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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2013‒01‒19
thirty-one papers chosen by Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo University of Montreal and World Bank Group |
| By: | Fang, Hai (University of CO, Denver); Eggleston, Karen N. (Walter H Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University); Rizzo, John A. (Stony Brook University, SUNY); Zeckhauser, Richard J. (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | Data on 2,355 married women from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey are used to study how female employment affects fertility in China. China has deep concerns with both population size and female employment, so the relationship between the two should be better understood. Causality flows in both directions. A conceptual model shows how employment prospects affect fertility. Then a well-validated instrumental variable isolates this effect. Female employment reduces a married woman's preferred number of children by 0.35 on average and her actual number by 0.50. Ramifications for China's one-child policy are discussed. |
| JEL: | J13 J18 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp12-054&r=dem |
| By: | Kamila Cygan-Rehm; Miriam Maeder |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of education on fertility under inflexible labor market conditions. We exploit exogenous variation from a German compulsory schooling reform to deal with the endogeneity of education. By using data from two complementary data sets, we examine different fertility outcomes over the life cycle. In contrast to evidence for other developed countries, we find that increased education causally reduces completed fertility. This negative effect operates through a postponement of first births away from teenage years, and no catch-up later in life. We attribute these findings to the particularly high opportunity costs of child-rearing in Germany. |
| Keywords: | fertility, education, childlessness, timing of births, educational reform |
| JEL: | I21 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp528&r=dem |
| By: | Hosny Zoabi (Tel Aviv University); Moshe Hazan (Hebrew University) |
| Abstract: | Conventional wisdom suggests that in developed countries income and fertility are negatively correlated. We present new evidence that between 2001 and 2009 the cross-sectional relationship between fertility and women's education in the U.S. is U-shaped. At the same time, average hours worked increase monotonically with women's education. This pattern is true for all women and mothers to newborns regardless of marital status. In this paper, we advance the marketization hypothesis for explaining the positive correlation between fertility and female labor supply along the educational gradient. In our model, raising children and home-making require parents' time, which could be substituted by services bought in the market such as baby-sitting and housekeeping. Highly educated women substitute a significant part of their own time for market services to raise children and run their households, which enables them to have more children and work longer hours. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed012:276&r=dem |
| By: | Magnus Hatlebakk |
| Abstract: | A unique family survey was conducted in Nepal to investigate the economic consequences of having a first-born girl. Women get more children, but we find no causal effect of number of children on economic outcomes. But independently of the number of children there is a positive effect on boys' education of having a first born sister, who presumably takes care of household work so the boys can focus on school. This indicates a stronger son-preference in Nepal than what is found in studies from neighboring countries. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Intra-household gender |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chm:wpaper:wp2012-8&r=dem |
| By: | Dickson, Matt (University of Bath); Gregg, Paul (University of Bath); Robinson, Harriet (University of Bristol) |
| Abstract: | We study the intergenerational effects of parents' education on their children's educational outcomes. The endogeneity of parental education is addressed by exploiting the exogenous shift in education levels induced by the 1972 Raising of the School Leaving Age (RoSLA) from age 15 to 16 in England and Wales. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children – a rich cohort dataset of children born in the early 1990s in Avon, England – allows us to examine the timing of impacts throughout the child's life, from pre-school assessments through the school years to the final exams at the end of the compulsory schooling period. We also determine whether there are differential effects for literacy and numeracy. We find that increasing parental education has a positive causal effect on children's outcomes that is evident at age 4 and continues to be visible up to and including the high stakes exams taken at age 16. Children of parents affected by the reform gain results approximately 0.1 standard deviations higher than those whose parents were not impacted. The effect is focused on the lower educated parents where we would expect there to be more of an impact: children of these parents gaining results approximately 0.2 standard deviations higher. The effects appear to be broadly equal across numeracy and literacy test scores. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, schooling, child development |
