The social gradient in health: the effect of absolute and relative income on the individual's health

Abstract This study investigates the effect of absolute income and relative income on health in the light of medical evidence indicating that the individual’s position in the social hierarchy undermines his or her mental and physical health. It uses an instrumental variable estimation methodology that controls for the ‘endogeneity’ problem to statistically identify the social gradient in physical and mental health. The paper shows that individuals’ own income has a positive, but modest effect on health. Absolute income appears to affect only the objective measures of health. Importantly, relative income- as a proxy for social status and position in the social hierarchy - has a significant effect on all measurements of health, with individuals higher in the social ladder enjoying better health. Finally, the results shown that individuals from families that were well-off financially (when at the age of 14) having better physical and mental health.European Commissio

Inequality and Participative Democracy A Self-Reinforcing Mechanism

Publisher PD

Should I stay or Should I Go? The effect of Gender, Education and Unemployment on Labour Market Transitions

The literature on job mobility patterns and search behaviour has highlighted significant gender differences. Women on average appear to suffer a higher risk of redundancy or dismissal, they exhibit a lesser commitment to the labour market activity, and they are relatively less mobile than men (Theodossiou, 2002). They are also more likely to exit employment for employee-initiated reasons, namely a family or personal reason, in contrast to men who are more likely to exit employment for an employer-initiated reason such as layoff or dismissal (Keith and McWilliams, 1997). However, although women are more likely to exit employment for a voluntary reason compared to men, men are more likely to be engaged in on-the-job search aiming at voluntary job mobility compared to women (Parson, 1991; van Ophem, 1991; Keith and McWilliams, 1999). The primary reason for these gender differences in the labour market behaviour are the societal constraints associated with women’s dominant role in childcare. Hersch and Stratton (1997) show that women, especially married women, spend three times more time engaged in household activities and are substantially more prepared to quit their job for a family-related reason than men are (Keith and McWilliams, 1997; Theodossiou, 2002)

Inequality and Participative Democracy : A Self‐Reinforcing Mechanism

We are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for constructive comments and suggestions. We also thank the seminar participants at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Dundee for valuable comments on an earlier version of the paper. All remaining errors are ours.Peer reviewedPostprin

Hybrid Working and Union Membership; Does Working from Home Undermine Union Power?

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Native-immigrant Wage Differentials in Malaysia

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Do Career Prospects Make Happy Workers? Evidence from Panel Data

This paper investigates the relationship between career profile, job tenure, earnings and job satisfaction utilising the British Household Panel Survey Dataset (BHPS). Career status is modelled as an endogenous variable, subject to an initial job choice and the potential endogeneity of the tenure-earnings and tenure-job satisfaction relationship is taken into account by the use of instrumental variable estimation. It is found that job satisfaction of individuals employed in jobs with career prospects is not only higher compared with those who are not, but also that their returns to tenure in terms of job satisfaction are significantly higher

Should I stay or should I go? The effect of gender, education and unemployment on labour market transitions

This paper re-examines the turnover behaviour of men and women using panel data from six European countries. It makes a distinction between job-to-job (JJ) and job-to-non-employment (JNE) transitions, and explores the role that education and unemployment play in gender differences regarding these mobility patterns. Low educated women have lower JJ transition probabilities but are more likely to exit to non-employment compared to the other groups, high-educated women and men of all educational levels. Furthermore, unemployment reduces the JJ turnover of male and female workers of all educational levels. There is a pro-cyclical response in the JNE transitions of the less-educated males and a counter-cyclical response in the JNE transitions of the less-educated females. Finally, there are remarkable similarities in labour market mobility across countries, although there are various institutional and other labour market differences.Labour mobility Gender Education Unemployment

Demand and supply effects on native-immigrant wage differentials: the case of Malaysia

Abstract This paper uses a matched employee-employer dataset using the Productivity and Investment Climate Survey 2007 to assess the relative effect of demand and supply-side characteristics on the wages of native and immigrant workers in Malaysia. In doing so, the study demonstrates noteworthy differences in the wage determination process. Individual supply-side characteristics are found to be a key determinant of wages for native workers, and are relatively more important in explaining the wage variation than demand-side effects. In contrast, individual supply-side characteristics are found to explain noticeably less of the wage variation for immigrant workers. Therefore, this study reveals that native and immigrant wages do not solely reflect the workers’ productivity, although this effect is far more pronounced for the migrant workers