Types of absence from work and wages of young workers with apprenticeship training

Abstract This paper explores the short-and long-term effects on wages of absence from work for young highly attached skilled male and female workers in West Germany. The analysis distinguishes different types of career absence: unemployment, maternity leave for female workers, compulsory service for male workers and other non-work spells. We find negative effects for all types of work absence, except for compulsory service for men. Compulsory service has a positive short-term wage effect. Unemployment decreases wages in the short term only, and for women more strongly than for men. Maternity leave leads to substantial losses for women. An important finding of this study is that maternity leave leads to substantially higher wage losses than other types of work absence, especially in the long term

The German Part-Time Wage Gap: Bad News for Men?

Despite the increasing occurrence of part-time employment in Germany, the effects on wage rates are rarely studied. I therefore use GSOEP panel data from 1984 to 2010 and apply different econometric approaches and definitions of part-time work to measure the so-called part-time wage gap of both, men and women. A very robust finding is that part-time working men are subject to higher wage cuts than women. The specification accommodating all available information and the biasing effect of unobserved individual characteristics yields a wage cut of about 10 percent in West and East Germany. Furthermore, the type of contract makes a big difference. While marginal employees own lower wage rates, irrespective of region and sex, female part-time employees covered by social security have no significant drawback once differences in firm and job characteristics (in OLS regressions) or individual fixed-effects (in panel regressions) are taken into account. The results also reveal that work experience in part-time employment generates no positive returns, implying that reduced working hours do not only cause short-term effects. Another novel of my study is the look at the part-time wage gap over time. While there are good reasons to believe that the part-time wage gap shrinks, the empirical evidence reveals that wage differentials in West-Germany increased over time. This finding also surprises in light of the supposition that the wage penalty tends to be lower in times when part-time work is widespread and employers get accustomed to alternative working time schemes

European Public Sector Innovation Scoreboard 2013

The public sector plays a key economic role as regulator,service provider and employer. It accounts for more than 25% of total employment and a significant share of economic activity in the EU27 Member States. Additionally, an efficient and productive public sector can be a strong driver of economic growth through its support for and governance of the private sector. European governments are acknowledging more and more the importance of public sector innovation. There is a consensus across countries and public administrations as to what is meant by public sector innovation: innovation is seen as a means to address growing budgetary pressures, through more efficient administration or service delivery, and new societal demands, through different and more effective service design. Due to the economic crisis and severe budget cuts, public sector innovation remains a challenge but also a solution. Historically, the public sector has developed differently from the private sector, where efficiency and innovation have always been critical to sustained success. For much of the post-war era, the public sector has enjoyed a rather more benevolent existence. Financial austerity is changing the rules of the game for the public sector, and today public sector efficiency and performance are central to governmental efforts throughout Europe to address deep budgetary constraints. Tight finances and societal pressures are the twin drivers of the almost universal search for better and cheaper public services. This holds for services provided to citizens and for those delivered to business. In some respects, the imperative to innovate is even greater now for the public sector than it is for the private sector