Publications & Documents

This paper analyses the association of labour market outcomes and family policies with fertility trends between 2002 and 2019 in 26 OECD countries. While the average age of mothers at birth of their children continued to increase over the entire period, these years have been marked by an initial catching-up of total fertility rates after marked declines in previous decades. Furthermore, after peaking in 2008, total fertility rates declined substantially, fueling concerns about demographic, economic and fiscal implications. Using panel data models and building on prior work, this paper links these changes in fertility outcomes to changes in the labour market position of men and women as well as with changes in family policies, such as parental leaves and early childhood education and care. This paper provides insights into the complex dynamics between family policies, employment and fertility, shedding light on the factors influencing overall population dynamics in OECD countries.

This paper provides an assessment of the 2019 minimum-wage hike in Spain, which increased the minimum wage by 22% and directly concerned 7% of dependent employees. The assessment is based on an individual-level analysis that follows the outcomes of workers that were employed in the year before the reform over time. Among directly affected workers, the hike in the minimum wage increased full-time equivalent monthly earnings by on average 5.8% and reduced employment by -0.6%. The wage effects are stronger for workers on open-ended contracts, while the employment effects are stronger for workers on fixed-term contracts.

This paper estimates the data intensity of occupations/sectors (i.e. the share of job postings per occupation/sector related to the production of data) using natural language processing (NLP) on job advertisements in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Online job advertisement data collected by Lightcast provide timely and disaggregated insights into labour demand and skill requirements of different professions. The paper makes three major contributions. First, indicators created from the Lightcast data add to the understanding of digital skills in the labour market. Second, the results may advance the measurement of data assets in national account statistics. Third, the NLP methodology can handle up to 66 languages and can be adapted to measure concepts beyond digital skills. Results provide a ranking of data intensity across occupations, with data analytics activities contributing most to aggregate data intensity shares in all three countries. At the sectoral level, the emerging picture is more heterogeneous across countries. Differences in labour demand primarily explain those variations, with low data-intensive professions contributing most to aggregate data intensity in the United Kingdom. Estimates of investment in data, using a sum of costs approach and sectoral intensity shares, point to lower levels in the United Kingdom and Canada than in the United States.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) creates new content in response to prompts, offering transformative potential across multiple sectors such as education, entertainment, healthcare and scientific research. However, these technologies also pose critical societal and policy challenges that policy makers must confront: potential shifts in labour markets, copyright uncertainties, and risk associated with the perpetuation of societal biases and the potential for misuse in the creation of disinformation and manipulated content. Consequences could extend to the spreading of mis- and disinformation, perpetuation of discrimination, distortion of public discourse and markets, and the incitement of violence. Governments recognise the transformative impact of generative AI and are actively working to address these challenges. This paper aims to inform these policy considerations and support decision makers in addressing them.

Automation of vehicles and in the workplace is transforming the transport industry. This report investigates the impacts of automation on the workforce in urban transport. It explores ways to help the labour market transition towards automated technologies without social disruptions. The report also examines how algorithms could improve employment opportunities and job quality in the transport industry.

This report examines Alberta's labour market trends, focusing on the impact of economic downturns, the COVID-19 crisis, and digital transformation. This study uses real-time labour market data, drawn from online job postings, to offer a granular perspective on demand dynamics across various sectors and occupations. The analysis in the report identifies emerging labour shortages in Alberta due to mega-trends such as digitalisation, AI adoption, automation, and population ageing and discusses key challenges such as youth unemployment and sector-specific labour shortages. The analysis in this report provides insights for policy makers, suggesting a need to support growing sectors, enhance digital skills development, address demand for health workers, and improve youth job access.

Policies aimed at reducing the environmental impact of human activities have important consequences for labour markets, jobs, and skills. As employment is shifting towards more sustainable activities, workers are increasingly expected to have skills that support the transition to a greener economy. Assessing and anticipating emerging skill needs is crucial to avoid bottlenecks and sustain the green transition. This report sheds light on existing methods to measure changes in skill demand and supply related to the green transition through an in-depth review of practices in five OECD countries (Australia, Austria, France, Norway and Sweden). It also identifies best practice on how to feed information on changing skill needs into policies, notably in the areas of employment, career guidance, education and adult learning.

This report analyses the career options of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers. It identifies policies and practices to promote diverse careers, flexible career trajectories and ultimately better-quality research and innovation across different economic and social sectors. The report presents a conceptual framework and synthesis of available data and policy information. It offers recommendations and a set of policy options to: promote engagement and interaction with employers outside academia; provide researchers with experience and skills for diverse careers; encourage valorisation of diverse career options; support career development and guidance for researchers; promote inter-sectoral mobility; and, reconfigure and support careers in academia.

This working paper presents novel analysis comparing in a consistent way the tax treatment of labour and capital income across OECD countries, through stylised effective tax rates (ETRs). It shows that dividend income and capital gains are generally subject to lower ETRs than wage income at the personal level. In many countries, capital income is also tax-favoured even when considering taxes paid by both firms and individuals, although the gap between labour and capital income taxation tends to be smaller than when considering only personal-level taxes. The gap between ETRs on labour and capital income varies between countries and grows with income levels in some. The paper highlights that differential tax treatment of labour and capital income can affect the efficiency and equity of tax systems.