Starting one’s working life in an irregular job can lead to a fruitful career or to long-term stagnation. While studies of European labour markets support the stepping-stone hypothesis, this column presents evidence that irregular jobs lead to negative midlife outcomes in Japan. Future jobs are less stable, pay less, and psychological distress is higher. Such problems suggest a role for policy to reduce economic and social disadvantages of non-regular workers.
Takashi Oshio, Seiichi Inagaki, 26 September 2014
Giovanni Ganelli, 15 January 2014
The third arrow of Abenomics aims at reviving growth in Japan. This column presents research showing that revamping Japan’s dual labour markets to increase productivity should be an important component of the growth strategy. An increase in the level of employment protection of regular workers tends to increase duality, while an increase in the protection of temporary workers has the opposite effect. Reducing the difference in the employment protection would help to reduce the labour-market duality, and reducing the duality results in a higher growth. This would lead to a decrease in unemployment, and could help to exit deflation.
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Baldwin, Weder di Mauro, 18 March 2020
Events
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20 - 23 April 2020 / Guildford, Surrey, UK / University of Surrey
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23 - 23 April 2020 / Madrid, Spain / IE Business School
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23 - 24 April 2020 / Bratislava, Slovakia / National Bank of Slovakia in cooperation with CompNet
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8 - 9 May 2020 / Princeton, NJ / International Economics Section at the Department of Economics of Princeton University
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4 - 7 June 2020 / Chania, Crete, Greece / Co-organized by the Financial Engineering Laboratory of the Technical University of Crete, the Department of Economics of the University of Crete, and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania
