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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | David Blau (The Ohio State University and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Employment trends in the US were similar across age groups in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s: male employment rates declined or were flat at all ages and female employment rates increased or were flat at all ages. But employment trends diverged more recently, with employment rising at older ages and falling at younger ages, for both men and women. This paper seeks to explain this divergence. We estimate labor supply models for men and women, allowing differences in behavior across age groups. The results indicate that changes in the educational composition of the population and Social Security reforms can account for a modest proportion of the divergence. An additional factor for men was the increase in age at first marriage. However, much of the divergence remains unexplained. |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrr:papers:wp285&r=dem |
| By: | P. GIVORD (Insee); C. MARBOT (Insee) |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates the impact of an increase in childcare subsidies on the use of paid childcare and the participation rate of mothers of preschool children. We use a natural experiment provided by the PAJE, a French reform in family allowances introduced in 2004. This reform temporarily created discrepancies in the childcare subsidies family received according to the year of birth of the children. We apply a difference-in-differences strategy on exhaustive French fiscal data that provide information on gross income as well as on the use of paid childcare services between 2005 and 2008. We find that the new policy resulted in a significant increase in the use of paid childcare services. The effect on the mothers' labour participation is significant but of a smaller magnitude. This suggests that part of the policy resulted in a substitution of informal childcare by formal ones. |
| Keywords: | Mother's labour supply, Child care subsidy, Difference-in-Differences |
| JEL: | D13 H24 H31 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crs:wpdeee:g2013-04&r=dem |
| By: | Bundervoet, Tom |
| Abstract: | Following a decade-and-a-half stall, fertility in Rwanda dropped sharply between 2005 and 2010. Using a hierarchical age-period-cohort model, this paper finds that the drop in fertility is largely driven by cohort effects, with younger cohorts having substantially fewer children than older cohorts observed at the same age. An Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition is applied on two successive rounds of the Demographic and Health Survey. The findings show that improved female education levels account for the largest part of the fertility decline, with improving household living standards and the progressive move toward non-agricultural employment being important secondary drivers. The drop in fertility has been particularly salient for the younger cohorts, for whom the fertility decline can be fully explained by changes in underlying determinants, most notably the large increase in educational attainment between 2005 and 2010. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Youth and Governance,Adolescent Health,Population&Development,Reproductive Health |
| Date: | 2014–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6741&r=dem |
| By: | Charles L. Baum, II; Christopher J. Ruhm |
| Abstract: | Using data from the 1997-cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY-97), we examine the effects of California’s first in the nation government-mandated paid family leave program (CA-PFL) on mothers’ and fathers’ use of leave during the period surrounding child birth, and on the timing of mothers’ return to work, the probability of eventually returning to pre-childbirth jobs, and subsequent labor market outcomes. Our results show that CA-PFL raised leave-taking by around 2.4 weeks for the average mother and just under one week for the average father. The timing of the increased leave use – immediately after birth for men and around the time that temporary disability insurance benefits are exhausted for women – is consistent with causal effects of CA-PFL. Rights to paid leave are also associated with higher work and employment probabilities for mothers nine to twelve months after birth, possibly because they increase job continuity among those with relatively weak labor force attachments. We also find positive effects of California’s program on hours and weeks of work during their child’s second year of life and possibly also on wages. |
| Keywords: | Paid Leave, Family Leave, Employment, Wages, Leave-Taking, Return-to-Work Decisions |
| JEL: | J1 J2 J3 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mts:wpaper:201401&r=dem |
| By: | Julia Schwenkenberg |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that women experience less upward mobility in socioeconomic status with respect to their parents than men when the status measure places more weight on occupational earnings relative to occupational education, while the opposite holds when education becomes more important in the definition of occupational status. This holds whether we consider mobility with respect to fathers, mothers or with respect to the average parental status. Results also indicate that this mobility gap has been narrowing for the status measures that put more weight on earnings, and that the mobility advantage for women in education has been increasing. For the most recent cohorts there is no mobility gap when starting salaries are used in the occupational earnings measure. Moreover, while women and men still appear to be choosing different types of occupations, women are not choosing occupations that are characterized by low returns. Women are choosing occupations that offer them the flexibility to work less. |
| Keywords: | Gender Gap, Intergenerational Mobility, Occupational Choice |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:run:wpaper:2013-006&r=dem |
| By: | Arie Kapteyn (University of Southern California, Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research); Jinkook Lee (RAND); Gema Zamarro (University of Southern California, Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research) |
