La evolución de la estructura salarial, 2002-2010

El artículo examina la evolución de la estructura salarial de los hombres en España en el período 2002-2010 sobre la base de los microdatos de la Encuesta de Estructura Salarial y de la metodología econométrica de descomposición desarrollada por Fortin, Lemieux y Firpo (2011). Se constata que mientras que los salarios reales crecieron moderadamente a lo largo de todo el período, con independencia del ciclo económico, la desigualdad salarial presentó, por el contrario, una evolución contracíclica. Se observan también cambios notables en los determinantes de la evolución de la estructura salarial, ya que mientras que en el período expansivo anterior a la crisis tuvieron un papel protagonista los cambios en los rendimientos salariales, con posterioridad se observan también efectos significativos asociados a las modificaciones en la composición del empleo.The article examines the evolution of the wage structure for men in Spain between 2002 and 2010 on the basis of microdata from the Encuesta de Estructura Salarial and a decomposition econometric methodology developed by Fortin, Lemieux and Firpo (2011). It is observed that real wages grew moderately over the entire period, regardless of the economic cycle, and wage inequality presented a counter-cyclical evolution, increasing significantly after the onset of the economic crisis. Significant changes in the determinants of the evolution of the wage structure are also observed over the period: while changes in wage returns were the most prominent determinants of the evolution of the wage structure during the boom, significant effects are observed during the crisis resulting from changes both in the composition of employment and in wage returns.Este trabajo se ha beneficiado de la financiación del proyecto CSO2011-29943-C03-02 del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad

How profitable is to study in Spain? An empirical insight using a new source of information

This paper presents empirical evidence on the returns to education in Spain using the Survey on the Quality of Life in the Workplace. Five waves (1999-2003) of the survey have been pooled to build a dataset for which Mincer-type earning functions are estimated. Unlike other analyses experience is computed as actual and not potential experience, and a variable capturing periods of unemployment is also included. We calculate the returns to education for male workers following the simplest Mincer’s specification estimated by (a) OLS and (b) instrumental variables (IV) techniques as a means to deal with endogeneity concerns regarding schooling and find that returns to education for male salaried workers are 5.68 (OLS) and 7.37 (IV with a family background instrument) giving evidence of a slightly declining trend in the rate of return to education in Spain. Evidence against Mincer’s underlying hypothesis of linearity of the returns to education in schooling is found when schooling attainment is taken as qualifications. Concerning the parallelism of log-earnings experience profiles across schooling levels, the inclusion of interaction terms between variables experience and education casts some doubts on the plausibility of this assumption in the private sector, although public sector’s earning-experience profiles are more coherent with it. Moreover unlike previous international and Spanish studies the results provide evidence of larger returns among public employees. The empirical analysis is finally extended by focusing on regional differences, which are found to be large

Individual returns to education in the Spanish tourism sector during the economic crisis

This paper analyses individual returns to education in the Spanish tourism sector. The results, which are robust to different specifications of Mincer earnings regressions, show that the earnings returns to schooling for tourism workers are only half those for all other sectors, and that the difference in returns between these two groups has increased significantly during the economic crisis. This has happened at a time when the earnings range between those with lower and higher qualifications has narrowed in tourism while it has remained stable in other sectors, and when tourism has been capable of retaining most of its workforce while the rest of the economy has experienced a sharp decrease in employment

Delineating zones to increase geographical detail in individual response data files: An application to the Spanish 2011 Census of population

Due to confidentiality considerations, the microdata available from the 2011 Spanish Census have been codified at a provincial (NUTS 3) level except when the municipal (LAU 2) population exceeds 20,000 inhabitants (a requirement that is met by less than 5% of all municipalities). For the remainder of the municipalities within a given province, information is only provided for their classification in wide population intervals. These limitations, hampering territorially-focused socio-economic analyses, and more specifically, those related to the labour market, are observed in many other countries. This article proposes and demonstrates an automatic procedure aimed at delineating a set of areas that meet such population requirements and that may be used to re-codify the geographic reference in these cases, thereby increasing the territorial detail at which individual information is available. The method aggregates municipalities into clusters based on the optimisation of a relevant objective function subject to a number of statistical constraints, and is implemented using evolutionary computation techniques. Clusters are defined to fit outer boundaries at the level of labour market areas.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant number CSO2014-55780-C3-2-P, National R&D&i Plan 2013-2016)

