WP 5 - Employers' and employees' preferences for working time reduction and working time differentiation

Working time reduction is high on the political agenda, but preferences and practices have not been studied extensively. Using large-scale survey data of 17,308 employees in Dutch banks after the introduction of the 36-hours working week by the end of 1996, ordinal and logistic regression analyses are performed to determine (1) which employees have favourable or unfavourable attitudes with regard to the working time reduction and (2) which employees are assigned reduced working hours and which are not. The results indicate that with regard to employee preferences the maximizing income thesis is mostly supported: low-income, breadwinning and part-time employees are less in favour of RWT. Theses on maximizing working hours or maximizing non-working hours are partly supported. Female employees have more favourable attitudes, although this is not related to the presence of young children. Supervisors have less favourable attitudes. The working time reduction aimed at work sharing to prevent dismissals, but the analyses indicate that the employees in redundant jobs hardly have more favourable attitudes. The thesis of minimizing working hours is hardly supported. The explanatory power of the model is low and the issue definitely needs more investigation. In explaining employer’s strategies to assign reduced working hours to employees, the thesis on the long-term transformation processes from clerical bureaucracies into commercially operating units is most supported. Reduced hours are less often assigned to commercial and counter employees, and more often to the clerical occupations. In contrast to previous studies, the thesis that employers’ assignment strategies aim for productivity increase is hardly supported.

WP RR 15 - Employees' preferences for more or fewer working hours: The effects of usual, contractual and standard working time, family phase and household characteristics and job satisfaction

This study seeks explanations for working time preferences, using cross-sectional multinomial logits for the 2001/2002 Wage Indicator dataset (N=21,727). As expected, the preferences are predominately influenced by working hours’ characteristics, showing that employees with long hours prefer to work shorter hours and that short-hours workers prefer longer hours. New is the finding that salaried employees indeed want to reduce hours whereas hourly paid employees prefer to work longer hours. In contrast to public opinion, female employees show a better fit between preferred and contractual hours compared to male employees. Particularly male employees whose children have left home prefer working fewer hours. The study further shows that wage rates have a large impact on working time preferences, the lowest earnings category preferring far more often longer hours. Regarding job characteristics, employees in a challenging job less often prefer fewer hours. The employees reporting conflicts at the workplace and insufficient staffing more often prefer fewer hours.

WP 110 - Over- and underqualifi ction of migrant workers. Evidence from WageIndicator survey data

Are overeducation and undereducation more common for migrants compared to domestic workers? If so, is overeducation and undereducation similar across migrants from various home countries and across various host countries? This paper aims at unravelling the incidence of skill mismatch of domestic and migrant workers employed in 13 countries of the European Union, namely Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Here migrants are defined as workers not born in the country where they are currently living. They originate from more than 200 countries, thereby reflecting a heterogeneous group, ranging from migrants for economic reasons and refugees, to expats, intercultural married, and others. Concerning overeducation, most of the literature points to explanations related to job allocation frictions. The theoretical explanations for overeducation all refer to job allocation frictions. They apply to workers in general at first job entry, to particular groups of workers at fi rst job entry such as re-entering housewives or workers who have experienced unemployment spells and involuntary quits, to workers accepting a lower-level job if the probability of promotion is higher, to imperfect information from the employer’s side associated with a lack of transparency of diplomas or of transferability of credentials, to poor abilities of individual workers, and to labour market discrimination. Six hypothesis have been drafted for empirical testing. One hypothesis has been made for undereducation. This is assumed to be the case for workers with higher abilities, here defined as workers in supervisory positions. This paper builds on statistical analyses of the data of the large _WageIndicator_ web-survey about work and wages, posted at all national _WageIndicator_ websites and comparable across all countries. Using the pooled annual data of the years 2005-20010, we used 291,699 observations in the analysis. The large sample size allows a break-down of migrant groups according to country of birth in order to better capture the heterogeneity of migrants. Logit analyses have been used to estimate the likelihood of being overqualified compared to having a correct match or being underqualified. Similar estimations have been made for underqualification compared to having a correct match or being overqualified. One of five workers asseses to be overqualified (20%). When comparing the domestic and migrant workers, overqualification occurs less often among domestic workers than among migrant workers (19% versus 24%). The analyses show that overeducation occurs indeed more often among migrant workers. Yet, the analyses also reveals that the overeducation occurs substantially more often in the old EU member states compared to newly accessed EU member states, regardless being a domestic worker or a migrant. The model shows that the heterogeneity of the migrant groups should be taken into account. Of all migrant and domestic groups, the odds ratio of being overqualified is highest for migrants working in EU15 and born in EU12. The odds ratio decreases for the migrants from USA, Canada and Australia. The odds ratio of being overeducated increases with educational attainment. It decreases with hierarchical level within the occupation, with the the corporate hierarchical levels, and with the skill level of the job. The hypothesis regarding job allocation frictions are confirmed. The odds ratios of being overqualified increase for recent labour market entrants, for workers with an employment spell, for female workers, for migrants who arrived at an adult age thus challenging the transparency of credetials in the host country, and for for 1st and 2nd generation migrants and ethnic minorities thus challenging discrimination in the labour market. No support was found for the hypothesis that workers with presumably poor language abilities are more likely to be overeducated. Concerning undereducation, the analyses confirm that having a supervisory position increases the odds ratio of being underqualified. This suggest that underqualified workers with higher capabilities provide internal career ladders. This study in part confirms the existing literature, in particular the job allocation frictions for the entire labour market. It expands existing empirical findings concerning the reasons why migrants are more likely to be overeducted.

