• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.33-51
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• 2023

This study aims to investigate the changes in the employment structure of occupational groups by job characteristics and analyze the factors influencing wage premiums in local labor markets from 2010 to 2020. This study's analysis involves three primary steps. First, the occupational characteristics data from the Korea Network for Occupations and Workers are subjected to an exploratory factor analysis, and then a non-routine task intensity index is calculated by each occupations. Then, we conduct an exploratory analysis of changes in the distribution of employment by occupation from 2010 to 2020 by combining data from the Population Census with data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study to construct individual-level and regional-level data. Thirdly, we employ a hierarchical linear model to examine the individual-level and regional-level factors influencing wage premiums. Since 2010, the proportion of employment in occupations requiring non-routine task has continued to rise and now dominates the metropolitan labor market. Moreover, agglomeration effects resulting from urbanization produce a substantial wage premium for wage workers in occupations requiring non-routine tasks. This study seeks to provide policy implications to mitigate inequality and polarization in local labor markets by empirically analyzing the transition of occupational structure and wage inequality in relation to the local labor market context.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.1-44
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• 2018

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of an enhancement in unemployment benefits in Korea. In particular, I quantify the welfare effect of two specific policy chances which have been mainly discussed among policymakers in recent years: increasing wage replacement rates by 10%p and extending maximum benefit durations by one month. To this end, I build and calibrate an overlapping generation model which reflects the heterogeneity of the unemployed and the specificity of the unemployment insurance (UI) system in Korea. The quantitative analysis conducted here shows that extending maximum benefit durations by one month improves social welfare, whereas increasing wage replacement rates by 10%p deteriorates social welfare. Extending maximum benefit durations is applied to potentially all the UI recipients, including unemployed workers whose wage before job loss is relatively low and whose marginal utility is relatively high. However, increasing wage replacement rates is applied to only a small number of UI recipients whose wage before job loss is relatively high, while the increase in the UI premium is passed onto all of the employed. This study suggests that given the current UI system and economic environment in Korea, it is more desirable to extend maximum benefit durations rather than to increase wage replacement rates in terms of social welfare.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.119-139
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• 2011

Using a establishment-worker matched data, this paper estimates wage differentials between standard and non-standard workers. Unlike previous studies, we estimate a fixed-effect model for the tree-way error-components that control for both unobserved individual heterogeneities and unobserved firm heterogeneities. The estimation results show that standard workers earn 6.5~8.4% mire than non-standard workers. This wage premium is 30~40% of the wage differential estimated from the OLS model. The results implies that a large proportion of the wage differentials between standard and non standard workers can be explained by unobserved firm and individual characteristics.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.59-87
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• 2015

This study investigates the influence of human capital on wages of female marriage migrants in Korea using the 'National Survey on Multicultural Families 2012'. The results show that educational attainment has little influence on wages of female marriage migrants in Korea and that educational attainment in their origin country has positive influence on the labor market in Korea. However, work experiences in the origin country and duration in Korea are not significantly related to wages of female marriage migrants in Korea. The subgroup analyses by nationality find that the education wage premium is large in groups for Korean-Chinese women, other Asian countries and other countries. Among occupations, managers and professionals officers earn the highest wages in all groups. In addition, the manager and professional officer groups show the large education wage premium, especially among Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean-Chinese female marriage migrants.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.39-74
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• 2019

In this paper, the wage equations of local labor markets for college graduates in Korea are estimated by Dahl(2002)'s methodology to correct for selection bias. The results suggest that the variations of coefficients in wage equations across the local labor markets are mostly remained after correcting for selection bias. The gender wage gap is hardly affected by selection bias. The variations of return to education and the major premium are reduced about 18% and 11% respectively. Meanwhile, the selection bias is negligible in the national capital region, which suggests that college graduates prefer the national capital region regardless of their gender, level of education, and major.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.22-39
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• 2011

This study examines the wage level from a viewpoint of major-job match as part of an analysis on the skill mismatch problem in 4-year college graduates. The empirical analysis explicitly incorporate the sample selection bias as an econometric problem not only suggested but merely introduced in the earlier studies. This study also set up a major-job match variable, which was usually handled as a binary variable for analytical convenience, as a polychotomous choice variable in selection equation as provided by the survey. In particular, it considered multi-cohort survey on graduates of the years 1982, 1992, and 2002 for the empirical analysis. As a result of empirical analysis, the wage premium of a major-job match was identified. This result was consistent after the consideration of a sample selection bias and also after modeling the major-job match variable as polychotomously selective. Through an analysis classified by the major, this study identified a relatively high wage premium among Social Science, Engineering, and Science majors. However, there was a difference in the effect of selection among these majors. Also, by assessing cohort effects this study found that the skill mismatch had rapidly progressed in 1992, while difference between 1992 and 2002 cohorts are insignificant. The analysis suggests that wage level is better understood within the context of both sample selection and major-job match, and regardless of model specification the major-job match affects wage strongly.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.135-164
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• 2010

This paper compares the earnings effect of inter-industry technology differences between the self-employed and wage earners. It is assumed that primary skills utilized by the self-employed and paid workers differ in nature, and thus the earnings effect of technology differences and its skill-biasness also differ for each type of workers. For the empirical analysis. Heckman's two-stage method and quantile regressions are fitted to Korean panel data. The earnings effect of technology differences turns skill- biased for wage earners (job-specific skills), but prevails for all self-employed workers (entrepreneurial skills) regardless of their schooling level. This sectoral difference holds for each different quantile of earnings distribution.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.61-88
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• 2018

This paper examines the impact of internal migration on wage growth among college graduates using Propensity Score Matching methods. We define migration as moving between Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) and non-SMA based on the locations of graduates' first and second jobs. We also take the direction of migration into account for examining the wage premium in SMA. In order to estimate the impact of migration on wage growth, we use the Graduate Occupational Mobility Survey (2010GOMS) coupled with other supplementary data such as College Scholastic Ability Test score and local characteristic variables. The results reveals that graduates moving from SMA to non-SMA do not experience significant wage growth. However, we find that graduates moving from non-SMA to SMA experience an increase in their monthly wage about 170,000~186,000 KRW on average (9.5~10.3% of their monthly wage on the first job).

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.109-116
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• 2007

Entrepreneurship is considered as the main leadership creating enterprises and employment. However, in Korea empirical studies linking Korean entrepreneurial performances with her characteristics are rarely in existence. Current study focuses on Korean entrepreneurs in manufacturing, construction and other technologically intensive (MCOT henceforth) industries compared to entrepreneurs in service and other technologically less intensive (SOT henceforth) industries and to professional/technical wage workers and examines effects of human capital, demographic, and risk-taking characteristics on earnings. Education premium is higher for entrepreneurs in MCOT industries than for professional/technical workers, even though science and engineering diploma pays better in the latter, and that concentration in college causes more selection into the latter occupational family. In terms of education premium and effects of other characteristics SOT industry entrepreneurship and self-employment appear to be lower grade occupational families, even though there appear to be significant comparative advantages working in their selection.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.37-65
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• 2013

This study compares the return to seniority and experience among different groups of workers. Skilled workers in large company appear to enjoy the biggest seniority premium, while non-regular workers and small company workers hardly have any. Trade union did not have significant effect. Return to experience increased especially in large firms. Nonparametric model specification test shows that the biases for returns to seniority and experience of 30 years to be between -25~29%, and -42%~6%, respectively.