Thesis advisor: Sanjay K. Chugh / Thesis advisor: Fabio Schiantarelli / My doctoral research focuses on the role of labor market frictions in shaping macroeconomic outcomes. I am currently pursuing three main lines of research that constitute the three chapters of this dissertation. The first chapter focuses on involuntary part-time employment as an additional margin used by firms to adjust to business cycle fluctuations. The chapter documents empirical regularities of involuntary part-time employment in the U.S. and furnishes a tractable analytical framework for studying this phenomenon that has gained so much attention in the years that followed the Great Recession. In the second chapter, which is joint work with Sanjay Chugh, Ryan Chahrour and Alan Finkelstein-Shapiro, we study the labor market wedge in the context of a search and matching model to understand how static and dynamic inefficiencies change over the business cycle. Measuring the labor market wedge and understanding its sources of movement is of great importance from a macroeconomic point of view, as existing research shows it holds a prominent place in explaining fluctuations in aggregate output. Finally, in the third chapter I study empirically the determinants of the job finding probability, a key object in the context of frictional labor markets. More specifically, I analyze how decisions on time allocation by the unemployed affect their chances of finding a job, and identify the activities that make more likely for an unemployed individual to receive and accept a job offer. Chapter 1. In recent years researchers and policymakers have shown renewed interest in involuntary part-time employment as a crucial indicator of labor market health. The fact that individuals have part-time jobs even though they would be willing to work more hours is evidence that resources in the economy are not employed at full capacity. This group represents almost 40 percent of total underemployment. Despite its large size and importance to policy-makers, surprisingly little literature addresses the empirical regularities or economic role this margin plays in determining labor market outcomes. In "Underemployment and the Business Cycle" I address several questions regarding involuntary part-time employment. First, how does involuntary part-time employment differ from the standard extensive and intensive margins? Second, what factors influence the choice of firms to use involuntary part-time workers? Third, how might economic policy contribute to the existence of involuntary part-time employment in the economy? And, fourth, have there been any changes over time in the response of involuntary part-time employment to changes in aggregate economic conditions and, if so, what explains them? To describe the empirical regularities of involuntary part-time employment, I use detailed micro-level data from longitudinally-linked monthly files of the Current Population Survey. A novel finding that emerges from the analysis of this dataset is that wages of involuntary part-time workers display higher volatility and lower persistence than those of their full-time counterparts, thus indicating a higher degree of flexibility. In addition, I find that changes in involuntary part-time employment are mostly explained by reallocation of workers from full-time to part-time positions within the firm, which involves more than just a mere reduction in hours worked. I then aggregate the data and compute business cycle statistics. Surprisingly, I find that the behavior of involuntary part-time employment resembles the behavior of unemployment more than the one of full-time employment. In fact, the results indicate that involuntary part-time employment is very volatile and strongly countercyclical. To understand the evidence I find at the micro and macro levels, I build an augmented search and matching model of the labor market featuring full-time and part-time employment, and a production function that combines both types of workers. The decision of whether a worker is full-time or part-time is made entirely by the firm, depending on the realizations of both aggregate and idiosyncratic productivity processes. The model is able to deliver the countercyclicality of involuntary part-time employment found in the data. The key mechanism to obtain this result is the relatively higher flexibility of part-time contracts that makes it more profitable for the firm to reallocate workers from full-time to part-time arrangements during recessions. Based on the model that captures key empirical facts, I conduct policy analysis to evaluate the effect of an increase in the cost of health insurance on involuntary part-time employment. The policy experiment predicts that an increase in the cost of health insurance provided by the firm to its full-time workers, such that their share in average full-time wages goes up by 1 percentage point, leads to an increase of steady state involuntary part-time employment by 10 percent, which nowadays would be equivalent to half a million additional involuntary part-time workers. I find evidence that involuntary part-time employment has become more volatile and persistent in the last 25 years. I study the impact that innovation in workforce management practices, a process that started in the 1990s and that has increased the degree of substitutability