Commuting and education-job mismatch in Spanish labour market

En este trabajo se analiza cómo el tiempo de trayecto y las características de los mercados laborales locales influyen en el desajuste puesto de trabajo- nivel educativo del individuo, basado en la hipótesis de que los individuos que tienen un mayor tiempo de trayecto al trabajo y mejores condiciones en mercado laboral se asocian a una menor incidencia de la sobreeducación. La sobreeducación afecta a 17 % de los trabajadores en España, y se eleva al 22,4 % para los trabajadores menores de 35 años. El análisis se basa en los datos individuales de los trabajadores españoles que se refiere al período inicial de la crisis económica mundial (2007-2010). La variable dependiente, desajuste educativo-puesto se mide mediante el método subjetivo, basado en las respuestas del individuo a la pregunta de cómo ajusta su nivel de educación a las necesidades del trabajo que actualmente ocupan. La variable de interés son: (a) el tiempo de trayecto, es decir, el tiempo que tarda el individuo en llegar a su trabajo, y (b) dos variables que tienen en cuenta de las condiciones del mercado local: la tasa regional de desempleo (esta variable se refieren a la división territorial de España a nivel NUTS 2 y desglose por sexo y nivel de educación de cada Comunidad Autónoma sobre la base de las cifras medias anuales de la Encuesta de Población Activa española (EPA) para el período 2007-2010) y el tamaño del municipio. Se incluyen las variables de control habituales relativas al puesto de trabajo y variables dummy de los años de la muestra. Los resultados sugieren que las difíciles condiciones de trabajo regionales en términos de altas tasas de desempleo pueden actuar contra el efecto hipotético de la movilidad en la reducción del desajuste educativo, por lo tanto, se obtiene a una conclusión opuesta a la planteada en algunos trabajos anteriores.This paper analyses how commuting time and local labour markets’ characteristics influence individual’s job-education mismatch, based on the hypothesis that both higher commuting times and better labour market conditions are associated with a lower incidence of over-education. Over-education affects 17% of employed workers in Spain, and it rises to 22,4% for workers under 35. The analysis is based on Spanish workers’ individual data referred to the initial period of the global economic crisis (2007-2010). The dependent variable, education-job mismatch is measured through the subjective method, based on the individual’s responses to the question of how well does his/her education level fit the needs of the job they currently occupied. The variable of interest are (a) commuting time, i.e., the time spend by the individual on his/her typical one-way travel-to-work, and (b) two variables that account for local market conditions: the regional unemployment level (this variables is referred to the NUTS 2 division of Spain and disaggregated by sex and level of education for each autonomous community based on the average yearly figures from the Spanish Labour Force Survey (EPA) for period 2007-2010) and the size of town. The usual set of individual and job-related variables, and controls for sample years are also considered. The results suggest that difficult regional working conditions in terms of both high unemployment rates and job densities might act against the hypothesized effect of mobility on the reduction of educational mismatch, therefore leading to a conclusion that opposes some precedent works.We thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (R&D&I National Program project CSO2011-29943-C03-02) for financial support

Reassessing the commuting penalty for immigrants: new evidence from Spain

This article examines the differences in commuting length between native and immigrant employees in Spain, a relevant issue since immigrants' longer commuting times may, among other factors, reflect an imperfect spatial matching of their labour supply and demand with negative implications for their relative labour outcomes and their individual well-being. The research differentiates immigrants according to their origin and is based on a rich, nationally representative database. A novel contribution of the research is the use of decomposition econometric techniques that allow quantifying the joint and individual influence of a wide range of explanatory factors. The evidence obtained shows that, although a relevant part of the explanation of the greater commuting observed for immigrants is related to observed elements such as a different use of modes of transport, they make overall significantly longer journeys when comparing with observationally similar natives. This commuting penalty occurs yet only in the case of immigrants from emerging countries as it does not exist for those from advanced economies. Although the penalty is overall rather similar along several sociodemographic and occupational lines, it is much more pronounced for individuals living in large municipalities, which implies that previous analyses focusing on specific densely populated territories could not be nationally representative. To conclude, we offer additional novel evidence about the potential explanations of the commuting penalty of immigrants showing that it does not seem to derive from a hypothetically greater tolerance to commuting.This work is part of the project CSO2017-86474-R (Spanish State Program of R&D&i), funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Agencia Estatal de Investigación, AEI) and the ERDF-EU. Raquel Simón-Albert thanks the funding received from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, AEI and the ESF-EU (PRE2018-085908)

