• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.161-182
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• 2002

The self-employment can provide work time flexibility. Work time flexibility would be a critical factor for married females' labor supply considering allocation of their time to market work and household work. This study used the 1998 and 2000 Korea Labor and Income Panel Survey for the empirical analyses. Applying the bivariate probit model with partial observability, this study analyzed factors related to the choice of participation in labor market and choice of self-employment. Also, this study examined the effects of marriage and the presence of younger children on changes in decisions related to labor supply using the multinomial logit model: exit from the labor market, increasing and decreasing work hours. The presence of the younger children showed a significantly negative effect on the participation in labor market while positive, but insignificant, effect on self-employment. Compared with females working for others, self-employers without employees and unpaid family workers are less likely to exit labor market rather than increasing work hours. The self-employment would be a good alternative to evade females' career interruption and therefore to enhance the potential human resources.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.1-27
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• 2005

This study intends to analyze outcomes in labor market of students who graduated from provincial colleges. And For this aim, this study used 'Youth Panel Data' (2001, 2002) of HRD Korea Work Information Center. The reference groups are students who graduated from capital region colleges. The main results of this study are as follows. Students who graduated from provincial colleges have difficulty in acquiring job information than capital region college graduates. And students who graduated from provincial colleges get first job in smaller firm than capital region college graduates. The monthly wage level of students who graduated from provincial colleges is less than that of capital region college graduates. And the outcomes in labor market of students who graduated from Chungcheong region colleges are better than those of students who graduated from Yeongnam region and Honam region colleges. As results of this study show, there are differences between provincial college graduates and capital region college graduates. And there are differences between Chungcheong region college graduates and another region (namely, Yeongnam region and Honam region) college graduates.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.83-100
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• 2005

The Seoul Metropolitan Area's economy has undergone structural changes since the 1990s. With recent structural changes in the Korean economy in mind, this paper employs a decomposition analysis of Gross Regional Domestic Product per head and labor productivity to examine how the region's economic performance has changed relative to that of Korea since the 1900s. There are some findings. First, a strong cumulative causation process, derived from industrial linkages and agglomeration effects, has oocurred in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, widening economic disparities between the Seoul Metropolitan Area and the other regions especially since the Korean financial crisis in 1997 mainly due to Gyeonggi province's overwhelming cumulative GRDP growth relative to the national average. Second, the Seoul Metropolitan Area has begun w display good economic performance in terms of labour productivity relative w the national average since the late 1990s, with the region's industrial upgrading being implemented. Finally, manufacturing, financial intermediation and communications have made sensitive contributions to relative Seoul Metropolitan Area's labor productivity growth.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.1-29
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• 2019

This study estimates how changes in the female (aged 25 to 54) labor force participation rate (LFPR) following the historical experiences of the US and Japan would alter the future trend of the female economically active population by 2065, compared to the case in which the LFPR as of 2018 will remain unchanged. According to the results, the female labor force aged 25 to 54 will increase by 14% (about 797,000) and 15% (about 831,000), respectively, by 2042 if the female LFPR should change following the past trends of the US and Japan. In particular, the increase in the labor force is expected to be pronounced among females aged 30 to 44 who currently suffer high rates of job severance. The results of this study strengthen the prediction that the on-going population changes will not reduce much the overall economically active population in the near future. The result of a simulation based on the historical experiences of Japan suggests that, as least in the near future, policy efforts to encourage female labor supply will be more effective in alleviating the potential labor-market impacts of population changes, compared to policies aiming at increasing old-age employment.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.75-112
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• 2006

We found following evidences from our empirical analysis with the Workplace Panel Survey data of the Korea Labor Institute with reference to 'discord hypothesis' which insists that employee participatory high performance work practices would strengthen not only an enterprise focus in labor-management relations but also the enterprise unionism in the labor union system or collective bargaining structures, so they would probably come into conflict with the superenterprise-oriented industrial solidarity spirit in labor unionism. First, even though there are significant positive management performance effects of high performance work practices, especially in case of mining and manufacturing industries, the positive performance effects of employee participatory work practices such as job rotation ratio of workers and 6-sigma activities were much strengthened relatively in case of non-unionized establishments. Second, the superenterprise-oriented collective bargaining system is also found to give very strong and statistically significant negative performance effects to the introduction and implementation of work teams and performance-related payment systems such as profit sharing, group incentive pay system and so on. Although there are some careful reservations in interpreting the results of our analysis because of data insufficiency, they may have important implications that the industrial labor unionism or the superenterprise-oriented collective bargaining practices exercise the bargaining power to make individual firms be negative or feel it nearly impossible to introduce the employee participatory work practices which can be very favorable to improving those management performance.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.1-23
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• 2006