between full-time and part-time workers, may have had in changing the response over time of involuntary part-time employment to business cycle fluctuations. Impulse response analysis from the model indicates that an increase in the degree of substitutability makes involuntary part-time employment more sensitive to aggregate productivity shocks. Chapter 2. In "The Labor Wedge: A Search and Matching Perspective" we define and quantify static and dynamic labor market wedges in a search and matching model with endogenous labor force participation. Existing literature has generally centered on Walrasian labor markets in characterizing the inefficiencies, or ``gaps'', between labor demand and labor supply. However, given the conventional view in the profession that the matching process plays an important role in the labor market, the neoclassically-measured labor wedge suffers from a misspecification problem as it ignores the role of long-lasting relationships in explaining the cyclical pattern of the labor wedge. To construct the wedge we use a rigorously defined transformation function of the economy, which contains both the matching technology and the neoclassical production technology. Both technologies are primitives of the economy in the sense that a Social Planner must respect both processes. Given the model-appropriate transformation frontier and the household's static and dynamic marginal rates of substitution, we use data on the labor force participation rate, the employment rate, the vacancy rate, real consumption, real government spending, and real GDP to construct static and dynamic labor wedges. We find that, in a version of the model where all employment relationships turn over every period, the static labor wedge is countercyclical, a result that is consistent with existing literature. Once we consider long-lasting employment relationships, we can measure both static and dynamic wedges separately. We then find that, while the static wedge continues to be countercyclical, the dynamic (or intertemporal) wedge is procyclical. Since the latter is associated with the vacancy-posting decision of the firm, this result suggests that understanding the behavior of labor demand may be crucial to explaining the dynamic wedge. Our focus so far has been on obtaining a quantitative measure of both the static and dynamic wedges, and on analyzing their business cycle properties. Now we are working on extending this framework to provide a micro-founded explanation of the forces that could be driving the cyclical movements of the wedges. Chapter 3. Recent research has found that individuals who become unemployed allocate most of their forgone working hours into leisure rather than increasing the time devoted to job search activities. What is the rationale behind this decision? There are many factors that may affect the job search behavior of the unemployed. However, in this study I focus on a particular channel: the decision on how unemployed individuals allocate their time could be biased towards activities that increase their probability of finding a job. They might find more valuable to increase their social activities rather than looking formally for a job because this enhances their network, which could increase their chances of finding a job, even with less search effort. In "The Time Use Decisions of the Unemployed: A Survival Analysis", I conduct a duration analysis to estimate the effect of different time use allocations on the unemployment hazard rate using time use data from the Survey of Unemployed Workers in New Jersey. Defining "finding a job" as a failure, I estimate a single-spell, discrete-time duration model of unemployment with time-varying covariates using semi-parametric techniques. Given that I work with interval-censored data, I conduct the analysis using discrete time survival analysis techniques. The results indicate that education/training activities have a significant and positive impact on the hazard rate, i.e. they increase the probability that an unemployed worker finds a job, while leisure has the opposite effect. Furthermore, neither job-search nor networking have a significant effect on the hazard rate in the baseline specification. However, this result changes when incorporating into the regression interaction terms of these variables with a dummy that takes the value one if the individual is a long-term unemployed and zero otherwise. In this case, the coefficient associated with networking becomes positive and significant, while the coefficient of the interaction term is negative. This implies that networking has a positive effect on the hazard rate for short unemployment spells, but this effect weakens if the individual has been unemployed for a longer period. On the other hand, even after incorporating the interaction term, job search remains insignificant. These findings shed light on why individuals may not want to devote additional time to formal job search: it does not pay off with a higher likelihood of receiving a job offer, regardless of the length of the unemployment spell. On the other hand, other activities, such as investing in education or networking, are positively related to the probability of finding a job -- at least for short unemployment spells -- and thus it makes more sense for these individuals to devote more time to them.

