evaluations in conflict and fragile Areas. The contribution in this panel will will focus on the lessons this research can provide for policymaking in Africa.

HESHMATI: The African economy is growing fast. The change is a result of the continents development, relocation of production, industrial development and service sectors expansion. The continent is facing a number interrelated challenges. This include the pressing issues related to labor market, human resources, environment, and population in an African context. The recent World Bank advances in household, firm, industry and national level data collections have enabled a new interest in development economics research. The focus of this cluster is on: the mobility of labor within and across countries; the labor market reforms, work conditions and rights of workers; the job market training programs and their evaluations; school-to-work transition and youth unemployment; trends in income, assets and education inequality and multidimensional poverty; discrimination and women’s participation in the labor market; urban-rural migration and infrastructure investments; entrepreneurship; environment, sustainable development and labor market policy; health, happiness, social policy and well-being; and labor market implications of growing population and ageing. This GLO Cluster includes studies using policies and their evaluations with regard to the emerging and the developing economies in Africa.

!! At the 25th EBES/GLO Conference – Berlin, Germany, May 23, 2018!!

GLO Research Paper Session  on: “Wellbeing”

Almas Heshmati (Jönköping International Business School, Sweden, and Sogang University, South Korea) with Masoomeh Rashidghalam and Pia Nilsson: Measurement and Analysis of Multidimensional Well-being in Rwanda

Olena Nizalova (University of Kent, UK) with Olga Nikolaieva, Jonas Voßemer, Michael Gebel and Katerina Gousia: Youths’ experiences of labor market shocks and late life well-being and health

Milena Nikolova (University of Groningen) with Boris Nikolaev: Family Matters: Involuntary Parental Unemployment During Childhood and Subjective Well-being Later in Life

Corrado Giulietti (University of Southampton): Migration and Wellbeing in the UK

Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT) with John Haisken-DeNew: The New Australian Work Life After the Refugee Camp

Francesco Pastore (University of Napoli): Working But Watching Every Penny? Working Poverty and School Dropout in Mongolia

SESSION CHAIR: Milena Nikolova (University of Groningen) and Matloob Piracha (University of Kent)

Abstracts

HESHMATI: The well-being of families and their children is given high priority in development goals. Children’s well-being in Africa is important since the growing number of children is the greatest resource of this continent. Rwanda was one of the first countries that ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The country, despite its very low GDP per capita, also has one of the best child well-being indicators in Africa. In the recent past the country has also had two important achievements: protection of children by establishing the National Commission for Children and launching a Strategy for National Child Care Reform. The measures aim to protect children’s rights and integrate children into families that are supported to provide needed care to them. These achievements are largely the result of strong laws and policies many of which have been developed with support from UNICEF. Investments in children’s well-being will help in addressing many persistent difficulties that society may have to face in the future. What happens during the early years is of crucial importance for every child’s development. This period offers great opportunities, but children are also vulnerable to negative influences. The objective of this research is to estimate multidimensional well-being of children and their families in Rwanda. The aim is to compute an overall well-being index decomposed into its underlying main components. The households are ranked by the level of well-being and by various household and community characteristics. The results shed light on the state and changes in the well-being of children and their families in Rwanda indicating which provinces and districts offer relatively better conditions for them. This can serve as a model for public policies aimed at improving general well-being in the country.

NIZALOVA: Since the start of the Great Recession many European countries have been witnessing unprecedented growth in unemployment rate, with youth being hit the hardest. This trend has raised concerns about the long-term consequences of unemployment and labour market insecurity while young on various outcomes. This paper exploits a unique opportunity provided by the retrospective module of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe to investigate the impact of unemployment experienced at young age on wellbeing and health at age 50 and beyond. Employing random coefficients modelling we find that labor market shocks from layoffs and plant closures have negative long-lasting consequences in terms of people’s health and wellbeing. Moreover, in case of the wellbeing, there is not only a downward shift of the entire wellbeing-age trajectory, but also an alteration in its shape. We do not find evidence in support of the hypothesis that individual response to labor market shocks differs by country.

