Gender, racial, and ethnic gaps in wages are well known, but group disparities in employerprovided benefits, which account for one-quarter of total compensation, are not. We use benefit costs data to study levels and trends in gender, racial, and ethnic gaps in voluntary employer-provided benefits. Analyzing Employer Costs for Employee Compensation microdata on wages and benefit costs for the years 1982 to 2015, matched to Current Population Survey files by wage decile in the industrial sector, we find that (1) benefit gaps were wider than wage gaps for minorities but were narrower for gender, (2) racial and ethnic gaps in benefits increased faster than wage gaps, and (3) the gender gap in benefits decreased faster than the wage gap. We show that these findings reflect the types of jobs women, blacks, and Hispanics have held for the past three decades.

During the global housing boom that preceded the 2007-9 financial crisis, household debt increased substantially in many European countries, posing a challenge for literature on financialization and the institutional heterogeneity of mortgage markets. This paper examines recent institutional shifts in European mortgage markets and specifies three analytically distinct models of debt accumulation: inclusion, extension and intensity. While existing research has emphasized inclusion (access to homeownership), we show that financial intensification is an important determinant of cross-national variation in debt. We assess the variation in financial intensity in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) using household-level survey data. Our results show that inclusion and expansion explain only part of the cross-national variation in mortgage debt to income ratios. Furthermore, household financial behavior is consistent with the financial intensity model, and variation in the degree of financial intensification explains a substantial portion of the cross-national difference in debt levels.

This article aims to explain why inequality in fringe benefits has grown faster than wage inequality over the past four decades. We depart from previous income inequality research by studying benefits in addition to wages, but also by focusing on workplaces as the main drivers of benefit determination. We advance the argument that benefits determination is more organizationally embedded than wages mainly because workplaces have greater ability and incentive to alter benefits. Consequently, workplace compensation practices, including type of employment relations, are more important for benefits than for wages. Longitudinal linked employer–job administrative data on wages and voluntary benefits costs from the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) allow us to test these arguments, as well as examine why benefit inequality has dramatically increased. Results from variance decomposition reveal that between- and within-establishment inequality is higher in benefits than in wages, indicating that workplaces affect benefits more than wages. Regression results show that, as expected, establishment-level pay-settings affect benefits more than wages, and the decline in labor unions along with the liberalization of employment practices partly account for why benefit inequality increased at more than twice the rate of wage inequality.

Purpose-Past research about workplace promotion has focussed on factors that shape employees' perceptions for promotion. Yet, we still know little about how such undesirable factors as the fear of success (henceforth FoS) syndrome and perceived workplace discrimination affect perceived promotion and even less so how this relationship is mediated by self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework integrating these factors. Design/methodology/approach-A structural equation modelling procedure was employed to empirically test the model using data collected from employees in wide-ranging Israeli industries (n ¼ 553). Findings-The path model indicates that initially, FoS and perceived discrimination negatively affect perceived chances of promotion. When however, self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation mediate this relationship, subjects perceive their promotion chances positively. Practical implications-Self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation may be employed to attenuate the potentially adverse effects of FoS and discrimination effects. Originality/value-FoS and perceived workplace discrimination are common phenomena, yet the authors show that they may be mitigated by heightened self-efficacy and amplified intrinsic motivation that help in sustaining perceived workplace promotion.