|
on Demographic Economics |
|
Issue of 2012‒04‒23
twenty-one papers chosen by Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo University of Montreal and World Bank Group |
| By: | Chang, Chia-Ying; Laing, Derek; Wang, Ping |
| Abstract: | This paper concentrates on the role of job matching frictions in influencing the interactions between fertility choice and wage offers and show that job market frictions are a crucial factor in wage differentials among female workers. The goals of this paper are to examine how the home-stay alternative and asymmetric market frictions in‡uence this wage differential and whether the well documented negative correlation between fertility choice and female earnings still holds in the face of life-cycle choices. To address these questions, we develop a search-theoretic model that incorporates fertility and job decisions and assume that the workers with children face a lower job matching rate and a higher job quitting rate relative to the rates faced by the workers without children. As a result, we find that a wider wage differential is associated with more asymmetric market frictions and that the wage differential has a positive effect from output differential, a positive scale effect from the output of mothers and a negative effect from the utility from staying home. The wage differential is positively correlated with both fertility and home-stay rates and negatively correlated with market thickness and matching technology. Furthermore, by having both fertility and home-stay choices endogenously determined, we can show that a tighter market will enhance the fertility rate and the home-stay rate and a better job matching technology would not only increase the home-stay rate but decrease the fertility rate. In general equilibrium, the effects of both market tightness and the matching technology on the wage differential are indeterminate. These results indicate that the home-stay choice actually gives workers with children not only an alternative but also the power to negotiate higher wages. This shrinks the wage differential. Finally, the result that a higher fertility rate enlarges the wage differential also implies a negative relationship between the fertility rate and the earnings of workers with children. This result is consistent with standard empirical findings. |
| Keywords: | job search, female labor participation, fertility choice, |
| Date: | 2012–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vuw:vuwecf:2069&r=dem |
| By: | Solli, Ingeborg (University of Stavanger) |
| Abstract: | Utilizing comprehensive administrative from Norway I investigate birth month effects on school performance at age 16, educational achievement at age 19 and 25 and earnings at age 30. I demonstrate that the oldest children in class have a substantially higher 10th grade GPA than their younger peers. The birth month differences are similar across gender, but stronger for less advantaged children. The birth month effects are robust to controlling for sibling fixed effects. On longer term outcomes, I find that the youngest children in class have a significantly lower probability of having completed high school at age 19, are less likely to enroll into college by age 25, and have substantially lower earnings at age 30. The effects on educational achievement and earnings are more pronounced for boys and for less advantaged children. |
| Keywords: | Birth date effect; Relative age effect |
| JEL: | I20 J10 J20 J30 |
| Date: | 2012–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:stavef:2012_008&r=dem |
| By: | Elinder, Mikael (Department of Economics); Erixson, Oscar (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Since the sinking of the Titanic, there has been a widespread belief that the social norm of ‘women and children first’ gives women a survival advantage over men in maritime disasters, and that captains and crew give priority to passengers. We analyze a database of 18 maritime disasters spanning three centuries, covering the fate of over 15,000 individuals of more than 30 nationalities. Our results provide a new picture of maritime disasters. Women have a distinct survival disadvantage compared to men. Captains and crew survive at a significantly higher rate than passengers. We also find that the captain has the power to enforce normative behavior, that the gender gap in survival rates has declined, that women have a larger disadvantage in British shipwrecks, and that there seems to be no association between duration of a disaster and the impact of social norms. Taken together, our findings show that behavior in life-and-death situation is best captured by the expression ‘Every man for himself’. |
| Keywords: | Social norms; Disaster; Women and children first; Mortality; High stakes |
| JEL: | C70 D63 D81 J16 |
| Date: | 2012–04–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2012_008&r=dem |
| By: | Gathmann, Christina; Jürges, Hendrik; Reinhold, Steffen |
| Abstract: | Education yields substantial non-monetary benefits, but the size of these gains is still debated. Previous studies, for example, report contradictory effects of education and compulsory schooling on mortality – ranging from zero to large mortality reductions. Using data from 19 compulsory schooling reforms implemented in Europe during the twentieth century, we quantify the mean mortality effect and explore its dispersion across gender, time and countries. We find that men benefit from compulsory education both in the shorter and longer run. In contrast, compulsory schooling reforms have little or no effect on mortality for women. |
| Keywords: | Compulsory schooling , education , mortality , Europe |
| JEL: | I12 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnh:wpaper:30386&r=dem |
| By: | Kawaguchi, Daiji (Hitotsubashi University); Lee, Soohyung (University of Maryland) |