NIKOLOVA with NIKOLAEV: This paper is the first to study how unexpected and involuntary parental unemployment experienced during childhood affects adult life satisfaction in Germany. Using household panel data linking parents and children and information on exogenous parental job loss due to company closures, we find that children whose parents were jobless have lower life satisfaction at ages 18-31 if the unemployment occurred when the child was 11-15 years old and if the father—rather than the mother—became unemployed at those ages. The life satisfaction penalty from parental unemployment experienced at ages 11-15 is also more pronounced among males, non-first born children, and those living in West Germany. Maternal unemployment during childhood is particularly harmful for young adults’ well-being if it occurred when the child was 0-5 years old and is entirely driven by those living in East Germany. Nevertheless, parental unemployment during childhood can also be positive for young adults’ life satisfaction, depending on the age at which it occurred and the child’s gender. Our results are independent of the local unemployment conditions and individual and family characteristics when growing up and are robust to controlling for parental job loss expectations. Adopting a life course perspective of family unemployment demonstrates that the intergenerational psychological costs of unemployment are more nuanced than previously thought. Such information can be important to policymakers when designing the timing of unemployment relief programs.

GIULIETTI: In this paper, we study the effects of immigration on the well-being of the UK native population. We use data from the British Household Panel Survey and the UK Household Longitudinal Study to empirically assess the impact of immigration on life satisfaction. Subsequently, we explore whether the impact of immigration varies depending on the geographical level considered, the characteristics of natives and on the type of immigrants. In the final part of the analysis, we assess the various dimensions of life satisfaction and explore the potential channels at work.

ZIMMERMANN with HAISKEN-DENEW: The world has recently seen a strong rise in refugee migration causing stricter reception policies in traditional immigration countries such as Australia in 2013. In the public debate, refugee and detention camps have played a very controversial role, in particular in the Australian case. The paper uses unique Australian panel data for 2013 – 2016 of (recognized) refugees to examine the effects such camps have on the employment success and wellbeing of the forced migrants. The data exhibits a slow labor market integration process only. The experience of camps has positive employment effects and there are no measurable mental health consequences.

PASTORE: This essay aims to study the determinants of working poverty at an individual level in Mongolia, one of the 50 poorest countries of the world. Working poverty means working for a salary that is below the poverty line. Our focus is on school dropout and family background, which is allowed by the type of data used, a school-to-work transition survey carried out by the ILO over a sample of young people aged 15 through 29 years.

!! At the 25th EBES/GLO Conference – Berlin, Germany, May 23, 2018 !!

GLO Thematic Research Cluster Session

Marco Leonardi (University of Milan): Labor Reform Policies and Italy After the Elections

Martin Kahanec (Central European University): Labor Mobility in the EU

Nick Drydakis (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK): Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation and Labor Market Outcomes

Corrado Giulietti (University of Southampton): The Chinese Labor Market

Francesco Pastore (University of Napoli): School-to-Work Transition

Marco Vivarelli (Catholic University of Milan): Technological Change and the Labor Market: Employment, Skills, and Wages

Almas Heshmati (Jönköping International Business School, Sweden, and Sogang University, South Korea): Green Employment Creation

Tilman Brück (International Security and Development Center, Berlin, Germany and London School of Economics, UK):  Labor in Conflict, Fragile and Emergency Areas

SESSION CHAIR: Corrado Giulietti (University of Southampton) and Matloob Piracha (University of Kent)

Abstracts

LEONARDI: The GLO Cluster Labor Reform Policies focuses on reviewing and comparing the impacts of labor market reforms across countries. Many countries have had different labor market reforms across time. Germany in the year 2000s and much later Spain, France and Italy. Labor market reforms cover different dimensions: employment protection legislation, unemployment benefits, short time work, active labor market policies and wage bargaining. Each reform has a specific impact that can be evaluated using econometric methods in partial equilibrium. However, when countries try to learn from each other the best practice of reforms, the attention shifts to the political economy of reforms: the overall impact on the economy and the judgment on the political feasibility of reforms. More broadly, this GLO Cluster includes both studies using policy evaluation methods and studies which tackle the political economy of reforms in EU countries with the purpose of providing academic and policy makers with a large spectrum of reviews of the existing literature and of comparisons across countries. The presentation at the conference will have a special focus on the situation of labor market reforms after the Italian election.

