Graduates' Views on Working in the Public Sector: A Comparative Analysis of the Three Tiers of Government

Why do university graduates choose to work for one level of government but not the others? This article examines the comparative appeal of government jobs across the three tiers of government – federal, state and local – in Australia. When asked to indicate their employer of choice, a majority of graduates in this case study ranked the federal and state governments close to each other. This article also compares and analyses the pre‐employment views and motivations of the graduates with varying interests in working for the different tiers of government.     

The U.S. study of work incapacity and reintegration

In many countries, including the United States, the number of persons being awarded long-term or permanent disability benefits has risen dramatically in recent years. Government agencies, advocates for the disabled, and others are looking for ways to help persons with disabilities return to the labor force. The Work Incapacity and Reintegration (WIR) Study was developed to address that issue. The United States and five other countries--Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Israel, and the Netherlands--have participated in a cross-national study of work incapacity under the auspices of the International Social Security Association. The study had two objectives: to examine the factors that influence the pattern of work resumption among persons disabled by a back condition and to identify the medical and nonmedical interventions that are most effective in helping such persons reenter the labor force. Samples for the U.S. national study were drawn from four cohorts: Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries, and recipients of temporary disability insurance (TDI) benefits from the states of California and New Jersey. Only the TDI recipients were included in the comparative study. This article discusses the study design and methodology and summarizes the findings of the U.S. national study. Findings from the U.S. study show significant differences between the two cohorts in terms of work resumption and other characteristics. The proportions of respondents from the TDI cohorts who were working at the third and final study contact ranged from 53 percent to 65 percent, compared with less than 5 percent of the DI and SSI respondents. Respondents from the DI and SSI cohorts were on average about 10 years older than the TDI respondents, were less well educated, and reported more physical demands in their usual work. They also reported lower levels of functional capacity, higher levels of pain, and a much greater tendency to have other chronic illnesses. The types of medical treatments provided were remarkably uniform across cohorts and, within cohorts, between those who did and did not resume working. Thus, no medical intervention was identified that showed a significantly higher success rate in terms of facilitating a return to work. However, changes made in the work environment by the employer were an important factor in work reintegration; about 80 percent of respondents who resumed working did so with the help of workplace accommodations. In addition, since respondents with fewer physical demands in their job were more likely to return to work, there appears to be some potential for job retraining as a means of promoting a return to work. The Social Security Administration should consider these findings in developing strategies to help disabled workers reenter the labor force.     

Mandatory retirement and labor-force participation of respondents in the Retirement History Study

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) was amended in 1978 to prohibit mandatory retirement before age 70 in most occupations. The impact of this legislation on the probability of older persons remaining in the labor force is the primary concern of this article. Specifically, questions concerning which older workers are affected by mandatory-retirement provisions and the extent to which they are forced to retire and leave the labor force are examined. Tabular analysis of data from the Retirement History Study on persons aged 62-63 in 1969 shows significant variation in mandatory-retirement coverage between the public and private sectors and across industries, occupations, and demographic groups. Until age 65, the labor-force participation rate of those facing compulsory retirement is higher than or equal to that of those not covered but it drops significantly below the noncovered rate after 65. Logit analysis of the labor-force participation of persons before and after age 65 indicates that mandatory retirement at that age reduces the probability of retirement by approximately 16.7 percentage points for white men wage earners. This results in a decline in the labor-force participation rate of all men aged 66-67 of approximately 4 percentage points.     

Physically demanding occupations, health, and work after retirement: findings from the New Beneficiary Survey

This article uses data on a recent cohort of Social Security retired-worker beneficiaries to examine the predictors of work after initial receipt of benefits. It focuses on two factors: an analysis of the effects of ill health and of employment in a physically demanding occupation in the year preceding receipt of benefits. Based on responses received during the Social Security Administration's New Beneficiary Survey, the employment of men in a physically demanding occupation is associated with a lower probability of work in retirement; the existence of a work-limiting health condition also lowers their probability of work. Full-time, full-year workers in 1979 who had changed jobs in the years just preceding the receipt of Social Security benefits were more likely to work after they became beneficiaries. It may be that workers anticipate constraints on their ability to continue working on a job and reduce the effect of those constraints through earlier job changes. The finding that the work effort of women beneficiaries is not affected by previous employment in occupations identified as physically demanding may signify the failure of customary physical demand indices to measure stress on those jobs in which women are most likely to be employed.     

