Tuesday, June 25, 2013
C2.17 (Oudemanhuispoort)
Since the beginning of the 1980s, most Western societies experienced increased flexibilisation and deregulation of labour markets, which led to an increase in nonstandard employment relationships (e.g. different types of temporary work, part time jobs, independent contracting) and an increase in low-pay jobs. The latter, and this is the starting point for the present paper, has been studied only very little over the last 15 years. We address this research desideratum and discuss the growth of low-wage employment in Austria in the context of international trends. For the empirical analysis, we use ECHP data (1995-2001) and EU-SILC data (2004-2010). We compare findings from logistic regression models over time and apply Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition for nonlinear models to the data. Our empirical results confirm a growing trend towards low-paid work in Austria. Compared to other European countries, the Austrian rates of low-paid workers are quite startling. Moreover, our analysis shows that risks of low-wage employment are not evenly spread across the Austrian workforce. In fact, people with lower occupational status and low qualifications, as well as employees in manufacturing, in personal services and in agriculture, belong to the losers of the prevailing dynamics on the Austrian labour market. Additionally we find that these trends are not only driven by changes in low-pay risks of different groups, but also by a substantially changing composition of the labor market.
