A new GLO Discussion Paper studies U.S. patenting activity to provide evidence on the history of labour-saving innovations back to the early 19th century.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper, relying on a still relatively unexplored long-term dataset on U.S. patenting activity, provides empirical evidence on the history of labour-saving innovations back to early 19th century. The identification of mechanisation/automation heuristics, retrieved via textual content analysis on current robotic technologies by Montobbio et al. (2020), allows to focus on a limited set of CPC codes where mechanisation and automation technologies are more prevalent. We track their time evolution, clustering, eventual emergence of wavy behaviour, and their co-movements with long-term GDP growth. Our results challenge both the general-purpose technology approach and the strict 50-year Kondratiev cycle, while provide evidence of the emergence of erratic constellations of heterogeneous technological artefacts, in line with the development block approach enabled by autocatalytic systems.
A new GLO Discussion Paper confirms that personality traits play a role for sexual feelings and behavior.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Sexual well-being plays an important role in the quality of life. Against this background, we provide an economics-based approach to the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and various dimensions of sexuality. From a theoretical viewpoint, personality influences sexual well-being not only by how a person feels about sex, but also by how the person behaves in a sexual relationship. Personality shapes information sharing about sexual preferences, the way dissonant sexual preferences of the partners are handled, and the extent to which the person is committed to promises made to the partner. Using a large representative dataset from Germany, we find that personality traits play a role in a person’s own sexual satisfaction, in (the self-assessment of) fulfilling the partner’s sexual needs and desires, in sexual communication, in actual and desired frequency of sex, and in extradyadic affairs.
A new GLO Discussion Paper argues that, when examining social partners’ representativeness, it is important to consider both affiliation and dissimilarity measures.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Social partners (trade unions and employers’ associations) shape labour institutions and economic and social outcomes in many countries. In this paper, we argue that, when examining social partners’ representativeness, it is important to consider both affiliation and dissimilarity measures. The latter concerns the extent to which affiliated and non- affiliated firms or workers are distributed similarly across relevant dimensions, including firm size. In our analysis of European Company Survey data, we find that affiliation and dissimilarity measures correlate positively across countries, particularly in the case of employers’ associations. This result also holds across employers’ associations when we use firm population data for Portugal. Overall, we conclude that higher affiliation rates do not necessarily equate to more representative social partners as they can involve greater dissimilarity between affiliated and non-affiliated firms.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that the fall in prices of information and communication technologies is associated with a significant increase in the share of employees who work from home.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Featured image: Photo-by-Charles-Deluvio-on-Unsplash
Author Abstract: We use data from 14 European countries and provide evidence that the fall in prices of information and communication technologies (ICT) is associated with a significant increase in the share of employees who work from home. Similar results hold within age, gender, and occupation groups. There are notable differences across age groups, however. The effect of the fall in ICT prices on working from home increases with age. A rationale for such a result is that the preference for working from home increases with age.
Ilhom Abdulloev, Executive Director Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation – Tajikistan, GLO Fellow and GLO Country Lead for Tajikistan, reflects in an interview the challenging situation in the economy and on the labor market. He touches long-run trends, deals with the implications of the coronavirus pandemic and the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative”, and reveals his mission and vision as researcher.
Some core messages of the interview:
The coronavirus pandemic has decreased families’ wellbeing substantially also in .
The size of remittances has reached 28% of GDP in 2019.
Despite its positive contribution to economic activities, China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” impact on external debt is raising alarms.
The mission of the Open Society Foundation in Tajikistan is the promotion, popularization, and protection of the principles of the foundation in the Republic of Tajikistan through humanitarian assistance and charity.
In his research, he is currently studying the effect of migration on labor supply and job satisfaction of members of migrants’ families,
Ilhom Abdulloev
GLO Fellow Ilhom Abdulloev is Executive Director Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation – Tajikistan and GLO Country Lead for Tajikistan.
GLO: How is the Tajik labor market doing in the Covid-19 crisis?
Ilhom Abdulloev: Even before the pandemic, the economy of the Republic of Tajikistan could not create enough jobs for the growing working-age population. About half of the working-age population in Tajikistan is not economically active. Women’s participation in the labor force is very low, and many young people (15%) have become discouraged and have given up searching for domestic employment. Informal employment is also high (55%) and mainly concentrated in agriculture and rural areas, where most of the population lives. Under such conditions, emigration becomes a primary employment option for many young people in Tajikistan.
During the coronavirus outbreak, although Tajikistan did not declare a lockdown, it closed country’s borders and education facilities sending pupils and students to early vacation. Seventy four percent of families had to take care of children more than usual during the pandemic and that translates to an additional investment of time, money and resources towards caregiving. As a result, many unemployed people did not look for jobs as they were more engaged in housework and schooling activities. Many families (64%) spent their savings to stock up on food and other necessities during the pandemic, and many others experienced lower earnings because of reduced business revenue, temporary furloughs and layoffs due to the pandemic.
