Human Resources and Social Policy

Taking Stock of the Existing Evidence * Greece was traditionally an emigration country. However, since the early 1990s it became an immigrant destination and nowadays up to a tenth of the population are immigrants, mainly from neighbouring Balkan countries and, especially, Albania. This large scale immigration within a short time period had important social, as well as, economic consequences. The paper reviews the existing evidence and concludes that on average the economic effects of immigration were beneficial, although their distributional consequences were adverse. Greek immigration policy was haphazard and more efforts are needed in order to integrate the immigrants in the economic and social fabric of the country.

In the public discourse, education is usually considered as the main vehicle for the promotion of social equality and social mobility. The paper surveys the existing literature and concludes that the relationship between education and inequality in Greece is strong. Inequities are evident at all levels of the education system; especially as regards access to the most rewarding level, that is, university education. Many facets of the inequities observed in the labour market are associated with education, while education appears to be the single most important factor that shapes the overall distribution of income and influences the probability of poverty. Nevertheless, so far, several links between education and inequality have not been examined in detail.

The paper provides an analysis of the level, the structure and the patterns of inter-temporal change in hourly earnings inequality in Europe. For the purposes of static inequality decomposition analysis, the data of the ECHP are employed. Considerable cross-country differences are observed across the EU regarding both the level and the structure of earnings inequality. In most countries, of the four factors examined (education, age, sex and sector of employment), education and, to a lesser extent, age are found to be most closely associated with inequality. For the purposes of inequality trend decomposition analysis national data sets for eight European countries are utilised. The results show that in most countries the main factor behind the observed changes in earnings inequality was changes in inequality "within groups" irrespective of the partitioning criterion used, while the effect of changes in group mean earnings was negligible. Finally, changes in the composition of wage and salary earners regarding the four aforementioned factors (education, age, sex and sector of employment) had a relatively large, but not uniform across countries, effect only in a few countries and mainly when the partitioning factor is education. JEL Classification: J31

The paper provides an analysis of the level, the structure and the patterns of inter-temporal change in hourly earnings inequality in Europe. For the purposes of static inequality decomposition analysis, the data of the ECHP are employed. Considerable cross-country differences are observed across the EU regarding both the level and the structure of earnings inequality. In most countries, of the four factors examined (education, age, sex and sector of employment), education and, to a lesser extent, age are found to be most closely associated with inequality. For the purposes of inequality trend decomposition analysis national data sets for eight European countries are utilised. The results show that in most countries the main factor behind the observed changes in earnings inequality was changes in inequality "within groups" irrespective of the partitioning criterion used, while the effect of changes in group mean earnings was negligible. Finally, changes in the composition of wage and salary earners regarding the four aforementioned factors (education, age, sex and sector of employment) had a relatively large, but not uniform across countries, effect only in a few countries and mainly when the partitioning factor is education. JEL Classification: J31

The paper analyses gender differences in hourly earnings in Greece using three Household Budget Surveys (1988. During this period the aggregate gender earnings gap remained almost stable, amounting to less than a fifth of male earnings in the public sector and around a quarter of male earnings in the private sector of the economy. In most cases, women have better educational qualifications but men more years of potential experience. Using a number of decomposition techniques, it is shown that in the more competitive private sector of the economy, where wages are more likely to be determined by productivity, around three quarters of the observed gap should be attributed to discrimination. This finding, combined with the substantially higher incidences of unemployment and involuntary labour force non-participation rates of females, implies that despite the legislative progress in promoting equality of opportunity in recent decades, there is still a long way to go before true gender equality is established in the Greek labour market.

This study attempts to investigate the role of education in earnings inequality using quantiles regression. In particular, we calculate returns to upper secondary and tertiary education along the earnings distribution for thirteen European countries using the European Community Household Panel. Our results indicate that the role of education in shaping earnings inequality is rather limited, since differences of quantiles regression estimates across the earnings distribution are often statistically insignificant, and depends crucially on the level of education and gender. More precisely, in the majority of countries examined tertiary education seems to increase/decrease earnings inequality within males/females, while upper secondary education seems to increase/decrease earnings inequality within males (with minor exceptions)/females. Further, the results indicate that interestingly education and ability in the old EU are complements for males and supplements for females. Finally, regarding uncertainty involved, tertiary education graduates and males face higher uncertainty, which is to some extent expected on the grounds of different degrees of heterogeneity.

Private returns to education in Greece are investigated using the data of three Household Budget Surveys (1974, 1988 and 1994). Returns to schooling are found to be higher for females than for males, they declined between 1974 and 1988 and then rose in 1994 and, further, returns to education are increasing as the level of education rises. Sensitivity tests show that the hypothesis of selectivity bias for female employees is rejected, whereas when potential experience is replaced by age as an explanatory variable, the estimated returns decline by around two percentage points. No significant differences are found between rates of return of private and public sector workers, while education was found to act as a screening device, at least in the case of male employees.

The paper uses quarterly Labour Force Survey data (2004-2014) to investigate the role of different educational attainment in the unemployment probability of an individual and how it differs across regions in Greece. The effect of education, when statistically significant, varies across regions and so does the difference between the unemployment probability of a higher education graduate and that of a lower education graduate. Regions that include large urban centres, such as Attica and Central Macedonia, exhibit more variation in the unemployment probability with respect to education, probably due to the wider spectrum of economic activity involved.

