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Veranstaltungsreihe: Workshops und Konferenzen (en)

Das IAB organisiert eigenständig oder in Zusammenarbeit mit externen Partnern nationale und internationale Konferenzen und Workshops zu aktuellen Fragestellungen in der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung. Die Tagungen richten sich vorwiegend an Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler, je nach Veranstaltung aber auch an Interessierte aus Politik und Praxis.

We encourage contributions on these specific topics but also appreciate more general contributions on labor market-related research.

Aims and Topics

The labor market is subject to constant change. To meet the challenges of developments such as technological and ecological transformation, the shortage of skilled workers, or demographic change, education and training are becoming increasingly important. The workshop ‘Training, Education and the Labor Market’ focuses on education and training in the context of such societal challenges. We invite researchers to submit papers that study these developments with respect to educational decisions before and during working life, transitions out of and into education, returns to education, the role of institutional settings, as well as the relationship between occupations and education.
We encourage contributions on these specific topics but also appreciate more general contributions on labor market-related research that deals with the areas of vocational training and education, further training and higher education. While the following list is not exhaustive, we are looking for papers that address any of the following topics from a labor market perspective:


Research perspectives on education and training

  • Regional and national perspectives
  • Individual and firm perspectives

Characteristics of (non-)participants in education and training

  • Gender
  • Migration
  • Social Background
  • Occupations

Educational segments

  • School-to-work transitions
  • Vocational education and training
  • Higher education
  • Further training

The HELM conference combines contributions with a general perspective on ‘Higher Education and the Labour Market’. Deadline for submissions: April 8, 2024

The HELM conference, jointly organized by the IAB and the DZWH (German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies), combines contributions with a general perspective on ‘Higher Education and the Labour Market’, for example, on returns to tertiary education, dropout, or graduate placement in the labour market, with contributions on alternating focus topics.

This year’s focus topic “The Bologna Process After 25 Years: Continuities, Changes, and Evaluations” commemorates the signing of the Bologna Declaration on June 19, 1999, which initiated one of the most far-reaching reform processes in European Higher Education. The reform was accompanied by e.g. improvements in comparability and mutual recognition of degrees and study credits, easier mobility of students, and the harmonisation of study structures, which for many countries implied the introduction of a two-cycle system (BA/MA). We, therefore, welcome contributions that bring together experiences and research results on different aspects of the Bologna reform process. We are particularly interested in:

  • Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees on the Labour Market: With the introduction of these two degree types that were new in many European countries, an important question is how BA and MA compare on the labour market, e.g., regarding labour market entry, wages, unemployment risk, or career prospects.
  • Continuing and New Inequalities: In many countries, changing from a single-cycle to a two-cycle qualification structure brought new or additional social selection. We welcome contributions that evaluate such (potential) selection at the micro-level, either within or across countries.
  • Student Mobility (Before and) After Bologna: As the Bologna reform included numerous elements that facilitated international mobility of students, we are interested in contributions examining effects of the reform on overall student mobility and (changes in) effects of mobility on educational or labour market outcomes.
  • Differential Impact of the Reform in International Comparison: Given that the elements introduced by the reform, in particular, the two-cycle qualification structure, entailed a different extent of changes to European countries, we welcome papers that provide a comparison of such differential impact of the reform or that analyse the specificities of individual countries.
  • Attainment of Goals of the Reform: For some countries, additional goals were linked to the Bologna reform. In Germany, for example, the reform was expected to increase employability and to substantially reduce the study duration of students. Moreover, it was assumed that after the reform, most students would enter the labour market directly after obtaining their BA. We welcome contributions that evaluate such additional goals at the national or European level.

The IAB and the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) invite doctoral students to attend the 15th interdisciplinary Ph.D. Workshop.

The workshop took place from January 18th to 19th 2024. Read the complete event report for the PhD Workshop 2024.

The IAB’s Graduate School (GradAB) and the FAU invites young researchers to its 15th interdisciplinary Ph.D. workshop “Perspectives on (Un-)Employment”. The workshop provides an opportunity for graduate students to present their ongoing work in the field of theoretical and empirical labor market research and receive feedback from leading scholars in the discipline. We seek papers that cover any one of the following topics:

  • Labor supply, labor demand and unemployment
  • Evaluation of labor market institutions and policies
  • Education, qualification and job tasks
  • Inequality, poverty and discrimination
  • Gender and family
  • Migration and international labor markets
  • Health and job satisfaction
  • Technological change and digitization
  • The impact of climate change on the labor market
  • Applications of machine learning and big data in labor market research
  • Survey methodology (in labor market research)
  • Data quality (in labor market research)
  • Innovative data collection methods

Linked employer-employee data offer a wide range of possibilities for researchers.

