IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v8y1994i3p357-385.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Class Segmentation in the Labour Market: An Empirical Study of Earnings Determination in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Bill Martin

    (Flinders University of South Australia)

Abstract

This paper suggests that, at least amongst employees, social classes may be thought of as having effects on labour market outcomes because they create segmented labour markets. Thus each social class of employees defines the boundaries of a labour market which is at least partially separated from those defined by other employee social classes. This implies that standard labour market variables such as education and labour market experience may have impacts on earnings which vary across class-defined labour markets. Based on a three class picture of the employee class structure (experts, managers/bureaucrats, workers), predictions about the relative impact of education, labour market experience, gender, sector of employment and unionisation on earnings in each class are outlined. These are then tested on data from two Australian national representative samples. Results show that, as predicted, the impact of important variables (notably education and labour market experience) on earnings appear to be quite different for workers than for experts or managers. This supports the view that the labour market is segmented between workers and the middle class. There are other interesting variations in the impact of variables across class-defined labour markets, variation in gender effects being notable. However, evidence for a sharp differentiation of expert and managerial labour markets is more limited than predicted. Overall, the equations used explain far less of the variance in working-class earnings than of expert and managerial earnings, primarily because education and labour market experience appear to be less closely tied to earnings for workers than for experts and managers. Implications of these results for class theory and human capital theory are outlined.

Suggested Citation

  • Bill Martin, 1994. "Understanding Class Segmentation in the Labour Market: An Empirical Study of Earnings Determination in Australia," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 8(3), pages 357-385, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:8:y:1994:i:3:p:357-385
    DOI: 10.1177/095001709483003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/095001709483003
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/095001709483003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hodson, Randy, 1983. "Workers' Earnings and Corporate Economic Structure," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780123517807.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:525-602 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1, May.
    5. Erik Olin Wright & Donmoon Cho, 1992. "State Employment, Class Location, and Ideological Orientation: A Comparative Analysis of the United States and Sweden," Politics & Society, , vol. 20(2), pages 167-196, June.
    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. Paul W. Miller & Barry R. Chiswick, 2002. "Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 31-57.
    2. Katarzyna Growiec & Jakub Growiec, 2016. "Bridging Social Capital and Individual Earnings: Evidence for an Inverted U," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 601-631, June.
    3. Shweta Bahl & Ajay Sharma, 2021. "Education–Occupation Mismatch and Dispersion in Returns to Education: Evidence from India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 251-298, January.
    4. Kaspar W thrich, 2013. "Set Identification of Generalized Linear Predictors in the Presence of Non-Classical Measurement Errors," Diskussionsschriften dp1304, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    5. Sebastian Stolorz, 2005. "A Test of the Signalling Hypothesis - Evidence from Natural Experiment," Labor and Demography 0512008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Schultz, T. Paul, 2009. "The Gender and Generational Consequences of the Demographic Transition and Population Policy: An Assessment of the Micro and Macro Linkages," Working Papers 71, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    7. Emanuela di Gropello, 2006. "Meeting the Challenges of Secondary Education in Latin America and East Asia : Improving Efficiency and Resource Mobilization," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7173, December.
    8. Aidis, Ruta & van Praag, Mirjam, 2007. "Illegal entrepreneurship experience: Does it make a difference for business performance and motivation?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 283-310, March.
    9. Benoit Dostie & Pierre Thomas Léger, 2014. "Firm-Sponsored Classroom Training: Is It Worth It for Older Workers?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 40(4), pages 377-390, December.
    10. Christian Grund & Dirk Sliwka, 2007. "Reference-Dependent Preferences and the Impact of Wage Increases on Job Satisfaction: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(2), pages 313-335, June.
    11. Zeng, Jinli & Zhang, Jie, 2022. "Education policies and development with threshold human capital externalities," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    12. Yi Fan, 2017. "Does Adversity Affect Long-Term Consumption and Financial Behaviour? Evidence from China's Rustication Programme," ERES eres2017_148, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    13. Heckman, James J. & Urzúa, Sergio, 2010. "Comparing IV with structural models: What simple IV can and cannot identify," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 156(1), pages 27-37, May.
    14. Sandra Nieto & Raúl Ramos, 2013. "Non-Formal Education, Overeducation And Wages," Revista de Economia Aplicada, Universidad de Zaragoza, Departamento de Estructura Economica y Economia Publica, vol. 21(1), pages 5-28, Spring.
    15. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4924 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Jarle Moen, 2005. "Is Mobility of Technical Personnel a Source of R&D Spillovers?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(1), pages 81-114, January.
    17. Galama, Titus & Kapteyn, Arie, 2011. "Grossman’s missing health threshold," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1044-1056.
    18. Todd Pugatch, 2014. "Safety valve or sinkhole? Vocational schooling in South Africa," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-31, December.
    19. Cawley, John & Morrisey, Michael A., 2007. "The earnings of U.S. health economists," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 358-372, March.
    20. Ward-Warmedinger, Melanie E., 1999. "Salary and the Gender Salary Gap in the Academic Profession," IZA Discussion Papers 64, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Steffen Hillmert, 2002. "Labour Market Integration and Institutions: An Anglo-german Comparison," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 16(4), pages 675-701, December.

    More about this item

    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:sae:woemps:v:8:y:1994:i:3:p:357-385. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.