Characteristics of the longest job for new retired workers: findings from the New Beneficiary Survey

This article describes the duration and type of employment, occupational and industrial classification, and pension coverage associated with the longest job ever held by new social security retired-worker beneficiaries and nonretired persons enrolled only for Medicare. The Medicare-only enrollees usually had their retired-worker benefits withheld because their earnings exceeded exempt amounts under the social security earnings test. They were more likely to be self-employed and to be in executive, administrative, managerial, or professional occupations. By contrast, new retired-worker beneficiaries closely resembled the general labor force with respect to occupation, industry, and employer type. Persons who claimed benefits before age 65 differed from older retirees in that they were more likely to be in service and blue-collar occupations and less likely to be self-employed. Both sexes increased their pension coverage between the late 1960's and the early 1980's. By the latter period, the majority of retired workers reported employee pension coverage and, of those covered, most received a monthly benefit. Fewer women than men indicated pension coverage. Married women who retired early were least likely to indicate pension coverage and, when covered, were more likely than other retirees to report the receipt of a lump sum payment in lieu of monthly payments.     

SOME NEGLECTED POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF COMPARABLE WORTH

Comparable worth, the lkivil rights issue of the eighties, is based on the notion that women in traditional female occupations such as nursing make, on average, wages 20 percent lower than men In traditionally male occupations such as truck drivers despite the fact that both jobs are of equal value to the employer. The question is who will bear the cost; employers who implement comparable worth will bear the cost, but if pay inequities continue, women will. The cost can be mitigated if comparable worth is implemented incrementally. The problem cannot be solved by women shifting to male dominated occupations, for that would cost more than comparable worth. Comparable worth would help the women who work full time but are still below poverty and, while it would cost employers, taxpayers would realize a savings of $186 million. If the employer is a public agency, the taxpayer burden remains constant.     

WOMEN, LABOR MARKETS. AND COMPARABLE WORTH

This article reviews various theories about labor markets in the United States and traces the arguments that accompany each theory concerning why women earn less than men. To test some of these arguments, the paper uses aggregate statistics on the sex composition of occupations and industries during the decade 1970–1980 t o identify trends. Findings show that the sex segregation of occupations decreased slightly while the sex segregation of industries increased. The earnings differential between men and women remained substantially the same. The paper offers an explanation using labor market theories for these empirical findings and, in light of this explanation, assesses the implications for the effectiveness of comparable worth policies.     

Work,fertility, and the status of women in Mexico

Among the major transformations affecting Mexican women in recent decades were their growing participation in the labor market and the fertility decline that began in the 1970s with widespread access to contraception. Data from 3 major Mexican fertility surveys, employment surveys, and censuses are used to analyze changes in female employment and their determinants during the years of economic recession in the 1980s. The main characteristics of the Mexican fertility decline are described, and the relationship between fertility and female employment before and during the economic recession is scrutinized for different social sectors. Suggestions for research on the affects of these changes on the social condition of Mexican women are then presented. The proportions of Mexican women over 12 years old who declared themselves economically active increased from 16% in 1970 to 21% in 1979 and 32% in 1987. Until the 1970s the majority of employed women were young and single or childless. But a clear increase occurred between 1976-87 in the economic participation of older women in union. Economic participation of low income and less educated women increased as they sought work or created their own in response to deteriorating living conditions during the recession. Young women with intermediate or higher educational levels did not increase their relative presence in the labor market in the same period. The marked increase in economic participation of less educated women in union with small children was accompanied by a significant increase in manual occupations. Between 1982-87, the proportion of women aged 20-49 in nonsalaried manual occupations rose from 7.6% to 18.5%. Mexico's fertility decline has been well documented. The total fertility rate declined from 6.3 in 1973 to 3.8 in 1986, while the percentage of women in union using a contraceptive method increased from 30.2 in 1976 to 52.7 in 1987. Fertility differentials have been declining but are still considerable. The inhibitory influence of children on female labor force participation in Mexico is clear, but in the years of economic recession the most notable increase in female workers was in women with 3 or more children of whom the youngest was under 3. It appears that the influence of children on women's employment depends on the socioeconomic status of the woman as well as on the dynamism or sluggishness of the labor market. Research is needed on the significance of changes in fertility and female employment for women's status in Mexico. Several recent works have presented results of microsocial analyses of the ways in which women experience changes in their lives resulting from fertility and employment decisions. A methodological strategy for studying these changes and their influence on women's status should focus on comparisons between different generations and birth cohorts, different types of employment, and different socioeconomic statuses. Both macrosocial and microsocial forms of analysis are needed to provide a full picture.     

Personnel practices in careers of women at the top in government and business in Nicaragua and Costa Rica

This article, which is the first empirical study of upper-level female managers in Central America, extends the exploration of similarities and differences between public and private sectors in human resource management to the context of developing countries. A comparison of work hours, recruitment and selection practices, mentoring, political pressure, gender discrimination and sexual harassment, reported by female managers in public and private organizations in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, yielded no sector-based differences and few country-based differences. We conclude, therefore, that the public sector is not a more supportive or more fair employer for women in management than the private sector in these two countries, contrary to the assumption in the women-in-management literature that the public sector is a more hospitable environment. Improvements in human resources practices are appropriate in both sectors.     

Industries, Occupations, and Trade Policy Preferences

The nature of one’s work, not just who one works for, is central to political and economic life. Yet models of trade policy preferences mostly ignore occupation, focusing exclusively on industries (perhaps because industries are the usual organizing dimension of economic policymaking). This article proposes new measures of how much risk trade imposes on different workers based on how diversified their occupation is across industries, thus considering both industry and occupation. Having a job specific to any sector appears to encourage protectionism, regardless of that sector’s comparative advantage, supporting the idea that public opinion may treat trade policy as insurance.     

Engineering the expansion of higher education: High skills,advanced manufacturing,and the knowledge economy

The article develops a framework to explain an empirical observation that runs counter received wisdom in comparative political economy, namely the co-existence of large higher education systems and thriving manufacturing sectors in advanced capitalist countries. Introducing the concept of skill breadth, the article hypothesizes that: (i) advanced manufacturing firms have narrow skill needs concentrated around STEM skills; (ii) these skills are likely to be under-supplied by the higher education system unless dedicated public policies are put in place; and (iii) governments intervene in higher education policy to ensure the availability of those skills that are crucial for firms located in key sectors of national knowledge economies. Cross-country survey data of employer preferences for higher education graduates and case studies of recent higher education policy change in Germany and South Korea provide strong support for the argument. The article advances our overall understanding of skill formation systems in the knowledge economy and testifies to the persistent presence of policy levers that governments can employ to manage the economy and to support domestic firms.     

A Comparison of the Values and Commitment of Private Sector, Public Sector, and Parapublic Sector Employees

This study investigated differences in general values, work values and organizational commitment among 549 private sector, public sector, and parapublic sector knowledge workers. No differences in general values were observed across sectors, although five significant work value differences were revealed: parapublic employees value work that contributes to society more than public servants, who value it more than private sector employees; parapublic employees value opportunities for advancement less than both public and private sector employees; public servants value intellectually stimulating and challenging work more than parapublic employees; and private sector employees value prestigious work more than public servants. Private sector employees displayed greater organizational commitment than the employees in the other two sectors. Overall, the findings suggest only limited value differences among employees of the various sectors. The finding of some work value differences between employees in the public and parapublic sectors suggests that these two groups merit separate consideration in comparative studies such as this one.     

