Magister Commercii - MCom / South African labour relations are associated with a history of extensive discrimination and segregation, subject to various types of discrimination during the apartheid era, including employment discrimination. This study explores the effect of Affirmative Action on the reduction (if any) of employment discrimination since the advent of democracy. It investigates whether the extent of employment discrimination by race and gender has decreased, 20 years since the economic transition. The first part of the study gives an overview of the South African labour legislations, both discriminative legislations and statutes aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past. The empirical part of the paper employs a sample that represents the labour force (excluding informal sector workers, agricultural workers, domestic workers and self-employed) aged between 15 and 65 years. The methodology in this study firstly estimates probit models describing the labour force participation, employment and occupational attainment, followed by the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, using data from OHS 1997-1999, LFS 2000-2007, QLFS 2008-2014 and NIDS 2008-2012. The OHS/LFS/QLFS decomposition results show that the unexplained component of the White-Black employment probability gap does not reveal any strong downward trend overtime. Also, results on the occupational attainment gap indicate that there was an increasing occupational attainment probability gap between Whites and Blacks which was partially driven by an increase in the unexplained component. This implies that Affirmative Action was not successful in reducing racial discrimination in the South African labour market. Additionally, the unexplained component is most dominant in the male-female employment gap decomposition. This suggests employment discrimination against females is very serious. However, the male-female highly-skilled employment likelihood shows no clear trend over time. These results suggest that when it comes to employment discrimination against females, this may have taken place more seriously when it comes to the unskilled or semi-skilled occupations.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / Women represent approximately 50 percent of the active labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa. Even though women are involved in a variety of agricultural activities, they have limited access to resources and have restricted decision-making power compared to their male counterparts (FAO, 2011). These limitations and restrictions are likely to have a significant effect on women’s performance levels compared to men. The present research measures the gender-based performance differences, identifies factors that influence the financial performance levels, and factors contributing to generate disparities between male and female smallholders performance in northern Ghana. Data used in this study are from the Agriculture Production Survey (APS) focusing on the 2013-2014 cropping season. The study uses the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method to measure and decompose the gender performance gap in two parts: endowment effect and structural effect. Gross margin is used to measure farmer’s financial performance. The endowment effect is attributed to differences in the explanatory variables, and the structural effect is associated with differences in returns of the explanatory variables. Results from the study indicate there is a gender gap between male and female smallholder farmers with male farmers outperforming females by 46 percent. Land area had the largest significant impact on the explained part of the gender gap, followed by tractor service. The endowment effect portion of the decomposition models is accounted for 35 percent of the gender gap, and the remaining 65 percent is associated with the structural effect. The larger structural effect part suggests that developing programs to establish equality among male and female smallholder producers in terms of access to resources will not close the gender gap. Additionally, factors contributing positively overall to gross margin of smallholder farmers were land area, and tractor services and crops produced. Based on the results of this research, policymakers and agribusiness stakeholders may look to reduce the gender gap existing between smallholder farmers in northern Ghana by empowering women by providing them access to land area and tractor services. Further research into factors affecting the gender gap in financial performance in agricultural activities is warranted.

Esta dissertação analisa os impactos de fatores socioeconômicos e psicossociais sobre a prevalência da depressão no Brasil através de modelos probit e da decomposição de Oaxaca-Blinder aplicados às bases de dados dos suplementos de saúde da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD Saúde) e da Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde 2013 (PNS 2013). Neste trabalho, foram usados dois critérios básicos de identificação de indivíduos deprimidos: os que referiram ter recebido o diagnóstico de depressão de algum profissional de saúde e os que obtiveram um escore superior a 4 no teste PHQ-9 (cujas perguntas constam na PNS 2013). Foram obtidos resultados estatisticamente significativos, evidenciando a maior probabilidade da depressão entre mulheres e a relação inversa do transtorno com as variáveis renda domiciliar, desemprego, escolaridade e idade. Fatores como doenças físicas, doenças mentais e deficiências demonstraram uma relação direta com a depressão, embora as quantificações de suas magnitudes tenham sido sensíveis à especificação dos modelos. Também mostraram uma relação direta com o transtorno depressivo variáveis associadas a traumas e estresse emocional (como ter perdido um filho, ter sofrido algum tipo de violência, ter um filho com problemas de saúde, etc.). Outras variáveis como raça e região geográfica apresentaram resultados ambivalentes, também sensíveis às diferentes especificações de modelo. Ainda, variáveis referentes ao mercado de trabalho como o tipo de vínculo empregatício e setor de atividade apresentaram resultados inconclusivos. Por fim, outra conclusão importante foi que o critério de identificação dos indivíduos com depressão é determinante nos resultados. / This dissertation analyses the impacts of socioeconomic and psychosocial factors over the prevalence of depression in Brazil through probit models and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition applied to the data in Brazilian National Household Survey Health Supplement (PNAD Saúde) and the National Health Survey (PNS 2013). In this dissertation, two basic criteria were used to identify individuals with depression: those who declared to have received a depression diagnosis from a health professional and those who scored more than 4 in the PHQ-9 depression test (whose questions are included in PNS 2013). Statistically significant results were found, showing a higher probability of depression among women and an inverse relationship between the disorder and household income, unemployment, education and age. Factors such as chronic physical diseases, mental illnesses and deficiencies have showed a direct relationship with depression, although the quantification of such effects had a rather high sensitivity to model specification. Also, variables associated with emotional stress (such as having lost a child, being victim of some sort of violence, having a child with health problems) showed a direct relationship with depressive disorder. Other variables such as race and geographic region showed ambivalent results also very sensitive to different model specifications. Furthermore, labor market variables like type of work contract and activity sector show inconclusive results. Finally, another important finding is that the criteria for identifying individuals with depression were determinant for the results and conclusions.

