Labor month in review
The May
Review
Mothers’ labor force participation
Women’s working hours
Employees’ health insurance payments
International unit labor costs
For many empirical problems in labor economics, it would be useful to have data about individuals and data about the establishments in which they work. In general, however, data about individuals have come from household surveys, data about establishments have come from establishment surveys and common ground between the two has been hard to find. Richard L. Clayton and Jay A. Mousa outline progress toward linking establishment reports and individual wage histories in the unemployment insurance system’s management information. The other reports in this volume are samples of the interesting work that can be accomplished with such wage record data.
Jeff Hadland uses data from the Alaska unemployment insurance system plus other administrative data sources, including the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend application form, to study the extent of inter- and intra-State migration among Alaskan youth and their participation in post-secondary education.
Mustapha Hammida uses Minnesota wage records data to report on the connection between job mobility and wages. He finds that much mobility is among relatively low-wage jobs and that longer job tenure is associated with better paid jobs.
Robert Bowles examines North Carolina’s recent high-tech employment growth and its impact on wages. For many individual workers, he finds, "obtaining a job at a high-tech manufacturing company entails a substantial wage increase."
Rich Gordon, Mark Schaff, and Greg Shaw demonstrate an application of Ohio’s wage records data to follow up on rehabilitation services under Title IV of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. By consulting wage records, analysts have been able to document the impact of rehabilitation services on job retention rates and earnings.
Mothers’ labor force participation
The labor force participation rate for mothers of infants fell by 2.4 percentage points to 53.7 percent in 2003. This rate has fallen almost every year since 1998, when it was 57.9 percent.
For married mothers with infants, the participation rate continued its downward trend, falling by 1.8 percentage points in 2003 to 52.9 percent. The participation rate for unmarried mothers with infants fell by 4.7 percentage points to 56.2 percent.
"Infants" refers to children younger than 1 year old. "Unmarried mothers" includes never-married, divorced, separated, and widowed mothers. More information can be found in "Employment Characteristics of Families in 2003," news release USDL 04–719.
Women’s average hours at work in nonagricultural industries totaled 35.9 hours in 2003, while the workweek for men averaged 41.6 hours. Although women still worked shorter weeks, women have increased their workweek by almost 2 hours over the past 27 years, while men increased their workweek by less than a quarter of an hour. As a result, women’s workweeks are now 86.3 percent as long as men’s are, compared with 82.3 percent a quarter century ago. See BLS Report 973, Women in the Labor Force: A Databook. (Data for 2003 are from Employment & Earnings, January 2004.)
Employees’ health insurance payments
On average, employees in private industry paid 18 percent of the medical care premium for single coverage and 30 percent of the premium for family coverage. Union workers paid 12 percent of the medical premiums for single coverage, while their nonunion counterparts paid 19 percent. The share of premiums for family coverage also was higher for nonunion workers: 31 percent versus 19 percent.
The employee share of family coverage premiums was higher for workers in service-producing industries than for those in goods-producing industries. This share was also higher for workers in small establishments (those with fewer than 100 employees). Learn more in "National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in Private Industry in the United States, March 2003," Summary 04–02 (PDF).
International unit labor costs
In terms of U.S. dollars, Taiwan had the largest unit labor cost decline in 2002. The United States and Canada were the only other economies with declines in unit labor costs. Because of the dollar’s depreciation, the unit labor costs of all European countries and of Korea increased more when expressed in U.S. dollars than in national currencies. In Sweden, a krona-denominated 4.1-percent decline changed to a 2.0-percent cost increase in dollar terms when exchange rates were taken into account. Additional information is available in "International Comparisons of Manufacturing Productivity and Unit Labor Cost Trends, Revised Data for 2002," news release USDL 04–488.
Communications regarding the Monthly Labor Review may be sent to the Editor-in-Chief by e-mail to mlr@bls.gov, by mail at 2 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Room 2850, Washington, DC, 20212, or by fax to (202) 691–7890.
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