Nations or Sectors in the Age of Globalization: China's Policy Toward Foreign Direct Investment in Telecommunications

Scholars debate whether states or markets drive economic policy in the context of internationalization. Unpacking the market–state dichotomy, liberal pluralists and institutionalists alike conduct sectoral analysis to examine economic policies and outcomes. They debate the relative importance of sectors versus factors and the impact of sectoral coalitions, structural characteristics, and institutional trajectories. Building on previous scholarship, this article argues that state imperatives, such as national security and technological advancement, are an important guide to understanding dominant patterns of economic policy, defined as state goals, government–business relations, and state methods. Beyond that, the organization of institutions and structural sectoral attributes influence the ways in which actual policy outcomes vary across sectors and time. Case studies of the liberalization and subsequent reregulation of foreign direct investment across subsectors of telecommunications in China substantiate this argument. Evidence from other industries further validates this explanatory model.     

Monopoly Money: Foreign Investment and Bribery in Vietnam,a Survey Experiment

Prevailing work argues that foreign investment reduces corruption, either by competing down monopoly rents or diffusing best practices of corporate governance. We argue that the mechanisms generating this relationship are not clear because the extant empirical work is too heavily drawn from aggregations of total foreign investment entering an economy. Alternatively, we suggest that openness to foreign investment has differential effects on corruption even within the same country and under the same domestic institutions over time. We argue that foreign firms use bribes to enter protected industries in search of rents, and therefore we expect variation in bribe propensity across sectors according to expected profitability. We test this effect using a list experiment embedded in three waves of a nationally representative survey of 20,000 foreign and domestic businesses in Vietnam, finding that the effect of economic openness on the probability to engage in bribes is conditional on policies that restrict investment.     

Cultural Policy and Governance: Reviewing Policies Related to Cultural and Creative Industries Implemented by the Central Government of Taiwan Between 2002 and 2012

Cultural and creative industries have exhibited rapid changes in recent years, and public sectors worldwide have expanded interest in policies related to these industries as a means of promoting culture, innovation, and economic vitality. This article argues that the cultural values promoted by and economic significance of cultural and creative sectors are essential to the formation of policy and to the development of new industries. This article offers insight into cultural policy that has governed regional and local development, and addresses academic debates about policy related to cultural and creative industries based on several cultural, economic, and geographical factors. In addition, this article presents the results of analyzing various theories and case studies, based on how the Central Government of Taiwan (CGT) has adopted policies to promote cultural and creative industries. The research results link areas of cultural and economic development with policies enacted by the CGT. Ideas concerning the cultural ministry, industrial development, civic boosterism, subsidies, regional development, creative clusters, tourists and tourism businesses, and export markets are areas of emphasis in this study.     

Where Science Comes to Life: University Bioscience, Commercial Spin-offs, and Regional Economic Development

Biotechnology, rather than being defined as a distinct industry like steelmaking or shipbuilding, is instead a scientific knowledge base—a rapidly evolving technology—that has economically valuable applications in such diverse industries as pharmaceuticals, medical diagnostics, agriculture, bioenvironmental remediation, and chemical processing. Biotechnology has captured the imagination of ambitious scientific investigators and investors seeking high rates of return, as well as state economic development officials who hope to anchor the industry in their locality and reap the industry's economic and employment rewards. Biotech is still at an early stage of its development, and there are many competing hypotheses about its future development. Most importantly, biotechnology involves the commercialization of science resources in which the federal and state governments have made substantial investment. One key question is how to leverage this investment for future economic growth. This article explores the policy issue related to the commercialization of biotechnology, its role as an engine of economic development, and the appropriate public policy response.     

Family Leave Policies and Labor Market Segregation in Germany: Reinvention or Reform of the Male Breadwinner Model?1

abstract The historically dominant male breadwinner and female carer model in West Germany has resulted in comparably low female employment rates and a gender‐structured labor market. Since the 1970s, the decline of traditional patterns and sectors of male employment has been accompanied by the expansion of the female‐dominated service sector. Supplemented by women's higher educational attainment, a pluralism of household forms, and German unification, the result has been constant growth in female employment. With more working mothers, the question of combining work and family has provoked policy responses that, in West Germany, have mainly centered on family leave policies. In addressing the question of whether these policies have resulted in a more equitable sharing of paid and family work, this article presents longitudinal empirical data on the working patterns of women entitled to different forms of family leave. These show how changing regulations have led to the institutionalization of a “baby break” for younger women and to the promotion of labor market exclusion.     