WP 7 - Teleworking policies of organisations - The Dutch experience

The over-all picture concerning the diffusion of telework stemming from research undertaken in 2000 and 2001 is rather negative. Teleworking policies of organisations hardly go beyond the minimal definition that we used in analyzing Dutch surveys from these years (organisations offering the opportunity for teleworking and, if they were asked for, paid for the necessary facilities). The conclusion is not exaggerated that a large majority of Dutch organisations are playing a waiting game on teleworking, even in sectors where jobs show a rather high ‘teleworkability’. The few exceptions (Interpolis, TNO Arbeid), mainly seizing the opportunities of building new offices or relocate their businesses, to combine flexible offices with teleworking policies, soon get nation-wide attention. Meanwhile, various surveys indicate a further growth of telework in the Netherlands in the 1999-2001 period, although this expansion seems to concentrate on multi-site telework by mainly self-employed – largely a ‘new economy’ phenomenon (Van Klaveren and Van de Westelaken, 2001). In this country, teleworking is apparently spreading rather informally and implicitly, leaving a wide gap between the policies of organisations and the preferences of many workers.

WP 111 - Health workforce remuneration: Comparing wage levels, ranking and dispersion of 16 occupational groups in 20 countries using survey data

This article focuses on remuneration in the Human Resources for Health (HRH), comparing wage levels, ranking and dispersion of 16 HRH occupations in 20 countries (Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, India, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, South-Africa, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States). Research questions asked are to what extent are the wage rankings, wage dispersion, and standardized wage levels are similar between the 16 occupational groups in the HRH workforce across countries. The pooled data from the continuous, worldwide, multilingual WageIndicator web-survey between 2008 and 2011Q1 have been analysed (N= 38,799). Hourly wages expressed in standardized USD, all controlled for PPP and then indexed to 2011 levels. The findings show that the Medical Doctors have overall the highest median wages and they have so in 11 of 20 countries, while the Personal Care Workers have overall lowest wages and they have so in 9 of 20 countries. Health Care Managers lower earnings than Medical Doctors, but in 5 of 20 countries they have higher earnings (BLR, CZE, POL, RUS, UKR). The wage levels of Nursing & Midwifery Professionals vary largely across countries. The correlation of the overall ranking to the national ranking is more than .7 in 7 of 20 countries. The wage dispersion is defined as the ratio of the highest to the lowest median earnings in an occupation in a country. It is highest in Brazil (7.0), and lowest in Sweden, Germany, Poland, and Argentina. When comparing wage levels in occupations across countries, the largest wage differences for the Medical Doctors: the Ukraine doctor earns 19 times less compared to the US doctor. A correlation between country-level earnings and wage differentials across countries reveals that the higher the median wages in an occupation, the higher the wage difference across countries (r=.9). In conclusion, this article breaks new ground by investigating for the first time the wage levels, ranking and dispersion of occupational groups in the HRH workforce across countries. Findings illustrate that the assumption of similarity in cross-country wage ranking, wage dispersion, and purchasing power adjusted wage levels does not hold. These findings help to explain the complexity of migratory paths seen.

WP 31 - How Many Hours Do You Usually Work: an analysis of the working hours questions in 26 large-scale surveys in 6 countries and the European Union

This paper reviews how working hours are asked in 26 large-scale surveys in 6 countries plus the European Union. Four dimensions of working time were investigated, notably number of working hours, timing of work, predictability and control over hours, and commuting time. Although almost all questionnaires ask for hours worked, the terminology varies largely. In only half of the cases a reference period is taken into account and in half the reasons for working more/less in the survey week than usual are asked. Contractual hours are hardly asked and so are paid and unpaid overtime hours. The timing of work is asked in a minority of the questionnaires, and predictability and control over working hours is also not a major issue. The incidence of an on-call contract is the most likely proxy for predictability.

