• Journal of Labour Economics
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.29-50
• /
• 2012

This paper estimates the effect of minimum wages on new hiring of low wage workers from a time-series. The results indicate that minimum wages tend to reduce the new hiring of low wage workers, in particular, among women, less educated and older population. The strongly negative effect on new hiring suggests that the burden of reduced labor demand arising from higher minimum wages tend to fall mostly upon the unprotected low-wage job searchers due to the short-term rigidity of employment adjustment among the existing workers.

• Journal of Labour Economics
• /
• v.39 no.4
• /
• pp.31-56
• /
• 2016

This study analyzes the effect of a minimum wage on the wage compression within Korean establishments. The results are as follows. Firstly, increases of a ratio of workers who get minimum wage within establishments have a effect to compress the wage distribution within establishments. Secondly, the establishment average wages get lower as their minimum wage ratios get larger. In this situation, high wage group's wages fall deeply than low wage group's these. Thirdly, the relative wages of high wage group to low wage group tend to be small as their minimum wage ratios get larger. To conclude, a increase of minimum wage has a effect to raise low wage workers' wages directly, and to reduce high wage workers' wages or increase rates indirectly. And the wage distributions are compressed as a result. So government's policy to increase minimum wage will have a result in reducing wage inequality.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.92-99
• /
• 2020

Background: The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of the income support allowance policy for the care workers on wage level. Methods: The analysis data was constructed using database (DB) of long-term care institution, DB of long-term care personnel status, and DB of health insurance qualification and contribution possessed by National Health Insurance Services. We analyzed the wage status of care workers 2009 to 2016 through basic analysis. We used the difference-in-difference analysis method for the workers who worked in the same institution from 2012 to 2013, The effects of the income allowance policy on wage increase were analyzed. Results: As a result of the net effect of the income support allowance policy, the monthly average wage of the care worker increased by 25,676 won and the hourly wage increased by 478 won. As a result of the analysis, it can be confirmed that the income support allowance policy has achieved some of the goals of raising the wage level of the care workers, and the effect of raising wages for other occupations in the long-term care business can be confirmed. Conclusion: The low wage problem of long-term care workers such as care workers is not the only problem in Korea. In other countries, there are various wage support policies for employees. In particular, it is necessary to refer to the improvement in the treatment of care workers in Japan and wage pass-through in the United States. In addition to wages, there is a need to promote policies to provide employment motivation through efforts to improve their social status and improve their job status and career development for employees in long-term care facilities.

• Journal of Labour Economics
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.1-34
• /
• 2016

We estimate the effect of an increase in the minimum wage on employment. In Korea, there is no exogenous variation in the minimum wage across regions or industries. One single minimum wage is applied to every worker in the whole country. In this paper, we exploit arguably exogenous variation in the proportion of workers affected by the minimum wage across worker groups defined by age, sex, education, tenure and establishment size. Using the data from the Survey on Labor Conditions by Type of Employment (SLCTE) from 2006 to 2014, we find that a 1% increase in the minimum wage decreases the full-time equivalent employment by about 0.14%. The effect is heterogeneous across workers; we find the effect is more adverse for female workers, low-educated, younger and older workers, workers with a shorter tenure, and workers in small- and medium-sized establishments.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.211-219
• /
• 2015

Objectives: We aimed to examine the association between experience of workplace violence and musculoskeletal pain among wage workers in South Korea. Methods: We analyzed a cross-sectional survey of 29,601 wage workers from the third wave Korean Working Conditions Survey in 2011. Experience of workplace violence was assessed through three questions, "Over the past 12 months, have you ever experienced: (1) physical violence, (2) bullying, or (3) sexual harassment at workplace?" Musculoskeletal pain was measured using the three questions, "Over the past 12 months, have you ever experienced: (1) low back pain, or (2) upper limb pain(i.e. shoulder, neck, and arm), or (3) lower limb pain(i.e. hip, leg, knee, and foot)?" Wage workers could answer 'Yes' or 'No' to each of the three questions. Multivariate negative binomial regression was applied to examine the association between workplace violence and musculoskeletal pain after adjusting for confounders including self-reported physical work factors. All analyses were performed using STATA/SE version 13.0. Results: Physical violence was associated with low back pain(PR: 2.16, 95% CI: 1.77, 2.65), upper(PR: 1.65, 95% CI: 1.45, 1.88) and lower limb pain(PR: 1.81, 95% CI: 1.52, 2.15) among male wage workers whereas it was related to upper(PR: 1.86, 95% CI: 1.53, 2.26) and lower limb pain(PR: 2.95, 95% CI: 2.47, 3.53) among female wage workers. Significant association was observed between sexual harassment and upper(PR: 1.25, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.56) and lower limb pain(PR: 2.41, 95% CI: 1.97, 2.93) among female wage workers whereas the association was only significant in the analysis with lower limb pain(PR: 1.87, 95% CI: 1.17, 2.97) among male wage workers. Bullying was associated only with lower limb pains among both male(PR: 1.77, 95% CI: 1.32, 2.37) and female(PR: 2.10, 95% CI: 1.69, 2.61) wage workers. Conclusions: This study found that experience of workplace violence, particularly physical violence and sexual harassment, was associated with musculoskeletal pain among Korean wage workers.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.241-255
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study is to examine the moderated mediating effect of family cohesion in the relationships among work-family conflict, job stress, and turnover intension of female low-wage workers. Participants included 190 low-wage workers whose monthly salary was less than 2 million Korean won (approximately $1,900). The results are as follows. First, the work-family conflict was associated with turnover intension. Second, job stress mediate the relationships between work-family conflict and turnover intension, and family cohesion have the moderated mediating effect among these variables. These results suggested that there is a need to enhance policies and programs for work-family compatibility to decrease work-family conflicts and job stress and to strengthen family cohesion to reduce the turnover of female low-wage workers.