The prevalence of internationalization in universities today is affecting the cities in which they are located. As the integration of international students adds to the ambiance and culture of a city, the authors argue that mutual participation of universities and communities will influence the development of a city. The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore the collaborations between the two, using Jönköping’s International Business School (JIBS) as a case study. In focusing our attention on international students and their part-time employment, we wish to gain a better understanding of the potential effects a university may have in enhancing a city. Research was conducted in an effort to obtain diverse views and uncover underlying themes that may exist between different stakeholders. Respondents from the following organizations were interviewed to clarify the different perceptions: The University Service’s Career Center, International and Recruitment Offices at JIBS, and Jönköping Municipality. It was found that networking between JIBS and Jönköping exists, but that the relationship appears to be complex as each party has different dimensions to consider, making true collaboration difficult. However, communication and cooperation could be useful in steering the direction of city development. The presence of international students is seen as influencing the culture, knowledge, and image of the city, but a true integration of these students is lacking. A further contribution through the inclusion of international students in part-time employment is believed to be beneficial to both the city and students, but barriers such as language make this a difficult task. An alliance between JIBS and Jönköping is therefore encouraged, as their combined efforts are crucial in solving these types of issues. We claim that the integration of international students through the creation of part-time jobs or internships demonstrates one way JIBS contributes to the city.   The prevalence of internationalization in universities today is affecting the cities in which they are located. As the integration of international students adds to the ambiance and culture of a city, the authors argue that mutual participation of universities and communities will influence the development of a city. The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore the collaborations between the two, using Jönköping’s International Business School (JIBS) as a case study. In focusing our attention on international students and their part-time employment, we wish to gain a better understanding of the potential effects a university may have in enhancing a city. Research was conducted in an effort to obtain diverse views and uncover underlying themes that may exist between different stakeholders. Respondents from the following organizations were interviewed to clarify the different perceptions: The University Service’s Career Center, International and Recruitment Offices at JIBS, and Jönköping Municipality. It was found that networking between JIBS and Jönköping exists, but that the relationship appears to be complex as each party has different dimensions to consider, making true collaboration difficult. However, communication and cooperation could be useful in steering the direction of city development. The presence of international students is seen as influencing the culture, knowledge, and image of the city, but a true integration of these students is lacking. A further contribution through the inclusion of international students in part-time employment is believed to be beneficial to both the city and students, but barriers such as language make this a difficult task. An alliance between JIBS and Jönköping is therefore encouraged, as their combined efforts are crucial in solving these types of issues. We claim that the integration of international students through the creation of part-time jobs or internships demonstrates one way JIBS contributes to the city.

Research question: How has the presence of PT employees affected the role of managers in the Swedish food retail business? Research purpose: The purpose of this paper was to describe the change that accompanies part-time employment from a management perspective, and particularly, describe how the presence of part-time employment has influenced the role of the manager within the Swedish food retail business. Conceptual framework: The main focused in this chapter is directed towards the role of managers. The basis of the conceptual framework consist of the model developed by Mintzberg including the ten managerial roles and Quinn's eight leadership roles and how the presence of PT employments might affect these roles. Methodology: In this paper, the authors adopted a qualitative design and used narrative inquiry as a research strategy in order to gain a deep understanding of the context. Semi- structured interviews have been collected through a self-selection sampling and the total number of participants was ten. Conclusions: Based on the findings of this paper the presence of PT employees have not influenced and changed the role of managers. The changes that have influenced and caused the change of the role of the managers constitutes of the increased workload, the delegations of tasks and responsibilities, changed positions, the change of the organisational structure of the individual store, and the increased workforce.