Choices for part-time jobs and the impacts on the wage differentials. A comparative study for Great Britain and the Netherlands

This paper uses the European Household Panel (the ECHP) to analyze individuals' choices on part-time jobs and their impacts on the wage differentials. Our study is a comparative study between Great Britain and the Netherlands. In contrast to most of the previous researches on part-time employment, we make a distinction between short part-time and long part-time jobs. The results show that overall women were more likely to take part-time jobs in both countries, but the effect was much stronger in the Netherlands than it was in Great Britain. We find that there was no substantial wage gap between long part-time and full-time jobs in the Netherlands, working long part-time were more likely to be treated as full-time jobs, which may suggest the presence of 'retention part-time jobs' described by Tilly (1996). On the other hand, the results show that part-time workers in Great Britain suffered relatively larger wage penalties, yet, working short part-time was not significantly different from working long part-time because they both received lower wage rates compared to full-time jobs.short part-time job ; long part-time job and wage differential

WP 2 - Substitution or segregation: explaining the gender composition in Dutch manufacturing industry 1899-1998

This paper focuses on the role of substitution or segregation in the demand for female labour. Based on an extensive overview of detailed studies, fluctuations in the gender composition of the labour force in four major sectors of Dutch manufacturing industry have been examined over the past hundred years. Women’s share in employment has been stable in clothing industry, fluctuated in textiles, increased in food production and decreased in Philips Electronics. Changes in the share of women were primarily explained by segregation that is by fluctuations in employment in the male respectively female domains. Only few examples of substitution were traced, primarily driven by labour market shortages, but the numbers of workers involved were small. Overwhelmingly, employers preferred to act within gender boundaries.

WP 84 - Working time flexibility components of companies in Europe

Working time flexibility comprises a wide variety of arrangements, from part-time, overtime, to long-term leaves. Theoretical approaches to grouping these arrangements have been developed, but empirical underpinnings are rare. This paper investigates the bundles that can be found for various flexible working time arrangements, using data of the Establishment Survey on Working Time (ESWT), 2004/2005, covering 21 EU member states and 13 industries. Using factor analyses, the results confirmed that working time arrangements can be grouped into two bundles, one for the employee-centred arrangements, a second for the employer-centred arrangements, and that these two bundles are separate dimensions. We have also tested the stability of the factor analysis outcome, showing that although there are some deviations from the pan-Europe and pan-industry outcome, the naming of the components as flexibility for employees and flexibility for employers can be interpreted as holding rather stable. Lastly, we also find that there are three country clusters that can be found for the 21 European countries using the bundle. The first group consisting of the Northern European countries with Poland and Czech Republic, the second group the continental European countries with UK and Ireland, and lastly, the southern European countries with Hungary and Slovenia.

WP 85 - Multinationals versus domestic firms: Wages, working hours and industrial relations

This Working Paper aims to present and discuss recent evidence on the effect of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on wages, working conditions and industrial relations. It presents a. an overview of the available literature on the effects of FDI on wages, particularly in developed countries; b. the outcomes of own research comparing wages, working conditions and workplace industrial relations in Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) versus non-MNEs or domestic fi rms. These outcomes include seven EU member states: Belgium, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and fi ve industries: metal and electronics manufacturing; retail; fi nance and call centres; information and communication technology (ICT), and transport and telecom. The data stem from the continuous WageIndicator web-survey, combined with company data from the AIAS MNE Database. The analysis took place in the framework of the socalled WIBAR-2 project, funded by the European Commission under the Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue Program (VS/2007/0534, December 2007-November 2008). The project was led by the AIAS, with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC); the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF); Ruskin College (Oxford); WSI im Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (Düsseldorf), and the WageIndicator Foundation as partners. Both from others’ and our own evidence, the picture emerged that the wage advantages emanating from working in an MNE in Northwestern Europe recently have become rather small, with our evidence for Germany, where we found considerable MNE wage premia, as the exception. In the majority of Polish and Spanish subsidiaries of MNEs these premia were still considerable. By contrast, in the retail trade and in transport and telecom MNEs seemed to exert outright wage pressure in some countries. Besides pay, workers mostly perceived advantages in working in an MNE where these were to be expected, in training and internal promotion, but also –rather unexpectedly-- in workplace industrial relations. Here, on all three yardsticks used (union density, collective bargaining coverage and the incidence of workplace employee representation) MNEs scored higher than domestic fi rms. MNEs scored less favourably on overtime compensation, working hours, and experienced and expected reorganisations. Where MNE wage premia show up, they have much in common with ‘effi ciency wages’, meant to buy higher productivity and extra commitment from (skilled) workers.