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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2011‒11‒01
fourteen papers chosen by Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo University of Montreal and World Bank Group |
| By: | D.P. Chaudhri; Raghbendra Jha |
| Abstract: | Using Census and NSS data this paper studies the evolution of Gender Bias (GB) in the age group 0–6 in India and its association with education and higher prosperity. GB is pervasive and has grown over time with higher prosperity and resultant demographic transition and enhanced education. The number of children in the age group 0–14 peaked in 2001 and has, since, been falling. Even as the under 5 mortality rate has fallen from 240.1 per thousand in the 1961 census to 65.6 in 2011, the total fertility rate (TFR) has experienced an equally sharp decline from 6.1 in 1961 to 2.6 in 2011. That large household size (associated with high fertility rates and low Monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE)) is linked with low GB comes as no surprise. However, with higher prosperity and lower TFR GB rises sharply. The percentage difference in GB in successive time periods fell from 0.3 in 1951 to 0.1 in 1961 but accelerated to 1.9 in 2011. GB is higher in the age group 0–4 than in the 0–6 group. GB has actually improved for the age group 10–14 but this fact is irrelevant for the evolution of GB in children since children in that age group will soon be adults. Hence, the outlook for GB in the age group 0–6 appears bleak at least until 2026. The paper also demonstrates that there are wide variations in GB across various states, even districts, of India. In 2011 child population is still high in the EAG states whereas the growth of child population has come down substantially in some states, particularly some southern states and Himachal Pradesh. At the district level we discover that the education of girls is an important determinant of GB. At the household level both improved education of females in the age group 15–49 and higher prosperity lead to worsening of GB. However, at high values of the interaction of these two variables there could be a turnaround in the trend of worsening GB. At present trends, however, this is unlikely to happen at least until 2026. More positive outcomes require social engineering through multidimentional, orchestrated policies, especially in relation to enhanced prosperity and education of women in the child bearing age group. Improvements in GB are discernable in some districts, states and households. In 55 districts GB declined and proportion of girls attending schools increased. Kerala and Tamil Nadu did not have any worsening of GB while GB declined in Himachal Pradesh. Finally, prosperity improved GB among Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims, and households having women in child bearing age group with graduate degrees. |
| Keywords: | Gender Bias, Census, National Sample Survey, Demographic Transition, India |
| JEL: | J16 N35 O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:asarcc:2011-14&r=dem |
| By: | Gevrek, Z. Eylem (University of Konstanz); Gevrek, Deniz (Texas A&M University Corpus Christi); Gupta, Sonam (University of Florida) |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of culture on the work behavior of second-generation immigrant women in Canada. We contribute to the current literature by analyzing the role of intermarriage in intergenerational transmission of culture and its subsequent effect on labor market outcomes. Using relative female labor force participation and total fertility rates in the country of ancestry as cultural proxies, we find that culture matters for the female labor supply. Cultural proxies are significant in explaining number of hours worked by second-generation women with immigrant parents. More importantly, we show that the impact of cultural proxies is significantly larger for women with immigrant parents who share same ethnic background than for those with intermarried parents. The fact that the effect of culture is weaker for women who were raised in intermarried families stresses the importance of intermarriage in assimilation process. Our results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies. |
| Keywords: | immigrant women, labor supply, culture, intermarriage |
| JEL: | J12 J16 J22 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6043&r=dem |
| By: | Alderman, Harold; Lokshin, Michael; Radyakin, Sergiy |
| Abstract: | Data from three rounds of nationally representative health surveys in India are used to assess the impact of selective mortality on children’s anthropometrics. The nutritional status of the child population was simulated under the counterfactual scenario that all children who died in the first three years of life were alive at the time of measurement. The simulations demonstrate that the difference in anthropometrics due to selective mortality would be large only if there were very large differences in anthropometrics between the children who died and those who survived. Differences of this size are not substantiated by the research on the degree of association between mortality and malnutrition. The study shows that although mortality risk is higher among malnourished children, selective mortality has only a minor impact on the measured nutritional status of children or on that status distinguished by gender. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Population Policies,Youth and Governance,Adolescent Health,Early Child and Children's Health |
| Date: | 2011–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5846&r=dem |