Additionally, some people have looked for paid work during the pandemic, which implies that families’ experienced budget constraints (due to increased prices) and job losses. This also indicates that the pandemic has contributed to increased unemployment. Compared to urban areas, families in rural areas are engaged in farming on their own land or animal husbandry, which reduces the negative impact of employment and creates alternative sources of livelihood. Overall, the pandemic has decreased families’ wellbeing.
With reduced business revenues because of the pandemic, many employers decided to keep businesses open and running as long as possible which necessitated the implementation of safety measures including protective equipment for staff, all of which increases operational costs. This resulted in employers cutting operational costs by any means available including the dismissal of workers without fair compensation, or offering lower paid informal jobs. Such workers require legal support and the government’s attention.
GLO: Tajikistan has been one of the world’s most remittance-dependent countries of the world, largely affiliated with Russia. What were the implications and how will this change in the pandemic?
Ilhom Abdulloev: Migration was playing an augmenting role for Tajikistan’s economy before the pandemic. It helped lift the budget constraint and supported families’ food consumption. Almost every other household in Tajikistan has had a family member migrate. The majority of migrants work in low-skill occupations in construction, retail trade and care services in the Russian Federation. The size of remittances reached 28% of GDP in 2019.
All labor migrants have been affected by travel restrictions that were imposed because of the pandemic. Since the migration from Tajikistan is seasonal, many migrants who were at home during the winter were expecting to migrate during the spring. They were not able to migrate because of the border closures. Some of these returned migrants were able to find some form of paid work in Tajikistan, but their current earnings do not compensate for the income they would have earned abroad. Most returnees are waiting for travel restrictions to be lifted so they can emigrate to Russia.
At the same time, the current migrants in destination countries were not able to return home to Tajikistan. They face financial difficulties due to loss of jobs and the inability to pay for their lodging and meals in their destination country or for charter fights tickets to return to Tajikistan. The decline in economic activities in Russia and the reduced demand for migrant labor may lead to an increase in unemployment among international migrants, forcing them to return to their home countries.
Remittance income fell dramatically from April-August pushing the poverty rate higher. The unknown period of borders closure and the lack of employment opportunities in both Russia and Tajikistan would further decrease incomes and consumption of migrants’ families in Tajikistan.
GLO: How is the country involved in the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative”?
Ilhom Abdulloev: Chinese financing plays an important role in Tajikistan, making a significant contribution to improving the economic infrastructure and the influx of new technologies. Chinese investment has increased significantly over the past decade reaching the total of 2.6 billion US$ in 2019, but at the cost of slowing down some other reforms. China’s Belt and Road initiative aims to strengthen ties with Central Asian countries through investment in economic infrastructure, technical assistance, and trade expansion. It became attractive for Central Asian governments because it does not impose any conditionality on human rights and good governance as does aid coming from other international financial institutions.
Despite its positive contribution to economic activities, China’s impact on external debt is raising alarms. Tajikistan has the largest debt to the China Eximbank which was over 1.1 billion US$ in 2020. A further increase in the debt to GDP ratio could make servicing the external debt unsustainable. The large debt repayments may reduce the amount available for investment in public services in the future. After starting to repay the Chinese debt, the country may attempt to borrow from other international financial institutions, causing the problem to spiral and amplify. With any inability of foreign debt repayment, China may request debt-for-assets or debt-for-nature swaps.
Tajikistan should consider positive reforms aiming at the business investment to other foreign investors and good governance, fighting against corruption and building the skilled labor force. The government can work closely with civil society organizations in promoting the transparency and accountability of state institutions and businesses.
GLO: What role has the Open Society in Tajikistan?
Ilhom Abdulloev: The Foundation in Tajikistan is a part of an international network of the Open Society Foundations, which work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve this mission, the Open Society Foundations seek to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, the Open Society Foundations seek to implement a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. The Foundations places a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities.
The mission of the Foundation in Tajikistan is the promotion, popularization, and protection of the principles of open and civil society in the Republic of Tajikistan through humanitarian assistance and charity. The Foundation prioritizes the following open society and civil society principles in its activities:
– Promotion and protection of rights and freedom, including freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and belief, protection of rights to freedom of opinion and expression. – Protection of equality, including protection from all forms of discrimination as well as ensuring gender equity. – Building solidarity, including access to social welfare, ensuring dignified standard of living, health, and affordable education.
The Foundation’s current strategy is based on the following four priorities:
1. Focusing economic advancement on those most in need. 2. Strengthening social resilience in critical dimensions of education and public health. 3. Defending fundamental rights and the civic space in which they are expressed. 4. Enhancing independent oversight over public and private sectors.