Esta dissertação analisa os impactos de fatores socioeconômicos e psicossociais sobre a prevalência da depressão no Brasil através de modelos probit e da decomposição de Oaxaca-Blinder aplicados às bases de dados dos suplementos de saúde da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD Saúde) e da Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde 2013 (PNS 2013). Neste trabalho, foram usados dois critérios básicos de identificação de indivíduos deprimidos: os que referiram ter recebido o diagnóstico de depressão de algum profissional de saúde e os que obtiveram um escore superior a 4 no teste PHQ-9 (cujas perguntas constam na PNS 2013). Foram obtidos resultados estatisticamente significativos, evidenciando a maior probabilidade da depressão entre mulheres e a relação inversa do transtorno com as variáveis renda domiciliar, desemprego, escolaridade e idade. Fatores como doenças físicas, doenças mentais e deficiências demonstraram uma relação direta com a depressão, embora as quantificações de suas magnitudes tenham sido sensíveis à especificação dos modelos. Também mostraram uma relação direta com o transtorno depressivo variáveis associadas a traumas e estresse emocional (como ter perdido um filho, ter sofrido algum tipo de violência, ter um filho com problemas de saúde, etc.). Outras variáveis como raça e região geográfica apresentaram resultados ambivalentes, também sensíveis às diferentes especificações de modelo. Ainda, variáveis referentes ao mercado de trabalho como o tipo de vínculo empregatício e setor de atividade apresentaram resultados inconclusivos. Por fim, outra conclusão importante foi que o critério de identificação dos indivíduos com depressão é determinante nos resultados. / This dissertation analyses the impacts of socioeconomic and psychosocial factors over the prevalence of depression in Brazil through probit models and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition applied to the data in Brazilian National Household Survey Health Supplement (PNAD Saúde) and the National Health Survey (PNS 2013). In this dissertation, two basic criteria were used to identify individuals with depression: those who declared to have received a depression diagnosis from a health professional and those who scored more than 4 in the PHQ-9 depression test (whose questions are included in PNS 2013). Statistically significant results were found, showing a higher probability of depression among women and an inverse relationship between the disorder and household income, unemployment, education and age. Factors such as chronic physical diseases, mental illnesses and deficiencies have showed a direct relationship with depression, although the quantification of such effects had a rather high sensitivity to model specification. Also, variables associated with emotional stress (such as having lost a child, being victim of some sort of violence, having a child with health problems) showed a direct relationship with depressive disorder. Other variables such as race and geographic region showed ambivalent results also very sensitive to different model specifications. Furthermore, labor market variables like type of work contract and activity sector show inconclusive results. Finally, another important finding is that the criteria for identifying individuals with depression were determinant for the results and conclusions.