| JEL: | I20 J62 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7123&r=dem |
| By: | Adeline Delavande; Basit Zafar |
| Abstract: | Gender discrimination in South Asia is a well-documented fact. However, gender is only one of an individual’s many identities. This paper investigates how gender discrimination depends on the social identities of interacting parties. We use an experimental approach to identify gender discrimination by randomly matching 2,836 male and female students pursuing bachelor’s-equivalent degrees in three different types of institutions—Madrassas (religious seminaries), Islamic universities, and liberal universities—that represent distinct identities within the Pakistani society. Our main finding is that gender discrimination is not uniform in intensity and nature across the educated Pakistani society and varies as a function of the social identity of both individuals who interact. While we find no evidence of higher-socioeconomic-status men discriminating against women, men of lower socioeconomic status and higher religiosity tend to discriminate against women--but only women of lower socioeconomic status who are closest to them in social distance. Moreover, this discrimination is largely taste-based. Our findings suggest that social policies aimed at empowering women need to account for the intersectionality of gender with social identity. |
| Keywords: | Sex discrimination against women ; Stereotype (Psychology) ; Social choice ; Women - Education |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:593&r=dem |
| By: | Alger, Ingela (TSE (LERNA, CNRS) Univesité Toulouse 1 Capitole); Cox, Donald (Boston College) |
| Abstract: | What can evolutionary biology tell us about male-female differences in preferences concerning family matters? Might mothers be more solicitous toward offspring than fathers, for example? The economics literature has documented gender differences—children benefit more from money put in the hands of mothers rather than fathers, for example—and these differences are thought to be partly due to preferences. Yet for good reason family economics is mostly concerned with how prices and incomes affect behavior against a backdrop of exogenous preferences. Evolutionary biology complements this approach by treating preferences as the outcome of natural selection. We mine the well-developed biological literature to make a prima facie case for evolutionary roots of parental preferences. We consider the most rudimentary of traits—sex differences in gamete size and internal fertilization—and explain how they have been thought to generate malefemale differences in altruism toward children and other preferences related to family behavior. The evolutionary approach to the family illuminates connections between issues typically thought distinct in family economics, such as parental care and marriage markets. |
| Date: | 2012–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ide:wpaper:26680&r=dem |
| By: | Hippolyte D'Albis (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne); Fabrice Collard (Department of Economics - University of Bern - University of Bern) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes the use of optimal grouping methods for determining the various age groups within a population. The cutoff ages for these groups, such as the age from wich an individual is considered to be an older person, are then endogenous variables that depend on the entire population age distribution at any given moment. This method is applied to the age distributions of some industrialized countries, for which cutoff ages as well as the main indicators of aging are calculated over the last 50 years. |
| Keywords: | Population aging; age distributions; aging indexes; optimal grouping; old age; demographic measures |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00768889&r=dem |
| By: | Wim Van Lancker |
| Abstract: | Under the social investment paradigm, a child-centred investment strategy has been developed. Mainstay of such strategy is the provision of childcare services, which are expected to increase maternal employment rates, further children’s human capital and mitigate social inequalities in early life. In this article, I critically assess the child-centred investment strategy and explore whether childcare services in European countries in their current state of affairs are up to the task of producing the anticipated benefits. The argument I develop is fairly simple: in order to be effective, childcare services should cover all social groups, in particular children from a disadvantaged background. Drawing on recent EU-SILC data I show that in all but one country this condition is not met: childcare is often used at low or moderate levels, and children from low-income families participate to a much lesser extent than children from high-income families. In order to overcome these childcare deficits, countries should pursue a consistent investment strategy which entails increasing childcare supply and increasing employment opportunities for all social groups. This will require huge budgetary efforts for most member states. |
