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This paper is the first to examine whether and how overeducation and overskilling, considered separately and in interaction, influence workers’ job satisfaction at European level. It also investigates the moderating role of employment contracts. Our results, based on a unique pan-European database covering 28 countries in 2014, show that overeducation and overskilling reduce the probability of workers being satisfied with their jobs, but also that the drop in job satisfaction is almost double for genuinely overeducated workers (i.e. workers that are both overeducated and overskilled). These adverse effects on job satisfaction are found to be more pronounced among mismatched workers (whether overeducated, overskilled or both) on fixed-term rather than indefinite contracts., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

A large body of literature shows that first-generation immigrants born in developing countries experience a higher likelihood of being overeducated than natives (i.e. immigrant overeducation). However, evidence is remarkably scarce when it comes to the overeducation of second-generation immigrants. Using a matched employer-employee database for Belgium over the period 1999-2016 and generalized ordered logit regressions, we contribute to the literature with one of the first studies on the intergenerational nexus between overeducation and origin among tertiary-educated workers. We show that immigrant overeducation disappears across two generations when workers work full-time. However, immigrant overeducation is a persistent intergenerational phenomenon when workers work part-time. Our gender-interacted estimates endorse these findings for female and male immigrants., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This article is the first to examine how 1st-generation migrants affect the employment of workers born in the host country according to their origin, distinguishing between natives and 2nd-generation migrants. To do so, we take advantage of access to a unique linked employer-employee dataset for the Belgian economy enabling us to test these relationships at a quite precise level of the labour market, i.e. the firm level. Fixed effect estimates, including a large number of covariates, suggest complementarity between the employment of 1st-generation migrants and workers born in Belgium (both natives and 2nd-generation migrants, respectively). Several sensitivity tests, considering different levels of aggregation, workers’ levels of education, migrants’ region of origin, workers’ occupations, and sectors corroborate this conclusion., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This PhD thesis contains three analyses: one taking an international approach and two focusing on the Belgian labour market. Using macro-level data for 25 developed countries between 1990 and 2015 and several panel data estimations, the results of Chapter 1 suggest that collective bargaining has a poverty-reducing effect through the interaction between trade unions and the welfare state rather than through its role in wage formation. Using matched employer-employee data for Belgium covering the period 1999-2016, the results of Chapter 2 show that first- and second-generation from developing countries earn remarkedly less than workers born in developed countries (i.e. a persistent intergenerational wage gap). However, most of these gaps are explained by compositional effects (e.g. age, tenure, education and occupation), whose extent considerably varies across generations. Using the same data as in Chapter 2, yet focusing exclusively on tertiary-educated workers, the results of Chapter 3 point out that while immigrants overeducation disappears across two generations among full-time workers, this issue remains intergenerational persistent among part-time workers. Therefore, this PhD thesis provides insightful advice for the implementation of policies and strategies that ensure fair and well-functioning labour markets and social protection systems for people at risk of poverty and/or with a foreign background., Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Labour market integration of migrant workers is key to show the integration of migrants in developed countries. Consequently, the literature regarding this topic has expanded during the last decades to better understand their situation. In this context, the main objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to fulfil gaps in the literature by investigating several aspects of the labour market integration of migrants on the Belgian labour market, namely i) the determinants of the origin-based wage gaps, and ii) the impact of migrants on natives’ employment.Chapter 1, based on a paper co-authored with Benoît Mahy, François Rycx and Mélanie Volral, estimates wage discrimination against non-EU15 workers depending on their region of origin, their tenure and the product market competition faced by the firms they work in. Using a merged employer-employee panel dataset of more than 13,000 firms relative to the Belgian private sector for the 1999–2010 period, results highlight large disparities in wage discrimination against foreign-born migrants depending on their countries of birth (especially against workers born in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa) and hence confirm the adequacy of dividing non-EU15 workers into subgroups, as they appear to be treated very differently in the Belgian labour market depending on their regions of birth. They also suggest that wage discrimination against migrants vanishes as their firm-specific labour market experience (i.e. tenure) increases and tends to disappear in highly competitive product market situations, these results being in line with statistical and monopsonistic discrimination theories.Next, Chapter 2, based on a paper co-authored with Benoît Mahy and François Rycx, examines the influence of firm’s upstreamness (i.e. the average distance from final use, to be understood as the average number of steps/transactions before firms’ production of goods and/or services meets either domestic or foreign final demand) on wages according to workers’ ori, Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In the three chapters of this PhD dissertation, I analyze the increase in the Belgian DI recipiency rate and the role of social security reforms in this phenomenon. The first chapter provides a general overview of the Belgian DI program, analyzes different possible explanations for its rapid growth between 2005 and 2015 and discusses different policy options to address this phenomenon. The second chapter studies the effects of monitoring the job-search activities exerted by the long-term unemployed population on their exit rate to employment, DI and other social safety net programs. The third chapter studies the effect of increasing the eligibility age for an old-age unemployment program, called Unemployment with Company Supplement (UCS), on workers’ employment rate and participation rate in DI or other social security programs., Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

We provide first evidence of the impact of over-education, among natives and immigrants, on firm-level productivity and wages. Our results show that the over-education wage premium is higher for natives than for immigrants. However, since the differential in productivity gains associated with over-education outweighs the corresponding wage premium differential, we conclude that over-educated native workers are in fact underpaid to a greater extent than their over-educated immigrant counterparts. This conclusion is refined by sensitivity analyses, when testing the role of immigrants’ background (e.g. region of birth, immigrant generation)., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This paper investigates the potentially non-linear relation between households’ indebtedness and their consumption. To do so, we use panel data from the two waves of the Belgian Household Finance and Consumption Survey. Unlike previous studies, we find a negative effect of households’ indebtedness on their consumption, even in the absence of any negative shock on their assets. Our findings suggest that, without such a shock, it is the day-to-day sustainability of the debt, rather than its overall sustainability, that leads households to reduce their consumption. The effect thus seems to occur through precautionary motives. To explore potential non-linearities in this effect, we perform a threshold analysis, whose results suggest that households should not have a debt-service-to-income ratio greater than 30% as this leads to a substantial reduction in their consumption. The effect appears to be robust to various specifications, including the inclusion of other European countries, to result from a trade-off between housing and consumption, and to be more prevalent among fragile households., iiTSE, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

While the literature on the incidence and wage effects of over-education is substantial, specific results for doctoral graduates are surprisingly scarce. This article aims to fill this gap, not only by measuring the prevalence of over-educated PhD holders in Europe (i.e. in EU Member States and the UK), but also by estimating their wage penalty relative to what they could have earned in a job corresponding to their level of education. Using a unique pan-European dataset, we rely on two alternative measures of over-education and control stepwise for four groups of covariates (i.e. socio-demographic characteristics, skills needed for the job, other job-specific characteristics and motivations for employment) in order to interpret the over-education wage penalty in light of theoretical models. Depending on the specification adopted, we find that over-educated PhD holders face a wage penalty ranging from 25 to 13.5% with respect to their well-matched counterparts. Our results also show that the over-education wage penalty is significantly higher for PhD holders who are both over-educated and over-skilled and especially for those who are both over-educated and dissatisfied with their jobs. Finally, unconditional quantile regressions highlight that the over-education wage penalty among PhD holders increases greatly along the wage distribution., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Although many studies point to the significant influence of collective bargaining (CB) institutions on earnings inequalities, evidence on how these institutions shape poverty rates across developed economies remains surprisingly scarce. This paper explicitly addresses the relationship between CB systems and working-age poverty rates before and after taxes and transfers in 24 developed countries over the period 1990–2015. Our results show that countries with a more centralized CB system, a more extended bargaining coverage rate and/or a higher trade union density display significantly lower poverty rates. However, these results only hold in a post-tax benefit scenario. Controlling for country and time fixed effects and a wide range of covariates, our estimates indeed suggest that the poverty-reducing effect of CB institutions stems from the political strength of trade unions in promoting public social spending rather than from any direct effect on earnings inequalities. Sensitivity tests for endogeneity and overlapping samples support this conclusion., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Albanesi (2016) defines social insurance schemes as government transfer programs whereby individuals who claim a condition or state that reduces their labor income obtain a transfer from the government. Which "conditions'' and "states'' should be covered by social insurance, as well as the optimal level of coverage, has been the source of debates among policy-makers and economists for more than a century.Early on, working women fought for protection against income loss resulting from childbirth. Back in October 1919, delegates of the first International Congress of Working Women gathered in Washington D.C. and successfully convinced the International Labour