a column by Giulia Giupponi and Stephen Machin for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
n 2016 the National Living Wage in the UK raised the minimum hourly wage for workers aged 25 and over.
The column uses data from English care homes to analyse the impact of this policy, finding that the main non-wage effect has been a deterioration in quality of care. Younger colleagues also received wage rises, which seems to reflect a preference for fairness among employers.
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Showing posts with label fairness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fairness. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 August 2018
Friday, 13 April 2018
We'd rather have fair inequality than unfair equality, research shows
a post by Derek Beres for the Big Think blog
Actresss Angelina Jolie attends the 'Salt' South Korea premiere at the Time Square on July 28, 2010 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
Inequality helped to define the 2016 election. Bernie Sanders built his entire platform on challenging the wealth gap in our society, while one of the most successful slogans of the cycle – “Drain the swamp!” – helped elect a billionaire. How well that drainage is going is another story completely, for another article – there are plenty out there.
But what does equality mean, and is such an ambition even possible? It depends on how we define the term. Extensive research on economic disparity between white and black boys destroys any notion that everyone is on equal footing in this country. Anyone claiming that everyone has an equal shot in America is either ignorant or lying.
But equality is a complex and relative subject, as Yale cognitive scientist Mark Sheshkin points out. Research shows that while slogans for equality dominate social media and protests around the nation, most appreciate a bit of inequality. As Sheshkin puts it, “we should aspire to fair inequality, not unfair equality.”
Continue reading
OK, I know that this piece concentrates on the inequalities in US society but many of the discussion points will relate to anywhere in the world.
Actresss Angelina Jolie attends the 'Salt' South Korea premiere at the Time Square on July 28, 2010 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
Inequality helped to define the 2016 election. Bernie Sanders built his entire platform on challenging the wealth gap in our society, while one of the most successful slogans of the cycle – “Drain the swamp!” – helped elect a billionaire. How well that drainage is going is another story completely, for another article – there are plenty out there.
But what does equality mean, and is such an ambition even possible? It depends on how we define the term. Extensive research on economic disparity between white and black boys destroys any notion that everyone is on equal footing in this country. Anyone claiming that everyone has an equal shot in America is either ignorant or lying.
But equality is a complex and relative subject, as Yale cognitive scientist Mark Sheshkin points out. Research shows that while slogans for equality dominate social media and protests around the nation, most appreciate a bit of inequality. As Sheshkin puts it, “we should aspire to fair inequality, not unfair equality.”
Continue reading
OK, I know that this piece concentrates on the inequalities in US society but many of the discussion points will relate to anywhere in the world.
Wednesday, 14 March 2018
If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance
an article by Emerging Technology from the arXiv [MIT Technology Review via 3 Quarks Daily]
The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.
The distribution of wealth follows a well-known pattern sometimes called an 80:20 rule: 80 percent of the wealth is owned by 20 percent of the people. Indeed, a report last year concluded that just eight men had a total wealth equivalent to that of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people.
This seems to occur in all societies at all scales. It is a well-studied pattern called a power law that crops up in a wide range of social phenomena. But the distribution of wealth is among the most controversial because of the issues it raises about fairness and merit. Why should so few people have so much wealth?
The conventional answer is that we live in a meritocracy in which people are rewarded for their talent, intelligence, effort, and so on. Over time, many people think, this translates into the wealth distribution that we observe, although a healthy dose of luck can play a role.
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Hazel’s comment
You will need a modicum of maths skills to understand parts of the argument but that luck plays a large role in the acquisition of wealth is something we can all understand, and most of us resent because we are not the lucky ones.
The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.
The distribution of wealth follows a well-known pattern sometimes called an 80:20 rule: 80 percent of the wealth is owned by 20 percent of the people. Indeed, a report last year concluded that just eight men had a total wealth equivalent to that of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people.
This seems to occur in all societies at all scales. It is a well-studied pattern called a power law that crops up in a wide range of social phenomena. But the distribution of wealth is among the most controversial because of the issues it raises about fairness and merit. Why should so few people have so much wealth?
The conventional answer is that we live in a meritocracy in which people are rewarded for their talent, intelligence, effort, and so on. Over time, many people think, this translates into the wealth distribution that we observe, although a healthy dose of luck can play a role.
Continue reading
Hazel’s comment
You will need a modicum of maths skills to understand parts of the argument but that luck plays a large role in the acquisition of wealth is something we can all understand, and most of us resent because we are not the lucky ones.
Friday, 5 June 2015
Illegitimate tasks as a source of work stress
an article by Norbert K. Semmer, Nicola Jacobshagen, Laurenz L. Meier, Achim Elfering and Wolfgang Kälin (University of Bern, Switzerland), Terry A. Beehr (Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, USA) and Franziska Tschan (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland) published in Work & Stress: An International Journal of Work, Health & Organisations Volume 29 Issue 1 (2015)
Abstract
Illegitimate tasks represent a task-level stressor derived from role and justice theories within the framework of “Stress-as–Offense-to-Self” (SOS; Semmer, Jacobshagen, Meier, & Elfering, 2007).
