The Determinants Of Training : Evidence From The 1998 Workplace and Employee Relations Survey

This paper uses a matched employee-workplace data set with origins in the 1998 Workplace and Employee Relations Survey (WERS'98) to identify the determinants of two probabilities: that an individual receives training and that an individual receives a specified amount of training. A binomial probit is used to estimate the former and an ordered probit the latter. Both models have three types of explanatory variables reflecting personal characteristics independent of the workplace, personal characteristics that relate to the workplace and characteristics of the workplace itself. There are two principal results. First, the characteristics of the workplace at which the individual is employed are important determinants of both probabilities, demonstrating the relative merits of a data base such as the WERS'98 data base for analysing the determinants of training. Second, the principal determinants of both probabilities are age, educational qualification, occupation, the nature of the employment contract held, whether unions (or staff associations) are present at the workplace, the size of the workplace and the existence at the workplace of certain employee relations and human resource management policies and practices such as an equal opportunities policy.