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This paper examines the micro-determinants of unemployment durations and exits in Czechia, Poland and Austria. Our hazard estimates utilize EU-SILC data and identify national specificities in which individual, household and regional characteristics affect labor market outcomes. This concerns particularly the effects of education on job-finding probability, which are nearly absent in Poland, as opposed to Austria and, even more so, Czechia. However, the key results are common across countries: Unemployed women are less employable than unemployed men, even after controlling for explanatory covariates and the disproportionally high female selection to inactivity. The analogous findings apply to the elderly and those in poor health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this study was to analyse the development of the effect of the bachelor's and master's tertiary degree on both respondents' wage and socioeconomic status in the Czech labour market ten years after the Bologna Process. For the purposes of the study, structural modelling was applied using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC, 2010–2017) and Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC, 2011/12) data. The results revealed that despite a slightly decreasing direct effect of the master's degree on wages, the association between the master's degree and socioeconomic status intensified. Compared to that, the bachelor's degree exhibited a stable direct effect on wages but a decreasing effect on socioeconomic status. While relatively stable overall returns to tertiary education can be supposed based on total effects, the channels through which the stability is reached may differ for the bachelor's and master's degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational mismatch in labour markets is a phenomenon that has been widely analysed, mainly with respect to rising concerns about a possible oversupply of graduates. Like most European countries, the Czech Republic has experienced a boom in tertiary education in the last decade. The incidence and determinants of over- and undereducation vary substantially depending both on the mismatch measurement approach and the data source applied. Educational mismatch is also reflected in wage levels: overeducated workers have lower wages and undereducated workers have higher wages than workers with the same education whose jobs match their education level. Second, overeducated workers earn more and undereducated workers earn less than their co-workers with exactly the required level of education. The effects are qualitatively the same regardless of the data source and measurement approach applied, but their sizes differ slightly.

Using Spain and the Czech Republic as examples of two EU countries with different labour market performance, we apply a gross flow analysis based on EU-SILC longitudinal data. We find that while in Spain the increases in youth unemployment are driven mostly by young people who lose their jobs, in the Czech Republic, this is mainly due to new labour market entrants who failed to find a job. The analysis of flow transition rates suggests that youth labour markets with enormously high unemployment rates have not failed in all relevant respects. Their development seems to be hindered predominantly by high risk of job losses and diminishing employment prospects of the unemployed, rather than by impeded transitions from inactivity to employment. In countries with lower youth unemployment rates, unemployment policy agenda appears to be challenged by quite the opposite tendency

We show that economies of scale estimated individually for each EU country differ from the officially adopted OECD‐modified scale; the differences across the countries further confirm the prevailing East‐West disparity. Using the minimum income question in the 2019 EU‐Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey, we demonstrate that applying the estimated country‐specific subjective equivalence scales, instead of the uniform OECD‐modified scale, results in up to a 6 pp change in the at‐risk‐of‐poverty rate. If inadequate equivalence scales are used, the equivalised income fails to inform the statistics of income poverty and prevents national social policies from being correctly targeted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the role of unemployment inflows and outflows in contributing to unemployment cyclicality in Czechia and Poland, using data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, and a three-state model of unemployment variance decomposition. We find that the labour market fluidity is higher in Poland than in Czechia, with Polish workers moving in and out of unemployment more frequently than their Czech counterparts. For both countries, the upward unemployment dynamics was during 2008–2011 driven by counter-cyclical increases in the job-separation rate, rather than by pro-cyclical declines in the job-finding rate. The inflow-outflow split was nonetheless more balanced in Czechia. The two economies further diverged across 2015–2018: Czech unemployment declined prevailingly due to diminishing job separations, while in Poland it was mostly due to improving job-finding prospects. This signals a deeper insider-outsider fragmentation of the Czech labour market, even during the period of economic expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the effects of minimum wage on employment in the Czech and Slovak Republics based on 2005–17 EU-SILC data. Our results contribute to the scant literature on minimum wage effects in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. While prior empirical findings concurred with the effects of minimum wage on labour market outcomes in CEE countries when the minimum wage is relatively high, there is ambiguity when the minimum wage is relatively low. In Slovakia we find that