Do changes in demographic characteristics explain declining male employment rates? Examination of the Australian case using a propensity score re-weighting decomposition approach

David Black, Yi-Ping Tseng and Roger Wilkins ()

Applied Economics, 2011, vol. 43, issue 28, 4215-4226

Abstract: Using Australian data spanning the period from 1981 to 2001, we apply a propensity score re-weighting decomposition approach to investigate the extent to which the large decline in the male employment population rate over this period can be attributed to changes in socio-demographic characteristics. We find that changes in observed characteristics account for little of the aggregate decline. However, changes in characteristics are found to be important for population sub groups. In particular, changes in partner status and partner employment status have acted to decrease employment rates of younger males, but increase employment rates of older males. A further finding is that, holding observed characteristics constant, there has been a very large decline in the employment rate of 55-64-year-olds with bachelor degree qualifications. In the course of applying the decomposition method, we illustrate that validity of inferences depends on 'appropriate' specification of the reweighting function.

Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036846.2010.491445 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:43:y:2011:i:28:p:4215-4226

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2010.491445

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().