Three Essays on Empirical Studies of Wages in the Korean Labor Market

Abstract

My dissertation follows a coherent theme on three important and interesting issues for the Korean labor market as follows: Chapter 1 using data from the 2008 Panel Survey of Employment for the Disabled (PSED) investigates gender wage differentials among the disabled. The selectivity corrected decomposition framework is employed to examine what factors - endowments, discrimination, and selectivity - account for the wage gap. The main results are as follows: (1) the gender wage gap among the disabled is sizable: (2) the wage gap is significantly attributable to discrimination: (3) the endowments factor plays an important role in explaining gender wage differentials, as well: and (4) the presence of selection effects raises the observed wage gap. Such evidence suggests that Korean disabled female workers are more likely to be disadvantaged than their male counterparts in terms of wages.Chapter 2 using the 2007 Korea Labor and Income Panel Survey (KLIPS) examines the impact on wages of skills-job mismatch between acquired and required English language proficiency in Korean workplaces. The main findings of this study reveal (1) job mismatch in terms of English language skills has a strong statistically significant impact on wages: (2) the returns to over-skilling are negative (the wage penalty), while the returns to under-skilling are positive (the wage premium): and (3) the wage penalty associated with over-skilling is stronger than the wage premium associated with under-skilling.Chapter 3 using the KLIPS data from 1998 through 2008 investigates the causal relationship between veteran status and post-service labor market outcomes by examining the wage experience of veterans and nonveterans. The major empirical findings can be summarized as follows: (1) contrary to the general perception, veteran status has a significant positive impact on wages after completion of military service, inducing a veteran wage premium: and (2) in terms of the veteran wage premium in subgroups based on educational attainment at the time of entry into military service, less-educated veterans have a greater wage premium relative to their nonveteran counterparts of similar backgrounds than is the case for more-educated veterans. It suggests that military service could be particularly important for less-educated veterans.