TITLE:
Effect of Unemployment Duration on Subjective Quality of Employment in Côte d’Ivoire
AUTHORS:
Antoine N’gratier
KEYWORDS:
Job Quality, Unemployment Duration, Selection Bias, Control Variable, Côte d’Ivoire
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.10 No.4,
August
14,
2020
ABSTRACT: Quality of employment is a current concept in both
developed and developing nations. Studies on this subject explore more its
objective aspect in relation to their own dimensions. This article examines the
subjective nature of this notion in relation to the opinion given by workers on
it. The objective is to highlight the impact of unemployment duration on the
subjective quality of employment in Côte d’Ivoire. In pursuing such an
objective, the author seeks to perceive whether the duration spent in
unemployment is likely to have a positive or negative impact on the perception
that workers have of their jobs; this could shed light on the problem of
information asymmetry, particularly adverse selection. To measure this impact,
the author uses secondary data from the National Survey on the Employment
Situation and the Informal Sector (NSESIS) 2016 of the Youth Employment Agency
in Côte d’Ivoire and the National Institute of Statistics (NIS). To correct for
a possible selection bias about the choice of workers in the private sector,
the author uses “Heckman’s two-step approach”. This involves two modelling
exercises. From the first model, the bivariate probit, an inverse of the Mills
ratio is generated and introduced into the second model, the binary probit. In
order to better perceive the effects of unemployment duration on subjective job
quality, the author uses the variable “unemployment duration before obtaining
employment” as a control variable. The results show that the duration spent in
unemployment has a very significant effect on the perception of employment.
Reconsidering the same individuals in the sample with the presence of the
control variable, we find that workers tend to view the quality of their jobs
positively. This could pose a problem of appreciation even if objectively their
jobs are of lower quality.