| Keywords: | child-centred investment strategy, childcare, ECEC, European Union, inequality, social investment |
| JEL: | I3 J13 J24 I24 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1213&r=dem |
| By: | Claudia Goldin; Claudia Olivetti |
| Abstract: | The most prominent feature of the female labor force across the past hundred years is its enormous growth. But many believe that the increase was discontinuous. Our purpose is to identify the short- and long-run impacts of WWII on the labor supply of women who were currently married in 1950 and 1960. We use mobilization rates for various groups of men (by age, race, fatherhood) to see whether there was a wartime impact. We find that an aggregate mobilization rate produces the largest and most robust impacts on both weeks worked and the labor force participation of married white (non-farm) women. The impact, moreover, was experienced primarily by women in the top half of the education distribution. Women who were married but without children during WWII were the group most impacted by the mobilization rate in 1950, although by 1960 WWII still influenced the labor supply decisions of them as well as those with children during WWII. We end the paper with a resolution between the watershed and revisionist views of the role of WWII on female labor supply. |
| JEL: | J16 J2 N3 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18676&r=dem |
| By: | Francine D. Blau; Lawrence M. Kahn |
| Abstract: | In 1990, the US had the sixth highest female labor participation rate among 22 OECD countries. By 2010, its rank had fallen to 17th. We find that the expansion of “family-friendly” policies including parental leave and part-time work entitlements in other OECD countries explains 28-29% of the decrease in US women’s labor force participation relative to these other countries. However, these policies also appear to encourage part-time work and employment in lower level positions: US women are more likely than women in other countries to have full time jobs and to work as managers or professionals. |
| JEL: | J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18702&r=dem |
| By: | Roy, Chandan; Barman, Jiten |
| Abstract: | India has five million working children which is more than two percent of the total child population in the age group of 5-14 years. Despite existence of legal prohibitions, several socio-economic situations ranging from dearth of poverty, over–fertility, non-responsive education system to poor access in financial services adversely affect a section of children and keep them in work field. This work burden not only prevents the children from getting the basic education, it is also highly detrimental to their health and ultimately leads to intellectual and physical stunting of their growth. At this backdrop, this paper measures the magnitude of child rights to education enjoyed by the child labour across the states of West Bengal. The paper identifies various reasons behind non-inclusiveness of a great portion of child labour in main-stream of education through empirical analysis in two backward districts of West Bengal. An analysis of NCLP activities based on evaluation surveys helps to trace the gap of work and lack of convergence mechanism with activities of Sarba Shiksha Mission. We recommend few measures to revamp the whole process, so that relationship between child labour and inclusive education activities can be revamped. NCLP and Sarba Shiksha Mission should work hand in hand to fulfill this objective. Complete implementation of Right to Education can help to solve many of these issues involved with child labour, as the act itself has an inclusive approach. |
| Keywords: | Child Labour; Inclusiveness; Right to Education; NCLP; Sarba Shikhsha Mission |
| JEL: | I2 N3 R5 |
| Date: | 2012–11–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:43643&r=dem |
| By: | Shelby Gerking; Mark Dickie; Marcella Veronesi |
| Abstract: | This paper develops and applies an integrated model of human mortality and morbidity valuation that is consistent with principles of welfare economics. The standard expected utility model of one person facing two health states (alive and dead) is extended to a setting in which two family members (a parent and a child) face three health states (healthy, sick, and dead). A key finding is that total health benefits of public programs equate to the sum of willingness to pay for reduced mortality risk plus a fraction of the willingness to pay for reduced morbidity risk. Implications of the integrated model are tested using two field data sets from the U.S. on skin cancer and leukemia risk reductions. Results obtained show how the integrated model can be used to increase the accuracy of health benefit estimation for benefit-cost analyses as well as for the design of public hazard reduction programs. |
| Keywords: | willingness to pay, children, environmental hazards, health, integrated analysis, morbidity, mortality, value of statistical life, cancer, stated preference |
