Jin, Wenchao;
(2022)
Essays on the demand and supply of labour.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Preview |
Text
final thesis.pdf - Other Download (3MB) | Preview |
Abstract
This thesis contains three chapters analysing labour supply and labour demand, and their interaction. The first two chapters examine the labour market consequences of the rapid expansion of Higher Education in the UK since the 90s. The first chapter looks at the wages of graduates and non-graduates. It proposes a model of endogenous adoption of skill-biased technology to explain the remarkably flat trend of the college wage premium. The second chapter extends the theory by adding the occupational dimension and uses it to study quantitatively the historical phenomenon of job polarisation. It shows a large shift in employment from middle-skill occupations to the higher-skilled ones in the UK. It develops a multi-sector equilibrium model of occupational labour, featuring endogenous adoption of task-biased technology. This can explain not only the employment patterns, but also movements in occupational wage, and occupational trends within education groups. The third chapter investigates the low employment rate of older women in urban China. Based on a wide range of descriptive correlations, I argue that there are two main reasons for the low employment rate. One is the early age at which urban women become eligible for pensions. One is financial transfers from their children. I build and calibrate a life-cycle model of female labour supply, incorporating income uncertainties and income-contingent transfers from children. The model can generate realistic patterns of employment, including a lot of bunching in the timing of labour market exit at the point of pension receipt. I use the model to simulate the effects of increasing pension age.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Essays on the demand and supply of labour |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10151834 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
