Context: Existing studies have explored the association between workplace training and wages suggesting that training participation may have a positive association with wages. However, we still know very little about whether this association varies between men and women. Through its potential positive association with wages, training may balance…

The labour market outcomes for native- and foreign-born adults during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic vary considerably across countries -- with inequalities in employment even falling in some cases compared to 2017. In contrast with the 2008 financial crisis, greater educational attainment does not seem to have had a clear protective…

We use data from the "Trajectoires et Origines" survey to analyze ethnic gaps in education and labor-market outcomes between second-generation immigrants and their French-native counterparts. Our three main findings underscore the importance of family background in explaining lifelong ethnic inequalities. First, second-generation…

Academic careers are social processes which involve many members of large populations over long periods of time. This paper outlines a discursive perspective which looks into how academics are categorized in academic systems. From a discursive view, academic careers are organized by categories which can define who academics are (subjectivation)…

Ample evidence indicates that a person's human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the…

This paper looks at the importance of mechanisms that give formal recognition to vocational skills acquired through work-based learning and how such mechanisms might be developed. It describes how skill recognition can benefit individuals, employers and society as a whole, and identifies in which contexts skill recognition has the highest…

In the wake of the technological revolution that began in the last decades of the 20th century, labour market demand for information-processing and other high-level cognitive and interpersonal skills is growing substantially. The "Survey of Adult Skills," a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult…

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the link between age and proficiency in information-processing skills, based on information drawn from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). The data reveal significant age-related differences in proficiencies, strongly suggesting that proficiency tends to "naturally" decline with age. Age…

This study explores individual effects of educational mismatch on wages, job satisfaction and on-the-job-search on French labour market. We distinguish between horizontal matches (job matches with field of studies) and vertical matches (job matches the level of qualification) on the one hand and skills matches (worker's assessment) on the other…

This working paper assesses the ease of immigrants' integration in OECD labour markets by estimating how an immigration background influences the probability of being active or employed and the expected hourly earnings, for given individual characteristics. Applying the same methodology to comparable data across twelve OECD countries, immigrants…

Before 1997, education was a way for young French men to avoid military service in the army. After the abolition of compulsory conscription in 1997, this incentive to stay on in education disappeared. We show that the decrease in the benefit of pursuing education for men was followed by a fall in their educational achievement relative to women and…

This volume presents 6 papers by 22 labor economists who examine and address worker displacement in 10 industrialized countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Netherlands, United States). "Summary and Synthesis" (Peter J. Kuhn) discusses these four categories of lessons learned from panel…

Reducing poverty and social exclusion is an important objective for all French governments. Even though conventionally measured poverty is in fact lower than in most other countries, it is still higher than can be easily accepted. The current policy approach involves a large number of measures tailored to different circumstances. Some policies…

This bulletin examines the labor market experience of youth in the United States and eight other industrial countries from the early 1960s to the late 1970s. The analysis focuses upon unemployment, the most visible and measurable form of labor underutilization. The report highlights the size of the youth unemployment problem and discusses some of…

A representative survey of over 30,000 people aged 16-64 years across the 15 member states of the European Union and Norway sought Europeans' preferences for increasing or reducing the number of hours worked per week. Key finding included the following: (1) 51% preferred to work fewer hours in exchange for lower earnings while 12% preferred to…