Institute for Employment Research

Doctoral education is a crucial stage in the academic socialization of early-career researchers. Prior research has shown that career paths and activities of Ph.D.s are shaped by the universities and departments in which they were trained. To widen this focus, we analyze the role of public research organizations (PROs) and private-sector firms as organizational employment contexts of doctoral education. The empirical context of our study is Germany, where PROs and firms employ large numbers of doctoral candidates and provide the organizational environment for their dissertation research. Utilizing a novel process-generated dataset that covers about 40,000 STEM Ph.D.s who graduated from 1995 to 2011, we find that Ph.D.s employed at PROs during doctoral education are more likely to stay in academia than their university-employed peers. Despite extensive policy efforts that sought to strengthen the research performance of German universities, doctoral candidates employed at basic research-oriented PROs had the strongest cross-cohort increase in their post-graduation academic employment share. This group also experienced the most pronounced fall in the share of high post-graduation income owners. Industry-employed doctoral candidates are unlikely to migrate to the academic sector and have the highest likelihood of obtaining high post-graduation incomes.

Economic insecurity has recently received increasing attention as a determinant of material deprivation. We contribute to this line of research by analysing the relationship between temporary employment and material deprivation. We argue that temporary workers face exacerbated deprivation because they may forego basic needs to provide for an uncertain future. Using German panel data for the years 2008–2020, we find that temporary employment increases material deprivation among workers, particularly in low-income households. This finding is robust to our controlling for important variables such as household income and needs, individual- and household fixed effects and when considering lagged independent variables. The association is not driven by young or highly educated workers who may be more likely to hold temporary jobs without experiencing sustained material deprivation. We also find that temporary agency work, perceived job insecurity and firm turnover rates aggravate material deprivation. This supports the theoretical assumption that the impact of temporary employment on material deprivation is driven by the economic insecurities faced by temporary workers.

In many Western and Eastern European countries, the habilitation is the highest formal qualification awarded by universities, ranking above the doctorate. Despite its central role in the European higher education system, little is known about the career trajectories of those who have obtained this degree. This paper systematically analyzes the career trajectories of scientists and scholars who have completed a habilitation in Germany, comparing these to those of individuals who did not complete a further degree after their PhD. To do so, linked social insurance data from a period of 2 years prior to 15 years after receiving the doctorate are used. My analysis reveals the substantial monetary costs of pursuing an additional qualification after the PhD. The empirical findings indicate that the benefits of an additional qualification beyond the PhD are primarily non-monetary, for example having a cognitively demanding and challenging job requiring a high level of education, and an increased likelihood of employment within the academic sector. These findings may indicate that beyond a certain level of education, and with an already fairly strong integration into the labor market, non-financial aspects of work could become more significant to individuals than income maximization.

A large body of literature has shown that the gender wage gap is small in the first years after graduation and increases gradually with age, largely because of family decisions, often a penalty caused by childbirth. However, the gender wage gap immediately after graduation has received less attention. Using a unique dataset that links 5000 university graduates with master's degrees or equivalent from a large German university to detailed employment records from the German social security register, we specifically analyze the gender wage gap at the first job and its dynamics during the initial years of their careers after graduation. We find that a significant gender wage gap already exists in the first job after graduation, even before most young individuals make family decisions. However, this gender wage gap decreases in the first year after entering the labor market and then increases slowly over time. We attribute this initial decrease in the gender wage gap to female university graduates experiencing greater returns from firm and occupational changes than their male counterparts. This suggests that women may use these changes to address skill mismatches, which are more common among women than men in their first job.

