A Study in Structural Change:
Relative Earnings in Wales since the 1970s
Gavin Cameron, John Muellbauer and Jonathan Snicker
November 1999
Abstract:
The Welsh economy has undergone rapid structural change in recent years. Jobs in traditional industries for skilled manual men have disappeared, often to be replaced by jobs for part-time women in foreign-owned firms. This paper uses data from the New Earnings Survey to examine how earnings in Wales have changed relative to those of Great Britain. There are five main findings. First, earnings of workers in Wales have declined relative to those in Great Britain. Second, the shift away from full-time men has been an important factor in the fall in average relative earnings. Third, the decline in the relative earnings of full-time men is mostly explained by falling relative earnings in construction, distribution, and transport, as well as the failure of workers in banking and financial services in Wales to keep up with their counterparts in Great Britain. Fourth, the shift in full-time employment to health, education and other services has tended to support relative earnings. Fifth, the decline in full-time men's earnings seems to be an equilibrium phenomenon that will not naturally reverse itself.Keywords:
Earnings, Unemployment, Wales, Structural Change.JEL Classifications:
C33, E24, J3, R23.Acknowledgements:
Cameron and Muellbauer would like to acknowledge funding from ESRC grant number R00023 7500, 'Modelling Non-Stationarity in Economic Time Series'. We would like to thank Gavan Conlon and Michael Phelps for helpful discussions and the Office of National Statistics for kindly supplying the NES dataset. All errors and omissions are our own.Last updated: 16 January 2002.
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