Economic Sociology Seminar presentation by Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts.

Title: Producing Inequalities: The workplace generation of earnings inequalities in thirteen high income countries

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and COIN network[1]

Abstract

We exploit a massive assemblage of longitudinal linked employer-employee administrative data for thirteen countries (Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Czechia, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden and the United States) over a quarter century to explore the contemporary workplace generation of earnings inequalities. We ask three questions. Is market inequality rising in all countries? What is the contribution of between workplace earnings polarization to rising inequality? How are these trends moderated by national variation in labor market institutions? We find that countries vary a great deal in their levels and trends in inequality, but that between firm inequalities are growing in most countries. We find that this trend is widespread, although its strength and sectoral location varies widely. Earnings inequalities are lower and grow less strongly in countries with stronger institutional employment protections and rise faster when these labor market protections weaken. These institutional shelters while once strong, now provide only weak checks on within workplace inequality dynamics, their declines fosters between workplace polarization.

[1] Dustin Avent-Holt (Augusta University), Nina Bandelj (University of California, Irvine), István Boza (Central European University), David Cort (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Olivier Godechot (Sciences Po), Gergely Hajdu (Central European University), Martin Hällsten (Stockholm University), Lasse Folke Henriksen (Copenhagen Business School), Andrea Hense (University of Goettingen), Are-Skeie Hermansen (University of Oslo), Feng Hou (Statistics Canada), Jiwook Jung (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Aleksandra Kanjuo-Mrčela (University of Ljubljana), Naomi Kodama (Hitotsubashi University), Alena Krizkova (Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences), Zoltán Lippényi (Utrecht University), Silvia Maja Melzer (Bielefeld University), Eunmi Mun (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Andrew Penner (University of California, Irvine), Trond Petersen (University of California, Berkeley), Andreja Poje (Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia), Anthony Rainey (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Mirna Safi (Sciences Po), Donald Tomaskovic-Devey (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Zaibu Tufail (University of California, Irvine). This paper is released to inform interested parties of research and to encourage discussion. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Census Bureau. Tabular material presented in this paper was approved for release by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Disclosure Review Board (CBDRB-FY18-083).