Browsing by Subject "Labor laws and legislation"

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    International Comparisons of Labor Productivity Growth: The Role of Worker Protection
    (2011) Zoidis, Elizabeth; Jilani, Saleha
    This study investigates the impact of policies and institutions promoting worker protection on labor productivity growth in an attempt to explain the recent divergence in labor productivity growth between the United States and the European Union. A cross-country/time series fixed effects analysis is conducted for the US and 13 member countries of the EU over the period 1980-2003. The average direct effects of wage coordination, union coverage, and employment protection legislation (EPL) on labor productivity growth are found to be negative and significant, which suggests that higher levels of worker protection are detrimental to labor productivity growth. Wage centralization and union density also exert a negative impact on labor productivity growth, but the impacts of these two measures of worker protection are not found to be significant. The examination of interactions between all policies and institutions produces results which are consistent with the theory of reform complementarity, meaning that the effect of each interaction term is found to be positive even though the effects of the individual policies and institutions included in the term are all negative. Specifically, given high enough levels of worker protection, the interactions between wage centralization and union coverage and between wage coordination and EPL were both significant and showed a positive impact on labor productivity growth.
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    Is Motherhood Bad for Business? An Investigation into the Benefits and Drawbacks of Family Leave Policies on Women and Businesses
    (2024) DiTommaso, Jilian; McGovern, Stephen J., 1959-
    Since women have entered the workforce, they have been paid less than their male counterparts. In the latter half of the 20th century, the gender wage gap improved substantially, from women earning 65 percent of men’s earnings in 1982, to women earning 80 percent of men’s earnings in 2002. However, in the last 20 years, the wage gap has only improved by two percentage points, with women earning 82 percent of men’s earnings as of 2022. Women today are certainly better off than they were in 1982, however, women continue to struggle to be treated, and paid, equally to their male counterparts. My thesis questions why the wage gap has persisted despite many laws in place to combat unequal pay on the basis of sex. One explanation for why equal pay laws have had minimal effects on the wage gap is because many women often choose to leave the workforce entirely once they become mothers. The impact of this choice on female earnings is referred to as the “motherhood penalty.” Paid family leave policies have been relatively effective in alleviating the burden of the motherhood penalty. However, very few Americans are covered by a robust paid family leave. My thesis explores the portion of the wage gap that is attributable to the lack of policies in place to alleviate the burden of choosing between work and childcare responsibilities that often falls on women. Current family leave policies in effect, including the national Family and Medical Leave Act, are not sufficient enough to keep mothers attached to the workforce once they have children. This paper explores the effectiveness of paid family leave (PFL) policies in remedying the portion of the wage gap attributable to the motherhood penalty. Because the U.S. does not have a national PFL policy, I am examining this issue through New Jersey's state policy. 13 states currently have PFL laws in place, making a mandatory PFL scarce across the U.S. Some scholars believe that the greatest opposition to PFL is from negative opinions within the business community. My thesis investigates if it is true that negative employer attitudes towards PFL stand in the way of state PFL policy implementation.Q45.