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Reducing the disadvantages faced by Indigenous Australians in relation to employment outcomes has become an important issue. There have been several studies which have focused on the factors associated with Indigenous Australians' labour force status. There is, however, only limited research on the factors which influence the earnings of Indigenous men and women. This paper enhances this literature by providing a detailed analysis on the factors which determine the earnings for Indigenous Australian workers, conditional on them being employed. The paper also estimates how Indigenous men and women's labour force participation decisions respond to changes in their potential earnings. The paper focuses on the extent to which human capital theory can explain the earnings of Indigenous Australians. It finds that the earnings of Indigenous Australians can largely be explained by their education levels and a number of demographic and job characteristics. The paper also finds that Indigenous Australians' labour force participation decisions respond positively to increases in their potential earnings. The results suggest that the human capital framework is appropriate for explaining Indigenous Australians' earnings.

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Recent years have seen a push for greater labour market flexibility and an accompanying upsurge of interest in temporary employment and the negative outcomes often associated with such employment arrangements. This study focusses on the pay outcome with respect to the temporary workforce in New Zealand. This country is a useful case study for such analysis, because of the low levels of employment protection legislation afforded to temporary workers relative to the rest of the OECD. We utilise decomposition analysis to assess the size and significance of unexplained wage gaps for both the aggregate group of temporary workers and the subgroups of fixed-term, casual, temporary agency and seasonal workers. Our findings signal that the majority of the temporary-permanent wage differences can be explained by observable characteristics, with no wage gap evident for fixed-term workers. We also find varying effects across the wage distribution. Quantile analysis points to a widening wage gap (particularly for casual and temporary agency workers) towards the upper end of the wage distribution, with a growing proportion of the gap that is unexplained.

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This article examines the gender wage gap in the formal public and private sectors in Bangladesh. The traditional Oaxaca method focuses on the explained and unexplained part of the wage gap; in this paper we use the Olsen and Walby (2004) simulation method which emphasises only the explained part of the wage gap. Using the Bangladesh Labour Force Survey 2005-2006, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics data show formal-sector female employees earned about 32.1 per cent less than their male counterparts (2008). Using the Olsen and Walby (2004) simulation for the first time in the Bangladeshi context, the results reported here show that age and educational differences and industrial and occupational segregation played important roles in explaining the gender pay gap in Bangladesh. However, 'being female' was also an important determinant of lower female earnings. These results show the importance of policies to boost female education and training in Bangladesh. They also indicate the need for policies to promote female participation in the formal-sector workforce, including improvements in childcare and transport availability.

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This study presents a time series analysis of the cyclical relationship between the labour force participation rate and the unemployment rate in Australia over the period 1979-1998. Disaggregation of the data according to demographic categories shows greater discouragement among female workers, unmarried workers, Australian-born workers, students, workers with children, and workers in certain states and cities.

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Among Australian studies estimating returns to education, there is a consensus that education is a highly profitable investment. Conventional estimates of returns to education examine earnings conditional upon individuals' years of education, with years spent in education typically inferred from their highest qualification attained. However, this approach underestimates the actual time individuals may have spent in education as it ignores multiple qualifications obtained and time spent towards qualifications that were not completed. Using 2001-2019 panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey supplemented by several Australian Bureau of Statistics sources, we estimate the sensitivity of estimates of the returns to education from a standard wage equation to the inclusion of course non-completion and multiple qualifications.

Taking account of these sources of mismeasurement, we estimate the wage premium associated with each additional year of education to be 5.5 per cent, as opposed to 6.5 per cent using the conventional approach, or around 15 per cent lower. These differences are similar by gender and broad age group. We find unaccounted for years spent accruing multiple qualifications to be the main source of overestimation of the returns to education, although we note the lack of individual-level data on incomplete qualifications may have mitigated against identifying a larger effect of accounting for this source of mismeasurement.

