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原文:The Hidden Payroll: Employee Benefits and the Structure ofWorkplace InequalityAngela M. ORandEmployee benefits contribute to the stratification of the labor force into occupational markets. Employee benefits and earnings form compensation packages available in different combinations and at different levels to occupations located in different labor markets. In this study I have merged and aggregateddata from the Current Population Survey Pension Supplement in 1979 at the detailed occupation level with data from the Fourth Edition of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles to examine the relative importance of workforce characteristics, occupational content, and labor market context in the provision of selected employee benefits both separately and in combinations with earnings. The analyses reveal that fringe benefits are structurally-determined factors that represent a dimension of the reward structure of occupations different from earnings, but they combine with earnings to stratify the workplace into occupational markets.Pensions provide the best documented example of the variation in fringe benefits. Slightly more than half of the workforce in 1979 was in pension-covered employment, the highest level of coverage in history (ORand, 1985). Pension covered employment was concentrated in public and private core industries (Beck, Horan and Tolbert, 1978). But even in core industries, pension coverage is typically limited to those who work full time (Slavick, 1966; ORand and MacLean, 1986). Plans also have vesting schedules,i.e., minimum requirements for continuous service and participation in order for an employee to become eligible for a benefit. These service schedules often discriminate against workers with interrupted service resulting from layoffs or personal needs, such as childbirth, although pension legislation beginning in the 1970s (e.g., the Employee Retirement, Income Security Act in 1974) was targeted to protect the employees rights in the latter case.In addition to their uneven availability, fringe benefits are often hidden rewards for work. They are not widely negotiated in the labor market (union contracts cover less than one-third of the workforce), although those markets with strong unionization and/or professionalization are more likely to publicize these forms of compensation. Moreover, they are not usually advertised in the way that wages are. Also, they are either deferred or reserved rewards. Pensions are long-term contracts for deferred earnings (Lazear, 1979, 1983). Eligibility for a pension is achieved following a prescribed service schedule and final benefits often do not accrue until a designated retirement age, even if the worker leaves the firm with eligibility at a younger age.Health and disability insurance coverages, on tile other hand, are protective rewards, held in reserve and made available episodically and on a need basis, but not as continuous or deferred returns for work as in the cases of earnings mad pensions, respectively. These benefits provide income security in the case of health-related interruptions to work or premature severance from a job as a result of disability. More often than pensions, they require worker contributions (though not always). Consequently, they represent a different kind of benefit that may be more closely related to the intrinsic characteristics of a job, e.g., physical or stress-related demands, or to the socioeconomic status of workers that affects their ability to pay for such coverage, or both. Also, reserve benefits may reflect short-term as opposed to long-term strategies by employers to hold their workforces by discouraging job mobility.OCCUPATIONS AND MARKETSTwo perspectives predominate in the study of the stratification of the workforce. The first, which can be labeled the thesis of industrialism, focuses on the intrinsic features and reward values of occupations (Kerr et al., 1960; Treiman, 1977; Hauser and Featherman, 1977). In this approach, job content and skill level are central in the determination of rewards for work, with the latter measured typically as earnings and/or occupational prestige. The focus is on occupations, with little attention to the industrial context. Rewards derive from the intrinsic features of jobs and their relative complexity, autonomy and difficulty (Cain and Treiman, 1981 ). The stability and social makeup of the labor force by occupations is assumed to be influenced by the skills, educational and vocational development, and commitment to the occupation by workers.From this perspective, employee benefits, like earnings, are occupational rewards. The skill component of the production equation requires differential reward-incentive packages. As in the case of wages and salaries, these compensations are endogenousto the nature of work, firm-level production functions and worker resources. Thus, the skill level and other variable features of work content acros
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