| By: | Raouf Boucekkine (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579); Blanca Martínez (Fundamentos del Análisis Económico - Universidad Complutense de Madrid); Ramon Ruiz-Tamarit (Department of Economic Analysis - Universitat de València - Universitat de Valeencia) |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of demographic change on economic short and long-term dynamics in an enlarged Lucas-Uzawa model with intratemporal altruism. Demographics are summarized by population growth rate and initial size. In contrast to the existing literature, the long-run level effects of demographic changes, i.e. their impact on the levels of variables along the balanced growth paths, are deeply characterized in addition to the more standard growth effects. It is shown that the level effect of population growth is a priori ambiguous due to the interaction of three causation mechanisms, a standard one (dilution) and two non-standard, featuring in particular the transmission of demographic shocks into human capital accumulation. Overall, the sign of the level effect of population growth depends on preference and technology parameters, and on the initial conditions as well. In contrast, we prove that the long-run level effect of population size on per capita income is negative while its growth effect is zero. Finally, we show that the model is able to replicate complicated time relationships between economic and demographic changes. In particular, it entails a negative effect of population growth on per capita income, which dominates in the initial periods, and a positive effect which restores a positive correlation between population growth and economic performance in the long-run. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital; Population Growth; Population Size; Endogenous Growth; Level Effect; Growth Effect |
| Date: | 2011–10–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00632888&r=dem |
| By: | Karine Constant (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579); Carine Nourry (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579); Thomas Seegmuller (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579) |
| Abstract: | Recently, many contributions have focused on the relationship between capital accumulation, growth and population dynamics, introducing fertility choice in macro-dynamic models. In this paper, we go one step further highlighting also the link with pollution. We develop a simple overlapping generations model with paternalistic altruism according to wealth and environmental concerns. One can therefore explain a simultaneous increase of capital intensity, population growth and pollution, namely a polluting industrialization. We show in addition that a permanent productivity shock, possibly associated to technological innovations, promotes such a polluting development process, escaping a trap where the economy is relegated to a low capital intensity, population growth and pollution. |
| Keywords: | Growth; Population dynamics; Pollution; Altruism; Development |
| Date: | 2011–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00633608&r=dem |
| By: | Giles, John; Wang, Dewen; Cai, Wei |
| Abstract: | This paper highlights the employment patterns of China's over-45 population and, for perspective, places them in the context of work and retirement patterns in Indonesia, Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom. As is common in many developing countries, China can be characterized as having two retirement systems: a formal system, under which urban employees receive generous pensions and face mandatory retirement by age 60, and an informal system, under which rural residents and individuals in the informal sector rely on family support in old age and have much longer working lives. Gender differences in age of exit from work are shown to be much greater in urban China than in rural areas, and also greater than observed in Korea and Indonesia. Descriptive evidence is presented suggesting that pension eligible workers are far more likely to cease productive activity at a relatively young age. A strong relationship between health status and labor supply in rural areas is observed, indicating the potential role that improvements in access to health care may play in extending working lives and also providing some basis for a common perception that older rural residents tend to work as long as they are physically capable. The paper concludes with a discussion of measures that may facilitate longer working lives as China's population ages. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Population Policies,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Work&Working Conditions |
| Date: | 2011–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5853&r=dem |
| By: | Fatma El-Hamidi (University of Pittsburgh) |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:23&r=dem |
| By: | Lalanne, Marie; Seabright, Paul |
| Abstract: | Using an original dataset describing the career history of some 16,000 senior executives and members of the non-executive board of US, UK, French and German companies, we investigate gender differences in the use of social networks and their impact on earnings. There is a large gender wage gap: women (who make up 8.8% of our sample) earned average salaries of $168,000 in 2008, only 70% of the average $241,000 earned by men. This is not due to differences in age, experience or education levels. Women are more likely than men to be non-executives, whose salaries are lower; nevertheless, a substantial gender gap still exists among executives. We construct measures of the number of currently influential people each individual has encountered previously in his or her career. We find that executive men's salaries are an increasing function of the number of such individuals they have encountered in the past while women's are not. Controlling for this discrepancy, there is no longer a significant gender gap among executives. These findings are robust to the use of different years, to the use of salaried versus non-salaried remuneration, and to the use of panel estimation to control rigorously for unobserved individual heterogeneity. In contrast to executives, the salaries of non-executive board members do not display a significant gender wage gap, nor any gender difference in the effectiveness with which men and women leverage their links into salaries. This suggests that adoption of gender quotas for board membership, as has been enacted or proposed recently in several European countries, is unlikely to reduce the gender gap in earnings so long as such quotas do not distinguish between executive and non-executive board members. |
| Keywords: | executive compensation; gender wage gap; social networks |
| JEL: | A14 J16 J31 J33 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8623&r=dem |
| By: | Frank T. Denton; Ross Finnie; Byron G. Spencer |