This paper attempts to interpret the participation decision of women. It employs quarterly Labour Force Survey data and divides the sample to two periods: 2004-2007 (i.e. before the crisis) and 2010-2016 (i.e. during the crisis). There are two key conclusions. The first one is that education has the strongest impact in shaping a woman’s decision to participate in the labour force, at least amongst the attributes that were included in the regression. The second important conclusion is that the impact of almost all attributes decreased during the crisis, which means that homogeneity increased and that makes any intervention harder. Nevertheless, education still has the strongest impact on female participation probability.

This paper discusses the Reception and Educational Programme for Refugee Children (DYEP) introduced in Greece in 2016 to accommodate the  integration of refugee children. It also discusses the challenges they face and proposes actions to meet these challenges.

The paper presents the legislative framework for private education in Greece. It also discusses the usual arguments in favour of private education in general versus public education. Moreover, it presents the evolution of education spending by households using Household Budget Surveys and how it is allocated between different levels of education noticing the big spending in upper secondary education due to the preparation of students for Panhellenic Exams. Last but not least, it uses data from ELSTAT to track the changes in the demand for private education during the crisis in terms of students enrolled, teachers employed and schools operating.

This paper uses the Labour Force Survey to explore the presence of foreigners in the Greek labour market, their characteristics and the distribution of those employed across industries. The popular myth of an influx of foreigners in Greece and other European countries does not seem to hold, while patterns of migration based on the demand for specific types of labour seem to emerge.

This paper compares the labour force participation in Greece of young women aged 15-29 of Greek and Albanian nationality and investigates the corresponding determining factors. The data show that among the younger age cohort, containing women aged 15-21, nationals of Albania are more likely to participate in the labour market than Greek nationals. On the contrary, among women aged 22-29, Albanian nationals are much less likely to participate in the labour force than Greek nationals. As years of stay in Greece increase, female Albanian nationals, irrespective of age, tend to converge to the LFP patterns of their Greek counterparts and often to surpass them. Further, young female Albanians differ from natives in key characteristics; they are much more likely to be married and are usually less educated. Our main research contribution is the use of the female labour force participation rate in Albania at the time of immigration to Greece to gauge cultural norms brought to the host country. Following the literature, we believe the relationships ascertained may indicate the effect of culture of the source country on the choice of immigrants to participate or not in the labour market of the host country, while at the same time allowing for the impact of institutional arrangements concerning access to residence permits for foreign nationals in Greece, which together with prevailing cultural norms concerning gender roles, favour early marriage for women so that they can gain stay permits as spouses.

Women in Greece traditionally face higher unemployment rates compared with men, a phenomenon known as gender unemployment gap. Analysing this gap in a certain labour market requires the use of individual micro data, which we draw from the Labour Force Surveys. In order to trace the determining factors of the probability of unemployment by gender, we decompose the observed unemployment gap to its components. Our results reveal that, during the recession, the unexplained component of the gap decreased, perhaps as part of a rationalisation process in the labour market. The detailed decomposition of the unemployment gap suggests the importance of prior employment status, which however varies significantly by industry, along with other variables, such as age, education and often ethnicity. Furthermore, the unemployment gap seems to be correlated with certain institutional features of the Greek labour market, such as the strictness of employment protection regulations.

The paper provides an analysis of the level, the structure and the patterns of inter-temporal change in hourly earnings inequality in Europe. For the purposes of static inequality decomposition analysis, the data of the ECHP are employed. Considerable cross-country differences are observed across the EU regarding both the level and the structure of earnings inequality. In most countries, of the four factors examined (education, age, sex and sector of employment), education and, to a lesser extent, age are found to be most closely associated with inequality. For the purposes of inequality trend decomposition analysis national data sets for eight European countries are utilised. The results show that in most countries the main factor behind the observed changes in earnings inequality was changes in inequality “within groups” irrespective of the partitioning criterion used, while the effect of changes in group mean earnings was negligible. Finally, changes in the composition of wage an...

The paper provides an analysis of the level, the structure and the patterns of inter-temporal change in hourly earnings inequality in Europe. For the purposes of static inequality decomposition analysis, the data of the ECHP are employed. Considerable cross-country differences are observed across the EU regarding both the level and the structure of earnings inequality. In most countries, of the four factors examined (education, age, sex and sector of employment), education and, to a lesser extent, age are found to be most closely associated with inequality. For the purposes of inequality trend decomposition analysis national data sets for eight European countries are utilised. The results show that in most countries the main factor behind the observed changes in earnings inequality was changes in inequality “within groups” irrespective of the partitioning criterion used, while the effect of changes in group mean earnings was negligible. Finally, changes in the composition of wage an...

The paper examines the determinants of hourly wages in the Greek labour market, with emphasis on education- and experience-related variables, using the information of the 2004-2007 Labour Force Surveys. The results are in line with the predictions of human capital theory and show that, ceteris paribus, education is associated with higher earnings. However, substantial differences are observed within groups of workers with relatively similar educational qualifications and, in particular, within the group of tertiary education graduates. Despite the fact that some of these differences can be attributed to differences in the numbers of years of study required for particular degrees, they translate into widely different private internal rates of return for specific groups of graduates. Nevertheless, these rates cannot be used for the design of public policies, since social rather that private rates of returns should guide such policies.