What factors influence refugees' perceptions of justice in bureaucratic institutions? As global migration movements draw increasing attention, migrants' experiences as constituents in destination countries merit further research. Drawing evidence from the 2018 survey of refugees participating in the German Socio‐Economic Panel, this article examines the role of legal status in shaping perceptions of justice at government offices. Our findings highlight a stark contrast: refugees with unstable legal statuses often perceive bureaucratic proceedings as less just compared to those with firmer legal standings. However, refugees' perceptions of a more positive encounter their encounters with street‐level bureaucrats can act as a buffer against the negative effects of legal status on perceptions of justice at government offices. These insights underscore a pressing policy implication: asylum procedures, currently marked by ambiguity and delays, could benefit significantly from enhanced communication quality on the part of street‐level bureaucrats.

Zusammenfassung Die ganzheitliche beschäftigungsbegleitende Betreuung der Geförderten ist ein zentrales Element der beiden Förderinstrumente, die zum Jahresbeginn 2019 mit dem Teilhabechancengesetz geschaffen wurden. Sie hat zum Ziel, die geförderten Beschäftigungsverhältnisse zu stabilisieren und gleichzeitig die Suche nach einer Anschlussbeschäftigung zu unterstützen. Diese Hilfeleistung ist als kontinuierlicher Prozess konzipiert, der sich über die gesamte Dauer der geförderten Beschäftigung erstreckt. Die praktische Umsetzung der Betreuung ist jedoch regelmäßig von zeitlichen und personellen Diskontinuitäten geprägt. Solche Diskontinuitäten erweisen sich als relevanter Störfaktor der Betreuungsbeziehung und gefährden damit deren zentralen Auftrag. Dies belegen die Ergebnisse von qualitativen Fallstudien sowie von einer standardisierten Jobcenter-Befragung, die im Rahmen der Evaluation des Teilhabechancengesetzes durchgeführt wurde.

A country’s national income broadly depends on the quantity and quality of workers and capital. But how well these factors are managed within and between firms may be a key determinant of a country’s productivity and its GDP. Although social scientists have long studied the role of management practices in shaping business performance, their primary tool has been individual case studies. While useful for theory-building, such qualitative work is hard to scale and quantify. We present a large, scalable dataset measuring structured management practices at the business level across multiple countries. We measure practices related to performance monitoring, target-setting, and human resources. We document a set of key stylized facts, which we label “the international empirics of management”. In all countries, firms with more structured practices tend to also have superior economic performance: they are larger in scale, are more profitable, have higher labor productivity and are more likely to export. This consistency was not obvious ex-ante, and being able to quantify these relationships is valuable. We also document significant variation in practices across and within countries, which is important in explaining differences in the wealth of nations. The positive relationship between firm size and structured management practices is stronger in countries with more open and free markets, suggesting that stronger competition may allow firms with more structured management practices to grow larger, thereby potentially raising aggregate national income.

Whether firms founded during or outside economic crises have greater growth potential is an important question for both prospective entrepreneurs and policy makers. Existing research offers conflicting answers, and mostly either focuses on aggregate cohort-level effects or selectively excludes small new firms from the analyses. Using extensive linked employer-employee data on young German firms around and during the Global Financial Crisis, a period of sharply reduced access to external capital and recession, we show that young firms respond to cyclical conditions in highly heterogeneous ways. Our firm-level results reveal that the average new firm found it easier to hire its first employees when it was founded during the crisis. These firms achieved countercyclical growth by hiring career entrants. More specifically, hiring in very young (<1.5 years) and small to medium-sized (below the 90th percentile) young firms was countercyclical, while this was not the case for older and larger young firms. Thus, the firm-specific effects for young entrepreneurial firms may be very different from those reported in previous research. Our results suggest that market entry during a crisis may facilitate hiring and that policies that promote entrepreneurship may usefully complement policies that encourage labor hoarding by incumbents during recessions.

On the labor markets, recent decades were characterized by structural supply‐side reforms in many countries. Following its hawkish reforms from the 2000s, Germany has recently made a dovish turnaround. Conditions in basic income support for unemployed became more generous, combined with a focus on qualification and development. Before, a temporary moratorium on sanctions had been imposed, providing a unique policy shift. We analyze the consequences for job findings, building on large administrative data and a novel control group approach. The moratorium dampened job findings by 4% and the subsequent benefit reform by almost 6%—offsetting half of the positive effect of the 2000s reform. Considering reform objectives, so far, we find no improvement in skill level, job stability, or transitions to training.