| Abstract: | Every year, a large number of women immigrate as brides from developing countries to developed countries in East Asia. This phenomenon virtually did not exist in the early 1990s, but foreign brides currently comprise 4 to 35 percent of newlyweds in these developed Asian countries. This paper argues that two factors account for this rapid increase in "bride importation": the rapid growth of women's educational attainment and a cultural norm that leads to a low net surplus of marriage for educated women. We provide empirical evidence supporting our theoretical model and its implications, using datasets from Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. |
| Keywords: | immigration, marriage, sex ratio imbalance, international marriages, cross-border marriages, assortative matching |
| JEL: | A12 J12 J61 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6458&r=dem |
| By: | Inna Cintina (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa) |
| Abstract: | I estimate the effect of state minimum legal drinking ages (MLDA) on teen pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates using individual level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Results from a discrete-time hazard model indicate that a decrease in the MLDA below 21 years increases the probability of pregnancy among black teens and, surprisingly, decreases the probability of pregnancy among Hispanics. Yet, the effect on white women is statistically insignificant. I find evidence of a link between pregnancy outcome and changes in the individual alcohol consumption eligibility status at the time of pregnancy. A similar, yet statistically weaker, association is observed for changes in the MLDA at the time of pregnancy. |
| Keywords: | Minimum legal drinking age; Alcohol; Teen Pregnancy; Teen Births; Teen abortions; Discrete-time hazard model |
| JEL: | J13 J18 |
| Date: | 2012–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:201206&r=dem |
| By: | Kurtulus, Fidan Ana (University of Massachusetts Amherst); Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald (North Carolina State University) |
| Abstract: | The goal of this study is to examine whether women in the highest levels of firms' management ranks help reduce barriers to women's advancement in the workplace. Using a panel of over 20,000 private-sector firms across all industries and states during 1990-2003 from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, we explore the influence of women in top management on subsequent female representation in lower-level managerial positions in U.S. firms. Our key findings show that an increase in the share of female top managers is associated with subsequent increases in the share of women in mid-level management positions within firms, and this result is robust to controlling for firm size, workforce composition, federal contractor status, firm fixed effects, year fixed effects and industry-specific trends. Moreover, although the influence of women in top management positions is strongest among white women, black, Hispanic and Asian women in top management also have a positive influence on subsequent increases in black, Hispanic and Asian women in mid-level management, respectively. Furthermore, the influence of women in top management positions is stronger among federal contractors, and in firms with larger female labor forces. We also find that the positive influence of women in top leadership positions on managerial gender diversity diminishes over time, suggesting that women at the top play a positive but transitory role in women's career advancement. |
| Keywords: | women managers, gender diversity, race diversity, discrimination, mentoring, promotions, hiring, retention |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J24 J44 J62 J71 J78 J82 M51 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6444&r=dem |
| By: | Canto, Olga; Adiego, Marta; Ayala, Luis; Levy, Horacio; Paniagua, Milagros |
| Abstract: | In recent years, child-related policies in Spain have experienced relevant changes at different government levels. The central government implemented a new universal child benefit at birth and reformed some of the most relevant policies for children living in low income households. Also, many regional governments (Comunidades Autnomas) have implemented their own policies to support families with children with different schemes in terms of design and generosity. All these policies have increased social protection expenditure aimed at families and children in Spain as a whole along the last decade (one of the lowest in the EU). So far, however, little is known about their impact on child poverty in Spain. Making use of the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union EUROMOD this paper simulates the eligibility and receipt of most of the existing monetary child-related policies at all government levels and assesses their real (for central government policies) or potential (for regional policies) effect on the reduction of child poverty in Spain. Our results underline that, even after the introduction of a universal lump-sum benefit for newborns at the central government level in 2007, in aggregate terms, central government tax credits are the main child-related policy in Spain. Results also underline that central government policies have a considerably larger role in reducing poverty risk even if policies in some regions perform best than others. In general, our simulations suggest that regional benefits and tax credits reinforce and complement the focus of central government policies on younger children, who, on the other hand, seem to be less vulnerable to poverty than older children in Spain. |
| Date: | 2012–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:emodwp:em2-12&r=dem |
| By: | Hou, Feng<br/> Abada, Teresa<br/> Lu, Yuqian |