KAHANEC: The consecutive enlargements of the EU, most recently including 11 countries from Central Eastern Europe and Cyprus and Malta (2004, 2007, 2013), have extended the freedom of movement to workers from 28 EU member states and a population of more than half a billion. In spite of the documented overwhelmingly positive effects of EU mobility, the perceptions of and attitudes to EU mobility have become increasingly polarized, which may have contributed to UK’s decision to leave the EU. The GLO Cluster EU Mobility focuses on causes and impacts of EU mobility on receiving as well as sending labor markets, and migrants themselves. Some of the key focus topics include EU mobility’s impacts on employment and wages, productivity and innovation, public budgets, labor supply and employment prospects of those left behind, remittances and brain drain, and perceptions of and attitudes to EU mobility. This Cluster has the ambition to generate rigorously scrutinized evidence on these topics and by doing so enable key stakeholders and policy makers to make informed decisions about EU mobility frameworks to the benefit of EU citizens.

DRYDAKIS: The GLO Cluster Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation and Labor Market Outcomes focuses on the state of being man or woman (gender), which is typically used with reference to masculinity vs femininity rather than sex, the internal and personal conception of oneself as man or woman (gender identity), and sexual preferences (sexual orientation) and their effects on wages, employment levels, occupational sorting, and workplace evaluations.

What is seen as gender-appropriate can change over time, and gender assumptions are interpolated by cultural, historical and regional location. The combined effects of sex equality, feminism and the gay movement have challenged the conception of gender related issues. This GLO Cluster includes studies on gender characteristics, stereotypes and deviations, trans identities, sexual orientation minorities and labor market outcomes. This GLO Cluster aims to provide evaluations of labor and organizational initiatives, practices and policies aiming at a higher degree of knowledge and inclusion for gender, gender identity and sexual orientation expressions.

Despite the enactment, in English speaking countries and the EU, of labor legislation against discrimination in the labor market based on sexual orientation and gender identity, LGBTI people continue to experience occupational access constraints, lower job satisfaction, wage discrimination, and more bullying and harassment than their heterosexual counterparts. In general, the dearth of studies makes it difficult to examine how education, occupation, industrial relations, region, core socio-economic characteristics, personality and mental health traits moderate the relationship between sexual orientation and labor market outcomes. In addition, quantitative research on employment outcomes is scarce for trans people. The interaction between trans identity, and sexual orientation, and the effects of this on employment outcomes is under-examined. Whether explicit, legislative employment protection against discrimination on the ground of a trans identity has an effect on employment outcomes has also received little attention.

GLO cluster on Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation and Labor Market Outcomes handles empirical studies on labor economics which have a clear and highlighted added value, and solid policy implications, on the following areas:

Testing, in under-examined geographical regions, for wage discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Empirically testing and disentangling the forms of employment discrimination (i.e. prejudice-based, and/or statistical discrimination) against LGBTI people.

Examining the relationship between sexual orientation, personality characteristics, mental health and employment outcomes.

Assessing how moderators (i.e. human capital, educational choices, occupations, family structure, industrial relations etc.) affect the relationship between sexual orientation and labor market outcomes.

Testing the relationship between sexual orientation, past/present victimization and labor market outcomes.

Quantifying the relationship between sexual orientation and job satisfaction.

Evaluating the impact of the legal recognition of same-sex couples on labor market outcomes.

Evaluating the impact of employment legislation against sexual orientation and trans identity discrimination on labor market outcomes.

Quantifying employment bias against trans people.

Examining the interaction between transidentities, sexual orientation and labor market outcomes.

 GIULIETTI: The GLO Cluster on the Chinese Labor Market aims at developing a research agenda around major challenges that China is currently facing, such as: rural-urban migration, structural changes in the labor force, rising income inequality, segmentation and labor market discrimination, labor market policy. At a broader level, this cluster aims at generating evidence-based policy advice for Chinese policymakers and for stakeholders interested in the Chinese labor market.

PASTORE: The GLO Cluster School-to-Work Transition will address economic and policy issues related to the school-to-work transition (SWT). A SWT regime denotes the set of institutions and rules that govern and supervise the passage of young people from school to adulthood. They include the degree of regulation and flexibility of the labour market, but also of the educational and training systems and the provision of employment services (placement and training) to help young people finding a job more easily. The household is also part of the regime, by providing, for instance, financial support during the entire transition and a cushion against the risk of unemployment. The role assigned to each institution within a regime is different from one country to another, so that different SWT regimes can be identified in the world.

VIVARELLI: The link between innovation and employment is both a classical and controversial issue, recently revived by the rapid diffusion of AI and robots in manufacturing and service sectors. This issue will be investigated theoretically and empirically, using both aggregate and microeconometric analyses. However, technological and structural change not only imply an impact on the employment levels, but also involve deep transformations in the skill and wage structure. These effects – which may also directly affect income distribution – will be studied at the national, sectoral, firm and individual level. These topics are treated with regard to the industrialized, the emerging and the developing economies.

HESHMATI: Green and circular economies are increasingly used in transition to sustainable development through increased use of renewable energy, pollution reduction measures, waste management and reuse and recycling of material. Investment in these areas are expected to influence both directly and indirectly the labor market. The literature on the ties between investment in sustainable development and employment creating development planning and policy that make sustainability a practical reality is receiving more attention. This GLO cluster covers research on the relationship between the green economy and green jobs and related areas. These include but not limited to green entrepreneurship, green taxes and regulations, green investment, green innovations, and matching education system and sustainability structures, how they are related and what their main determinants are.

BRÜCK: The Cluster focuses on the economics of labor supply and demand and the functioning of labor markets in areas of extreme uncertainty and weak institutions. An increasing share of the poorest people in the world live under the shadow of violent conflict, weak institutions or humanitarian emergencies. Their behavior and welfare and the means to support these people effectively is not very well understood academically, in part as a result of the poor availability of data in this field. Recent advances in this field have focused on understanding the impact of conflict on human capital, analyzing how employment and entrepreneurship can contribute to peacebuilding, learning about the interactions between conflict and migration, and the development of tools of conduct rigorous impact evaluations in conflict and fragile Areas. The GLO Cluster will support efforts to improve data collection and analysis in areas affected by conflict, suffering from weak governance or from humanitarian emergencies, bringing together academic researchers and practitioners from national governments, international organizations and NGOs.

GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann

Ends;

Key messages of the speech of Zimmermann (Challenges and Chances of the free European Mobility of Workers):

► In the past, Austria was able to attract needed workers from the European Union member countries, in particular from the new member states in the East. However, the labor markets of Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic are empty and can hardly fulfill such needs in the future.

► EU – internal labor mobility is crucial for the welfare of Europe and Austria. Labor market flexibility is an important factor for economic prosperity. It helps to adjust to long term-demands and absorbs asymmetric economic shocks.

► EU labor market flexibility has recently increased in comparison with the US. This has been driven by migrants from the recent EU enlargement new member states, but also from third country nationals.

► Labor mobility demonstrates the advantages of migration for the receiving economies. It hence helps to reduce potential tensions against migrants in the native population.

Literature:

►Jauer, Julia & Liebig, Thomas & Martin, John P. & Puhani, Patrick A., Migration as an adjustment mechanism in the crisis? A comparison of Europe and the United States 2006-2016,  GLO Discussion Paper 178, February 2018. Free download.

Abstract: We estimate whether migration can be an equilibrating force in the labour market by comparing pre-and post-crisis migration movements at the regional level in both Europe and the United States, and their association with symmetric labour market shocks. Based on fixed-effects regressions using regional panel data, we find that Europe’s migratory response to unemployment shocks was almost identical to that recorded in the United States after the crisis. Our estimates suggest that, if all measured population changes in Europe were due to migration for employment purposes – i.e. an upper-bound estimate – up to about a quarter of the asymmetric labour market shock would be absorbed by migration within a year. However, in Europe and especially in the Eurozone, the reaction to a very large extent stems from migration of recent EU accession country citizens as well as of third – country nationals.

►Zimmermann, Klaus F., Migrationspolitik im Mediensturm (Migration Policy in the Media Storm), Wirtschaftspolitische Blätter, 63 (2016), 497-508. Pre-publication draft.

►Zimmermann, Klaus F., Migration, jobs and integration in Europe, in: Migration Policy Practice, 2014, 6(4), 4-16. Publication, free access.

►Bauer, Thomas K. & Lofstrom, Magnus & Zimmermann, Klaus F., Immigration policy, assimilation of immigrants, and natives’ sentiments towards immigrants: Evidence from 12 OECD countries, Swedish Economic Policy Review (2000) 7, 11-53. (497 Google Scholar Cites.)