In this article, we study whether performance evaluations can serve as an instrument for firms to increase employee retention. Feedback on one's own performance may affect individual turnover intentions differently depending on the relative wage rank of workers among their peers. In line with these considerations, empirical evidence based on panel employer–employee data shows that relatively low‐paid employees decrease their turnover intentions after the implementation of a performance evaluation system at the establishment level. We find no effect for relatively high‐paid employees.

Betriebe stehen vor größer werdenden Herausforderungen, ihren Bedarf an Fach- und Arbeitskräften künftig weiter decken zu können. Eine relevante Stellschraube hierfür ist, Menschen mit gesundheitlichen Einschränkungen und Behinderungen im Betrieb (weiter) zu beschäftigen. In kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) gestalten sich die Voraussetzungen dafür zwar insgesamt schwieriger als in größeren. Allerdings haben auch KMU Möglichkeiten, mit Diversity-Management-Konzepten, betrieblichem Gesundheitsmanagement und den durch digitale Veränderungen erweiterten Gestaltungsspielräumen in der Arbeitsorganisation die Einbindung von Menschen mit Behinderungen im Betrieb zu verbessern. Unterstützt werden sie dabei durch sozialstaatliche Angebote wie Leistungen zur Teilhabe am Arbeitsleben (LTA) oder die 2022 eingeführten „Einheitlichen Ansprechstellen für Arbeitgeber“ (EAA). Parallel dazu nehmen gesetzliche Regelungen Einfluss auf das Verhalten der Betriebe bezüglich der Beschäftigung von Menschen mit Behinderungen, etwa der erweiterte Kündigungsschutz oder die seit 2024 verschärft geltende Ausgleichsabgabenregelung für Unternehmen, die der Beschäftigungspflicht überhaupt nicht nachkommen.

Germany, like many other countries, implemented a new pay transparency law to reduce the gender pay gap in 2017. The German Pay Transparency Law (ETG) targets mainly employers to reveal their wage structure, and employees are entitled to claim fair wages. This paper investigates the effectiveness of this policy via comprehensive data that link detailed information from all full-time employees in a representative sample of German establishments. Using a difference-in-discontinuity (diff-in-disc) at the two relevant establishment thresholds (approximately 200 employees and approximately 500 employees) of the law, we study changes in the gender pay gap and employment as well as its interaction with existing employee organizations to reduce unequal pay. The short-term results show that the ETG was only effective in reducing the raw gender wage gap in the presence of works councils and collective bargaining agreements for medium-sized firms (between 200 and 499 employees). In the absence of these institutions, establishments without works councils and collective bargaining agreements increased their unexplained gender wage gap after the introduction of the ETG. These results emphasize the importance of the presence of works councils and collective bargaining agreements in advancing equal pay policies. JEL classification: D22, J16, J21, J31, J71

This paper investigates the association between informal employment as a form of non-standard employment and the prevalence of in-work poverty for women in the health sector. We measured in-work poverty using a binary indicator that provides information on whether an individual has earnings above or below the low earnings threshold. The indicator takes into account household size and whether other household members are also in paid work. Using data from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey for the years 2012 and 2018 and logit models, we found that being employed within the health sector increased the likelihood of in-work poverty among non-standard employees, both men and women. However, higher risks of in-work poverty were witnessed among women working informally in the health sector compared to other sectors. This increased risk was particularly observed when comparing non-standard employment in the health sector to non-standard employment in non-health sectors. Furthermore, marital status plays a critical role in economic wellbeing, with never-married women being more susceptible to in-work poverty compared to ever-married women.