| Abstract: | Self-employment has been regarded as an important pathway for many immigrants to engage in the labour market. However, little is known about self-employment among the children of immigrants. Using the 1981 and 2006 Canadian censuses of population and a generational cohort method of analysis, this paper compares the self-employment rates of immigrant parents and the children of immigrant parents when both were 25 to 44 years of age. The focus is on three questions: (1) Are children of immigrants likelier or less likely than immigrant parents to be self-employed?; (2) Are children of immigrants likelier or less likely than children of Canadian-born parents to be self-employed?; (3) Is the generational change in the self-employment rate from immigrant parents to the children of immigrants different from the generational change from Canadian-born parents to their children? |
| Keywords: | Ethnic diversity and immigration, Ethnic groups and generations in Canada, Immigrants and non-permanent residents, Labour market and income |
| Date: | 2012–04–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2012341e&r=dem |
| By: | Danielia Iorio; Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between education and individual HIV status using nationally representative data (Demographic and Health Surveys, DHS) for 18 countries in Sub- Saharan Africa (SSA). Because the diffusion of knowledge on HIV prevention.hence, actual change in sexual behavior.may differ across education groups, we explicitly explore the possibility of a dynamic relationship between education and the probability of being infected with HIV over aggregate stages of the HIV epidemic. Our contribution is twofold. First, we construct an innovative algorithm that positions, for any set of countries, the country-specific evolution of the HIV epidemic in a unified framework.a normalized epidemiological space.to define stages of the HIV epidemic in a comparable manner across SSA countries. Second, using this framework, we exploit epidemiological stage variation across DHS country observations and find that the relationship between education and individual HIV status is dynamic and significantly evolves with the course of the epidemic. Specifically, we show that the education gradient of HIV displays a large U-shaped (positive-zero-positive) pattern over the aggregate stages of the HIV epidemic. |
| Keywords: | HIV, demographics |
| JEL: | I15 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:624&r=dem |
| By: | Biddle, Jeff E. (Michigan State University); Hamermesh, Daniel S. (University of Texas at Austin) |
| Abstract: | Using CPS data from 1979-2009 we examine how cyclical downturns and industry-specific demand shocks affect wage differentials between white non-Hispanic men and women, Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites, and African-Americans and non-Hispanic whites. Women's relative earnings are harmed by negative shocks; the wage disadvantage of African-Americans drops with negative shocks, which have slight negative effects on Hispanics' relative wages. Negative shocks also increase the earnings disadvantage of bad-looking workers. A theory of job search suggests two opposite-signed mechanisms that affect these wage differentials. It suggests greater absolute effects among job-movers, which is verified using the longitudinal component of the CPS. |
| Keywords: | gender, race, ethnicity |
| JEL: | E29 J71 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6445&r=dem |
| By: | Cheung, Maria (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether exposure to "edutainment" (education - entertainment) radio leads to improved women's status and primary school participation. Specifically, I examine a popular radio station focusing on gender issues in Cambodia. To identify the effect, I exploit plausible exogenous variation in over-the-air signal strength between radio transmitters and villages within a district, as well as the variation across time and space in exposure. Using individual data, both approaches show that the exposure had a significant impact on behavior by raising the women's decision-making power within the household and increasing children's primary school attendance. The latter impact is also reflected by higher primary school enrollment three years after exposure. The impact was found in both poor and rural house- holds confirming that radio is an effective vehicle to transmit information in the more marginalized areas. Suggestive evidence shows that the exposure also affected attitudes towards domestic violence and the prevalence of son preference which is a stepping stone towards changing socially constructed gender norms. |
| Keywords: | Radio exposure; information; gender; women's status; schooling; enrollment; attitude; behavior; edutainment; Cambodia |
| JEL: | D83 I25 J16 |
| Date: | 2012–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2012_0005&r=dem |
| By: | Kohler, Pierre |
| Abstract: | This thesis consists of three essays on the economic and cultural integration of migrants in Switzerland, reverse causation between these two dimensions of the integration process, and the role of host society culture. Whereas each dimension is usually examined separately, this study proposes a systemic approach to investigate both the economic and cultural dimensions of migrant integration, their interaction as well as the influence of the broader social context. Chapter 1 explores the cultural integration paths of eight migrant groups from the first to the second generation by tracing the evolution of selected behaviours and attitudes, which are taken as indicative of cultural integration. It gauges the extent to which behaviours and attitudes of migrants are diverging from or converging with those of natives. Chapter 2 examines the causes of integration failures or, more precisely, how economic and cultural barriers to integration reinforce each other. Are cultural differences preventing the successful integration of migrants or does the root of integration failures lie in unequal economic opportunities and discrimination? Chapter 3 investigates the effect of host society culture on migrant wage discrimination. It examines whether the markedly more conservative political preferences on issues related to migration and asylum of voters in the German-speaking region of Switzerland affect outcomes in the labour market, or whether economic interactions are immune from tensions developing in the society at large. |
