The Structure of Working Class Economic Inequality Under Market Socialism: A Labor Market Analysis of Blue-Collar Workers in Yugoslavia
Putnam, George William
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/71014
Description
Title
The Structure of Working Class Economic Inequality Under Market Socialism: A Labor Market Analysis of Blue-Collar Workers in Yugoslavia
Author(s)
Putnam, George William
Issue Date
1986
Department of Study
Sociology
Discipline
Sociology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Sociology, Social Structure and Development
Abstract
I compared skill homogenization and skill solidarity theory for their ability to account for: (1) the effects of labor market characteristics on working-class earnings in different regions of Yugoslavia that varied in their level of industrialization; and, (2) economic stratification among working-class strata in a developed region of Yugoslavia. The data source for this research was the 1976 Worker Census, a survey of the labor market characteristics of workers in Yugoslavia. Savezni Zavod za Statistiku (Federal Office of Statistics) in Belgrade supplied aggregated data from this census on industries in Slovenia and Macedonia, two republics with contrasting levels of industrial development. Zavod SR Slovenije za Statistiko (Office of Statistics in Slovenia) provided information on selected occupations within Slovene industries.
The results indicated that the pattern of economic inequality fluctuated with the level of development and lent greater support to the solidarity perspective. In Macedonian industries, average education and percent blue-collar female had the greatest effect on blue-collar earnings and greatly exceeded the others. Percent blue-collar female had the largest beta in Slovene industries followed by average hours worked, and percent semi-skilled. The effect of average education was noticeably less. Among working-class strata, economic returns to percent female, hours worked, and experience were significantly greater for the skilled and confirmed the claims of solidarity theory. The returns to average education, however, were greater for the unskilled, an outcome not anticipated by either the solidarity or homogenization argument.
The findings reported in this study revealed that education and occupational skill were competing determinants of earnings, an effect that is largely ignored in the literature. The relative effect of these two variables on blue-collar earnings fluctuated with the level of development. Furthermore, they contributed to the emergence of economic cleavages among working-class strata.
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