{"title":"Do wages underestimate the inequality in workers' rewards? The joint distribution of job quality and wages across occupations","authors":"Andrew E. Clark, Maria Cotofan, Richard Layard","doi":"10.1111/ecca.12516","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Information on both wages and job quality is needed in order to understand the occupational dispersion of wellbeing. We analyse subjective wellbeing in a large UK sample to construct a measure of ‘overall reward’, the sum of wages and the value of job quality, in 90 different occupations. If only wages are included, then labour market inequality is underestimated: the dispersion of overall rewards is one-third larger than the dispersion of wages. Our findings are similar, and stronger, in data on US workers. We find a positive correlation between job quality and wages in all specifications, both between individuals in the cross-section and within individuals in panel data. The gender and ethnic gaps in the labour market are larger than those in wages alone, and the overall rewards to education on the labour market are underestimated by earnings differentials alone.</p>","PeriodicalId":48040,"journal":{"name":"Economica","volume":"91 362","pages":"497-546"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ecca.12516","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economica","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecca.12516","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Information on both wages and job quality is needed in order to understand the occupational dispersion of wellbeing. We analyse subjective wellbeing in a large UK sample to construct a measure of ‘overall reward’, the sum of wages and the value of job quality, in 90 different occupations. If only wages are included, then labour market inequality is underestimated: the dispersion of overall rewards is one-third larger than the dispersion of wages. Our findings are similar, and stronger, in data on US workers. We find a positive correlation between job quality and wages in all specifications, both between individuals in the cross-section and within individuals in panel data. The gender and ethnic gaps in the labour market are larger than those in wages alone, and the overall rewards to education on the labour market are underestimated by earnings differentials alone.
期刊介绍:
Economica is an international journal devoted to research in all branches of economics. Theoretical and empirical articles are welcome from all parts of the international research community. Economica is a leading economics journal, appearing high in the published citation rankings. In addition to the main papers which make up each issue, there is an extensive review section, covering a wide range of recently published titles at all levels.