An evolutive approach for the delineation of local labour markets

This paper presents a new approach to the delineation of local labour markets based on evolutionary computation. The main objective is the regionalisation of a given territory into functional regions based on commuting flows. According to the relevant literature, such regions are defined so that (a) their boundaries are rarely crossed in daily journeys to work, and (b) a high degree of intra-area movement exists. This proposal merges municipalities into functional regions by maximizing a fitness function that measures aggregate intra-region interaction under constraints of inter-region separation and minimum size. Real results are presented based on the latest database from the Census of Population in the Region of Valencia. Comparison between the results obtained through the official method which currently is most widely used (that of British Travel-to-Work Areas) and those from our approach is also presented, showing important improvements in terms of both the number of different market areas identified that meet the statistical criteria and the degree of aggregate intra-market interaction.José M. Casado-Díaz has received financial support from the Spanish Department of Education and Science (ref. BEC2003-02391) through a program partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Lucas Martínez-Bernabeu acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Dept. of Education and Science, the European Social Fund (ESF) and the University of Alicante

Analysis of university student employment and its impact on academic performance

Introducción. La investigación tiene dos objetivos: caracterizar a los estudiantes universitarios que simultanean trabajo y estudios y el tipo de trabajo que desempeñan, por un lado, y analizar el efecto que tiene trabajar sobre distintas medidas de su rendimiento académico, por otro. Método. El análisis se desarrolla a partir de información individual procedente de una encuesta (N=464) combinada con registros universitarios. Se han estimado modelos en los que se consideran distintas medidas del desempeño académico y en los que se controla por un amplio conjunto de factores (incluyendo características socioeconómicas así como medidas de motivación y de esfuerzo académico), distinguiendo entre distintos niveles de intensidad de la actividad laboral. Las técnicas usadas han sido la regresión logística, mínimos cuadrados ordinarios y variables instrumentales. Resultados. Se confirma, en primer lugar, que una proporción significativa de los estudiantes universitarios españoles simultanea los estudios con un trabajo remunerado, siendo muy frecuente que trabajen de forma habitual durante periodos prolongados. Se observa, además, que es frecuente que quienes trabajan lo hagan motivados por necesidad y en tareas no relacionadas con el contenido de sus estudios, y que la propensión a trabajar es mayor entre los estudiantes de mayor edad, los extranjeros y los de mayor motivación. En segundo lugar, los resultados obtenidos sugieren que, en contraste con la propia percepción manifestada por los estudiantes, trabajar regularmente no tiene aparentemente un impacto significativo en sus resultados académicos. Conclusión. El estudio añade evidencia sobre un tema relevante pero muy escasamente analizado en el caso español, sobre el que ni la teoría ni los estudios empíricos previos sobre casos internacionales ofrecen resultados concluyentes. Los resultados son útiles para la consideración que el desempeño de una actividad laboral debe recibir en el diseño de los itinerarios seguidos por los estudiantes universitarios.Introduction. The research has two objectives: to characterise college students who combine work and studies, and their jobs, on one hand; and to analyse the effect of work on various measures of academic performance, on the other. Method. The study is developed using individual information derived from a survey (N=464) and from university records. We have estimated models that consider diverse measures of academic performance and control for a wide set of factors (including socio-economic characteristics and diverse measures of motivation and academic effort), distinguishing between different levels of intensity in the labour activity. The techniques used are logistic regression, ordinary least squares and instrumental variables. Results. The evidence obtained confirms, first, that a noticeable proportion of Spanish university students have a paid job, and often work regularly for extended periods. It also is common for those who work to do so motivated by necessity, and to perform tasks unrelated to the content of their studies. Moreover, the likelihood of working is higher among older students, foreigners and those who have higher levels of motivation. Secondly, the results suggest that, in contrast to the perceptions expressed by students, working regularly does not appear to have a significant impact on their academic performance. Conclusion. The article provides additional evidence on a very relevant issue that has however received very little attention in the Spanish case and for which neither theoretical studies nor previous empirical research have reached conclusive results. The article provides useful support for the consideration of employment-related issues in the designing of the itineraries followed by university students.El presente trabajo se enmarca en el seno del Programa de Redes de investigación en docencia universitaria del Vicerrectorado de Calidad e Innovación Educativa-Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de Alicante (convocatoria 2015-16), ref.: 3478. Además, los autores desean hacer constar su agradecimiento a la financiación recibida del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad en el marco del Plan Estatal de I+D+i, ref. CSO2014-55780-C3-2-P