NSF Award
1524787
SES-1528294 <br/>Donald Tomaskovic-Devey <br/>University of Massachusetts Amherst <br/><br/>SES-1524787 <br/>Dustin Avent-Holt <br/>University of California-Irvine <br/><br/>SES-1524761 <br/>Andrew Penner <br/>Georgia Regents University <br/><br/>Rising income inequality is a widespread problem in high income countries. While the broad trajectories of national income and wealth inequalities are apparent, little is known about the workplace and institutional dynamics that produce these disturbing trends. This project investigates the dynamics of workplace earnings distributions, a major component of the overall income distribution. The researchers will take advantage of available administrative data on nearly all private sector workplaces and their employees for six countries over fifteen years to examine workplace level inequality levels and trends. The research centers on two central questions: What factors drive overall income inequality in workplaces? How do workplaces exacerbate or mitigate the impact of individual distinctions, such as education level, gender or immigrant status? The unique comparative population level data design allows the research team to address these two questions in both cross- and sub-national temporal contexts, asking: How do inequality generating mechanisms vary as a function of institutional context? Policy debates about inequality primarily focus on government redistribution at the national level, often ignoring that income distributions have become more unequal because of workplace compensation shifts. <br/><br/>The study brings workplaces into the center of the analysis of national inequality levels and trajectories. Current policy discussions often ignore the role of national institutions and workplace practices in encouraging or discouraging inequality outcomes. Building on Relational Inequality Theory the project examines the generic social mechanisms that produce both levels and distributions of organizational incomes and the degree to which they are moderated by institutional context. Combining Linked Employer-Employee Panel (LEEP) data with local institutional knowledge the research analyses data on virtually all employees linked to all employers in the private sector for six countries with high quality LEEP data: Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, from circa 2000 to the present. This study helps uncover the potential for interventions via educational investments, equal opportunity enforcement, wage floors and ceilings, and other institutional interventions that influence organizational variation in inequalities. Better understanding and documenting why some firms produce less inequality than others will provide a powerful counter-narrative to the idea that inequality is a naturally occurring process. Exploring organizational variation within and between countries will reveal the range of inequality regimes compatible with contemporary product and labor market constraints. Further, by linking gender and ethnic/citizenship inequalities to the structure of workplace inequality dynamics study results may reveal new paths for increasing social inclusion of historically marginalized groups.
