IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-15-00618.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reconsidering the interrelated dynamics of unemployment and low-wage employment in Great Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Plum

    (Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg)

Abstract

Stewart (2007, JAE) finds that being employed at low wages (compared to higher wages) increases the risk of future unemployment. The risk of future unemployment does not differ significantly between current low-wage employment and current unemployment. The author concludes that 'in terms of future employment prospects, low wages are closer to unemployment than to higher-paid jobs' [p. 529]. I show that this result depends strongly on the threshold used to distinguish between high and low wages: applying the widely used OECD (1997) definition of low-wages substantially changes the findings of Stewart (2007). With this threshold, I find that low wages are helpful for significantly reducing the risk of future unemployment compared to unemployment. Moreover, the categorization of the unemployed, the included variables with reference to the educational background, the age and the age restrictions imposed on the sample and switching from gross hourly wages in nominal terms to real terms have an impact on the findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Plum, 2016. "Reconsidering the interrelated dynamics of unemployment and low-wage employment in Great Britain," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(2), pages 1230-1241.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00618
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2016/Volume36/EB-16-V36-I2-P120.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kory Kroft & Fabian Lange & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2013. "Duration Dependence and Labor Market Conditions: Evidence from a Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(3), pages 1123-1167.
    2. Mark B. Stewart & Joanna K. Swaffield, 1999. "Low Pay Dynamics and Transition Probabilities," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 66(261), pages 23-42, February.
    3. Hielke Buddelmeyer & Wang‐Sheng Lee & Mark Wooden, 2010. "Low‐Paid Employment and Unemployment Dynamics in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(272), pages 28-48, March.
    4. Alexander Mosthaf, 2014. "Do Scarring Effects of Low-Wage Employment and Non-Employment Differ BETWEEN Levels of Qualification?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(2), pages 154-177, May.
    5. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2005. "Simple solutions to the initial conditions problem in dynamic, nonlinear panel data models with unobserved heterogeneity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 39-54, January.
    6. Mark B. Stewart, 2007. "The interrelated dynamics of unemployment and low-wage employment," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 511-531.
    7. Alexander Plum, 2019. "The British low-wage sector and the employment prospects of the unemployed," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(13), pages 1411-1432, March.
    8. Lorenzo Cappellari & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2008. "Estimating low pay transition probabilities accounting for endogenous selection mechanisms," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 57(2), pages 165-186, April.
    9. Arne Uhlendorff, 2006. "From No Pay to Low Pay and Back Again?: A Multi-State Model of Low Pay Dynamics," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 648, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Wiji Arulampalam & Mark B. Stewart, 2009. "Simplified Implementation of the Heckman Estimator of the Dynamic Probit Model and a Comparison with Alternative Estimators," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(5), pages 659-681, October.
    11. Clark, Ken & Kanellopoulos, Nikolaos C., 2013. "Low pay persistence in Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 122-134.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Plum, Alexander & Knies, Gundi, 2015. "Earnings prospects for low-paid workers higher than for the unemployed but only in high-pay areas with high unemployment," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112845, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Plum, Alexander & Knies, Gundi, 2015. "Does neighbourhood unemployment affect the springboard effect of low pay?," ISER Working Paper Series 2015-20, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Alexander Plum, 2019. "The British low-wage sector and the employment prospects of the unemployed," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(13), pages 1411-1432, March.
    4. Alexander Mosthaf & Thorsten Schank & Claus Schnabel, 2014. "Low-wage employment versus unemployment: Which one provides better prospects for women?," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-17, December.
    5. Schnitzlein, Daniel D. & Stephani, Jens, 2016. "Locus of Control and low-wage mobility," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 164-177.
    6. Alexander Plum & Gundi Knies, 2019. "Local unemployment changes the springboard effect of low pay: Evidence from England," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-22, November.
    7. Alexander Plum & Gail Pacheco & Kabir Dasgupta, 2021. "When There is No Way Up: Reconsidering Low‐paid Jobs as Stepping‐stones," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 97(318), pages 387-409, September.
    8. Kostas Mavromaras & Darcy Fitzpatrick, 2017. "Self-employment Dynamics in Australia and the Importance of State Dependence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93, pages 144-170, June.
    9. Alexander Plum, 2018. "Stochastic Expected Utility for Binary Choice: New Representations," Working Papers 2018-08, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    10. Andreas Knabe & Alexander Plum, 2013. "Low-wage Jobs — Springboard to High-paid Ones?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 27(3), pages 310-330, September.
    11. Claus Schnabel, 2021. "Low-wage employment," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 276-276, March.
    12. Lixin Cai, 2014. "State-Dependence and Stepping-Stone Effects of Low-Pay Employment in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 90(291), pages 486-506, December.
    13. Herwig Immervoll & Stephen P. Jenkins & Sebastian Königs, 2015. "Are Recipients of Social Assistance 'Benefit Dependent'?: Concepts, Measurement and Results for Selected Countries," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 162, OECD Publishing.
    14. Manudeep Bhuller & Christian N. Brinch & Sebastian Königs, 2017. "Time Aggregation and State Dependence in Welfare Receipt," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(604), pages 1833-1873, September.
    15. Lixin Cai, 2015. "The dynamics of low pay employment in Australia," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(7), pages 1095-1123, October.
    16. Pacheco, Gail & Plum, Alexander T. & Sloane, Peter J., 2020. "Not Much Bounce in the Springboard: On the Mobility of Low Pay Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 12896, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Cai, Lixin & Mavromaras, Kostas & Sloane, Peter J., 2016. "Low Paid Employment in Britain: Estimating State-Dependence and Stepping Stone Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 9633, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Joaquín Prieto, 2021. "Poverty traps and affluence shields: Modelling the persistence of income position in Chile," Working Papers 576, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    19. Kabir Dasgupta & Alexander Plum, 2023. "Human capital formation and changes in low pay persistence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(56), pages 6583-6604, December.
    20. Bataineh, Hana & Devlin, Rose Anne & Barham, Vicky, 2019. "Social capital and having a regular family doctor: Evidence from longitudinal data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 421-429.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    low pay dynamics; random effects probit model; state dependence; unobserved heterogeneity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00618. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.