This study investigates the effects of inward foreign direct investment on local workers' wages by focusing on U.S. manufacturing industries for the period from 1987 to 1992. Contrary to public perception that foreign ownership is positively associated with higher wages, previous studies show mixed results. Since most of the previous studies used industry or firm level average wages, they can not control for the impact of individual characteristics on wages. I use two different approaches to control individual characteristics and to implement estimation in this study: (1) One-step estimation with industry-state level of inward foreign direct investments by using individual level data, and (2) Two-step industry characteristic regression approach. The higher presence of foreign firms is associated with higher local wages after workers' observable characteristics are controlled for in the first approach. This effect, however, disappears once workers' industry affiliations and regions are controlled for in cross-section analysis. In a panel data analysis, I did not find any statistically significant positive association between inward FDI activities and industry wage premiums within industry. Further, inward FDI activities appeared to be negatively associated with worker's industry wage premium for workers with more than high school education.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.141-166
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the status of youth overeducation and to analyze the impact on the wage system, before and after the financial crisis. In this study, we adapt the following method; first, we investigate the year 1996 (before financial crisis) and year 2000 (after financial crisis) data from "the Survey Report on the Wage structure", based on the data from "the Occupational Dictionary" by occupation group. So we could evaluate the difference between the youth over-educational status, before and after financial crisis. Second, we analyze the reason why the difference occurs, with financial crisis dummy variable and other variables such as sex, occupation, industry. Third, we try to find the difference between the impact of the overeducation on the wage rate, before and after financial crisis. The main findings are as follows; first, the degree of overeducation in year 2000 is more than in year 1996. So the financial crisis plays the important role in deepening the degree of overeducation. Second, the wage rate of the overeducated worker is higher than that of the required-educated worker. Also, the both wage rates are increased after financial crisis. However, the difference of both wage rates' has declined over the financial crisis. Such a finding means that even though the both wage rates of the overeducated and the required-educated worker are increased, the wage rate of the required-educated worker has increased much more than that of overeducated worker, after the financial crisis.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.149-179
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• 2003

This study is analysing the factors determining individuals' behavior of selecting self-employment not only at the micro-level but also at the macro-level to put a particular emphasis on the financial constraint and unemployment rate representing business cycle. The data used in this study are "Korean Labor and Income Panal Study" of the Korea Labor Institute and "Economically Active Population Survey" of National Statistical Office. The main findings are as follows. First, human capital such as educational attainment and job experience has positive effects on male's selection of self-employment. The effects of job experience, however, changed negative for female's selection of self-employment. Second, real estate is significantly enhancing the selection probabilities of employer selection while the income from financial assets has negative effects. Third, entrepreneurial culture and environment are also raising the self-employment selection probability. Lastly, the regional unemployment rate representing the business cycle has positive effects on the self-employment selection after the financial crisis in 1997 both at the micro and macro level. Moreover, the coefficient of regional unemployment rate has changed positive in the structural model of self-employment selection controlling for selection bias and income opportunities, which means that individual's behavior of self-employment selection is rather complex when accounting for the uncertainties of income opportunities and diverse characteristics of self-employment workforce.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.27-53
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• 2004

This paper analyzes the two cases of labor disputes (Hyundai Motor in 1998 and Power Generation Companies in 2002) in the period of restructuring, by applying the behavioral theory of labor negotiations as a comparative framework. The paper compares th backgrounds of the labor disputes, core issues, bargaining processes, and evolutionary patterns and consequences of the labor disputes at the two cases. The common features, found in the two dispute cases, are strong mistrust and exclusive bargaining attitude between labor unions and management, little feasibility of contract zone in bargaining proposals by the two parties, heteronomous dispute resolution by the intervention of the government, and the lack of learning effect gained from the experience of labor disputes. This comparative case study identifies that the confrontational labor-management relations at the firm level is re-produced by a regressive process of the following circulation: labor-management distrust $\rightarrow$ interest conflict in bargaining demand $\rightarrow$ exclusive bargaining attitude $\rightarrow$ the experience of antagonistic dispute $\rightarrow$ deepened distrust. In conclusion, four parties-labor unions, management, the government, and public press - are required to make much effort to replace the vicious circle of labor-management confrontation by a virtueous cycle of labor-management cooperation.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.1-31
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• 2007

The purpose of this paper is to analyse wage differentials between non-regular and regular works. Data from EAPS(Economically Active Population Survey) 2005 show that the monthly wage level of non-regular worker is only 63% of regular worker and thus there exist 37% wage differentials. However, these wage differentials do not control for hours of work, the amount of human capital, job characteristics, and other individual characteristics affecting wages. If these variables are added to the hourly wage regression equation, the wage gap between non-regular and regular workers drastically decreases to 2.2%. Furthermore, decomposition of the wage differentials by Oaxaca method shows that productivity difference between non-regular and regular workers explains up to 91% of the wage gap. This implies that the magnitude of wage discrimination against non-regular workers is at most 0.2% of hourly wage of regular workers. To control for unobserved individual heterogeneities more accurately, we also construct panel data and estimate wage differentials. The results from the panel data approach show that there is no difference in the hourly wages between non-regular and regular workers. In some specifications, the wage rate of non-regular worker is rather higher than that of regular worker. These results are consistent with economic theory. Other things being equal, workers with unstable employment may require higher wages to compensate their unstability. Firms are willing to pay higher wages if they can get more flexibility from non-regular employment. Empirical results in this paper cast doubt on the view that there is wage discrimination against non-regular workers in the labor market. Public policies should be targeted for disadvantaged groups among non-regular workers, not for non-regular workers in general.