Magister Educationis - MEd / This study does an in-depth exploration of how students experience full-time study and part-time employment, focusing on participants in the work-study programme of the University of the Western Cape. By means of the work-study programme, the university provides on-campus term-work opportunities for students in teaching, research, administration and other support services. In particular this study looks at: the reasons why students partake in the work-study programme and the benefits they gain; the type of work that students do; how demanding the work is; the number of hours they work; and the way this impacts on students' experience of higher education. It further looks at the kinds of challenges students face while participating in the work-study programme and the strategies that they use in order to balance working and studying. Student employment is not a new phenomenon but there is limited knowledge available on the students' experiences of campus employment. According to Metcalf (2003:316), research into part-time work of full-time students is important because of the "potential impact [of term-work] on the nature and effectiveness of higher education and equality of provision of higher education". Existing research shows that students who take part in part-time work are as diverse as the situations that compel them to work and study. It further highlights that students of all genders, ages and class have been observed as taking part in part-time work while pursuing full-time studies. Moreover, there are diverse reasons why students take part in term-work: to pay tuition fees and for their subsistence; to maintain their lifestyle; or to gain work experience. The literature also shows that students experience various challenges because of term-work, mainly due to their multiple time commitments. The effect is that working students may find it difficult to meet academic demands and succeed at the same level as non-working students. As a way of studying student experiences on the UWC work-study programme, this study will use quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection by means of a two-stage methodology. The first stage will involve an electronic survey that will provide baseline data on the students in the programme. This stage lays the ground for the second, qualitative stage of the methodology where the researcher will conduct in-depth interviews with some students involved in the programme. The findings show that students’ reasons for participating in the work-study programme are not necessarily about addressing their financial needs, but also about gaining work experience which puts them a step ahead of their peers. Students from the work-study programme worked varying hours. The number of hours was influenced by students’ classes, and also by the number of hours they were allowed to work, as the work timetable is designed around their academic work. The challenges that students experienced were both positive and negative, depending on their personal situation. Furthermore, the students reported many ways of coping and balancing working, studying and maintaining a social life. In terms of benefits, students indicated that they thought that both the students and the university were benefiting from the work-study programme. After the data was collected, analysed and discussed, a student experience typology in relation to the students on the programme was created. The empirical findings in this study provide a new understanding concerning students who are employed on campus. The study found that students, depending on various variables, were finding ways to manage academic demands, social lives and working part-time on campus. Taken together, the findings suggest an added role for work-study programmes in enhancing students’ university experience As a way of studying student experiences on the UWC work-study programme, this study will use quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection by means of a two-stage methodology. The first stage will involve an electronic survey that will provide baseline data on the students in the programme. This stage lays the ground for the second, qualitative stage of the methodology where the researcher will conduct in-depth interviews with some students involved in the programme. The findings show that students’ reasons for participating in the work-study programme are not necessarily about addressing their financial needs, but also about gaining work experience which puts them a step ahead of their peers. Students from the work-study programme worked varying hours. The number of hours was influenced by students’ classes, and also by the number of hours they were allowed to work, as the work timetable is designed around their academic work. The challenges that students experienced were both positive and negative, depending on their personal situation. Furthermore, the students reported many ways of coping and balancing working, studying and maintaining a social life. In terms of benefits, students indicated that they thought that both the students and the university were benefiting from the work-study programme. After the data was collected, analysed and discussed, a student experience typology in relation to the students on the programme was created. The empirical findings in this study provide a new understanding concerning students who are employed on campus. The study found that students, depending on various variables, were finding ways to manage academic demands, social lives and working part-time on campus. Taken together, the findings suggest an added role for work-study programmes in enhancing students' university experience.

This research examined the influence of work status on attitudes and work outcomes. The two attitudes of perception of psychological contract violations, (violation of employment promise by employers) and fairness perception (fair treatment at work) were studied. This research examined the relationship between attitudes and work outcomes (organizational commitment, e.g. loyalty; organizational citizenship behavior, voluntary action done by employees for the sake of organizations and turnover intention). Individuals with family responsibility are attracted to work part-time voluntarily. Corporate downsizing has often forced individuals to go into part-time work involuntarily. Voluntary and involuntary work status had moderating effects on attitudes and work outcomes. The people that part-time workers chose to be compared with when they evaluate their fairness situation were also examined. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Respondents were asked about their perceptions towards their employment relationship with employers in the questionnaires. Part-time workers focus groups and supervisors interviews were used to supplement the quantitative methods by suggesting reasons to explain the part-time work issues, for example, on the compared referent selections. The findings showed that work status had a high moderating effect on the relationship between perceptions of psychological contract violations and voluntary actions and such interactions were much stronger on voluntary than on involuntary part-time workers. Work status also showed a high moderating effect on the relationship between fairness perception, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior, and such interactions were much stronger in involuntary than voluntary workers. Unexpectedly, work status did not have a moderating influence on the relationship between perception of psychological contract violations, organizational commitment, and turnover intention of involuntary part-time workers. Furthermore, work status showed a moderating influence on fairness perception, and turnover intention, and such a negative relationship was much stronger in voluntary than involuntary workers. It was also found that the compared referents of voluntary part-time workers were part-time workers working inside and outside organizations. The compared referents of involuntary part-time workers were full-time workers working outside the organizations and their past work experiences.