GLO President Zimmermann in front of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, Vienna, on February 26, 2018.

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“The School to work transition: Cross-country differences, evolution and reforms“

Edited by Francesco Pastore (University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” and GLO) and Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and GLO)

An initiative of the Global Labor Organization (GLO)

A school-to-work transition (SWT) regime denotes the set of institutions and rules that govern and supervise the passage of young people from school to adulthood. They include the degree of regulation and flexibility of the labour market, but also of the educational and training systems and the provision of employment services (placement and training) to help young people finding a job more easily. The household is also part of the regime, by providing, for instance, financial support during the entire transition and a cushion against the risk of unemployment. The role assigned to each institution within a regime is different from one country to another, so that different SWT regimes can be identified in the world.

A rising interest for the issue of the optimal design and organization of a SWT regime is emerging together with soaring unemployment, especially in Europe and in many developing countries. In some countries, the slowness of the transition is a factor of concern because it persists also during periods of economic boom constraining the ability of the economic system to create all the possible jobs for young people.

A SWT has as its main aim that of filling the gap of work experience of young people with respect to adults. This can be done by resorting to the labor market and by making it more flexible, with the risk that young people fall in the so-called work experience trap (they have education and also general work experience, but firms want job-specific work experience and competences). Alternatively, the education system can give an important contributions by following the dual principle and namely providing at the same time education and training already at school or by developing closer links to the labor market through establishing direct links to the labor market like in the Japanese Jisseki Kankei or by providing efficient and dynamic job placement services and information on vacancies like in Anglo-Saxon systems.

After posing a strong and long-lasting emphasis on labor market flexibility since the mid-1980s, reforms of the SWT regime are focusing on the education system. In Italy, the Buona Scuola reform has changed the mission of an education system which still remains sequential, but providing high secondary school students with compulsory work related learning, based on the Scandinavian model. However, there is still widespread concern that a deeper integration of the education system with the labor market is necessary to increase the chances of young people to find suitable jobs. The European Youth Guarantee is a programme of active labor market policy that the EU Parliament has exported to all of Europe with ups and downs. Recent reforms have regarded also public and private employment services, foreseeing the introduction of a quasi-market organization to make them more efficient.

This special issue aims to inspire the debate on these issues by stimulating the submission of high quality papers on different aspects of the SWT, also not considered in this short abstract. Preference will be given to papers implementing advanced econometric methods and addressing causality issues. We wish for theoretical or empirical papers that include, but are meant not to be restricted in any possible way to such issues as, among others:

• Cross-country differences in the performance of different SWT regimes;
• Experience of developing countries;
• Effectiveness of the German dual system;
• Effectiveness of the Japanese Jisseki Kankei;
• Regional differences in the SWT and youth unemployment rate;
• Impact of the economic and financial crisis on youth labor markets;
• Definition of new regimes of SWT to accumulate job specific skills;
• Impact evaluation of recent policy programs for promoting the employment opportunities of young people, such as:
  • recent labor market reforms, e.g. the Jobs Act;
  • apprenticeship legislation;
  • the European Youth Guarantee;
  • the programs of work-related learning;
  • “3+2 reform” of the university system;
  • Implementation of New Public Management principles to universities;
• Role of public and private employment services;
• Role of job placement services at high secondary schools and universities;
• Technical and vocational education and training;
• Experiences of study and work;
• Role of the household as a shock absorber and as a disincentive to more active job search.

Submissions will be accepted up until the 15^th of February 2018. They should be made using ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijm. Before submission, please verify that you have carefully read the Author guidelines of the Journal. While making your submission, please specify the title of the current call for papers. See also the Call on the journal website.

Francesco Pastore (University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” and GLO)

Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and GLO)

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This book invites to rethink and reboot the European Union. The authors dissect the EU’s many vulnerabilities: how some Member States are backsliding on the rule of law,
freedom of the press, and control of corruption – and how globalization’s ‘discontents’ are threatening the liberal international order. It examines the need for a common
immigration policy; the need to rethink the unsustainable debt overhang of some Eurozone countries; and the need to use education to foster a European identity.

Given the sum total of these vulnerabilities, the book argues, the EU may not survive beyond 2025 in its present form – that is, unless decisive action is taken. In turn, the book
puts forward a number of workable solutions: a European economic model to secure full employment; a stronger European Court of Human Rights to counter systemic violations; a points-based immigration policy; clear exit options for the Eurozone; and an Open Education Area with a common second language. These solutions may reduce the number of EU countries, but would increase cohesion and overall survivability.