In this contribution we give common guidelines on how unemployment schemes for the self-employed could be developed in practice. These guidelines have been derived from national descriptions contained in this special edition on unemployment protection for the self-employed, or in other recent comparative contributions on the matter. Our reference framework is the EU Council Recommendation (2019) on Access to Social Protection, and more in particular the overall objective that social protection should be designed in a labour status neutral manner and, where necessary, adapted to the specific work situation of the professional groups covered. Applied to unemployment, the design of the scheme should be as similar as possible to that of unemployment insurance for wage earners. However, it is crucial to adapt the rules as specifically as necessary to the nature of self-employed work, such as, for example, the fact that the self-employed do not work for an employer. Starting from this basis, we developed key rules with regard to unemployment schemes for the self-employed. We did so by addressing the essential components of unemployment schemes: the definition of the unemployment risk, financing, access and entitlement conditions, and re-eligibility in case of repeated claims for unemployment benefits. We also address recent evolutions in the labour market, such as coverage when multiple activities are performed (combining activities as an employee and as a self-employed person), and elaborate on situations involving temporary closure of the self-employed activity (e.g. due to Covid-19) and partial unemployment. In conclusion, we provide some reflections on the apparent ongoing evolution of the risk of unemployment towards a broader income protection scheme, which not only provides income replacement in case of a final loss of professional activity or self-employed business, but also gives structural income support if the person loses income partially due to external economic and/or social reasons.

Zusammenfassung Menschen mit psychischen Erkrankungen sind mit besonderen Herausforderungen bei der Integration und Reintegration in den Arbeitsmarkt konfrontiert. Leistungen zur Teilhabe am Arbeitsleben (LTA) sollen dabei unterstützen. Der vorliegende Beitrag blickt auf die Situation von Menschen mit psychischen Erkrankungen in LTA der Bundesagentur für Arbeit aus verschiedenen Perspektiven. Auf Grundlage von qualitativen Interviews mit Tätigen bei Leistungserbringern, in Agenturen für Arbeit und Jobcentern sowie von beruflichen Rehabilitand*innen mit psychischen Erkrankungen selbst werden Gelingensbedingungen für ihre berufliche Rehabilitation und Arbeitsmarktintegration auf verschiedenen Ebenen herausgearbeitet. Mehr Individualität und Flexibilität in der Maßnahmeerbringung, eine kontinuierliche Betreuung und der Faktor Zeit, z. B. durch einerseits zu lange Wartezeiten und andererseits zu wenig Zeit in der Klärungsphase (Diagnostik, Assessment), im Rehabilitationsprozess und für die Nachsorge, stellen sich dabei als zentral heraus.

This paper studies whether a decline in employment protection reduces workers' long‐term sickness absences (of >6 weeks). We exploit exogenous variation from a German policy change that shifted the threshold exempting small establishments from dismissal protection from 5 to 10 workers. Using German register data, we find that the reform significantly reduced employees' transitions into long‐term sickness during their second year after being hired. This response is due to a behavioral rather than a compositional effect and is particularly pronounced among the medium‐skilled and younger males. Further results indicate that the reform did not alter the probability of involuntary unemployment after sickness.