| JEL: | Q51 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nev:wpaper:wp201207&r=dem |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca; Christopher Flinn; Matthew Wiswall |
| Abstract: | In this paper we utilize a model of household investments in the cognitive development of children to explore the impact of various transfer policies on the distribution of child cognitive outcomes in target populations. We develop a cost criterion that can be used to compare the cost effectiveness of unrestricted, restricted, and conditional cash transfer systems, and find that conditional cash transfers are the most cost efficient way to attain any given gain in average child quality in a target population. Of course, this is only true if one uses efficiently designed cash transfer systems, and we are able to explore their design using our modeling framework. |
| Keywords: | Time Allocation; Child Development, conditional and unconditional cash transfer. |
| JEL: | J13 D1 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:273&r=dem |
| By: | J. de la Horra Navarro; J. Miguel Marín; M. T. Rodríguez Bernal |
| Abstract: | Discrete time models are used in Ecology for describing the evolution of an agestructured population. Usually, they are considered from a deterministic viewpoint but, in practice, this is not very realistic. The statistical model we propose in this article is a reasonable model for the case in which the evolution of the population is described by means of a projection matrix. In this statistical model, fertility rates and survival rates are unknown parameters and they are estimated by using a Bayesian approach. Usual Bayesian and data cloning methods (based on Bayesian methodology) are applied to real data from the population of the Steller sea lions located in the Alaska coast since 1978 to 2004. The estimates obtained from these methods show a good behavior when they are compared to the actual values |
| Keywords: | Population projection matrices, Data cloning, Age-structured population, Leslie matrix, Bayesian MCMC algorithm |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:wsrepe:ws130102&r=dem |
| By: | Cremer, Helmuth (TSE, (IDEI and Institut universitaire de France)); Pestieau, Pierre (TSE, (CREPP, University of Liège, CORE, UCL)); Roeder, Kerstin (LMU) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how the risk of divorce a¤ects the human capital decisions of a young couple. We consider a setting where complete specialization (one of the spouses uses up all the education resources) is optimal with no divorce risk. Symmetry in education (both spouses receive an equal amount of education) then acts like an insurance device in case of divorce particularly when the institutions do not compensate for di¤erences in earnings. But, at the same time symmetry in education is less e¢ cient than the extreme specialization. This is the basic tradeo¤ underlying our analysis. We show that the symmetric allocation will become more attractive as the probability of divorce increases, if risk aversion is high and/or labor supply elasticity is low. However, it is only a ?second-best? solution as the insurance protection is achieved at the expense of an e¢ ciency loss. E¢ ciency can be restored through suitably designed marriage contracts because they can provide the appropriate insurance against divorce to a couple who opts for specialization. Finally, we study how the (economic) use of marriage is a¤ected by the possibility of divorce. |
| Keywords: | post-marital education, marriage contract, divorce |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ide:wpaper:26591&r=dem |
| By: | Elena Stancanelli (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris); Arthur Van Soest (Tilburg University - Netspar) |
| Abstract: | The economic litterature on retirement argues that individuals in a couple tend to retire at a choice time because of externalities in leisure. Ealier studies dit not investigate the extent to which partners actually spend more leisure time together upon retiring. Exploiting the law on early retirement age in France, we use a regression discontinuity approach to identify the causal effect of retirement on hours of leisure, separate and together, of the man and woman in a couple. We use a sample of couples drawn from a French Time Use Survey for the analysis. Using four different definitions of joint leisure, we conclude that generally both separate and joint leisure hours of partners increase significantly upon own retirement. In particular, the hours of leisure spent together by the couple increase on average by about an hour and a half per day upon wife's retirement and by less than an hour upon husband's retirement. The positive effect of partners' retirement on joint leisure is close in size to that on separate leisure or house work hours of partners. |
| Keywords: | Regression discontinuity; retirement, leisure |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00768901&r=dem |
| By: | Norma B. Coe; Mashfiqur Khan; Matthew S. Rutledge |
| Abstract: | When Social Security’s Full Retirement Age (FRA) increased to age 66 for recent retirees, the peak retirement age increased with it. However, a large share of people continue to claim their Social Security benefits at age 65. This paper explores two potential explanations for the “stickiness” of age 65 as a claiming age: Medicare eligibility and workers’ lack of knowledge about their future Social Security benefits. First, we analyze the impact of Medicare eligibility by comparing two groups – one has an FRA of exactly 65; the other, between age 65 and 2 months and age 66. We find that the group with later FRAs who do not have access to retiree health benefits through their employer are more likely to claim Social Security at age 65. We interpret this finding as evidence that Medicare eligibility persuades more people to retire, because they can begin receiving federal health coverage. Individuals without access to retiree health insurance at work are 7.5 percentage points more likely to retire soon after their 65th birthdays and are 5.8 percentage points less likely to delay retirement until the FRA than those with that insurance. This result fits into extensive research showing that access to health insurance is an important component of the retirement decision. On the question of whether misinformation about Social Security benefits may drive individuals to claim at age 65, we find that some individuals are unable to accurately forecast their retirement benefits. However, our analysis suggests that there is no relationship between this confusion and the age 65 peak for claiming Social Security. |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2013-2&r=dem |
| By: | Arceo, Eva (CIDE, Mexico City); Hanna, Rema (Harvard University); Oliva, Paulina (University of CA, Santa Barbara) |
| Abstract: | Much of what we know about the marginal effect of pollution on infant mortality is derived from developed country data. However, given the lower levels of air pollution in developed countries, these estimates may not be externally valid to the developing country context if there is a nonlinear dose relationship between pollution and mortality or if the costs of avoidance behavior differs considerably between the two contexts. In this paper, we estimate the relationship between pollution and infant mortality using data from Mexico. We find that an increase of 1 parts per billion in carbon monoxide (CO) over the last week results in 0.0032 deaths per 100,000 births, while a 1 (mu)g/m[superscript 3] increase in particulate matter (PM[subscript 10]) results in 0.24 infant deaths per 100,000 births. Our estimates for PM[subscript 10] tend to be similar (or even smaller) than the U.S. estimates, while our findings on CO tend to be larger than those derived from the U.S. context. We provide suggestive evidence that a non-linearity in the relationship between CO and health explains this difference. |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp12-050&r=dem |
| By: | Juan Luis Sariego (Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Unidad Chihuahua) |
| Abstract: | Public policies aimed at Mexico?s indigenous population traditionally viewed the communities themselves as their primary beneficiaries. Breaking with this convention, the anti-poverty programme known as Oportunidades, with its specific focus on supporting not communities but in fact discrete family units experiencing acute poverty, disregarded the specificities of the indigenous population and treated indigenous people as any other impoverished segment of Mexican society. (?) |
| Keywords: | Ethnicity as a Prerequisite for Inclusion in Conditional Transfer Programmes: The Opportunities Programme in Mexico |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:173&r=dem |
| By: | Alan Barreca; Karen Clay; Olivier Deschenes; Michael Greenstone; Joseph S. Shapiro |
| Abstract: | Adaptation is the only strategy that is guaranteed to be part of the world's climate strategy. Using the most comprehensive set of data files ever compiled on mortality and its determinants over the course of the 20th century, this paper makes two primary discoveries. First, we find that the mortality effect of an extremely hot day declined by about 80% between 1900-1959 and 1960-2004. As a consequence, days with temperatures exceeding 90°F were responsible for about 600 premature fatalities annually in the 1960-2004 period, compared to the approximately 3,600 premature fatalities that would have occurred if the temperature-mortality relationship from before 1960 still prevailed. Second, the adoption of residential air conditioning (AC) explains essentially the entire decline in the temperature-mortality relationship. In contrast, increased access to electricity and health care seem not to affect mortality on extremely hot days. Residential AC appears to be both the most promising technology to help poor countries mitigate the temperature related mortality impacts of climate change and, because fossil fuels are the least expensive source of energy, a technology whose proliferation will speed up the rate of climate change. |
| JEL: | I10 I12 I18 Q54 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18692&r=dem |
| By: | Zo Randriamaro (Researcher) |