The book is based on previous joint work of Jo Ritzen with a number of scientists, including Klaus F. Zimmermann (Princeton University, UNU-MERIT and GLO), who has co-authored two chapters in the book. Zimmermann is also President of the Global Labor Organization (GLO).

To order the book, see the product flyer.

Zimmermann in his garden in Bonn with a copy of the new book.

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Klaus F. Zimmermann, Princeton University & UNU-MERIT, Maastricht, is President of the Global Labor Organization (GLO) and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Population Economics.

GLO Supporter the Journal of Population Economics has 2 articles in the top 15 articles most shared in the Social Web, 2 articles among the 15 top cited articles and 3 in the 15 highly downloaded articles reported in the Economic Stars 2017.

Enjoy free access to these articles!

Among the top 15 articles most shared in the Social Web:

Unconditional government social cash transfer in Africa does not increase fertility, by Tia Palermo, Sudhanshu Handa, Amber Peterman, Leah Prencipe, David Seidenfeld, on behalf of the Zambia CGP Evaluation Team, Journal of Population Economics October 2016, Volume 29, Issue 4,  pp 1083–1111.

Immigration and crime: evidence from victimization data, by Luca Nunziata, Journal of Population Economics July 2015, Volume 28, Issue 3,  pp 697–736.

Among the 15 top cited articles:

Migration and young child nutrition: evidence from rural China, by Ren Mu, Alan de Brauw, Journal of Population Economics July 2015, Volume 28, Issue 3,  pp 631–657.

Can’t buy mommy’s love? Universal childcare and children’s long-term cognitive development, by Christina Felfe, Natalia Nollenberger, Núria Rodríguez-Planas, Journal of Population Economics April 2015, Volume 28, Issue 2,  pp 393–422.

Among the 15 highly downloaded articles

Parental choice, neighbourhood segregation or cream skimming? An analysis of school segregation after a generalized choice reform, Anders Böhlmark, Helena Holmlund, Mikael Lindahl, Journal of Population Economics October 2016, Volume 29, Issue 4,  pp 1155–1190.

The importance of family background and neighborhood effects as determinants of crime, Karin Hederos Eriksson, Randi Hjalmarsson, Matthew J. Lindquist, Anna Sandberg, Journal of Population Economics January 2016, Volume 29, Issue 1,  pp 219–262.

Immigration and prices: quasi-experimental evidence from Syrian refugees in Turkey, by Binnur Balkan, Semih Tumen, Journal of Population Economics July 2016, Volume 29, Issue 3,  pp 657–686.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is affiliated with organizations and institutions with a thematic interest and a strong ambition to contribute to an effective global network and to benefit from it.

From the 2015 editorial board meeting of the Journal of Population Economics at Izmir University of Economics with Editor Sandro Cigno, Editor-in-Chief Klaus F. Zimmermann, Springer Editor Katharina Wetzel-Vandai, and Editor Erdal Tekin present (from the left).

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A new published paper takes a global, long-run perspective on the recent debate about secular stagnation, which has so far mainly focused short-term issues:

Matteo Cervellati (University of Bologna), Uwe Sunde (University of Munich) & Klaus F. Zimmermann (Princeton University and UNU-MERIT)

Demographic Dynamics and Long-Run Development: Insights for the Secular Stagnation Debate

The analysis is motivated by observing the interplay between the economic and demographic transition that has occurred in the developed world over the past 150 years. To the extent that high growth rates in the past have partly been the consequence of singular changes during the economic and demographic transition, growth is likely to become more moderate once the transition is completed.

At the same time, a similar transition is on its way in most developing countries, with profound consequences for the development prospects in these countries, but also for global comparative development.

The evidence presented in the paper suggests that long-run development dynamics have potentially important implications for the prospects of human and physical capital accumulation, the evolution of productivity and the question of secular stagnation.

View from my office on the Robertson Hall, part of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs of Princeton University

The paper was previously presented in preliminary versions in the following Discussion Papers:

Working Paper #604, Princeton University, Industrial Relations Section  UNU – MERIT Working Paper # 2016-049                                                                    ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy #226

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