| Keywords: | immigration; migration; culture; labour market; economic integration; discrimination; Switzerland |
| JEL: | F22 J71 Z10 Z13 J78 Z12 J31 J60 J15 J68 J70 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38129&r=dem |
| By: | Averett, Susan (Lafayette College); Argys, Laura (University of Colorado Denver); Kohn, Jennifer L. (Drew University) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the dual effects of immigration and obesity on labor market outcomes in the UK. There is only one other paper that has estimated these dual effects on a sample of immigrants to the US. We use the British Household Panel Survey, which contains information on height and weight for 2004 and 2006, along with immigration status and labor market outcomes. This was a period of increased immigration to the UK resulting in large part from the accession of new EU member states, though our sample includes both recent arrivals and those who have been in the UK for decades. We first analyze an immigrant-only sample and then expand the sample to compare the experience of these immigrants to natives with similar weight and other observable characteristics. We find support for the "healthy immigrant hypothesis" that suggests that immigrants are less likely to be obese than natives, and also evidence of an assimilation effect in which immigrants' weight increases with their time in the UK. The results indicate a wage premium and higher proportions of white collar work for immigrant men, but a wage penalty and lower proportions of white collar work for overweight and obese immigrant men. We find weaker but still negative associations between weight and labor market outcomes for immigrant women. Data limitations preclude efforts to address endogeneity, so these findings should be viewed as associations that support the need for better data for additional analysis of the dual effects of immigration and obesity on labor market outcomes. |
| Keywords: | immigrant, obesity, labor market outcomes |
| JEL: | I10 J15 J31 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6454&r=dem |
| By: | Benoit Rapoport (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne); Catherine Sofer; Anne Solaz |
| Abstract: | Household models estimated on labour supplies alone generally assume non-market time to be pure leisure. Previous work on collective household decision-making is extended here by taking domestic work into account in the Chiappori et al.'s (2002) model. Derivatives of the household "sharing rule" can then be estimated in a similar way. Using the 1998 French Time-Use Survey, we compare estimates of labour supply functions assuming first that non-market time is pure leisure and then taking household production into account. The results are similar but more robust when household production is included. Collective rationality is rejected when domestic work is omitted. |
| Keywords: | Collective model, household production, labour supply |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-00687274&r=dem |
| By: | Hamaguchi, Nobuaki |
| Abstract: | Using the district-level data, we found that even in a relatively poor country like Kenya, ethnic diversity is associated with better economic outcomes at local level. However, we found that income spillovers depend on ethnic similarity. This suggests the influence of ethnic bias through which ethnic diversity may undermine economic efficiency at the national-level, as many crosscountry regressions have pointed out. This result implies, for policy making, that the question of interregional transaction costs cannot be narrowly focused on problems of transportation infrastructure but it is also related with ethnic divisions in African context. |
| Keywords: | ethnic bias , spatial correlation , regional economy |
| Date: | 2011–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jic:wpaper:35&r=dem |
| By: | Wunnava, Phanindra V. (Middlebury College); Mitra, Aniruddha (Middlebury College); Prasch, Robert E. (Middlebury College) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the determinants of economic growth emphasizing the role of institutional quality, social fragmentation, and increasing global integration on recent growth experience. Our longitudinal data consists of 103 countries covering the period 1992-2005. We find that democracies have significantly outperformed autocracies over the sample period and the security of property rights has played a critical role in promoting economic growth. Ethnic heterogeneity has been a significant impediment to growth but religious and linguistic heterogeneity have not. Further, while economic globalization has had a general beneficial impact on economic growth, societies marked by greater ethnic heterogeneity have actually gained more from global integration. This suggests the importance of globalization in redressing the detrimental impact of ethnic cleavages in society (Hegre et al, 2003; Bhagwati, 2004; Mousseau and Mousseau, 2008; Dreher et al, 2008). |
| Keywords: | ethnic heterogeneity, property rights, democracy, growth, globalization |
| JEL: | O47 O43 P14 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6459&r=dem |