• Journal of Labour Economics
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.49-74
• /
• 2006

Even though the foreign currency crisis in 1997 and the introduction of Inflation Targeting(IT) have been considered as key factors for current low inflation, there have been few attempts to explain what is the contribution of the dynamics of wage and price to the low inflation. This study is to analyze the relation between wage and price especially focusing on how it through the economic events using cointegration instability tests. The result shows that the short and long-run relation between two have variables have changed through the period of 1997~1999. In the first subperiod, wage tended to respond immediately to inflation shocks, whereas price responded to wage shocks in a long-run. Moreover, the cointegration coefficient of price was equal to 1. In the second subperiod, however, the dynamics from price to wage has been weakened and the real wage has declined apparently. These findings mean that the workers have failed to raise their wage at the rate of inflation, that is, the so-called wage-price spiral was broken for the second subperiod. The implication of this study is that the relatively weak bargaining power of workers, or the condition of labor market, is one of the primary factors of the current low inflation.

• Korean Journal of Family Social Work
• /
• no.58
• /
• pp.123-150
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediated moderating effect of resilience in the relationships among job stress, work-family conflict, and depression of female low-wage workers. For this purpose, a total of 190 female workers with monthly wage of less than two million won were analyzed. The results showed that the mediated effect of work-family conflict in the relationships between job stress and depression, and the mediated moderating effect of resilience. Thus, policy makers and practitioners should develop mental health program alleviating job stress and depression among female low-wage workers, enhance family-friendly policy and program necessary for work family balance, furthermore, develop occupational welfare program to promote resilience.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.109-142
• /
• 2018

This paper aims to analyze the Award wage system in Australia for construction workers. Considering low wages and precarious employment situation of construction workers in general, it is of advantage especially for them in Australia. Furthermore, it seems to be instructive for Korean construction workers, who stand in more precarious and unstable situation and furthermore are lack of fair wage and social safety. After strong and longstanding labour struggle in the late 19th century in Australia, it has been established a tripartite institution called as 'tribunal' between trade unions, employers, and the government. Under the highly institutionalized form of industrial relations, it functions as an arbitration and conciliation system between labour and management. The Award wage system stands in the middle point. This Award wage system including various welfare provisions is settled by the tribunal, today renamed as Fair Work Commission. In this wage system should be defined level of minimum wages according to the various skill levels, which are in turn connected with compulsory superannuation and Medicare as well as vocational education and training. Furthermore, it provides especially for the construction workers, who suffer from job instability, so-called 'portable benefits', which relate to long service leave and redundancy pay. Considering general conditions of precarious construction workers in Korea, In that respect, the Australian Award wage system would be very instructive for our social wage and safety system for construction workers.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
• /
• v.38 no.2
• /
• pp.3-20
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore the heterogeneity of compensating wage differentials for outdoor workers, under the threat of climate change and heatwave, by region and by wage quantile. This study conducted Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, multiple regression analysis by region, and unconditional quantile regression analysis using the Korean Working Conditions Survey, which provides individual-level information on the working environment and worker's characteristics. The implications derived from the results of the study are as follows: For most variables, the endowment effect and the price effect were greater for indoor workers, while experience and gender played a role in narrowing the wage gap; The compensating wage differentials for outdoor workers were confirmed to be 2.4% nationwide, depending on the region however, the compensating wage differentials varied from 5 times of national average to nothing statistically significant; The higher the wage quantile, the greater the compensating wage differentials for outdoor workers, and statistically significant monetary compensation was not identified for some low-level outdoor workers. This study is meaningful as an early study that revealed the heterogeneity of compensating wage differentials for outdoor workers and suggested further research on the topic.