Esta dissertação analisa os impactos de fatores socioeconômicos e psicossociais sobre a prevalência da depressão no Brasil através de modelos probit e da decomposição de Oaxaca-Blinder aplicados às bases de dados dos suplementos de saúde da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD Saúde) e da Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde 2013 (PNS 2013). Neste trabalho, foram usados dois critérios básicos de identificação de indivíduos deprimidos: os que referiram ter recebido o diagnóstico de depressão de algum profissional de saúde e os que obtiveram um escore superior a 4 no teste PHQ-9 (cujas perguntas constam na PNS 2013). Foram obtidos resultados estatisticamente significativos, evidenciando a maior probabilidade da depressão entre mulheres e a relação inversa do transtorno com as variáveis renda domiciliar, desemprego, escolaridade e idade. Fatores como doenças físicas, doenças mentais e deficiências demonstraram uma relação direta com a depressão, embora as quantificações de suas magnitudes tenham sido sensíveis à especificação dos modelos. Também mostraram uma relação direta com o transtorno depressivo variáveis associadas a traumas e estresse emocional (como ter perdido um filho, ter sofrido algum tipo de violência, ter um filho com problemas de saúde, etc.). Outras variáveis como raça e região geográfica apresentaram resultados ambivalentes, também sensíveis às diferentes especificações de modelo. Ainda, variáveis referentes ao mercado de trabalho como o tipo de vínculo empregatício e setor de atividade apresentaram resultados inconclusivos. Por fim, outra conclusão importante foi que o critério de identificação dos indivíduos com depressão é determinante nos resultados. / This dissertation analyses the impacts of socioeconomic and psychosocial factors over the prevalence of depression in Brazil through probit models and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition applied to the data in Brazilian National Household Survey Health Supplement (PNAD Saúde) and the National Health Survey (PNS 2013). In this dissertation, two basic criteria were used to identify individuals with depression: those who declared to have received a depression diagnosis from a health professional and those who scored more than 4 in the PHQ-9 depression test (whose questions are included in PNS 2013). Statistically significant results were found, showing a higher probability of depression among women and an inverse relationship between the disorder and household income, unemployment, education and age. Factors such as chronic physical diseases, mental illnesses and deficiencies have showed a direct relationship with depression, although the quantification of such effects had a rather high sensitivity to model specification. Also, variables associated with emotional stress (such as having lost a child, being victim of some sort of violence, having a child with health problems) showed a direct relationship with depressive disorder. Other variables such as race and geographic region showed ambivalent results also very sensitive to different model specifications. Furthermore, labor market variables like type of work contract and activity sector show inconclusive results. Finally, another important finding is that the criteria for identifying individuals with depression were determinant for the results and conclusions.

Wage dispersion is one of the social and economic issues arousing public concern in Hong Kong. There are many studies exploring the possible causes and changes in wage dispersion. They often focus on the study of summary measures such as Gini and Theil indexes, or adopt OLS-based regression approach. In foreign studies on wage dispersion, Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, originated from Oaxaca (1974) and Blinder (1973), is a common method of decomposing changes or differences in mean wages between two groups into wage structure effect and composition effect, and then further decomposing the two effects into contributions of each control variable. Nevertheless, focusing on summary measures or decomposing mean wages can just give people an insight into the causes and changes in general wage dispersion but not the entire wage distribution. As pointed out by Chi, Li and Yu (2007), the estimation of the entire wage distribution and decomposition of the distributional changes in wage dispersion has been attracting the attention of labour economists. This thesis adopts a distributional approach proposed by Firpo, Fortin and Lemieux (2007) to study the changes in wage dispersion of Hong Kong since 1980s. The FFL approach comprises a two-stage procedure. Firstly, changes in dispersion are divided into wage structure effect and composition effect without directly estimating a wage-setting model. This is done by doing a proper reweighting to obtain counterfactual wage vectors. Kernel density estimation is used for visualizing the wage distribution in different years and the counterfactuals; secondly, novel recentered influence function (RIF) regressions across quantiles are performed to further decompose the two effects into contributions of each control variable. The findings are outlined as follows: first, there was an increase in wage dispersion over the whole wage distribution from 1980s but a decrease from 2001 to 2006; second, the composition effect dominates the wage structure effect over years; third, changes in the distribution of characteristics and the returns to these characteristics are highly responsive to each other, suggesting that our labour market is highly responsive to structural changes; fourth, The common wage-determining factors may not be able to explain the earnings-profile of low wage earners well. In brief, the development of the economy since 1980s increased the wage dispersion over years. Nevertheless, the economic downturn due to external shocks and internal unfavourable events and general skill-upgrading in labour-intensive industries decreased the wage dispersion since 2000s.

Everywhere around the world, whether in developing or developed countries, women earn less than men. This phenomenon is in no way new and it has been investigated for many years. Still, in today’s modern society, the wage gap does not appear to be closing. In times of economic instability, such as the economic crisis, the progress towards equality may be pushed back, since specific groups, sectors, and occupations may be affected differently. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the Italian gender wage gap with a closer look at the fluctuations during the period of the financial crisis. In order to analyse and understand the fluctuations of the pay gap, the three main theories used in the research are the human capital theory, occupational segregation, and theories regarding the labour market structure. By applying the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method, this study analyses to what extent the gap could be explained by differences in observable characteristics, such as level of education or age, and how much remains unexplained. The empirical model is applied to the Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) microdata between the period of 2002 and 2016. The main findings show that the Italian gender wage gap, for the most part, remains unexplained. This indicates that the differentials in pay cannot be accounted for by differences in observable characteristics, such as education, age, contract type. The results of this research show that the Italian wage gap was, to some extent, negatively affected by the financial crisis. Furthermore, implemented austerity measures were found not to have significant negative impacts on the gap, which only increased in the initial phase of the crisis.

Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar o diferencial de rendimentos entre os setores de serviços e de indústria no Brasil, nos anos de 2004, 2009 e 2014. As informações foram obtidas a partir da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) desses anos. A hipótese central deste estudo é de que existe uma massa de trabalhadores sendo melhor remunerada no setor de serviços vis-à-vis o setor industrial, a qual vai contra a tese de que é na indústria onde estariam as profissões com maior valor agregado. A pesquisa também procura contribuir para a literatura acerca do setor de serviços, considerada escassa devido à heterogeneidade desse setor. Em primeiro momento, procura-se analisar o hiato salarial entre os setores através da decomposição proposta por Oaxaca (1973) e Blinder (1973). Após, utiliza-se o método de regressão RIF (Recentered Influence Function) de Firpo et al. (2007) com o objetivo de se obter estimativas por quantis de renda. Uma análise preliminar da distribuição da massa de salários entre esses dois setores revelou que o setor de serviços se encontra um pouco mais a direita na curva de distribuição, indicando que esse setor possui um número de expressivo de trabalhadores recebendo salários maiores daqueles da indústria. Constatou-se, também, que na decomposição salarial pela média o hiato salarial se mantém favorável aos trabalhadores do setor de serviços nos três anos analisados. No entanto, esse diferencial revelou-se maior em 2004. Apesar disso, a decomposição por quantis indicou que o diferencial de renda entre os setores se mantém favorável ao setor de serviços somente para os 75º e 90º quantis, contudo, as diferenças observadas nesses quantis se revelaram decrescentes na década analisada. O sinal negativo do efeito composição nos quantis que o setor de serviços remunera melhor indicou que os indivíduos empregados nesse setor possuem características mais produtivas relacionadas ao mercado de trabalho comparado ao setor de indústria. Já o sinal do efeito estrutura sinalizou que os retornos das características dos trabalhadores do setor de indústria foram menores que o retorno adquirido pelo outro setor. Nos demais quantis de renda, o setor de indústria foi o responsável por remunerar melhor os trabalhadores. Somente o 25º quantil apresentou crescimento do hiato nesse período. Para ambos os setores, ramos de alta tecnologia remuneram melhor para todos os quantis. / This study analyzes the income gap between the service and industry sectors in Brazil in the years 2004, 2009 and 2014. The information about these years was obtained from the National Survey by Household Sample (PNAD). The central hypothesis of this study is that there is a mass of workers being better paid in the service sector vis-à-vis the industrial sector, which goes against the well known consensus that the industry\'s earnings are greater than the service sector because of added value . The research also seeks to contribute to the literature on the service sector, considered scarce due to the heterogeneity of this sector. At first, the focus was the wage gap between sectors through the decomposition proposed by Oaxaca (1973) and Blinder (1973). Afterwards, it was used the RIF (Recentered Influence Function) regression method of Firpo et al. (2007) in order to obtain the approximate income proportion. A preliminary analysis of the distribution of the mass of wages between these two sectors revealed that the service sector lies on a little more to the right on the distribution curve, indicating that this sector has a significant number of workers receiving higher wages than those in the industry. It was also observed that in the average wage decomposition the wage gap remained favorable to the service sector workers in the three years analyzed. However, this differential was higher in 2004. It was observed in the wage decomposition, where the wage gap is maintained favorable to the workers of the service sector in the three sectors analyzed. In addition, this differential is more pronounced in the most recent year. In those years, the effect of contributing to the increase of the difference, however, the magnitude is the effect of decreasing. Decomposition by quantiles indicated that the income differential between sectors remained favorable to the services sector only for the 75th and 90th quantiles. The gap observed in these quantiles were decreasing in the analyzed decade. The negative sign of this effect in the quantiles that the services sector pay better indicated that the individuals employed in this sector have more productive characteristics related to the labor market compared to the industry sector. The sign of the structure effect signaled that the returns of the characteristics of the workers of the industry sector were smaller than the return earned by the other sector. In the other quantiles of income, the industry sector was the one responsible for better remunerating the workers. Only the 25th quantil indicated a growth of the hiatus in this period. For both sectors, branches of high technology are better for all quantiles.

Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar o diferencial de rendimentos entre os setores de serviços e de indústria no Brasil, nos anos de 2004, 2009 e 2014. As informações foram obtidas a partir da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) desses anos. A hipótese central deste estudo é de que existe uma massa de trabalhadores sendo melhor remunerada no setor de serviços vis-à-vis o setor industrial, a qual vai contra a tese de que é na indústria onde estariam as profissões com maior valor agregado. A pesquisa também procura contribuir para a literatura acerca do setor de serviços, considerada escassa devido à heterogeneidade desse setor. Em primeiro momento, procura-se analisar o hiato salarial entre os setores através da decomposição proposta por Oaxaca (1973) e Blinder (1973). Após, utiliza-se o método de regressão RIF (Recentered Influence Function) de Firpo et al. (2007) com o objetivo de se obter estimativas por quantis de renda. Uma análise preliminar da distribuição da massa de salários entre esses dois setores revelou que o setor de serviços se encontra um pouco mais a direita na curva de distribuição, indicando que esse setor possui um número de expressivo de trabalhadores recebendo salários maiores daqueles da indústria. Constatou-se, também, que na decomposição salarial pela média o hiato salarial se mantém favorável aos trabalhadores do setor de serviços nos três anos analisados. No entanto, esse diferencial revelou-se maior em 2004. Apesar disso, a decomposição por quantis indicou que o diferencial de renda entre os setores se mantém favorável ao setor de serviços somente para os 75º e 90º quantis, contudo, as diferenças observadas nesses quantis se revelaram decrescentes na década analisada. O sinal negativo do efeito composição nos quantis que o setor de serviços remunera melhor indicou que os indivíduos empregados nesse setor possuem características mais produtivas relacionadas ao mercado de trabalho comparado ao setor de indústria. Já o sinal do efeito estrutura sinalizou que os retornos das características dos trabalhadores do setor de indústria foram menores que o retorno adquirido pelo outro setor. Nos demais quantis de renda, o setor de indústria foi o responsável por remunerar melhor os trabalhadores. Somente o 25º quantil apresentou crescimento do hiato nesse período. Para ambos os setores, ramos de alta tecnologia remuneram melhor para todos os quantis. / This study analyzes the income gap between the service and industry sectors in Brazil in the years 2004, 2009 and 2014. The information about these years was obtained from the National Survey by Household Sample (PNAD). The central hypothesis of this study is that there is a mass of workers being better paid in the service sector vis-à-vis the industrial sector, which goes against the well known consensus that the industry\'s earnings are greater than the service sector because of added value . The research also seeks to contribute to the literature on the service sector, considered scarce due to the heterogeneity of this sector. At first, the focus was the wage gap between sectors through the decomposition proposed by Oaxaca (1973) and Blinder (1973). Afterwards, it was used the RIF (Recentered Influence Function) regression method of Firpo et al. (2007) in order to obtain the approximate income proportion. A preliminary analysis of the distribution of the mass of wages between these two sectors revealed that the service sector lies on a little more to the right on the distribution curve, indicating that this sector has a significant number of workers receiving higher wages than those in the industry. It was also observed that in the average wage decomposition the wage gap remained favorable to the service sector workers in the three years analyzed. However, this differential was higher in 2004. It was observed in the wage decomposition, where the wage gap is maintained favorable to the workers of the service sector in the three sectors analyzed. In addition, this differential is more pronounced in the most recent year. In those years, the effect of contributing to the increase of the difference, however, the magnitude is the effect of decreasing. Decomposition by quantiles indicated that the income differential between sectors remained favorable to the services sector only for the 75th and 90th quantiles. The gap observed in these quantiles were decreasing in the analyzed decade. The negative sign of this effect in the quantiles that the services sector pay better indicated that the individuals employed in this sector have more productive characteristics related to the labor market compared to the industry sector. The sign of the structure effect signaled that the returns of the characteristics of the workers of the industry sector were smaller than the return earned by the other sector. In the other quantiles of income, the industry sector was the one responsible for better remunerating the workers. Only the 25th quantil indicated a growth of the hiatus in this period. For both sectors, branches of high technology are better for all quantiles.

This thesis focuses on gender based differences in occupational allocation in Central-European countries, i.e. in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The main goal is to find out how much of the gender differences is related to women being equipped with higher/lower human capital in comparison to men. This thesis uses data from 2010 Life in Transition Survey provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Focus will be placed on white/blue collar occupations split. For the empirical analysis an extension of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition for binary dependent variable model provided by Fairlie (2005) will be used.