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Over the last three decades Aboriginal employment growth, outside of [community development employment projects] CDEP, has been extremely disappointing. Indeed, the full-time employment-population ratio remains at about 60 per cent of that of white Australians. We document the nature of employment growth and the data needed to more adequately explain the reasons for this disappointing outcome. [The authors] especially highlight the marked differences between employment stocks and flows and the importance of linking these two employment measures together to adequately understand the dynamics of this labour market. If employment prospects are to improve it seems inevitable that Indigenous people will have to move to where employment opportunities exist. The paper highlights the need to think of Indigenous employment and employment policy more in the context of an economic and social system where there can be a considerable geographic separation between the work place [and] the traditional home.

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We use data from a nationally representative Australian household panel survey to examine the extent and nature of self-reported job discrimination, its correlates, and its associations with various employment outcomes and measures of subjective wellbeing. We find that approximately 8.5 per cent of job applicants and 7.5 per cent of employees report being discriminated against in the preceding two years, most commonly on the basis of their age. Gender is found to be a common factor predicting perceived discrimination in both job applications and in the course of employment, but the determinants of these two types of discrimination are otherwise somewhat different. In particular, age is a significant determinant of perceived discrimination in job applications only, while being a mother of young children is a significant factor only for discrimination in the course of employment. We also find that, holding other traits constant, ethnic and religious minorities are not significantly more likely to perceive they have been discriminated against. Little evidence of adverse effects of perceived job discrimination is found for wage levels, wage changes and the probability of promotion, but we find large negative effects on subjective outcomes such as job satisfaction and self-assessed probability of job loss.

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The implicit motivational assumptions of active labour market policies/programs (ALMPs) are that human behaviour can be predicted and controlled using positive and negative reinforcers such as rewards and incentives, and sanctions and punishments respectively. More contemporary psychological perspectives, however, propose that motivation does not emanate solely from the individual but is inextricably linked to the social context, with consequences for mental health. Little, if any, research in labour markets has considered the degree to which the motivation and mental health of unemployed people might be impacted by ALMPs more generally, and in particular, the Australian employment services system.

In this paper a self-determination theory perspective is adopted, with analysis of longitudinal survey data of a sample of jobseekers in the 'jobactive' program examining how mental health was impacted as a consequence of their mandatory engagement with the frontline employees of employment services providers. The study concludes that unemployed people experience the employment services system as unhelpful and ineffective in assisting them to secure employment, and that engagement with the system is more likely than not to have an adverse effect on their mental health, primarily through the psychological need for relatedness and competence. The results have important implications for policy given the significant economic and human cost of diminished mental health and provide a constructive yardstick for the evaluation of alternative systems.

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A popular view is that tradespersons' earnings compare favourably with those with university education. This view is not borne out by wage data, but a common rejoinder is that it is the self-employed tradespersons who make the 'big' money (and probably under-report their income). These ideas are examined by analysing household expenditure data in conjunction with income data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Household Expenditure Survey and the Survey of Income and Housing. The data also allow us to look at wealth across occupations. [The authors'] findings are that neither expenditure data nor wealth data change significantly the relativities between the trades and occupations more associated with higher education. While no doubt there are some very rich tradespersons, on average those with university degrees earn more than those with trade qualifications. And there is little evidence to suggest than on average self-employed tradespeople 'do better' than those who are employees.

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This paper provides evidence on the nature of occupational segregation and its role in shaping differential labour market outcomes for men and women using Australian data. Data on men and women's job satisfaction conditional upon the degree of feminisation of their occupation are used to explore potential causes of occupational segregation by gender in the Australian labour market.

We find some evidence for the notion of 'women's work' - that certain occupations are highly feminised because women prefer the type of work done in those occupations. However, this primarily applies to mothers and the results also support the view that occupational segregation is generated by societal norms around roles allocated to men and women. In particular, patterns in satisfaction with hours of work and with pay in highly feminised occupations are consistent with mothers taking on the role of the 'secondary breadwinner'. In contrast to suggestions in some of the existing Australian literature, the results also indicate that more highly feminised occupations are relatively poorly paid, other things held equal. The results are consistent with literature suggesting a shift in women's identities with motherhood. We further argue they are consistent with occupational segregation being driven primarily by socially constructed norms around women's roles rather than an innate preference for particular types of work.

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