Organization to adopt a maternity protection convention, which mandated that maternity leave must come with benefits "sufficient for the full and healthy maintenance'' of mother and child. Several decades later, in the 1970's, Scandinavian countries adopted gender-neutral parental leave policies, which opened government paid leaves to fathers. They have since been followed by more than 90 countries which offer paid leave mandates to both parents. Probably the largest outlier among non-adopters of parental leave policies is the United States, whose 46th president Joe Biden failed during the first year of his mandate to fulfill his campaign promise to put in place a nation-wide parental leave program. The century-long reforms across the world, as well as the ongoing debate in the USA, one of the largest labor markets, motivates a deeper understanding of the consequences of parental leave policies for work and family decisions.The first two chapters of this thesis find their origin in previous work, which studies the labor market trajectory of Belgian women around childbirth. This earlier study demonstrates that Belgian mothers lose about 30 percent of their labor earnings relative to fathers, up to eight years after the birth of their first child (Fontenay et al. 2021). Figure I at the end of the introduction illus, Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

As immigrants born in developing countries and their descendants represent a growing share of the working-age population in the developed world, their labour market integration constitutes a key factor for fostering economic development and social cohesion. Using a granular, matched employer-employee database of 1.3 million observations between 1999 and 2016, our weighted multilevel log-linear regressions first indicate that in Belgium, the overall wage gap between workers born in developed countries and workers originating from developing countries remains substantial: it reaches 15.7% and 13.5% for first- and second-generation immigrants, respectively. However, controlling for a wide range of observables (e.g. age, tenure, education, type of contract, occupation, firm-level collective agreement, firm fixed effects), we find that, whereas first-generation immigrants born in developing countries still experience a sizeable adjusted wage gap (2.7%), there is no evidence of an adjusted wage gap for their second-generation peers. Moreover, our reweighted, recentered influence function Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions agree with these findings. Indeed, while the overall wage gap for first-generation immigrants born in developing countries is driven by unfavourable human capital, low-paying occupational/sectoral characteristics, and a wage structure effect (e.g. wage discrimination), the wage gap for their second-generation peers is essentially explained by the fact that they are younger and have less tenure than workers born in developed countries. Furthermore, our results emphasize the significant moderating role of geographical origin, gender, and position in the wage distribution., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

In various international reports studying employment across countries and over time (see for example OECD or IMF reports), some groups are systematically highlighted as more vulnerable or less present in the labour market. This is the case of the youths, older people, women, people with a foreign origin and those with a low level of education. The aim of this thesis is to better understand the main driving forces explaining the labour market situation of those vulnerable groups, with a special attention devoted to people with a foreign origin (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) and women (Chapter 4). Both institutional settings and personal characteristics are deeply analysed.Using data from European countries, Chapter 1 provides robust estimates on how product and labour market regulation could influence the unemployment rate. Controlling for country fixed effects, endogeneity, and a large set of covariates, results show that product market deregulation overall reduces the unemployment rate. This finding is robust across all specifications and in line with theoretical predictions. However, not all types of product market reforms have the same effect: deregulation of state controls and in particular involvement in business operations tend to push up the unemployment rate, while barriers to entrepreneurship and barriers to trade tend to reduce it. Regarding labour market deregulation, our estimations show an increase in the unemployment rate in the short run, while a positive impact (i.e. a reduction in the unemployment rate) occurs only in the long run. Analysis by sub-indicators shows that reducing protection against collective dismissals helps in reducing the unemployment rate. This Chapter also analyses how unemployment’s effects of deregulations could vary depending on the type of workers. Although men and women are equally affected by product and labour market deregulations, workers distinguished by age and educational attainment are affected differently. In terms of emp, Dans divers rapports internationaux étudiant l'emploi dans les pays et dans le temps (voir par exemple les rapports de l'OCDE ou du FMI), certains groupes sont systématiquement mis en évidence comme étant plus vulnérables ou moins présents sur le marché du travail. C'est le cas des jeunes, des personnes âgées, des femmes, des personnes d'origine étrangère et des personnes ayant un faible niveau d'éducation. L'objectif de cette thèse est de mieux comprendre les principales forces motrices qui expliquent la situation de ces groupes vulnérables sur le marché du travail, en accordant une attention particulière aux personnes d'origine étrangère (chapitre 2 et chapitre 3) et aux femmes (chapitre 4). Les contextes institutionnels et les caractéristiques personnelles sont analysés en profondeur.En utilisant des données provenant de pays européens, le chapitre 1 fournit des estimations robustes sur la manière dont