GLO: What are your recent research interests?
Ilhom Abdulloev: My main research area is the impact of labor migration on the migrants’ families and their members who remained in the home country. I am currently studying the effect of migration on labor supply and job satisfaction of members of migrants’ families, as well as their decisions on schooling, particularly on forsaken professional schooling. I also study the labor market tendencies in transitional economies, informal employment, and female and youth participation in the labor force.
************* With Ilhom Abdulloev spoke Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO President.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that parental gender stereotypes strongly decrease student wellbeing in China.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
GLO Fellow Xiangquan Zeng, GLO Affiliate Shuai Chu& GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann
Author Abstract: Non-cognitive abilities are supposed to affect student’s educational performance, who are challenged by parental expectations and norms. Parental gender stereotypes are shown to strongly decrease student wellbeing in China. Students are strongly more depressed, feeling blue, unhappy, not enjoying life and sad with no male-female differences while parental education does not matter.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that identifying as local residents significantly increase migrants’ hourly wages and reduce hours worked, although their monthly earnings remained barely changed. Further findings suggest that migrants with strong local identity are more likely to use local networks in job search, and to obtain jobs with higher average wages and lower average hours worked per day.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
GLO Fellow Shu Cai & GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann
Author Abstract: Previous research has found identity to be relevant for international migration, but has neglected internal mobility as in the case of the Great Chinese Migration. However, the context of the identities of migrants and their adaption in the migration process is likely to be quite different. The gap is closed by examining social assimilation and the effect on the labor market outcomes of migrants in China, the country with the largest record of internal mobility. Using instrumental variable estimation, the study finds that identifying as local residents significantly increase migrants’ hourly wages and reduce hours worked, although their monthly earnings remained barely changed. Further findings suggest that migrants with strong local identity are more likely to use local networks in job search, and to obtain jobs with higher average wages and lower average hours worked per day.
A new GLO Discussion Paper evaluates the effects of pensions on older adults’ health service utilization, and estimates the size of pension required to influence such utilization.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: The proportion of people aged 60 years or over is growing faster than other age groups. The well-being older adults depend heavily on their state of health. This study evaluates the effects of pensions on older adults’ health service utilization, and estimates the size of pension required to influence such utilization. Using a nationally representative survey, the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we adopted a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and undertook segmented regression analysis. Pension demonstrated heterogeneous effects on health service utilization by income. We show that pension encouraged low-income individuals to use both outpatient (OR = 1.219, 95% 1.018-1.460) and inpatient services (OR = 1.269, 95% 1.020-1.579). In the meantime, it promoted self-treatment, specifically over-the-counter (OR = 1.208, 95% 1.037-1.407; OR = 1.206, 95% 1.024-1.419; respectively) and traditional Chinese medicines (OR = 1.452, 95% 1.094-1.932; OR = 1.456, 95% 1.079-1.955; respectively) among all income groups. However, receiving a pension had no effect on the frequency of outpatient or inpatient service use. Breakpoints for pension to promote health service utilization were mainly located in the range 55-95 CNY (7.1-12.3 EUR or 8.0-13.8 USD). Our study enriches the literature on pension and healthcare-seeking behaviour, and can be helpful in policy design and model formulation.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that import competition affects fertility through reduced earnings, though differently for male and female workers.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper studies the effects of import competition from China and Eastern Europe (EE) on the fertility decisions of individuals in German manufacturing. Through the lens of gender, the paper uniquely contributes to the literature by linking import competition to longitudinal individual data to examine individual fertility. Two separate measures of import exposure are computed for competition from China and EE (amassing five countries), whose trade volumes with Germany have increased remarkably during the panel years. Fixed-effects instrumental variable (FEIV) estimation results show that individual fertility decreases by 1.6 p.p. and by 2.0 p.p. with rising competition from China and EE, respectively. The effects are robust and consistent across different subgroups of individuals. Effects of import competition are then inspected by gender, alongside potential mechanisms underlying fertility decisions. Both male and female workers’ fertility is affected via reduced earnings, though differently. The effect on male fertility is negative, with shortened employment duration. Conversely, the effect on female workers’ fertility is positive, with worsened working conditions. Furthermore, in line with family economics theory, these results suggest that there is a substitution effect in the labour supply of women, here prevalently concentrated in low-technology sectors: as female earnings fall and their opportunity cost of work is lower, the prospect of having children possibly becomes a more rewarding alternative.
Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO President, UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University, has been appointed 2019 Honorary Professor of the Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance. As part of this relationship, he provides on November 26, 2020 a lecture in the Distinguished Speaker Series on “The Role of Identity in Economic Life”. Zimmermann was visiting Lixin last time in October 2019 for talks and collaborations. Report 1 and report 2 from 2019.
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