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Occupational segregation by sex is a persistent phenomenon in contemporary labour markets, and widely assumed to contribute to ongoing gender earnings inequality. In spite of continuing change in the occupational composition of labour markets and legislative efforts to proscribe sex discrimination in employment processes, only limited changes in overall indices of occupational segregation have been recorded in Australia over recent decades. This paper uses disaggregated data to show that even this modest level of integration is underpinned by trends that are not unequivocally favourable for women. [This] analysis emphasises the influence of men's increased representation in part-time work, the impact of employment over female share effects, and highlights increased feminisation in some areas alongside integrating trends in others. Overall, [the authors] emphasise the continuation of marked differences between men's and women's occupational distribution, particularly at a disaggregated level.

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Typical farm households in rural areas of developing countries allocate their labour resource among own-farm work and off-farm (market) activities in response to different factors. This study examines determinants of household demand for and supply of farm labour in rural western Ethiopia using household sample survey data collected during the 2010/11 agricultural season. The instrumental variable estimation technique used to analyse the data indicates the importance of shadow wage, shadow income, and demographic factors in influencing farm labour supply. Similarly, the demand for farm labour is significantly affected by farm attributes, off-farm income and family composition. The findings with regards to farm labour supply imply that measures taken to influence returns to labour on farm may produce different results for labour market participant and non-participant households. Moreover, increasing the off-farm employment opportunities can help release the liquidity constraint and thus promote increased use of hired farm labour.

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This paper considers youth labour market disadvantage and presents an analysis which juxtaposes the role of individual supply characteristics with labour demand characteristics to advance an understanding of youth labour market outcomes. The paper takes the concept of employability and using data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics Australia (HILDA) survey and the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household and Population Census develops probit regressions of separate labour force states against individual supply-side and regional level demand characteristics. The results illustrate the importance of considering both supply side and demand side characteristics when considering labour market outcomes and developing potential policy interventions.

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This paper describes Indigenous and non-Indigenous occupational mobility (i.e. changes in the skill level of an occupation in which an individual is employed) using the Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset, 2006-11. The paper also considers movements out of paid employment, by occupation, and the occupations in which people who move into employment are employed. The main finding is that Indigenous people are more likely than non-Indigenous people to enter the labour market through low-skill jobs, and to have greater downward mobility because they are more likely than non-Indigenous people to leave employment from the highest skill occupations. For those who are employed at successive censuses, there is not a great deal of difference in Indigenous and non-Indigenous patterns of occupational mobility. By analysing the flows into and out of particular occupations, this paper also attempts to broaden the understanding of job retention rates. We explore some interpretations of this data using recent literature on job polarisation and routinisation of work.

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We propose a reweighting-estimation-transformation (RWET) approach to estimate the impacts of [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 on job postings in Australia. Contrary to the commonly used aggregation-based method on counting data, our approach can be used in a relatively 'thin' market, such as Australia. In a thin market, the number of job postings is relatively small, and the share of empty cells increases substantially when aggregating the data into finer categories. Using Australian job postings collected by Burning Glass Technologies and the RWET approach, our empirical evidence shows that the overall labour demand in Australia as of July 2020 is slowly recovering from its lowest 45 per cent dip at the beginning of May. Our results also suggest that the impacts of the pandemic are relatively evenly distributed across skill levels, but vary substantially across states, industries and occupations. Our findings of the dynamics on the demand side of the labour market suggest that skill-targeted policies might not be as effective as policies targeted at the state and industry levels to facilitate economic recovery.

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There has been an increasing dispersion in earnings observed in many OECD countries over the last two decades along with shedding of low skill workers and increased demand for skilled workers. This has been attributed to a number of different causes including skill-biased technological change. In this paper, the attributes of different occupations are used to obtain measures of three distinct skill dimensions - motor skills, interactive skills and cognitive skills - plus education. The paper presents an analysis of skill change for each of the skill dimensions over the period 1986 to 1996. Further analysis is carried out using regression modelling to determine whether the IT [information technology] intensity of an industry has had any influence on the extent of skill change over the period being analysed. The main finding is that industries that spend a relatively high proportion of capital expenditure on IT equipment, after controlling for other factors, also have experienced a decrease in the average interactive skill level of the workforce. Other measures of IT intensity are positively related with most skill dimensions, the main exception being motor skills.

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Univariate spectral analysis is used to model seasonally unadjusted quarterly unemployment rate data for Australia, 1978(2) to 2002(3). Data are tested for three categories: persons, males and females. Dynamic out-of-sample forecasts are made for eight quarters using spectral analysis models evaluated against [autoregressive integrated moving average] ARIMA model counterparts. It is found that the spectral analysis models achieve higher levels of forecasting accuracy than ARIMA counterparts, including turning point forecast accuracy. These results emerge in spite of weaker in-sample explanatory power of the spectral models against the ARIMA models. It is concluded the results suggest that the spectral model is ultimately better attuned to the various cyclical forces of the past unfolding into the future.

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Indigenous Australians experience higher rates of severe or profound disability than other Australians and the gap in rates of disability between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians increases with age. The relatively high rates of disability amongst the Indigenous population lead to relatively heavy caring burdens. Relatively little is known about the impact of caring on the employment rates of Indigenous carers and virtually nothing about the impact of caring on changes in labour force status.

This paper uses the recently released Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset to analyse the labour market dynamics of Indigenous and non-Indigenous carers and the extent to which these differ from the dynamics of those who are not carers. [The authors] also examine how labour force status changes, in association with commencement as a carer and exiting from caring. The analysis raises questions about how caring decisions are made within households and the extent to which the costs of caring may differ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous households.

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The employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth (aged 15-19 years) increases in the years immediately following the end of compulsory schooling and continues to widen into the 20s. Indigenous youth are also more likely to work in part-time, casual and unskilled jobs than non-Indigenous youth. The situation for young Indigenous women is markedly worse than for men, even though educational participation and attainment is similar. Early labour market experiences are likely to have both immediate and ongoing effects, reducing income, wealth accumulation and impeding future labour market success. However, there are signs of improvement in the labour market situation for Indigenous youth, particularly in non-remote areas. Between 2011 and 2016, educational participation and employment increased. Growing educational attainment is likely to further improve employment rates because Indigenous youth who have completed Year 12 have far better outcomes in the labour market than early school leavers.

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This paper explores whether there has been any long-run increase (or decrease) in the 'incidence' of long-term unemployment once [the authors] have corrected for cyclical factors? Allowing for cyclical factors this research leads to the conclusion that: (i) the incidence of male long-term unemployment has been neither rising nor falling; and (ii) the incidence of female long-term unemployment has been rising. [The authors] find no evidence that policy has permanent effects on the incidence of long-term unemployment for either males or females but some evidence that policy has temporary effects for females.

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