| Abstract: | Although gender considerations are relatively new in the climate change discourse, it is hardly surprising that they have been at the heart of recent activism and policy advocacy efforts by multiple actors. Socio-economic research and evaluations of development effectiveness both confirm that access to resources and the agency to use them are influenced by gender roles, responsibilities and differential access to opportunities and influence (World Bank, 2010; UNFPA, 2009; Lipper, 2001; Kabeer, 1999). (...) |
| Keywords: | Greening the Economy and Increasing Economic Equity for Women Farmers in Madagascar |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:pbrief:34&r=dem |
| By: | Jason Fletcher |
| Abstract: | While several types of mental illness, including substance abuse disorders, have been linked with poor labor market outcomes, no current research has been able to examine the effects of childhood ADHD. As ADHD has become one of the most prevalent childhood mental conditions, it is useful to understand the full set of consequences of the illness. This paper uses a longitudinal national sample, including sibling pairs, to show important labor market outcome consequences of ADHD. The employment reduction is between 10-14 percentage points, the earnings reduction is approximately 33%, and the increase in social assistance is 15 points, which are larger than many estimates of the black-white earnings gap and the gender earnings gap. A small share of the link is explained by education attainments and co-morbid health conditions and behaviors. The results also show important differences in labor market consequences by family background and age of onset. These findings, along with similar research showing that ADHD is linked with poor education outcomes and adult crime, suggest that treating childhood ADHD can substantially increase the acquisition of human capital. |
| JEL: | I1 I12 I18 J22 J24 J3 J31 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18689&r=dem |
| By: | Verónica Amarante (ECLAC/CEPAL); Andrea Vigorito (Universidad de la República, Uruguay) |
| Abstract: | During the first half of the 20th century, Uruguay was able to establish an institutional system of universal social policies in the areas of education, labour and health which involved the coverage of most of the population (Filgueira, 1994). In the context of social protection, a system of contributory cash-based transfers was created which aimed to protect workers in the formal sector?and through them their families?and to provide them with an adequate retirement to replace their income. With regard to non-contributory transfers, in 1919 a social pension scheme for elderly and disabled people was created, targeting those people over 70 years of age considered socially vulnerable. In 1942 the system of contributory Family Allowances (Asignaciones Familiares) came into force, consisting of monthly cash benefits to workers in the formal sector with children. (...) |
| Keywords: | The Expansion of Non-Contributory Transfers in Uruguay in Recent Years |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:pbrief:29&r=dem |
| By: | Chang-Tai Hsieh; Erik Hurst; Charles I. Jones; Peter J. Klenow |
| Abstract: | Over the last 50 years, there has been a remarkable convergence in the occupational distribution between white men, women, and blacks. We measure the macroeconomic consequences of this convergence through the prism of a Roy model of occupational choice in which women and blacks face frictions in the labor market and in the accumulation of human capital. The changing frictions implied by the observed occupational convergence account for 15 to 20 percent of growth in aggregate output per worker since 1960. |
| JEL: | J70 O40 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18693&r=dem |
| By: | Mathias Huebener |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the role of family risk attitudes in intergenerational mobility in incomes and education. Based on 1984-2009 data of sons and fathers from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey, there is evidence suggesting that sons with risk taking fathers have a significantly higher educational mobility and persistently higher income mobility than peers with risk averse fathers. They obtain significantly higher levels of education, which would be justified by modest evidence on higher returns to education. The relationship seems more complex for sons’ own risk attitudes. Risk taking sons experience higher educational mobility, but there is no difference in income mobility to risk averse sons. There are no considerable differences in the levels of education, but modest evidence suggesting lower returns to education for risk taking sons. The findings improve the understanding of the intergenerational transmission mechanism of economic status and show that family risk attitudes impact economic mobility. The study suggests an important intergenerational link between fathers’ risk attitudes and sons’ levels of education, which has not received much attention in the literature. |
| Keywords: | Risk preferences, intergenerational mobility, educational mobility, social mobility, returns to education, intergenerational income elasticity, educational choice under uncertainty, SOEP |
| JEL: | D1 D8 I24 J13 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp529&r=dem |
