A life-course perspective on labor supply: Temporal, institutional, and social embeddedness as determinants of individual reservation wages

自哈茨法案以来，德国劳动力市场的特点是就业率不断上升，熟练劳动力短缺，低收入部门不断增长。由于人口结构的变化，劳动力供应，特别是保留工资成为了解此类劳动力市场的核心。虽然经济学研究已经调查保留工资和劳动力供应的决定因素很长一段时间了，但仍然缺乏对这一主题的社会学调查--尽管理论和实证研究存在很大差距。概述的研究项目旨在弥合这些差距，并在生命过程方法的基础上发展一种关于劳动力供应的真正社会学观点。特别是，时间、制度和社会嵌入对个人保留工资的影响是该项目的核心。我们建立了这三种嵌入形式的理论模型，并利用先进的因果分析方法，基于劳动力市场和社会保障小组研究(PASS)的纵向数据来检验它们的预测。这些项目特别重视社会群体，由于不稳定的生活状况和体制环境，这些群体可能会被迫降低其保留工资，并进入低收入的雇佣关系。通过这一点，我们不仅弥合了我们对劳动力市场理解方面的重要研究差距，而且还为社会不平等和贫困的研究领域做出了贡献。

Since the Hartz-legislation, the German labour market is characterised by an increasing employment rate, a shortage of skilled manpower, and a growing low-pay sector. Amplified by demographic change, labour supply and especially the reservation wage become central for understanding such labour markets. While economic research has been investigating the determinants of reservation wages and labour supply for quite some time, a sociological investigation of this topic is still missing – despite substantial theoretical and empirical research gaps. The outlined research project aims to close these gaps and to develop a genuinely sociological perspective on labour supply based on the life-course approach. In particular, the effects of temporal, institutional, and social embeddedness on individual reservation wages are the core of the project. We develop theoretical models of these three forms of embeddedness and test their predictions based on longitudinal data of the Panel Study “Labour Market and Social Security” (PASS), utilizing advanced methods of causal analysis. The projects puts special emphasis on social groups, which – due to precarious life situations and the institutional setting – may be forced to lower their reservation salary and enter into lower-paid employment relationships. By that, we not only close important research gaps in our understanding of labour markets, but also contribute to the research fields of social inequality and poverty.