Zusammenfassung Ziel der Studie Die Covid-19-Pandemie hat die Akteure der beruflichen Rehabilitation vor neue Herausforderungen gestellt. In der vorliegenden Studie interessieren wir uns für die folgenden Fragen: Wie haben Akteure wie Leistungserbringer beruflicher Rehabilitation (LE) und die Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) als Reha-Kostenträger die Covid-19-Pandemie erlebt, welche Prozessänderungen und Verzögerungen sind eingetreten, und welche Auswirkungen hat dies möglicherweise auf die berufliche Rehabilitation der Zukunft? MethodikIm Rahmen von leitfadengestützten Expert*inneninterviews haben wir zwischen Juli 2020 und Juli 2021 24 Interviews mit 29 Personen geführt (LE: n=16; BA-Kontext: n=8) und sie zu ihren Erfahrungen während der Covid-19-Pandemie befragt. Die Interviews wurden aufgezeichnet, transkribiert und in MAXQDA kodiert; die Analysen des transkribierten Materials basieren auf einem aus induktiven und deduktiven Kategorien entwickeltem System. Ergebnisse Qualifizierungsmaßnahmen mussten aus der Ferne durchgeführt werden. Diese digitalen Möglichkeiten mussten erst geschaffen werden. Die Folge daraus ist, dass auch die berufliche Rehabilitation gezwungen wurde, sich technologisch weiterzuentwickeln, wodurch Chancen (der Maßnahmeerbringung) und Grenzen (z. B. Erwerb sozialer Kompetenzen oder Einschätzung des psychischen Zustands) deutlich wurden. Während der alternativen Maßnahmeerbringung war eine kontinuierliche zusätzliche Betreuung durch die LE unabdingbar, um psychische Krisen einzudämmen, das Verständnis für die Qualifizierungsinhalte zu gewährleisten und Abbrüche zu vermeiden. Ebenso wie Schulen waren auch die Arbeitsagenturen und Jobcenter lange Zeit geschlossen und es fanden weder Reha- noch allgemeine Berufsberatung noch die Beurteilungsverfahren zur Ermittlung des Reha-Bedarfs beim Ärztlichen Dienst/Berufspsychologischen Service statt. Ein Rückgang in den Zugängen zu beruflicher Rehabilitation zeichnet sich schon länger ab, er ist aber insbesondere für 2021/22 vermehrt zu beobachten. Personen aus SGB-II-Haushalten sind möglicherweise stärker betroffen, da es schwieriger für die Agenturen und Jobcenter ist, mit ihnen in Kontakt zu bleiben. Schlussfolgerung Auch wenn die berufliche Rehabilitation einen großen digitalen Schub erfahren hat, haben die Erfahrungen aus der Pandemie gezeigt, dass vor allem für junge Menschen und Personen mit psychischen Behinderungen Maßnahmen in Präsenzformaten mit sozialen Kontakten wichtig sind. Dennoch muss die berufliche Rehabilitation sich mit der Arbeitswelt verändern, um zu verhindern, dass Menschen mit Behinderungen (weiter) abgehängt werden.

The transformation pressure caused by digitalisation, decarbonisation and demographic change differs between regional labour markets, as does the potential to adapt to these changes. For structurally weak (rural) regions, high transformation pressure due to digitalisation and/or decarbonisation is often accompanied by significant demographic problems. Policies should aim to increase innovation and further training in lagging regions, as these are of strategic importance for addressing the challenges of transformation.

Active labour market programmes (ALMPs) should help young adults who collect welfare benefits ‘get back on track’. Despite the recent proliferation of research on ALMPs, only scant attention has been paid to their employment quality effects. Aiming to fill this gap, this article evaluates the long-term effects of German ALMPs on young adults’ employment quality. We measure employment quality with two indicators: one on whether someone has a job with earnings below the low wage threshold and the other on whether they have a job with earnings above the low wage threshold. These measures help us assess whether ALMPs prevent young adults from being at risk of poverty again. In addition, we study whether ALMP effects vary by social origin. We distinguish young adults by whether their families collected benefits when they were adolescents, as a marker for disadvantaged social origin. We analyse in-firm training and one-euro jobs as examples for enabling and workfare programmes, which exist across other welfare states as well. Empirically, we apply an entropy balancing approach to a self-drawn sample from registry data to analyse ALMP treatment effects. Results show that in-firm training enhances young adults’ employment quality in the long run. The effects tend to be lower for those from disadvantaged families though, indicating that disadvantages embedded in social origin remain. The workfare programme harms participants’ employment quality, with those less disadvantaged suffering the greatest damage. Overall, our research provides evidence that in-firm training effectively enables young adults to find a job of higher quality, addressing their risk of social exclusion and proving useful in promoting upward social mobility. Nonetheless, the article also raises urgent issues concerning how the needs of those most vulnerable can be addressed by social policy.