| Abstract: | How does retirement influence subjective well-being? Some studies suggest retirement does not affect subjective well-being or may improve it. Others suggest it adversely affects it. This paper aims at advancing our understanding of the effect of retirement on subjective well-being by (1) using longitudinal data to tease out the retirement effect from age and cohort differences; (2) using instrumental variables to address potential reverse causation of subjective well-being on retirement decisions; and (3) conducting cross-country analyses, exploiting differences in eligibility ages for retirement benefits across countries and within countries. We use panel data from the US Health and Retirement Study and the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. This allows us to use a quasi-experimental approach where variations in public pension eligibility due to country and cohort specific retirement ages help identify retirement effects. For both the U.S. and Europe we find that retirement is associated with higher levels of depression. However, when we use instrumental variables we find the opposite result. Retirement induced through Social Security pension eligibility is found to have a positive effect, reducing depression symptoms, although only marginally significant for the U.S. when considering the depression indicator. Retirement is not found to have a significant effect on life satisfaction measures for either the U.S. or Europe. |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrr:papers:wp301&r=dem |
| By: | Lambert, Sylvie; Ravallion, Martin; Van de Walle, Dominique |
| Abstract: | How much economic mobility is there across generations in a poor, primarily rural, economy? How much do intergenerational linkages contribute to current inequality? We address these questions using original survey data on Senegal that include an individualized measure of consumption. While intergenerational linkages are evident, we find a relatively high degree of mobility across generations, associated with the shift from farm to non-farm sectors and greater economic activity of women. Male-dominated bequests of land and housing bring little gain to consumption and play little role in explaining inequality, though they have important effects on sector of activity. Inheritance of non-land assets and the education and occupation of parents (especially the mother) and their choices about children's schooling are more important to adult welfare than property inheritance. Significant gender inequality in consumption is evident, though it is almost entirely explicable in terms of factors such as education and (non-land) inheritance. There are a number of other pronounced gender differences, with intergenerational linkages coming through the mother rather than the father. |
| Keywords: | inheritance; land; mobility; inequality; gender |
| JEL: | D31 I31 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:docweb:1401&r=dem |
| By: | Marshall, Maria I.; Peake, Whitney O. |
| Abstract: | Prior research indicates not only that family businesses have fewer management controls in place and are more likely to have non-economic goals for their firm but also that female-controlled businesses tend to underperform compared to male-controlled businesses. In this article, we analyze the performance effects of management controls and goals for the business across both male and female-controlled farm and rural family businesses. The results suggest that female-controlled farm and rural family businesses do not underperform their male counterparts in terms of objective or subjective assessments of performance. This is an important finding, given the mixed results across the family business literature regarding the impacts of gender on performance. Our results do indicate, however, that management controls and strategies and goals for the firm influence objective and subjective performance differently across male and female-controlled farm and rural family businesses. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Farm Management, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaeass:161658&r=dem |
| By: | Aggarwal, Raj (University of Akron); Goodell, John (University of Akron) |
| Abstract: | The preference of microfinance institutions for women borrowers is generally attributed to two reasons: women borrowers are more trustworthy and have greater social impact. However, the role of social trust with regard to this gender preference has not been adequately investigated. Controlling for the social outreach goals of MFIs, we document that MFIs favor women more in low trust countries, suggesting that women are targeted to offset low social trust. We also examine how the nature of trust formation affects this relationship between gender targeting and trust. Our results should be of considerable interest to policymakers and scholars. |
| JEL: | A14 G21 J16 J30 O16 |
| Date: | 2013–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1317&r=dem |
| By: | Chakraborty, M. |
| Abstract: | In recent time Delhi has revealed its ambitions as a global city. The consequent need for cheap, casual, migrant labour for maintaining its world-scale ambitions has been highlighted in a lot of literature, particularly in the post Commonwealth Games (CWG) period. The migrant labourers in the informal economy of Delhi are seen as oppressed, particularly if they belong to a subordinated social group, like the Muslim male migrants. However, there is need to examine the homogenization implied by ‘Muslim male migrants’. This research aims to challenge the one-dimensional depiction of Muslim male migrants as ‘victims’. Analysing the narratives of two groups of Muslim migrant men in a South Delhi neighbourhood, this research tries to critically look at stable markers of identity such as ethnicity, gender and class. The research reveals identities as fluid, multiple and relational. The men emerge as complex subjects—not just passive ‘victims’ but capable of asserting agency, often through the strategic mobilisation of their multiple identities. |
| Keywords: | Afghan migrants, Bengali migrants, Delhi, Delhi Master Plan 2021, Muslim men, Right to the City, ethnicity, feminist methodology, informal economy, masculinities, men, migrants, multiple identities, rickshaw-pullers, urban citizenship |
| Date: | 2013–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:euriss:39089&r=dem |
