Studies on unemployment duration and on the gender wage gap

Abstract: Effects of Renewable Benefit Periods and Labour Market Programmes on the Exit Rate from UnemploymentThe main question addressed in this paper concerns the incentive effects of time-restricted unemployment benefits, as manifest in a rising exit rate from unemployment to employment when the moment of benefit exhaustion approaches: are these incentive effects lost when participation in labour market programmes is at hand as a way of renewing benefit eligibility? This renewal possibility is available as part of the Swedish unemployment insurance system. A piecewise-constant, proportional competing-risks hazard model is estimated using Swedish administrative data generated during the period 1994-1997. There is some weakly significant evidence that the exit rate for unemployment insurance recipients from unemployment to employment rises as the moment of benefit expiry (60 weeks) approaches, thus suggesting that incentive effects have not been eliminated.Transitions from Unemployment to Employment: What are the Effects of Education? This paper analyses the way different educational levels affect the transition rates from unemployment to various types of employment. Two piecewise-constant, proportional competing-risks hazard models are estimated using Swedish data administrative generated during the period 1992-1997. The first model studies transitions from unemployment to aggregated employment. In the second model, transitions to employment are divided between the three following destinations: (i) permanent full-time jobs, (ii) temporary full-time jobs, and (iii) part-time jobs. The results of both models indicate that the transition rate to employment for those with university experience are considerably higher. The results of the second model suggests further that the effect of education on transition rates differ according to the destination. Sensitivity analyses on two sub-periods (1992-1993, a period of unemployment build-up, and 1994-1997, a period with high but stable unemployment) indicate that the effects of education on the transition rates vary with the unemployment cycle.Individual and Occupation-Specific Differences Between Women and Men: How Do They Affect the Gender Wage Gap?The purpose of this paper is (i) to study the wage effects of differences in the probability of occupational attainment between women and men as a function of personal background characteristics, and (ii) to study within-occupation wage differentials between the sexes as a function of productivity-related individual and job-related characteristics, and of gender-based differences in the returns on these characteristics. This is achieved by simulating the composition of the gender wage gap that would prevail (i) if women were subject to the same occupational structure as men, and (ii) if women received compensation for productivity-related individual characteristics and job-related characteristics in the same way as men. The results indicate that there are systematic, gender-specific wage differentials, i.e. women earn less than men both between and - even more so - within occupations, and that these wage differentials cannot be explained by observed personal background characteristics, or by individual productivity-related or job-related characteristics.