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This thesis investigates the co-evolution of the changing structure of occupations and the growth in wage inequality in Britain since the 1970s and the subsequent stabilisation during the 2000s. Occupations provide the single most important unit of analysis for economic inequality in stratification research, providing the basis for socioeconomic status, prestige scales, job desirability scores, and social class schemas. Although there was a ‘massive rise’ in wage inequality, relatively little is known about the relationship between the occupational structure and the growth in wage inequality. Since sociologists tend to place a lot of emphasis on the role of occupations in structuring economic inequalities, we might expect them to play a key role in accounting for trends in overall wage inequality. More recent strands of sociological theory, however, argue that the link between occupations and economic inequalities might have been weakening over time. This thesis assesses these claims in relation to the over time trends in between- and within-occupation-inequality. It finds that the growth in overall wage inequality was largely due to growing inequality between occupations, not within them. The growth in between-occupation inequality was largely due to higher-paying occupations receiving the largest wage gains. Furthermore, and perhaps surprisingly, only a handful of occupations account for the majority of the rise in wage inequality, indicating caution should be exercised in generating accounts about the role for occupations in accounting for overall inequality. Along the way, this thesis attempts to address the extent to which the structuring of the growth in wage inequality by occupations was due to the changing composition of incumbents within occupations (namely the rise in educational attainment), in spite of data limitations. Finally, this thesis takes to task what the implications of the ‘massive rise’ in wage inequality implies for the broader categories sociologists use to capture economic inequalities based on aggregations of occupations.

Nessa dissertação, procura-se avaliar se o retorno esperado do ensino superior é determinante para a escolha profissional e explicar como os salários, as habilidades e as características sócio-econômicas dos alunos da Universidade de São Paulo (USP), em conjunto, se associam à escolha da carreira. Para atingir esses objetivos, são utilizados dados da Fundação Universitária para o Vestibular (Fuvest) de 1995 e de 1996 e do Censo 2000. As carreiras são divididas em seis áreas de atuação – educação, ciências humanas, negócios, saúde, engenharia e matemática/ciências – e são estimados dois modelos de escolha discreta: logit multinomial e logit condicional. Na estimação do logit multinomial são utilizadas apenas variáveis relativas às características dos indivíduos e no logit condicional inclui-se o salário médio de cada área de atuação. Os resultados indicam que o retorno esperado não tem efeito sobre a escolha profissional. / This research evaluate if higher education expected return is determinant for the professional choice and how the interaction between wage, abilities and socio-economic characteristics of Universidade de São Paulo’s students, all together, are associated to the career choice. Data used is from Fundação Universitária para o Vestibular (Fuvest) 1995 and 1996’s questionnaires and from Censo 2000. The careers are grouped in six concentration areas – education, human sciences, management, health, engineer, math/sciences – and two discrete choice models are estimated: multinomial logit and conditional logit. Multinomial logit contains only variables specific to individuals and the average wage of each concentration area is included in conditional logit estimation. The results show that expected return doesn’t have effect over the professional choice.

Thesis advisor: Shannon Seitz / Issues pertaining to low income workers are of the upmost interest to policy makers. In the mid 1990s, the issue of welfare recipients and work was at the forefront of public policy, as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was passed. One of the many goals of the policy was to "end the dependence of needy families on government benefits" by encouraging work and ultimately higher wages. The first paper of my dissertation explores the processes by which work leads to wage growth for welfare recipients. I find that welfare recipients have similar returns to tenure and experience as non-recipients and that tenure has higher returns than experience for these women. Because of this, policies that discourage leaving work, like a work requirement, are more effective encouraging wage growth than policies discouraging welfare use, like a time-limit. A decade later, the low savings rates of low income workers has led policy makers within the Obama administration to consider making Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) available to all workers. The second paper of this dissertation examines how likely low individual workers are to participate in these plans. We find that low-income workers not currently offered voluntary retirement savings plans are less likely to participate than those currently offered those plans. The paper indicates policy makers should be wary of basing estimates of participation in the offered IRAs on current participation, as this may overestimate the participation rate by up to 25 percent. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Chen, Fengjiao. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 34-35). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Wage Bargaining and Strike --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- Outside Option --- p.7 / Chapter 3 --- The Model Setting --- p.9 / Chapter 4 --- Equilibrium Analysis --- p.12 / Chapter 4.1 --- Equilibrium when b < We --- p.12 / Chapter 4.2 --- Equilibrium when b = We --- p.13 / Chapter 4.3 --- Equilibrium when b > We --- p.15 / Chapter 4.4 --- Opting Out is an Equilibrium --- p.26 / Chapter 4.5 --- Implications on Preemption and Renegotiation --- p.27 / Chapter 5 --- Discussion --- p.28 / Chapter 5.1 --- Without Outside Option (HHFG Model) --- p.28 / Chapter 5.2 --- Committed to Strike (Shaked 1994) --- p.29 / Chapter 5.3 --- The Influence of discount factor 5 --- p.30 / Chapter 5.4 --- Equilibrium Refinement by Good Faith Bargaining Rule --- p.31 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.32