Magister Legum - LLM / This study is encouraged by the fact that the field of labour law has drastically changed after enactment of amendments in various labour legislation such as Employment Equity Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act and Labour Relations Act during 2013 and 2014. These changes have compelled employers to review their policies in line with the amendments of these Acts. This study will however focus on the impact of the newly introduced section 198 to the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995. The study will specifically focus on the continued use of fixed-term contracts of employment within the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Sector of South Africa.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The integration of nonstandard (temporary) workers into an organization is called a “blended workforce,” and such an arrangement is a breeding ground for potential conflict. Until very recently, much of the research on nonstandard workers has been limited to exploring those in low-wage positions requiring limited skills and the detriments of such working arrangements. However, with advances in technology that allow working from remote locations and the desire of firms to more quickly adapt to changes in the market, the role of high-skill, high-wage nonstandard workers is steadily growing. Pondy (1967) proposed that conflict episodes are composed of five possible stages: latent, perceived, felt, manifest and the aftermath. These conflict stages provided the framework for the consideration of conflict in blended organizations. Through an extensive literature review of nonstandard workers, this research determined six potential areas of latent conflict in blended organizations. Next, the research determined if those areas of latent conflict move into advanced stages of conflict within blended organizations that integrate high-end nonstandard workers. Finally, the research explored how those conflicts that emerge from the use of a blended workforce are managed.

The thesis investigates the role of structural rigidities in recent labour market performances in Europe through various and complementary angles in five essays. By structural rigidities, we mean a lasting feature caused by a set of institutions, which prevents a market from operating efficiently. The approach is essentially empirical and macro-economic, while the scope of the analysis is definitely European, which is technically reflected in the use of either euro area aggregates or panels and cross-sections of European countries.

International studies of part-time employment have shown that most part-time workers are women, and specifically married women (Rosenfeld and Birkelund 1995; Caputo and Cianni 2001). The ability to work part-time enables women who have household commitments, such as caring for children, to maintain an attachment to the labour force and to preserve job skills while also undertaking household labour (Long and Jones 1981; Rosenfeld and Birkelund 1995). In many countries, therefore, the growth in part-time employment has constituted an important component of the increase in women’s work. However, part-time jobs are often considered to be poorly remunerated, offering little or no security, limited opportunities for career advancement and few (if any) benefits (Rosenfeld and Birkelund 1995; Rodgers 2004; Hirsch 2005; Bardasi and Gornick 2008). Although empirical research on South Africa’s labour markets has expanded significantly over the post-apartheid period, particularly with the introduction of nationally representative household surveys that capture individual employment data, little is known about the characteristics of South African part-time workers, or about the nature of the work these individuals perform. Using data from a selection of South Africa’s nationally representative household surveys, namely the October Household Surveys, the Labour Force Surveys and the Labour Force Survey Panel, this thesis aims to redress this lacuna. The thesis comprises four empirical chapters. The first chapter outlines the definition of part-time employment adopted throughout the study, and it presents gendered trends in part-time employment in South Africa from 1995 to 2006. The descriptive analysis shows that most part-time workers in South Africa are women, and further, that the growth in female part-time employment has been an important part of the feminisation of the labour force in South Africa. The second chapter compares part-time and full-time wage (salaried) employment. The main analytical question addressed in this chapter is whether women are penalised for working part-time. Although hourly wages in part-time employment are, on average, lower than in full-time employment, the study demonstrates that after controlling for differences in observable and unobservable characteristics, women in part-time employment receive a wage premium. The third chapter explores heterogeneity among part-time wage workers, distinguishing between women who choose to work part-time and women who report wanting to work longer hours. Key findings of this chapter are that a wage premium persists for women both in voluntary and in involuntary part-time work; but that involuntary part-time workers have a stronger labour force attachment than voluntary part-time workers. The fourth chapter uses the distinction between part-time and full-time employment to investigate changes in the gender wage gap in employment. The results show that the total gender gap in wages among part-time and full-time workers has fallen over the years, with the greatest reduction visible for those working part-time. The final chapter summarises the main findings of the thesis and it outlines avenues for further research on part-time employment in South Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009. / UKZN Economics department; Economic Research South Africa; UKZN Doctoral Scholarship Award

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- La Trobe University, 2004. Submitted to the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 283-294). Also available via the World Wide Web.