regular minimum wage hikes had insignificant effects on employment. Similarly, we find no negative employment consequences from irregular hikes in the comparatively low minimum wage (MW) of the Czech Republic. Moreover, the groups assumed to be most affected by MW hikes did not experience greater negative consequences following hikes when compared to the overall population of workers in either country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe material deprivation, a dimension of the poverty and social exclusion index, one of Europe 2020 Strategy headline indicators, is defined as enforced lack of at least four of nine specific items. Proposals for modifications in the indicator include the Material and Social Deprivation indicator which is based on an updated set of thirteen items, whereas the choice of the threshold was data-driven. This paper proposes a simple, yet a rigorous methodology based on the Youden index to set a threshold to classify individuals into 'deprived' and 'non-deprived' groups. Applying the Youden index to 2014–2018 EU-Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data suggests an optimal cut-off point of the value of 5. This is in line with the suggestions of the Indicators Sub-Group of the Social Protection Committee. The estimated rates of material deprivation based on the new indicator are 2.2-times higher on average than the current rate. Assuming that the newly proposed definition better reflects the true nature of deprivation in the EU, the aggregate measure of 'at risk of poverty or social exclusion' has been underestimated, as material deprivation is one of its three dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the youth employment effects of minimum wages in the Visegrád countries: Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The analyses are based on a regional panel dataset for the period 2003–16. Our results indicate that changes in minimum wages measured as a ratio of regional average wages have not negatively affected youth employment rates in the Visegrád countries at the national level. Detailed analyses indicate that changes in the ratio of minimum to average wages may have dampened regional youth employment in Hungary in 2008–11, in Czechia in 2003–7, and in several regions in Poland and Slovakia throughout the full sample period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the extent and determinants of somewhat gloomy employment prospects of older unemployed populations in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. For this purpose, we explore the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions over the period 2004-2014. Survival estimates suggest that older unemployed workers face lower job-finding probabilities compared to prime-age unemployed workers, while this age-based gap increases with longer unemployment spells. The results of estimating the hazard models reveal that the job-finding probability of older unemployed workers is about 20-25% lower than that of the prime-age group, even after controlling for explanatory covariates and unobserved heterogeneity. Unemployment duration appears to be the major determinant of job-finding probability within both age groups. In contrast, the impact of explanatory covariates (gender, education, household characteristics, etc.) is relatively less robust and/or uniform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methodology used to determine the at-risk-of-poverty rate commonly applied in the European context is often criticised for arbitrary steps in its construction. This study questions the first step - the equivalence scale applied to transform the disposable income of households of different sizes into comparable units. First, we hypothesise that economies of scale are lower in Central-Eastern European countries than in their Western counterparts. We assess the hypothesis using a simple descriptive analysis of the structure of household consumption expenditures based on Household Budget Survey data. Second, we demonstrate the sensitivity of the at-risk-of-poverty rate to an equivalence scale based on the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data. We identify three different groups of countries according to the sensitivity of the income poverty rate to the relative adult and child household member weights assigned by the equivalence scale. The study contributes to the discussion on defining accurate, country-specific equivalence scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1990s, the transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe witnessed an upward trend in returns to education, unlike in Western European countries. This upward trend led to much higher returns than in what was observed in the communist period or compared to the West. The surveys EU-SILC collected since 2005 show that although returns to tertiary education were converging across Europe, there is still a big difference between East and West, with returns considerably higher in the East. Panel analysis reveals also substantial differences in the factors behind returns to tertiary education in the East and the West. The assumed negative relationship between the share of tertiary-educated workers in the working-age population and the returns to tertiary education were confirmed only in the West. The job vacancy rate has a significant negative impact on returns to tertiary education only in the East. While in the West the labour market seems to react more to labour supply, in the East labour demand plays a more important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the impact of unemployment duration on exits from unemployment, along with a set of individual and other explanatory variables. The analysis is based on EU-SILC longitudinal data for the period 2007–2010 and involves Spain and the Czech Republic as examples of the two EU countries with remarkably different labour market performance but similar in their totalitarian past, post-transition economies and recent EU entry. Survival functions estimates point uniformly to prolonged unemployment duration and increasing long-term unemployment. However, both these tendencies apply relatively more to the young unemployed. Estimations of hazard models indicate that shorter unemployment spells are more likely to be terminated by finding a job in comparison with spells lasting for more than one year. The hazard ratios are usually higher for prime age unemployed. Finally, we examine education, gender, household size, etc., as determinants of exits from unemployment, with uniform evidence found for university graduates only. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on earnings inequality within dual-earner couples in four Central-East European (CEE) countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. It aims to analyse the factors that influence earnings distribution within couples. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis uses OLS regression applied on the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions 2011 survey to reveal the various influence of relevant factors, especially relative education and the presence of children, on relative earnings. Findings – Women, on average, contribute less to a couple’s income than men. While considerably higher in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, such disparity is relatively low in Hungary and Poland. These countries have the highest share of dual-earner couples where the woman outearns her partner. The factor that substantially reduces the within-couple earnings inequality in all the analysed countries is a higher relative education of women. On the contrary, the presence of children, especially those of younger age, increases this disparity in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Originality/value – The research on within-couple earning inequality in CEE countries lags behind the relatively rich evidence from western Europe. This is the first study which systematically describes the situation in CEE countries from a comparative perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the debate about the impact of the transition on subjective well-being. After reviewing the relevant literature the authors draw on the surveys of the European Values Study of 1991, 1999 and 2008 to describe the trends in life satisfaction in 13 Western and 11 Eastern countries. The analysis finds that life satisfaction levels in transition countries have come to approach those in the West: the ‘rather unhappy’ 1990s were followed by the ‘rather happy’ 2000s. The strengthening correlation between life satisfaction and GDP reflects this process of convergence. The characteristics of respondents, however, are more important than the national GDP, and a regression of life satisfaction with basic demographic and stratification variables shows their reinforcing effect, especially in Eastern countries. The findings of other surveys reporting on developments of attitudes since 2008 vary but are far from proving a uniform negative impact of economic recession on life satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article analyzes labor market flows and unemployment rate dynamics in Central Europe focusing on the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. The study compares the involvement of working age individuals in movements between labor market states in Central Europe with that in the U.S. and Great Britain. It examines the link of net labor market flows with unemployment rate changes, as well as the labor market flows decomposition of working age population according to gender, education and age.

This study focuses on comparison of factors of job satisfaction within Europe. The rare comparative papers on this subject commonly compare Western Europe (WE) and Eastern Europe (EE) by pooling data on the two regions. By contrast, this analysis takes into account dis/similarities within each of the two regions. We use an ordered probit regression model based on European Social Survey 2010 and test the homogeneity of the two WE and EE regions. We apply a bottom-up psychological theory which divides factors into work-role inputs and work-role outputs. The results confirm the existing WE–EE gap in job satisfaction. Some factors show stronger effects on job satisfaction in one region than the other. The effects of gender and education proved statistically significant only in WE. Being paid appropriately is the most important work-role output and increases job satisfaction substantially more in Germany, France and the UK than in the rest of the WE region. Learning new things in work has the strongest positive impact in France, while Russia is the only country with a negative impact. The article provides a more detailed map of job satisfaction levels and its main factors across European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the gender wage gap between Czech Republic and other Central European countries. The EU-SILC 2008 was used by the author for her study, which targets to reveal the real situation of women on the labor market. The difference between male and female mean hourly log-wage is highest recorded in Czech Republic while Hungary and Poland saw much lower values in the observed gender wage gap with 0.093 and 0.089 log points respectively.

The article discusses the effect of social benefits on labour market participation in the Czech Republic as compared to selected countries in Europe. It uses the logistic regression analysis to estimate the probability of labour market participation based on social benefits in relation to net wage of individuals. It cites the real contributions of social reform programmes to boost labour market participation. It also presents an econometric analysis of labour market participation through the use of microeconomic data.