| By: | Francine D. Blau; Peter Brummund; Albert Yung-Hsu Liu |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we develop a gender-specific crosswalk based on dual-coded Current Population Survey data to bridge the change in the Census occupational coding system that occurred in 2000 and use it to provide the first analysis of the trends in occupational segregation by sex for the 1970-2009 period based on a consistent set of occupational codes and data sources. We show that our gender-specific crosswalk more accurately captures the trends in occupational segregation that are masked using the aggregate crosswalk (based on combined male and female employment) provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. Using the 2000 occupational codes, we find that segregation by sex declined over the period but at a diminished pace over the decades, falling by 6.1 percentage points over the 1970s, 4.3 percentage points over the 1980s, 2.1 percentage points over the 1990s, and only 1.1 percentage points (on a decadal basis) over the 2000s. A primary mechanism by which occupational segregation was reduced over the 1970-2009 period was through the entry of new cohorts of women, presumably better prepared than their predecessors and/or encountering less labor market discrimination; during the 1970s and 1980s, however, there were also decreases in occupational segregation within cohorts. Reductions in segregation were correlated with education, with the largest decrease among college graduates and very little change in segregation among high school dropouts. |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J62 J71 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17993&r=dem |
| By: | Meghir, Costas (Yale University); Palme, Mårten (Stockholm University); Simeonova, Emilia (Tufts University) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of a compulsory education reform in Sweden on adult health and mortality. The reform was implemented by municipalities between 1949 and 1962 as a social experiment and implied an extension of compulsory schooling from 7 or 8 years depending on municipality to 9 years nationally. We use detailed individual data on education, hospitalizations, labor force participation and mortality for Swedes born between 1946 and 1957. Individual level data allow us to study the effect of the education reform on three main groups of outcomes: (i) mortality until age 60 for different causes of death; (ii) hospitalization by cause and (iii) exit from the labor force primarily through the disability insurance program. The results show reduced male mortality up to age fifty for those assigned to the reform, but these gains were erased by increased mortality later on. We find similar patterns in the probability of being hospitalized and the average costs of inpatient care. Men who acquired more education due to the reform are less likely to retire early. |
| Keywords: | causal effects of education, compulsory schooling laws, comprehensive school reforms, education reform, returns to schooling |
| JEL: | I12 I18 I21 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6462&r=dem |
| By: | Emla Fitzsimons (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Alice Mesnard (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how the permanent departure of the father from the household affects children's school enrolment and work participation in rural Colombia. Our results show that departure of the father decreases children's school enrolment by around 4 percentage points, and increases child labour by 3 percentage points. After using household fixed effects to deal with time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, and providing evidence suggesting strongly that estimates are not biased by time varying unobserved heterogeneity, we also exploit an interesting feature of our setting, a conditional cash transfer programme in place, and show that it counteracts the adverse effects. This, and other pieces of evidence we give, strongly suggests that the channel through which departure affects children is through reducing income. It also highlights the important safety net role played by such welfare programmes, in particular for very disadvantaged households, who are unlikely to find formal or informal ways of insuring themselves against such vagaries. |
| Keywords: | Child labour; Schooling; Permanent departure; Income loss; Credit and insurance market failures; Conditional cash transfer; Safety net. |
| JEL: | I20 J12 J22 O16 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:12/04&r=dem |
| By: | Jerome Adda; Anders Bjorklund; Helena Holmlund |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the long-term consequences of parental death on children’s cognitive and noncognitive skills, as well as on labor market outcomes. We exploit a large administrative data set covering many Swedish cohorts. We develop new estimation methods to tackle the potential endogeneity of death at an early age, based on the idea that the amount of endogeneity is constant or decreasing during childhood. Our method also allows us to identify a set of death causes that are conditionally exogenous. We find that the loss of either a father or a mother on boys’ earnings is no higher than 6-7 percent and slightly lower for girls. Our examination of the impact on cognitive skills (IQ and educational attainment) and on noncognitive skills (emotional stability, social skills) shows rather small effects on each type of skill. We find that both mothers and fathers are important, but mothers are somewhat more important for cognitive skills and fathers for noncognitive ones. |
| Keywords: | family background, cognitive and noncognitive skills, parental death |
| JEL: | J12 J17 J24 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eui:euiwps:eco2011/08&r=dem |