Public employees in political firms: Part A. The patronage era

In part A. The patronage era we explain of the changing organization of public employees from patrons to spoilsmen. (Part B. Civil service and militancy, explains the evolution from spoilsmen to civil servants to militant unionists). Commonly, each transformation has been related only to some failing of its preceding form: patronage ended because of its corruption, civil service began because of its promise to stop corruption, and militancy spread because of the inadequacies of civil service. In contrast to these different explanations of each transformation of government employment, we offer the same explanation for each change: a public choice theory assumption that the new organizational form more efficiently maximized the mixture of votes, power, and income that politicians seek. Thus, when poor immigrants promised votes for insurance from urban hazards and businessmen promised graft in return for accommodations, spoilsmen effected the exchanges.     

Shaping Psychological Contracts in the Public and Private Sectors: A Human Resources Management Perspective

ABSTRACT

Organizational choices shape the way in which individuals experience their employment relationship. Given the multiple differences between the public and the private sectors, this study seeks to identify variations in employee perceptions of their psychological contract depending upon the sector in which they work. The psychological contract is seen as lying at the heart of the employer-employee exchange relationship. The study took place in Greece, and involved 398 employees from the public sector and 747 from the private sector. Participants were asked to evaluate 41 organizational obligations, on the basis of how important they believed them to be in terms of a desirable employment relationship. Factor analyses revealed 10 contract dimensions, while multiple analyses of variance suggested that the sector of employment and organizational tenure had a significant impact—both separately and in combination—on employees' view of their contract. The practical implications for effective human resources management and the limitations of the research are discussed at the end of the article.     

Earnings histories of SSI beneficiaries working in December 1997.

Disabling conditions previously considered to be permanent and total are no longer viewed as automatic barriers to work. Medical advances, improved accommodations in the workplace, and changes in the nature of work for the working disabled have allowed many disabled people to rejoin the workforce. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has followed those developments with a view toward encouraging people receiving disability benefits to consider returning to work. To effectively target SSA's efforts and evaluate their success, information about previous work histories of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiary population is used to provide baseline data. This article examines the earnings histories of 300,000 disabled SSI beneficiaries--one of the populations targeted by the expanded work-incentive measure under Public Law 106-70--who were working in December 1997. The article also investigates whether beneficiaries who are working have significant lifetime earnings and whether earnings patterns exist that might assist with SSA's work-support activities. SSI program records were matched to data in the Master Earnings File to explore the characteristics and earnings patterns before and after a person applies for benefits. The article addresses several questions: What are the general characteristics of disabled SSI beneficiaries? What are their earnings histories? Did they have an earnings record when they applied for SSI? Of the SSI beneficiaries working in December 1997, most tended to be younger than other disabled beneficiaries, to have some sort of mental disability, and to have earnings well below levels that would suggest their eventual, complete independence from the SSI cash benefits program. A look at past covered earnings revealed that the vast majority of SSI workers had a history of earnings before they applied for SSI benefits. Despite their severe impairments and age at the time of first eligibility, nearly 40 percent had earnings in 11 years or more. The amounts of those earnings were quite low, however, and were usually not high enough to preclude SSI eligibility. Examining the years immediately before and after the point of application indicated whether recent pre-application earnings were consistent with post-application return to work. Results were a bit surprising. They revealed that one-third of the 1997 SSI workers had no earnings, and another 28 percent returned to work despite having no earnings in the 4-year period before application. Persons receiving SSI because of mental retardation seemed to have poorer earnings histories than other workers but were more likely to return to work after application. That may be explained by their younger ages or may reflect the outside assistance they received in responding to SSA work incentives.