The authors use 1993-94 and 1999-2000 India Employment and Unemployment surveys to investigate wage differentials between the public and private sectors as well as workers' decisions to join a particular sector. To obtain robust estimates of the wage differential, they apply three econometric techniques each relying on a different set of assumptions about the process of job selection. All three methods show that differences in wages between public sector workers and workers in the formal-private and informal-casual sectors are positive and high. Estimates show that, on average, the public sector premium ranges between 62 percent and 102 percent over the private-formal sector, and between 164 percent and 259 percent over the informal-casual sector, depending on the choice of methodology.

An estimated one out of five employees in this country works for some branch of government. Because policies concerning the compensation of these employees rest on assumptions about the economic dynamics of the public sector, the issue of public sector employment is of vital importance in the analysis of the national economy. In Public Sector Payrolls, leading economists explore the independent and interdependent functioning of the public and private sectors and their effect on the economy as a whole. The volume, developed from a 1984 National Bureau of Economic Research conference, focuses on various labor issues in military and other governmental employment. Several contributors discuss compensation in the armed forces and its relationship to that in the private sector, as well as the interaction between the military and the private sector in the employment of youth. This latter is of particular interest because studies of youth employment have generally ignored the important influence of military hiring practices on labor market conditions. In other contributions, the response of wages and employment in the public sector to economic conditions is analyzed, and a detailed study of government pension plans is presented. Also included is a theoretical and empirical analysis of comparable worth in the public sector from the viewpoint of analytical labor economics. The volume concludes with a look at public school teachers' salaries in the context of current debates over improving the quality of American education. A valuable resource to policymakers, Public Sector Payrolls will be an important addition to research in the field of labor economics.

The distribution of income, the rate of pay raises, and the mobility of employees is crucial to understanding labor economics. Although research abounds on the distribution of wages across individuals in the economy, wage differentials within firms remain a mystery to economists. The first effort to examine linked employer-employee data across countries, The Structure of Wages:An International Comparison analyzes labor trends and their institutional background in the United States and eight European countries. A distinguished team of contributors reveal how a rising wage variance rewards star employees at a higher rate than ever before, how talent becomes concentrated in a few firms over time, and how outside market conditions affect wages in the twenty-first century. From a comparative perspective that examines wage and income differences within and between countries such as Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands, this volume will be required reading for economists and those working in industrial organization.

Organizations are the dominant social invention for generating resources and distributing them. Relational Inequalities develops a general sociological and organizational analysis of inequality, exploring the processes that generate inequalities in access to respect, resources, and rewards. Framing their analysis through a relational account of social and economic life, Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Dustin Avent-Holt explain how resources are generated and distributed both within and between organizations. They show that inequalities are produced through generic processes that occur in all social relationships: categorization and their resulting status hierarchies, organizational resource pooling, exploitation, social closure, and claims-making. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, Tomaskovic-Devey and Avent-Holt focus on the workplace as the primary organization for generating inequality and provide a series of global goals to advance both a comparative organizational research model and to challenge troubling inequalities.

This open access book investigates female employment and the gender gap in the labor market and households during China’s economic transition period. It provides the reader with academic evidence for understanding the mechanism of female labor force participation, the determinants of the gender gap in the labor market, and the impact of policy transformation on women’s wages and employment in China from an economics perspective. The main content of this book includes three parts―women’s family responsibilities and women’s labor supply (child care, parent care, and women’s employment), the gender gap in the labor market and society (gender gaps in wages, Communist Party membership, and participation in social activity), and the impacts of policy transformation on women’s wages and employment (the social security system and the educational expansion policy on women’s wages and employment) in China. This book provides academic evidence about these issues based on economics theories and econometric analysis methods using many kinds of long-term Chinese national survey data. This book is highly recommended to readers who are interested in up-to-date and in-depth empirical studies of the gender gap and women’s employment in China during the economic transition period. This book is of interest to various groups such as readers who are interested in the Chinese economy, policymakers, and scholars with econometric analysis backgrounds.

There is little doubt that significant income inequality persists across as well as within countries, and that wage differential exists between male and female workers across the industries and within establishments. The differences in earnings not only affect the well-being of the current generation but also have major long-term impacts on health, education and skill formation of future generations. Although an important goal of a country is to improve the well-being of their workers, the ways to achieve this goal may differ. This book presents recent research on labour economics, addressing issues such as gender wage gap, regional wage disparity, inter-and intra-industry wage inequality, the wage effects of immigration and the effects of wage negotiations in organisations. There are three parts in this book. Part A contains five chapters addressing the issue of gender wage gap. Part B also contains five chapters on regional studies to show the effects on wage, skill formation and the correlation between public and private sector employment. Part C focuses on wage negotiations in organisations. The book provides several important insights into many contemporary labour market issues.

Government compensation and employment policies are important for the efficient delivery of public services which are crucial for the functioning of economies and the general prosperity of societies. On average, spending on the wage bill absorbs around one-fifth of total spending. Cross-country variation in wage spending reflects, in part, national choices about the government’s role in priority sectors, as well as variations in the level of economic development and resource constraints.