Pop Stars Actually Do Die Too Young – The Atlantic
30 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, health and safety, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: compensating differentials, labour economics, music
Why the Gender Pay Gap is a Myth
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, health and safety, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: employment discrimination, gender wage gap, labour economics, sex discrimination
Men are far more likely to choose careers that are more dangerous, so they naturally pay more under the principle of compensating differences. Top 10 most dangerous jobs: Fishers, loggers, aircraft pilots, farmers and ranchers, roofers, iron and steel workers, refuse and recyclable material collectors, industrial machinery installation and repair, truck drivers, construction labourers. They are male-dominated jobs.
Men are far more likely to enter higher-paying fields and occupations (by choice). Men are far more likely to take work in uncomfortable, isolated, and undesirable locations that pay more. Men work longer hours than women do. The average fulltime working man works 6 hours per week or 15 percent longer than the average fulltime working woman.
Women tend to work in fields dominated by women because these fields best satisfy women’s’ dual careers as workers and household managers. This can include less stressful work environments (noise, strenuous activity, etc.), more flexible policies regarding time off, and a number of other factors.
Men work longer hours than women do. The average fulltime working man works 6 hours per week or 15 percent longer than the average fulltime working woman. Even within the same career category, men are more likely to pursue high-stress and higher-paid areas of specialisation.
Despite all of the above, unmarried women who’ve never had a child actually earn more than unmarried men. In 2008, single, childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most U.S. cities, with incomes that were 8% greater on average.
Women business owners make less than half of what male business owners make, which, since they have no boss, means it’s independent of discrimination. The reason for the disparity is money is the primary motivator for 76% of men versus only 29% of women. Women place a higher premium on shorter work weeks, proximity to home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety.
Women lean toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Many women are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.
Men often take on jobs that involve physical labour, outdoor work, overnight shifts and dangerous conditions (which is why men suffer the overwhelming majority of injuries and deaths at the workplace). They choose to put up with unpleasant factors because they can earn more.
An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women for the U.S. Department of Labor in 2009 concluded that:
This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action.
Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.
Pop stars should get hazard pay
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in health and safety, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: compensating differentials, hazard pay
The 27 club is a myth, but rock stars do die younger on.wsj.com/1teyte8 http://t.co/XvoLy56KNr—
Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 28, 2014
Safety warning gone mad
10 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in health and safety Tags: nanny state
HT: Tortylicious via Cato Institute
Atomic Tests Were a Tourist Draw in 1950s Las Vegas – entrepreneurial alterness alert
10 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, environmentalism, health and safety, market efficiency, survivor principle Tags: entreprunerial alterness, times have changed
Over 1000 tests from 1951 onwards.
P.J. O’Rourke on the new-found obsession of the 60s generation with safety
01 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
Healthier, living longer but many more workers on disability benefits
07 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in health and safety, health economics, labour economics, labour supply, welfare reform Tags: disability benefits, moral hazard
In the past three decades, the number of people who are on disability benefit has skyrocketed.
There is no compelling evidence that the incidence of disabling health conditions among the working age population is rising. Autor (2006) found that disability rolls in the USA expanded because:
- congressional reforms to disability screening in 1984 that enabled workers with low mortality disorders such as back pain, arthritis and mental illness to more readily qualify for benefits;
- a rise in the after-tax income replacement rate, which strengthened the incentives for lower-skilled workers to seek benefits; (3) and
- a rapid increase in female labour force participation that expanded the pool of insured workers.
Autor found that the aging of the baby boom generation has contributed little to the growth of disability benefit numbers to date.
David Autor and Mark Duggan (2003) found that low-skills and a poor education is predictor of disability: in the USA in 2004, nearly one in five male high school dropouts between ages 55 and 64 were in the disability program; that was more than double that of high school graduates of the same age and more than five times higher than the 3.7 % of college graduates of that age who collect disability. Unemployment is another driver of disability.
The proportion of working-age people receiving a Sickness Benefit, an Invalid’s Benefit or Accident Compensation weekly compensation in New Zealand rose from around 1% in the 1970s to 5% in June 2002.