la réglementation des marchés de produits et du travail pourrait influencer le taux de chômage. En contrôlant les effets fixes du pays, l'endogénéité et un large ensemble de covariables, les résultats montrent que la déréglementation du marché des produits réduit globalement le taux de chômage. Cette conclusion est robuste dans toutes les spécifications et conforme aux prédictions théoriques. Cependant, tous les types de réformes des marchés de produits n'ont pas le même effet :la déréglementation des contrôles de l'État et en particulier l'implication dans les opérations commerciales tendent à faire augmenter le taux de chômage, tandis que les obstacles à l'esprit d'entreprise et les obstacles au commerce tendent à le réduire. En ce qui concerne la déréglementation du marché du travail, nos estimations montrent une augmentation du taux de chômage à court terme, tandis qu'un impact positif (c'est-à-dire une réduction du taux de chômage) ne se produit qu'à long terme. L'analyse par sous-indicateurs montre que la réduction de la protection contre les licenciements co, Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Increasing the employment rate of the working age population has been at the top of policy and research agendas alike. In this thesis, I study the impacts of three flagship Active Labour Market programs – a job search monitoring program, a wage subsidy, and a training program – targeted at vulnerable populations. In the first chapter, I study the effects of a job search monitoring policy targeted at the long-term unemployed, focusing not only on transitions from unemployment to employment, but also on participation in other social welfare programs. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, I show that the program decreased the probability of remaining unemployed, but only through an increase in the probability of receiving Disability Insurance benefits. Employment and participation in other types of social welfare programs are, on the other hand, unaffected. These findings highlight that, for individuals who are on the fringes of the labour market, job search monitoring might not be sufficient to foster a return to employment. In the second chapter, I use a Difference-in-Differences approach to study the effects of implementing domestic service subsidies on employment and work disability in the targeted sectors. I then complement this analysis with an event study Difference-in-Differences approach that allows to uncover how working in these subsidized jobs affects the labour market outcomes of subsidized workers. I show that domestic service subsidies can be an effective means of creating employment opportunities for low-skilled workers in the sector of domestic services, by both reducing unemployment and increasing labour market participation of the target group. I also show that PHS subsidies can entail important unintended costs for the Disability Insurance and possibly deteriorate the health of subsidized workers. In the last chapter, I explore whether jobseekers can be encouraged to follow trainings for shortage occupations through a low-cost information interve, Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This PhD dissertation aims at broadening the knowledge on household economics and their behavior. More precisely, it focuses on the well-being of household’s members, and its determinants, with, among others, an emphasis on the individuals’ time allocations. This analysis is performed in several steps as different ways of measuring well-being and of considering households are allowed for. Concerning households, it goes from considering them as a single entity to modeling them as a collection of individuals trying to take into account the potential interdependencies between these individuals. As for the measure of well-being, it starts by simply looking at the consumption of the households, then at the self-declared well-being of their members (what is called subjective well-being in the literature), to finally indirectly consider the well-being of the children in the households. The first chapter of this thesis therefore investigates on the effect of households’ indebtedness on their consumption. The second chapter, analyses the relationship between time allocations of household’s members and their subjective well-being (SWB). Finally, the third chapter tries to look at the impact that parents’ and grandparents’ level of education has on the investments that the children in the households receive, both in terms of time and money., Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The analysis of over-education is of growing interest in developed economies. Yet, the evidence on the determinants and consequences of over-education according to workers’ origin is still quite limited, especially in the Belgian labour market. This PhD dissertation therefore contributes to broaden the existing literature on the relationship between over-education and immigration at the worker and firm levels., L'analyse de la sur-éducation suscite un intérêt croissant dans les économies développées. Pourtant, les études sur les déterminants et les conséquences de la sur-éducation en fonction de l'origine des travailleurs sont encore assez limitées, surtout sur le marché du travail belge. Cette thèse de doctorat contribue donc à élargir la littérature existante sur la relation entre la sur-éducation et l'immigration au niveau des travailleurs et des entreprises., Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This paper is among the firsts to investigate the impact of overeducation and overskilling on workers’ wages using a unique pan-European database covering twenty-eight countries for the year 2014, namely the CEDEFOP’s European Skills and Jobs (ESJ) survey. Overall, the results suggest a wage penalty associated with overeducation. When interacting educational mismatch with skills mismatch into apparent overeducation and genuine overeducation, the results suggest that the highest wage penalty is reached for workers that are both overeducated and overskilled., info:eu-repo/semantics/published