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What Happened to Wage and Non-Employment Structures During the ‘Dutch Employment Miracle’?

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  • Patrick A. Puhani

Abstract

The Netherlands have experienced an employment miracle since the 1980s. This note investigates what happened to the wage, unemployment, and non-employment structures between 1988 and 1998, when both unemployment and non-employment rates decreased markedly. Surprisingly, I find no significant changes in the wage structures, although there clearly was wage moderation on average. Although there have also been virtually no changes in the unemployment structure, the relative non-employment of older workers (due to incentives to retire) and men increased. Whereas supply effects and early retirement schemes can explain the constancy of the returns to age, the lack of an increase in the returns to education remains a puzzle in the face of well-documented skill-biased technological change in other major industrialised countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick A. Puhani, 2004. "What Happened to Wage and Non-Employment Structures During the ‘Dutch Employment Miracle’?," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2004 2004-04, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:dp2004:2004-04
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    earnings; flexibility; labour;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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