| Abstract: | Measures of retirement that take a cohort perspective are appealing since retirement patterns may change, and it would be useful to have consistent measures that would make it possible to compare retirement patterns over time and between countries or regions. We propose and implement two measures. One is based on administrative income tax records and relates to actual cohorts; the other is based on a time-series of cross sectional labour force surveys and relates to pseudo-cohorts. We conclude that while the tax-based observations for actual cohorts provide a richer data set for analysis, the estimated measures of retirement and transition from work to retirement based on the two data sets are quite similar. |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:qseprr:446&r=dem |
| By: | Sharmila Kurukulasuriya; Solrun Engilbertsdottir (Division of Policy and Practice,UNICEF) |
| Abstract: | There is a growing consensus that children experience poverty in ways that are different from adults; and looking at child poverty through an income-consumption lens only is inadequate. The 2005 State of the World’s Children presented the following definition of child poverty: “Children living in poverty experience deprivation of the material, spiritual and emotional resources needed to survive, develop and thrive, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, achieve their full potential or participate as full and equal members of society”. Using evidence from UNICEF’s ongoing Global Study on Child Poverty in Disparities, this Brief illustrates the importance of looking beyond traditional methods of measuring poverty based on income or consumption levels, and emphasizes the importance of seeking out the multidimensional face of child poverty. This approach further recognizes that the method used in depicting child poverty is crucial to the policy design and implementation of interventions that address children’s needs, especially among the most deprived. |
| Keywords: | child poverty, child disparities, policy design, measuring poverty, State of the World’s Children,Global Study on Child Poverty |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uce:wbrief:1101&r=dem |
| By: | Bargain, Olivier (University of Aix-Marseille II); Donni, Olivier (University of Cergy-Pontoise); Kwenda, Prudence (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Poverty measures in developing countries often ignore the distribution of resources within families and the gains from joint consumption. In this paper, we extend the collective model of household consumption to recover mother's, father's and children's shares together with economies of scale, using the observation of adult-specific goods and an extended version of the Rothbarth method. The application on data from Côte d'Ivoire shows that children command a reasonable fraction of household resources, though not enough to avoid a very large extent of child poverty compared to what is found in traditional measures based on per capita expenditure. We find no significant evidence of discrimination against girls, and educated mothers have more command over household resources. Baseline results on children's shares are robust to using alternative identifying assumptions, which consolidates a general approach grounded on a flexible version of the Rothbarth method. Individual measures of poverty show that parents are highly compensated by the scale economies due to joint consumption. |
| Keywords: | collective model, consumer demand, Engel curves, Rothbarth method, cost of children, bargaining power, sharing rule, scale economies, equivalence scales, indifference scales |
| JEL: | D11 D12 I31 J12 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6029&r=dem |
| By: | Sir Richard Jolly (Division of Policy and Practice,UNICEF) |
| Abstract: | From as early as 1947, UNICEF recognized the importance of economic policy for children and has sought the help of development economists in mapping out what this might involve. Indeed, at least two Nobel Prize winners in economics have contributed ideas and advice to UNICEF – and with the recent participation of Joe Stiglitz the number is raised to three. This may come as a surprise to many members of the economic profession, who are often unaware of children’s issues and, when they are aware, tend to think of the issues as primarily those of calculating the rates of return on education or finding the resources needed to pay for health, education and other social services. |
| Keywords: | child poverty, child disparities, policy design, measuring poverty, State of the World’s Children,child education, child social services |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uce:wbrief:1102&r=dem |
| By: | Go Kotera (Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University); Nobuhiro Mizuno (Faculty of Commerce and Economics, Chiba University of Commerce); Keisuke Okada (Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University,); Sovannroeun Samreth (Faculty of Liberal Arts, Saitama University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between ethnic composition, political regimes, and the quality of public policy. Specifically, based on the citizen-candidate model, we assume individuals who have heterogeneous policy preferences and investigate how ethnic diversity affects selection of a politician and the resulting policy choices in democratic and dictatorial regimes. In the theoretical analysis, our model derives (1) a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and the quality of public policy, both in a democracy with a dominant group and in a dictatorship, and (2) a non-monotonic relationship in a democracy without a dominant group. In the empirical examination, using health outcomes as the proxy for the quality of public policy, our theoretical results are supported by evidence from the data of 154 countries. |
| Keywords: | Citizen-candidate model; Ethnic fractionalization; Infant mortality. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kyo:wpaper:790&r=dem |
| By: | Picot, Garnett<br/> Hou, Feng |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the labour market benefits associated with becoming a citizen of the host country, in this case Canada or the United States. Recent international research indicates that there is an economic return to acquiring citizenship. In addition, the paper examines the rising gap in the citizenship rate between Canada and the United States and examines the differences in individual and region characteristics of immigrants as a possibility for explaining changes in the citizenship rate gap. |
| Keywords: | Children and youth, Ethnic diversity and immigration, Labour market activities, Immigrants and non-permanent residents, Citizenship |
| Date: | 2011–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2011338e&r=dem |