You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2007.
Interesting for all governments: this Finnish study shows the real effect of an increase of unemployment benefits, and even more…
“The effect of unemployment benefits on re-employment rates: Evidence from the Finnish UI-benefit reform”, a working paper from Roope Uusitalo (Helsinki School of Economics and Labour Institute for Economic Research) and Jouko Verho (Department of Economics, University of Helsinki), February 2007
Abstract
In January 2003, the unemployment benefits increased in Finland for workers with long employment histories. The average benefit increase was 15% for the first 150 days of unemployment spell. In this paper we evaluate the effect of benefit increase on the duration of unemployment by comparing the changes in the re-employment hazard profiles between the unemployed who became eligible to the increased benefits to a control group whose benefit structure remained unchanged. We find that benefit increase reduced re-employment hazards in the beginning of the unemployment spell but that the effect disappears after the period with increased benefits expires
Conclusion
Concerns on the effect of job destruction on the most vulnerable groups increase the demand for social insurance provided by the unemployment benefits. While better benefits may cushion the effect of job loss in groups that have hardest to find new employment, such benefit increases also have a side effect of decreasing the incentives to search for new jobs. In this paper we have evaluated the effects of improving unemployment benefits for a group of older workers.
This article is a really interesting one, as it proves that an education reform can have a real impact on the inequalities generated by the parent´s positions in society.
Education policy and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from the Finnish comprehensive school reform, Tuomas Pekkarinen, Roope Uusitalo, Sari Pekkala, Working Paper, Labour Institute for Economic Research, Discussion Papers, Helsinki 2006
Abstract
This paper estimates the effect of a major education reform on the intergenerational income mobility in Finland. The Finnish comprehensive school reform of 1972-1977 replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and significantly reduced the degree of heterogeneity in the Finnish primary and secondary education. We estimate the effect of this reform on the intergenerational income elasticity using a representative sample of males born during 1960-1966. The identification strategy relies on a difference-in-differences approach and exploits the fact that the reform was implemented gradually across country during a six-year period. The results indicate that the reform reduced the intergenerational income elasticity by about seven percentage points.
This article, which is in a quite provocative way published under the title “Are Women Asking for Low Wages? Gender Differences in Wage Bargaining Strategies and Ensuing Bargaining Success” has been revised in May 2007. It has been written by Jenny Säve-Söderbergh and shows that women are clearly less competitive when bargaining on their salaries and positions, which is one explanation of the gender gap….
Report published by the Swedish institute for Social Research, Universitetsvägen 10 E, Stockholm University, Sweden
After some hard science, we have here some practical realities, with this remarkable tool, the Ladder, that can be used by a lot of organization in order to promote equality in a simple way. This tool is a report realized by Gender Mainstreaming Support (JämStöd), a Swedish committee of inquiry that has worked for two years under a government mandate to provide information about gender mainstreaming and to develop practical methods and models for mainstreaming gender into central government activities.
A further task of the committee has been to train central government administrators in the practical implementation of the process. They have collaborated with a number of government agencies that have led the way in seeking to ensure that the services they provide to the general public benefit women and men equally.
Gender Mainstreaming Manual, A book of practical methods from the Swedish Gender Mainstreaming Support Committee, Stockholm 2007, (Ann Boman, Committee Chair /Ulrika Eklund, Carina Löfgren)
The foreword
This book contains our most tried and tested methods. We hope that it will inspire both those of you who want to start the ball rolling and those who wish to take JämStöd’s methods and models for gender mainstreaming a step further
An interesting paper from Anders Björklund who has been digging in the last years the gold mine represented by the Swedish population register, which includes a lot of interesting information for the researchers.
Working paper “Family Background and Outcomes Later in Life: A (Partial and Personal) Survey of Recent Research Using Swedish Register Data”, Anders Björklund, Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University
National Occupational Safety and Health Profile of Finland. Helsinki 2006. 79 pp. (Publications of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, ISSN 1236-2050, 2006:8) ISBN 952-00-2010-1 (print), ISBN 952-00-2011-X (PDF)
The National Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Profile of Finland has been prepared at the request of the International Labour Office (ILO). The Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health requested the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health to prepare this document.
The national profile aims to provide information about the occupational safety and health legislation, policy review mechanisms, infrastructures, collaborative structures, activities of various partners in occupational safety and health, human resources, actors, statistics and indicators of OSH, general demographic problems and challenges, as well as the needs for future development in the specific country. This information also serves as a basis or the updating and further development of the national policy and programme on occupational afety and health of the country.
This interesting report from Paul Ryan (Arbetsrapport/Institutet för Framtidsstudier; 2007:5, ISSN: 165-120X, ISBN: 978-91-85619-04-7) puts some light on the controversial question of the way young people manage on the labour market in different countries, including the Nordic countries. It is a working paper of the swedish institute for Future Studies in Stockholm