Tasks are illegitimate if they violate norms about what an employee can properly be expected to do, because they are perceived as unnecessary or unreasonable; they imply a threat to one’s professional identity. We report three studies testing associations between illegitimate tasks and well-being/strain.
In two cross-sectional studies, illegitimate tasks predicted low self-esteem, feelings of resentment towards one’s organization and burnout, controlling for role conflict, distributive injustice and social stressors in Study 1, and for distributive and procedural/interactional justice in Study 2.
In Study 3, illegitimate tasks predicted two strain variables (feelings of resentment towards one’s organization and irritability) over a period of two months, controlling for initial values of strain.
Results confirm the unique contribution of illegitimate tasks to well-being and strain, beyond the effects of other predictors. Moreover, Study 3 demonstrated that illegitimate tasks predicted strain, rather than being predicted by it. We therefore conclude that illegitimate tasks represent an aspect of job design that deserves more attention, both in research and in decisions about task assignments.
Abstract
Illegitimate tasks represent a task-level stressor derived from role and justice theories within the framework of “Stress-as–Offense-to-Self” (SOS; Semmer, Jacobshagen, Meier, & Elfering, 2007).
Tasks are illegitimate if they violate norms about what an employee can properly be expected to do, because they are perceived as unnecessary or unreasonable; they imply a threat to one’s professional identity. We report three studies testing associations between illegitimate tasks and well-being/strain.
In two cross-sectional studies, illegitimate tasks predicted low self-esteem, feelings of resentment towards one’s organization and burnout, controlling for role conflict, distributive injustice and social stressors in Study 1, and for distributive and procedural/interactional justice in Study 2.
In Study 3, illegitimate tasks predicted two strain variables (feelings of resentment towards one’s organization and irritability) over a period of two months, controlling for initial values of strain.
Results confirm the unique contribution of illegitimate tasks to well-being and strain, beyond the effects of other predictors. Moreover, Study 3 demonstrated that illegitimate tasks predicted strain, rather than being predicted by it. We therefore conclude that illegitimate tasks represent an aspect of job design that deserves more attention, both in research and in decisions about task assignments.
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
To give or to keep? Affective influences on selfishness and fairness in computer-mediated interactions in the dictator game and the ultimatum game
an article by Joseph P. Forgas and Hui Bing (Tan
University of New South Wales, Sydney) published in Computers in Human Behavior
Volume 29 Issue 1 (January 2013)
Abstract
Selfishness vs. fairness are basic dimensions of relating to others, and many computer-mediated communications among young people involve subtle decisions balancing selfishness vs. fairness.
We report five experiments investigating the influence of affect on interpersonal decisions in CMC in strategic games such as the dictator game and the ultimatum game.
In the dictator game, proposers have unlimited power to make selfish or fair allocations.
In the ultimatum game, decisions by proposers are subject to the veto powers of responders.
These experiments predicted and found that negative mood consistently increased, and positive mood reduced concern with the fairness of allocations.
Proposers in a negative mood showed greater fairness and offered more resources to a partner than did those in a positive mood, and such decisions also took longer confirming mood-induced processing differences.
The results are discussed in terms of recent affect-cognition theories, suggesting that positive affect recruits more assimilative, internally focused processing promoting selfishness, while negative affect induces more externally oriented, accommodative thinking and greater concern with social norms.
The implications of the findings for everyday interpersonal behaviours and computer-mediated interactions involving selfishness vs. fairness are considered.
Figures and tables from this article
Abstract
Selfishness vs. fairness are basic dimensions of relating to others, and many computer-mediated communications among young people involve subtle decisions balancing selfishness vs. fairness.
We report five experiments investigating the influence of affect on interpersonal decisions in CMC in strategic games such as the dictator game and the ultimatum game.
In the dictator game, proposers have unlimited power to make selfish or fair allocations.
In the ultimatum game, decisions by proposers are subject to the veto powers of responders.
These experiments predicted and found that negative mood consistently increased, and positive mood reduced concern with the fairness of allocations.
Proposers in a negative mood showed greater fairness and offered more resources to a partner than did those in a positive mood, and such decisions also took longer confirming mood-induced processing differences.
The results are discussed in terms of recent affect-cognition theories, suggesting that positive affect recruits more assimilative, internally focused processing promoting selfishness, while negative affect induces more externally oriented, accommodative thinking and greater concern with social norms.
The implications of the findings for everyday interpersonal behaviours and computer-mediated interactions involving selfishness vs. fairness are considered.
Figures and tables from this article
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