| By: | Karthik Muralidharan (University of California San Diego); Nishith Prakash (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of an innovative program in the Indian state of Bihar that aimed to reduce the gender gap in secondary school enrollment by providing girls who continued to secondary school with a bicycle that would improve access to school. Using data from a large representative household survey, we employ a triple difference approach (using boys and the neighboring state of Jharkhand as comparison groups) and find that being in a cohort that was exposed to the Cycle program increased girls' age-appropriate enrollment in secondary school by 30% and also reduced the gender gap in age-appropriate secondary school enrollment by 40%. Parametric and non-parametric decompositions of the triple-difference estimate as a function of distance to the nearest secondary school show that the increases in enrollment mostly took place in villages where the nearest secondary school was further away, suggesting that the mechanism for program impact was the reduction in the time and safety cost of school attendance made possible by the bicycle. We find that the Cycle program was much more cost effective at increasing girls' enrolment than comparable conditional cash transfer programs in South Asia, suggesting that the coordinated provision of bicycles to girls may have generated externalities beyond the cash value of the program, including improved safety from girls cycling to school in groups, and changes in patriarchal social norms that proscribed female mobility outside the village, which inhibited female secondary school participation. |
| Keywords: | Conditional transfers, school access, gender gaps, bicycle, girls' education, female empowerment, India, Bihar, MDG |
| JEL: | H42 I2 O15 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2013-24&r=dem |
| By: | Ghazi Tabatabaei, S.M.; Mehri , N.; Messkoub, M. |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the Time Use Survey of Iran of 2008 and 2009 to estimate the monetary value of unpaid domestic work of urban housewives. The surveys recorded domestic work activities such as cooking and cleaning and general care of household members as well as care of children and their education. Using the market-based approach to estimate the monetary value of unpaid domestic work we collected data on the cost of buying in services for domestic work and for education of children from ‘nursing agencies’ and private education colleges in main cities of Iran in the summer of 2011 that were adjusted to obtain the 2008 and 2009 prices. The market value of domestic work of urban housewives was estimated to be US$25 billion in 2008 and US$29 billion in 2009. These were about 8.6 per cent of non-oil GDP in the same years. Our estimates complement other findings from around the world that confirm substantial contribution of housewives to the economy. These contributions have gone unrecorded and not compensated in most countries. At a minimum, housewives can be insured against basic contingencies of life such has health problems, poverty and disabilities and supported in old age. Our work and other studies do provide the economic and social arguments for costing and putting into practice the long overdue support for housewives; they have earned it! |
| Keywords: | Iran, care economy, domestic unpaid work, economic evaluation, feminism and gender studies, generations and regeneration, production and reproduction, social insurance, time-use |
| Date: | 2013–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:euriss:41146&r=dem |
| By: | Ben Jann; Simon Seiler |
| Abstract: | Despite the widespread interest in the topic and a vast international literature, very little is known about the development of intergenerational mobility in Switzerland. Based on a new harmonized database for Switzerland (comprising various surveys such as different waves of the ISSP, EVS, and the ESS), we provide a systematic account of changes in the link between social origin and destination over time (covering birth cohorts from around 1935 to 1980). We analyze effects of parental education and class on own educational achievement and social class for both men and women, using a refined variant of the methodological approach proposed by Jann and Combet (2012). The approach is based on the concept of proportional reduction of error (PRE) and features a number of advantages over more traditional approaches. For example, it provides smooth estimates of changes in social mobility that have a clear interpretation and it can easily incorporate control variables and multiple dimensions of parental characteristics. To evaluate the validity of our approach, we employ the oft-used log-multiplicative layer effect (a.k.a Unidiff) model (Xie 1992, Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992) as a benchmark. Results indicate that our approach performs well and produces qualitatively similar findings as Xie's model. For both men and women, effects of social origin initially decreased, but then, towards the end of the observation period, increased again. This u-shaped pattern, which can be observed with respect to both education and class, appears to be more pronounced for women than for men. |
| Keywords: | social mobility, intergenerational mobility, PRE, Switzerland |
| JEL: | J62 C49 |
| Date: | 2014–01–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bss:wpaper:5&r=dem |
| By: | Andrew M. Parker (RAND); Leandro S. Carvalho (RAND); Susann Rohwedder (RAND) |
| Abstract: | Recent advances in behavioral decision research, behavioral economics, and life-span development psychology provide leverage for expanding our understanding of the decision to retire earlier versus later. This report examines how cognitive abilities, perceptions about the future, and other psychological characteristics affect retirement decisions. We use existing and new data collected through the RAND-USC American Life Panel, including detailed assessments of fluid and crystallized intelligence, financial literacy, expectations for the future, future time perspective, and maximizing versus satisficing decision styles. We find those with high levels of cognitive ability are more likely to retire later, as are those with greater longevity expectations. We also find those with lower cognitive ability have less coherent expectations of retirement—suggesting a need for planning assistance. We also find expectation of lower Social Security benefits is associated with plans to retire later—contrary to our hypothesis that such expectation might spur early retirement in an effort to lock in benefits. Finally, we find that tendencies maximize (versus satisfice) had mixed effects on retirement decision making, with different aspects of maximizing tendencies showing different relationships with retirement decision making. Future work should expand these data in a targeted direction. Recent research notes that decision-making competence can be improved with training, and to the extent this trainability extends to older adults, decision skills may be a useful target for intervention. Stronger longitudinal design and analysis can also help demonstrate possible endogenities between retirement and psychological variables. |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrr:papers:wp298&r=dem |