| By: | Fabio Bertranou (Organización Internacional del Trabajo); Roxana Maurizio (Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento y CONICET) |
| Abstract: | In 2009 Argentina established a new programme of transfers for children and adolescents, Asignación Universal por Hijo (Universal Child Allowance ? AUH), that was aimed at those families engaged in the informal economy, inactive adults without unemployment insurance, unemployed people without any social security payments and those working in domestic service. This non-contributory programme is an addition to those programmes already in existence: a contributory family allowance (AFC) and a tax deduction from income tax (known as the ?tax on earnings?) for each child (ACF). With the new programme, coverage was extended substantively in both quantitative and qualitative terms, taking over the role that was previously played by the Heads of Household Programme and the Families Programme. (...) |
| Keywords: | Monetary Transfers for Children and Adolescents in Argentina: Characteristics and Coverage of a ?System? with Three Components |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:pbrief:30&r=dem |
| By: | Jennifer Hunt |
| Abstract: | Using the American Community Surveys of 2009 and 2010, I examine the wages of immigrants compared to natives among engineering workers. Among workers in engineering occupations, immigrants are the best and brightest thanks to their high education level, enjoying a wage distribution shifted to the right of the native distribution. Among workers with an engineering degree, however, immigrants underperform natives, despite somewhat higher education. The gap is particularly large in the lower tail, where immigrants work in occupations not commensurate with their education. In the upper tail, immigrants fail to be promoted out of technical occupations to management, handicapped by imperfect English and their underrepresentation among older age groups. In both samples, immigrants from the highest income countries are the best and brightest workers. |
| JEL: | J61 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18696&r=dem |
| By: | Malchow-Møller, Nikolaj (University of Southern Denmark); Munch, Jakob R. (University of Copenhagen); Seidelin, Claus Aastrup (University of Southern Denmark); Skaksen, Jan Rose (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Abstract: | Many developed countries have recently experienced a significant inflow of immigrants in the agricultural sector. At the same time, the sector is still in a process of structural transformation resulting in fewer but bigger and presumably more efficient farms. In this paper, we exploit detailed matched employer-employee data for the entire population of Danish farms in the period 1980-2008 to analyze the micro-level relationship between these two developments. We find that farms that employ immigrants tend to be both larger and at least as productive as other farms. Furthermore, an increased use of immigrants is found to be associated with an improvement in farm performance as measured by job creation and revenue, and this seems at least in part to reflect a causal effect of the immigrants. |
| Keywords: | immigration, agriculture, matched employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J61 J43 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7133&r=dem |
| By: | Mainali, R. M.; Jafarey, S.; Montes-Rojas, G. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the sources of wage differentials among caste/ethnic groups, employing national survey data from Nepal. Our study shows that, in countries such as Nepal which have imperfect labour markets, the conventional Oaxaca decomposition methodology fails to estimate precisely the source of wage differential. Using an extended model, occupational choice, firm size distribution and the interaction between these two are employed along with the conventionally used measures of human capital endowments of different groups, to estimate these effects. Our results indicate that the lack of access to better paying occupations and larger firms, rather than differences in human capital, are the main factors underlying the caste/ethnic wage differentia in Nepal. Furthermore, empirical evidence is not found in favour of government policy of "affirmative action" to contribute yet in narrowing down the caste/ethnic wage differential in the labour market. |
| Keywords: | Labour Market Discrimination; Caste; Ethnicity |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cty:dpaper:13/01&r=dem |
| By: | Mercedes González de la Rocha (CIESAS Occidente) |
| Abstract: | Mexico's well-known Oportunidades Programme sought to modify certain survival strategies of poor people that development practitioners associate with the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The tendency of young people from impoverished homes to drop out of school and prematurely join the labour market, for example, is commonly perceived as preventing youth from reaching the productive stages of their lives both in good health and with the necessary qualifications to obtain jobs that can cover their basic needs.(?) |
| Keywords: | Poverty, Family Dynamics and Oportunidades: an Evolutionary Perspective |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:170&r=dem |