The city of Seattle, Washington made headlines in 2014 when its city council enacted the highest minimum wage in the history of the United States. The ruling appeared to begin a trend as similar policies began diffusing in cities across the country. In reality, however, municipal minimum wage ordinances have existed since the early 1990’s. Yet, despite over two decade’s worth of data on the subject, little research has been conducted to understand the characteristics that influence cities to enact minimum wages in the first place. This study contributes to our understanding of the predictors of minimum wage ordinances by retesting prior variables of significance over a more recent time period, while also introducing a new set of variables to the literature. I find that cities with an increased percentage of residents with bachelor’s degrees face an increased likelihood for future policy adoption. Additionally, I find that some age demographics may be significant predictors in future studies of minimum wage.

In the field of labor economics, abundant research has been conducted on the cause and magnitude of the gender wage gap in various industries in the United States. While the national gender wage gap has decreased over the last few decades, this trend has not been observed in every industry. The film industry, in particular, has experienced a notable lack of progress in both its social and economic treatment of women. Because Hollywood has significant influence in the United States, its misguided portrayal of women and failure to ensure equal pay for male and female actors sets a harmful standard for the rest of the nation. Due to the confidential nature of actors’ salaries, however, there is little research on the topic of the gender wage gap in Hollywood. Using a couple hundred observations, I examined the magnitude of the gender wage gap in Hollywood and compared the impact of gender on actors’ salaries to that of more pertinent variables, such as critical success and available finances. I concluded that gender has a greater effect on an actor’s salary than any other variable. In consideration of the relative lack of literature on this topic, I recommend several ways to further the research conducted in this study.

最低工資視為勞工政策，藉由政府立法方式且包含集體談判、公約，以確保勞工福利與權益。最低工資制度仍然為重大理論議題與政治辯論，許多國家都設有最低工資且設定標準繁多，有些按照年齡、任職期間、地區、行業別；例如在中國，以地區別方式來設定最低工資之標準。隨著經濟結構變化，投資環境不如以往，中國逐漸失去廉價勞動力的優勢，中國在罷工與勞工短缺情況下，可能導致社會動亂，中央政府已計劃一個新的工資改革，順應世界潮流。改革目的在縮小貧富差距，藉由提高低工資之收入，規模擴大至中產階級，遏止過高薪資分配之不平等，所以在第12個五年計劃已經訂下目標，以調整最低工資，以改革收入分配。 / Minimum wages is a labor policy, whether established by government legislation, comprised of the collective bargaining or convention, are an important feature of labor markets. The minimum wage system is the subject of substantial theoretical as well as political debate. Many countries have set minimum wage standards for various, no country can be exception in the work to establish the minimum wage system, like China, mostly in age but also in some cases by job tenure, region, industry and occupation. With the economic structural changes, the investment environment is quite complex than before and no longer cheap labor in China. China government has no choice but to revise the minimum wage system in accordance with the world trend. Under the intensified discontent such as strike or labor shortage which could lead to the social unrest, Central government has planned to initiate a new wage reform. The reform is aimed to equality and narrowing the wealth gap by raising the incomes of the low-paid, expanding the size of middle classes, wiping out illegitimate incomes and putting a curb on excessively high salaries. The 12th Five Year plan has set the target to adjust the minimum wage in order to reform of income distribution.