LOW-WAGE EMPLOYMENT IN CZECHIA: A PERSISTENT BURDEN

Working for low pay may have substantial negative consequences at both the individual and societal level. This article adds to scarce research on low pay in Czechia, employing pooled longitudinal EU-SILC data for 2004 – 2017. It analyses patterns of low-wage employment and estimates the degree of low-pay persistence in terms of genuine state dependence in low-wage employment, accounting for both observed and unobserved heterogeneity among workers and endogeneity in the initial conditions. The results indicate that low pay exhibits a significant degree of state dependence in Czechia: having a low-paid job on average increases the likelihood of staying low paid in the future by 14 percentage points. The most important individual factors predisposing workers to earn low wages and get stuck in a low-paid job are low education and the female gender.