The wage-local unemployment relationship in a highly regulated labour market : Greece

The wage-local unemployment relationship in a highly regulated labour market: Greece, Regional Studies. Using data obtained from 80 000 employees, this paper examines the relationship between individual wages and regional unemployment in Greece. The findings highlight the dynamics of the local labour markets in a case such as Greece, where the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) claims that wage flexibility is limited. This study does not find evidence that wages in Greece are rigid, but finds a wage curve elasticity of close to - 0.1, which corresponds to evidence from many counties. Interestingly, graduates are found to be the most responsive group of workers to the behaviour of local labour markets

The incidence of long-term unemployment : evidence from Greece

In this article, I use the 2000-2004 data from the Greek Labour Force Survey in order to estimate a logit model for the incidence of long-term unemployment. The model computed is similar to the one estimated by Obben et al. (2002). It is found that attributes of the individual such as gender, age category, marital status and region of residence affect the odds of being long-term unemployed. On the other hand, the level of someone's qualification does not affect the odds of whether someone will be short or long-term unemployed

Edge diffraction of a convergent wave

Closed-form solutions have been derived for the diffraction patterns at the focal plane of (1) a convergent wave of unit amplitude illuminating a segment of a circular aperture and (2) a convergent wave of Gaussian amplitude diffracted by an infinite edge. Photographs showing the main features of these edge transform patterns are presented together with computer-generated graphs

Sickness Absence: a Pan-European Study

This study, using the EU-LFS, examines the determinants of sickness absence in 26 EU countries. The analysis highlights the importance of demographic and workplace characteristics and of institutional and societal conditions. Female workers aged 26-35 exhibit higher absenteeism, possibly reflecting the level of high household labour pressure. Increased job insecurity, captured by temporary contracts, and labour market uncertainty, reflected in higher unemployment rates, have a negative effect on absenteeism. Finally, individual sickness absence is lower in countries with higher proportion of dependent/out of the labour market individuals, probably because of the increasing pressure labour active people may experience.Absenteeism, sickness, EU, Labour Force Survey

The Gender Wage Gap as a Function of Educational Degree Choices in an Occupationally Segregated EU Country

This study investigates the extent to which differences in the subject of degree studied by male and female university graduates contributes to the gender pay gap, and the reasons underlying their distinct educational choices. The case of Greece is examined due to the fact that it is an EU country with historically large gender discrepancies in earnings and occupational segregation. Using micro-data from the Greek Labour Force Survey (LFS), the returns to academic disciplines are firstly estimated by gender. It is found that the subjects in which women are relatively over-represented (e.g. Education, Humanities) are also those with the lowest wage returns. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions subsequently imply that gender differences in the type of degree studied can explain an additional 8.4% of the male-female pay gap. Risk-augmented earnings functions of the Hartog-type also indicate that women seek for less risky educations that consequently command lower wage premiums in the job market.gender wage gap, subject of degree, returns, risk, Greece

What determines self-employment? : a comparative study

This article consists of a comparative study of the incidence of self-employment (SE) between Greece, which has the highest rate of SE in the European Union and the United Kingdom, which has amongst the lowest. Data from the Greek and the UK Labour Force Surveys are used in order to assess how personal attributes of an individual have an impact on the incidence of SE. It is found that common patterns exist between these two countries. In particular, it is found that for both countries, males have greater odds of being self-employed than females, older people have greater odds than younger, individuals employed in the primary and tertiary sectors have greater odds than the ones employed in the secondary, and that individuals with primary or secondary education have greater odds of being self-employed than individuals holding higher degrees. The incidence of SE is also found to differ according to the occupation of the individual. On the other hand, the findings indicate that individuals, residing in London, have greater odds of being self-employed than individuals working outside UK's capital, whereas in Greece the pattern is reversed

The Relationship Between Higher Education and Labour Market in Greece: the Weakest Link?

The high level of graduate unemployment, even though has been acknowledged as one of the most distinctive characteristics of the Greek labour market, has not attracted enough attention in the academic literature. This paper utilizes the recently available micro-data from the Greek Labour Force Survey in order to investigate how the employment situation of young (aged 35 and below) graduates varies according to their field of study. The findings suggest that graduates of disciplines that have high levels of private sector employment, such as Polytechnics and Computer Science, are in general better off in the Greek labour market. On the other hand, graduates of disciplines that are traditionally related to the needs of the public sector, such as Sociology and Humanities face poor employment prospects. The findings of this study highlight the need for drastic reforms of the Higher Education system.graduate unemployment, Greece, higher education, field of study, labour market

Chirped gratings in integrated optics

Gratings with variable periods (chirped gratings) have been fabricated by recording the interference pattern of a collimated laser beam with a converging beam generated by a cylindrical lens. An analysis is presented for the behavior of the chirped gratings as a function of wavelength, the angle between the illuminating beams, the F number of the lens, and its position. To calculate the power radiated into air, the coupled-mode equations are solved for the case of a waveguide with chirped surface corrugation. Experimentally, chirped gratings have been etched on the surface of an optical waveguide and used to couple light out of the waveguide. It was found that the light was focused outside the waveguide, and the fraction of the power radiated into air compared favorably with the theoretical calculation. The focal point outside the waveguide was found to move by about 1 cm when the wavelength was changed by 500 Å-in agreement with theoretical estimates