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Nolan, Brian
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Nolan, Brian
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Nolan, Brian
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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
- PublicationEconomic Stress and the Great Recession in Ireland: The Erosion of Social Class DisadvantageIn this paper we address the issue of whether the Great Recession in Ireland led to increased social class polarisation in the experience of economic stress. Rather than observing polarisation, we find evidence for ‘middle class squeeze’ involving the self-employed and a significant erosion of the advantages associated with the higher social classes. These outcomes derived primarily from a weakening of the degree of association between social class and income class and a reduction of the buffering effect of social class within the lower income classes. By 2012 social class had no impact on economic stress net of income class.
250 - PublicationEarnings inequality, returns to education and immigration into IrelandIncreasing earnings inequality has been an important feature of the US and UK labour markets in recent years. The increase appears to be related to an increased demand for skilled labour and an increase in the returns to education. In this paper we examine what has happened to earnings inequality and the returns to education in Ireland between 1987 and 1997. We find that while both increased between 1987 and 1994, the increases slowed dramatically between 1994 and 1997. This is somewhat surprising as the exceptional growth in the Irish economy occurred from 1994 on. We look to immigration as being a contributing factor to this pattern because a large group of skilled workers flowed into the Irish labour market between 1994 and 1997. We develop a model of the Irish labour market and use it to simulate the impact of an increase in skilled labour. The simulation suggests that immigration did indeed reduce earnings inequality. This result is an interesting corollary to work from the US that shows the immigration of unskilled workers increasing earnings inequality.
1313 - PublicationEconomic stress and the great recession in Ireland:- the erosion of social class advantage(University College Dublin. Geary Institute, 2016-11-09)
; ; In this paper we address claims that the impact of the Great Recession in Ireland has led to increased class polarization with the burden of the adjustment being disproportionately borne by the vulnerable. Rather than observing social class polarization, we find evidence for 'middle class squeeze' involving the self-employed and a significant erosion of the advantage associated with the higher social classes. The changing impact of social class was related to a change in the distribution of persons across classes but more importantly to a weakening of the degree of association between social class and income group and a changing pattern of interaction between them. The cumulative impact of these changes meant that by 2012 social class had no impact on economic stress net of income group. Our findings are consistent with an erosion of the buffering role of social class within the lower income categories associated with the pervasive effects of the economic crisis. Our analysis elaborates onthe reasons why what from an income perspective can appear as deterioration in theposition of the income poor can from a social class perspective reappear as middle class squeeze. In our conclusion we consider why our findings seem so much at variance with most of the commentary on the distributional impact of austerity in Ireland.276 - PublicationJob Loss by Wage Level: Lessons from the Great Recession in IrelandThis paper explores the pattern of job loss in the Great Recession with a particular focus on its incidence by wage level, using data for Ireland. Ireland experienced a particularly pronounced decline in employment with the onset of the recession by international and historical standards, which makes it a valuable case study. Using EU-SILC data, our analysis identifies which employees were most affected. The results show that the probability of staying in employment, from one year to the next, is positively related to monthly wages both during the boom and in the bust. The gradient with wages, however, is much more marked in the bust, and remains significantly so even after controlling for a range of individual characteristics including part-time status, demographics, education, labour market history, industries or occupations.
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