Incentives for the Low-Paid: Setting the Scene

Alex Bowen, Dominic Brewer and Ken Mayhew

Chapter 1 in Improving Incentives for the Low-Paid, 1990, pp 1-54 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Improving incentives for the low-paid is an important objective for the low-paid themselves and for the economy as a whole. Providing a constructive means for people to enhance their well-being by their own efforts is an appropriate social goal. The route may be working longer hours, or seeking out a better-paid job, or acquiring more marketable skills. Improving incentives is a matter of making the extra effort or investment entailed appear worthwhile. This also applies to people not currently receiving a wage, who might be discouraged from labour market participation because they do not regard the expected benefit from working as sufficient (this expected benefit depends not only on gross wage rates attached to particular jobs and on the tax-benefit system but also on the probability of acquiring particular jobs). Thus we should not restrict ourselves to consideration of the currently low-paid, but should also bear in mind the circumstances of groups with a marginal attachment to the labour market, including the unemployed. The economy as a whole can benefit through the extra output produced when the quality and quantity of labour input is increased. This is particularly important when demographic trends point to a fall in the number of young people entering the labour market in the next few years (NEDO, 1988).

Keywords: Labour Market; Labour Supply; Married Woman; Unemployment Benefit; Replacement Ratio (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1990
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:pal:palchp:978-1-349-21012-1_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349210121

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-21012-1_1

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().