Linked employer-employee data offer a wide range of possibilities for researchers. For example, this type of data is used to understand the role of worker and firm quality in the development of wage inequality, as for example in Card, Heining, Kline (2013). A widely used approach to identify worker and firm quality was developed by Abowd, Kramarz and Margolis (1999) who decomposed earnings in a worker-specific component, a firm-specific component and an error term in a two-way fixed effects model. Since then, many researchers have used the AKM model to study worker and firm heterogeneity in wages, as well as the importance of labour market sorting. While the model continues to be heavily used until today, recent developments discuss potential biases and propose corrections (for example Abowd et al, 2004; Andrews et al, 2008, 2012; Kline, Saggio, Sølvsten 2020; Bonhomme et al, 2023). The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers working with these models to present and discuss current work. Possible topics for the workshop are:

  • How important are worker and firm heterogeneity for the variation of wages?
  • How do wage premia differ for worker subgroups?
  • How persistent are wage premia?
  • How important is worker-firm sorting?
  • Is there assortative matching in the labour market?
  • Are there persistent penalties to working in low-quality firms?

In this conference, which will be part of a two-day celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Research Data Centre of the BA at the IAB (IAB-FDZ).

Rising costs of living and the lack of affordable housing have brought social inequalities back to the centre of political debates in many countries. Large, high quality survey and register data provide social scientists with a solid foundation to explore topics in inequality research and to gain unique and valuable insights fostering both scholarly and public discussion.

In this conference, which will be part of a two-day celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Research Data Centre of the BA at the IAB (IAB-FDZ), we bring together scholars from various disciplines to discuss their work based on IAB-FDZ data products or similar research data made available by other national or international data providers.

We invite empirical contributions on all topics addressing social inequalities connected to labour markets, demographic change, as well as occupational or educational choice. This might include (but is not limited to) effects of labour market interventions, technological change (greening economy, digitalisation, AI), voluntary and forced migration, social stratification, working and living conditions and gender topics.

Furthermore, the Journal for Labour Market Research (JLMR) plans a Special Issue celebrating 20 years of IAB-FDZ with Till von Wachter (UCLA) as guest editor. The Journal for Labour Market Research is an interdisciplinary, peer reviewed, open access journal in the field of labour market research and publishes papers in English language concerning the labour market, employment, education/training and careers (https://labourmarketresearch.springeropen.com/). All presenters are invited to submit their manuscripts emerging from the presented research to this Special Issue by December 1st, 2024. Acceptance is contingent on successful peer review.

Skills for the Future: Navigating the Digital, Green and Social Transitions in European Labour Markets is to bring together leading national and international scholars in the social sciences to address the challenges of the digital, green and social transitions for the labour market, society and education.

Organised by the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and co-funded by Luxembourg’s National Research Fund (FNR), the objective of the international scientific conference Skills for the Future: Navigating the Digital, Green and Social Transitions in European Labour Markets is to bring together leading national and international scholars in the social sciences to address the challenges of the digital, green and social transitions for the labour market, society and education.

The conference marks the first international conference of the ELMI Network (Network of European Labour Market Research Institutes) initiated in October 2022 by the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). The network is currently composed of 11 research institutes from all over Europe to facilitate the international exchange of best practices, ideas and people. It promotes multi-disciplinary research collaborations, especially at the EU level, and the exchange of best practices in data management, data access and discussions with policy-makers and stakeholders.

Urban labor markets provide agglomeration advantages to workers and firms. However, the distributional consequences are not fully understood.

Urban labor markets provide agglomeration advantages to workers and firms. However, the distributional consequences are not fully understood. Agglomeration benefits are unevenly shared among low- and high-skilled workers. At the same time, many large urban labor markets around the world have experienced strongly rising housing costs in recent decades, especially for renters and young first-time homebuyers, putting these groups at risk of being priced out of the local labor market. The workshop aims to bring together junior and senior researchers working on these and related issues and welcomes both empirical and theoretical contributions. The list of topic includes, but is not limited to

  • Distributional consequences of agglomeration benefits
  • Labor market outcomes and housing affordability
  • Highly-local income inequality
  • Spatial extent of local labor markets and commuting patterns
  • Neighborhood effects and segregation
  • Interactions between local housing and labor markets

This workshop invites empirical contributions using either the IAB Establishment Panel, one of its derivatives (LPP/LIAB), or other matched employer-employee data.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the IAB Establishment Panel Survey, this workshop invites empirical contributions using either the IAB Establishment Panel, one of its derivatives (LPP/LIAB), or other matched employer-employee data. Research projects from all areas of labour market research are welcome, including personnel economics, sociology and economics of vocational education and training, industrial relations, or industrial economics. Papers may address research questions in any of these areas as well as methodological questions.

The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) is pleased to host an international workshop on recent developments in wage determination, distribution, and job skills from 14-15 June.

The traditional human capital model of wage determination fails to explain why wage disparities exist within or between firms, as firms themselves are deemed irrelevant. However, the availability of new data, such as employer-employee matched data sets, makes it possible to better explore issues of wage inequality. Consequently, models examining the sorting of workers across firms with varying productivity levels have gained importance. Our international conference aims to contribute to a better understanding of wage determination, distribution, and job skills.

Our outstanding speakers will address the significant rise in earnings inequality witnessed across numerous countries and the factors contributing to these developments. They will discuss the role of individual determinants of wage inequality, including tenure and job mobility, as well as firm characteristics and labor market institutions, and they will delve into the effects of wage losses following job displacement and the wage elasticity of recruitment.

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