Figure 1 The Number of People Receiving Benefit as a Primary Recipient, All Age Groups, 1975–2005
Source: DSW Annual Reports or Statistical Information Reports and MSD SWIFFT data from Dwyer and McLeod (2006).
Most other OECD countries also experienced a rise in the proportion of the working-age population claiming incapacity benefits over this period. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was common for around 4–6.5% of the working-age population to receive such benefits. Some European countries have up to 10% of their working age population on disability or sickness benefit!
When the UK undertook reassessments of those on its disability and sickness benefit, fewer than one in 10 people assessed for the new sickness benefit has been deemed too ill to carry out any work.
More than a third of the 1.3million people who applied for Employment and Support Allowance were found to be fully capable of working; a similar proportion abandoned their claims while they were still being processed. Moral hazard seems to be the main explanation of the rise in disability roles.
Before 15 July 1980, a victim of a workplace accident in the state of Kentucky received a payment proportional to his or her wage with an upper limit of $131 per week. On 15 July 1980, the limit was raised to $217 per week. This increase made a considerable difference to the best-paid workers: their periods of convalescence grew 20% longer (Cahuc and Zylberberg 2006).
Adam Smith as a pioneering labour economist
21 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in Adam Smith, health and safety, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, compensating differences, george stigler, human capital, The wealth of nations, wage determination
Adam Smith anticipated much of labour economics by basing it on his principle that individuals invest resources to earn the highest possible return. All uses of a resource must yield an equal rate of return adjusted for relative riskiness for otherwise reallocation would result.
The whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock must, in the same neighbourhood, be either perfectly equal or continually tending to equality.
If in the same neighbourhood, there was any employment evidently either more or less advantageous than the rest, so many people would crowd into it in the one case, and so many would desert it in the other, that its advantages would soon return to the level of other employments.
Smith used this insight on be equality of returns to explain why wage rates differed. Workers care about the whole aspects of the job, not only the cash wage payment: it is the “whole advantages and disadvantages” of the job that is equated across jobs in a competitive market, not wage alone. Smith set out criteria that determined how wages compensated or were discounted for the different characteristics of specific jobs:
- the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves: better for more enjoyable working conditions will lead an individual to accept lower wages for their labour. Likewise, unpleasant work will have a higher wage. Wages vary with the ease or hardship, the cleanliness or dirtiness, the honourableness or dishonourableness of a job.
- The easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them: jobs that are difficult or time-intensive to learn will pay more. Those who invest the time are being compensated for their additional effort with higher wages. The opportunity cost of forgoing the time-spent in training will be compensated for through higher wages. The difference between the wages of skilled labour and common labour is founded upon this principle.
- The constancy or inconstancy of employment: workers who face only partial or inconsistent employment throughout the course of the year, such as seasonal workers of agriculture, must be paid more for their labour. Their wages carry them not only during times of employment, but also during times of unemployment.
- The small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them: individuals who have high levels of responsibility in their jobs will be compensated with higher wages.
- The probability or improbability of success: this is an entrepreneurial element in wages. Employment where the chance of success is high will be paid lower than those who take more risks. If individuals were not compensated for risk, there would lack an incentive to seek employment that may not be successful.
The supply and demand for labour in different industries determines relative wages and the relative numbers of employees in different occupations. Individuals are willing to make a trade-off between less desirable occupations and increased income. Smith spoke of how these five circumstances listed above lead to considerable inequalities in the wages and profits.
George Stigler thought that the second greatest triumph of Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations was his famous list of cost factors that generate apparent but not real differences in rates of wages and profits because of training, hardships, unemployment, risk and trust. This list was quoted almost verbatim by his successors down to this day and is the direct ancestor of both Alfred Marshall’s famous chapters on wages and of the modern theory of human capital.
Olympic Happiness: Better to win Bronze than Silver Medals?
23 May 2014 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, health and safety, labour economics
Olympic Happiness: Better to win Bronze than Silver Medals? | Psychology Today.
The bronze winner is happy as Larry looking at all those losers that won nothing.
The silver medal winners came second. At least they know that their mum will remember their great day when they almost made it. A 1924 silver medal winner was still brooding about it in his 80s.
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