|
on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Johannes Geyer; Peter Haan; Katharina Wrohlich |
| Abstract: | Parental leave and subsidized child care are prominent examples of family policies supporting the reconciliation of family life and labor market careers for mothers. In this paper, we combine different empirical strategies to evaluate the employment effects of these policies for mothers in Germany. In particular we estimate a structural labor supply model and exploit a natural experiment, i.e. the reform of parental leave benefits. By exploiting and combining the advantages of the different methods, i.e the internal validity of the natural experiment and the external validity of the structural model, we can go beyond evaluation studies restricted to one particular methodology. Our findings suggest that a combination of parental leave benefits and subsidized child care leads to sizable employment effects of mothers.Keywords: labor supply, parental leave benefits, childcare costs, structural model, natural experiment |
| JEL: | H31 J22 C52 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp645&r=all |
| By: | Cuberes, David; Tamura, Robert |
| Abstract: | We present a general equilibrium dynamic model that characterizes the gap between optimal and equilibrium fertility and investment in human capital. In the model, the aggregate production function exhibits increasing returns to population arising from specialization but households face the standard quantity-quality trade-off when deciding how many children they have and how much education these children receive. In the benchmark model, we solve for the equilibrium and optimal levels of fertility and investment per child and show that competitive fertility is too low and investment per child too high. We next introduce mortality of young adults in the model and assume that households have a precautionary demand for children. Human capital investment raises the likelihood that a child survives to the next generation. In this setup, the model endogenously generates a demographic transition but, since households do not internalize the positive effects of a larger population on productivity and the negative effects of human capital on mortality, both the industrial revolution and the demographic transition take place much later than it would have been optimal. Our model can be interpreted as a bridge between the literature on endogenous demographic transitions and papers that study welfare issues associated with fertility and human capital decisions. |
| Keywords: | increasing returns to population, endogenous fertility, endogenous mortality |
| JEL: | J1 J24 O1 |
| Date: | 2014–07–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:57063&r=all |
| By: | Marianne Bertrand; Sandra E. Black; Sissel Jensen; Adriana Lleras-Muney |
| Abstract: | In late 2003, Norway passed a law mandating 40 percent representation of each gender on the board of publicly limited liability companies. The primary objective of this reform was to increase the representation of women in top positions in the corporate sector and decrease gender disparity in earnings within that sector. We document that the newly (post-reform) appointed female board members were observably more qualified than their female predecessors, and that the gender gap in earnings within boards fell substantially. While the reform may have improved the representation of female employees at the very top of the earnings distribution (top 5 highest earners) within firms that were mandated to increase female participation on their board, there is no evidence that these gains at the very top trickled-down. Moreover the reform had no obvious impact on highly qualified women whose qualifications mirror those of board members but who were not appointed to boards. We observe no statistically significant change in the gender wage gaps or in female representation in top positions, although standard errors are large enough that we cannot rule economically meaningful gains. Finally, there is little evidence that the reform affected the decisions of women more generally; it was not accompanied by any change in female enrollment in business education programs, or a convergence in earnings trajectories between recent male and female graduates of such programs. While young women preparing for a career in business report being aware of the reform and expect their earnings and promotion chances to benefit from it, the reform did not affect their fertility and marital plans. Overall, in the short run the reform had very little discernible impact on women in business beyond its direct effect on the newly appointed female board members. |
| JEL: | J24 J3 J7 J78 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20256&r=all |
| By: | Løken, Katrine V. (Department of Economics, University of Bergen); Lundberg, Shelly (Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara); Riise, Julie (Department of Economics, University of Bergen) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use a 1998 reform in the federal funding of local home-based care for the elderly in Norway to examine the effects of formal care expansion on the labor supply decisions and mobility of middle-aged children. Our main finding is a consistent and signi cant negative impact of formal care expansion on work absences longer than 2 weeks for the adult daughters of single elderly parents. This effect is particularly strong for daughters with no siblings, and this group is also more likely to exceed earnings thresholds after the reform. We find no impacts of the reform on daughter's mobility or parental health, and no effects on adult sons. Our results provide evidence of substitution between formal home-based care and informal care for the group that is most likely to respond to the parent's need for care - adult daughters with no siblings to share the burden of parental care. These results also highlight the importance of labor market institutions that provide flexibility in enabling women to balance home and work responsibilities. |
| Keywords: | Formal and informal care; elderly; welfare state; women's career |
| JEL: | J14 J22 |
| Date: | 2014–06–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bergec:2014_003&r=all |
| By: | Stefan Bauernschuster; Oliver Falck |
| Abstract: | We document the spatial diffusion of Friedrich Froebel's radical invention of kindergartens in 19th-century Germany. The first kindergarten was founded at Froebel's birthplace. Early spatial diffusion can be explained by cultural proximity, measured by historical dialect similarity, to Froebel's birthplace. This result is robust to the inclusion of higher order polynomials in geographic distance and similarity measures with respect to industry, geography or religion. Our findings suggest that a common cultural basis facilitates the spill-over of ideas. We further show that the contemporaneous spatial pattern of child care coverage is still correlated with cultural similarity to Froebel's place of birth. |
| Keywords: | Culture, spatial diffusion, public child care |
| JEL: | N33 J13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp659&r=all |
| By: | Kate Ambler; Diego Aycinena; Dean Yang |
| Abstract: | We implement a randomized experiment offering Salvadoran migrants matching funds for educational remittances, which are channeled directly to a beneficiary student in El Salvador chosen by the migrant. The matches lead to increased educational expenditures, higher private school attendance, and lower labor supply of youths in El Salvador households connected to migrant study participants. We find substantial “crowd-in” of educational investments: for each $1 received by beneficiaries, educational expenditures increase by $3.72. We find no shifting of expenditures away from other students, and no effect on remittances. |
| JEL: | C93 F22 F24 H24 I22 J15 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20262&r=all |
| By: | Janelle Jones; John Schmitt; Nicole Woo |
| Abstract: | One of every nine women in the United States (11.8 percent in 2013) is represented by a union at her place of work. The annual number of hours of paid work performed by women has increased dramatically over the last four decades. In 1979, the typical woman was on the job 925 hours per year; by 2012, the typical woman did 1,664 hours of paid work per year. Meanwhile, women's share of unpaid care work and housework has remained high. Various time-use studies conclude that women continue to do about two-thirds of unpaid child-care (and elder-care) work and at least 60 percent of routine housework. The research reviewed here suggests that unions can provide substantial support to women trying to balance their paid work and their unpaid care responsibilities. |
| Keywords: | unions, women, |
| JEL: | J J1 J10 J18 J5 J16 J50 J58 J15 J88 J8 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:epo:papers:2014-11&r=all |
| By: | Black, Sandra E. (University of Texas); Devereux, Paul J. (University College Dublin); Salvanes, Kjell G. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | While much is now known about the effects of physical health shocks to pregnant women on the outcomes of the in-utero child, we know little about the effects of psychological stresses. One clear form of stress to the mother comes from the death of a parent. We examine the effects of the death of the mother’s parent during pregnancy on both the short-run and the long-run outcomes of the infant. Our primary specification involves using mother fixed effects— comparing the outcomes of two children with the same mother but where a parent of the mother died during one of the pregnancies—augmented with a control for whether there is a death around the time of the pregnancy in order to isolate true causal effects of a bereavement during pregnancy. We find small negative effects on birth outcomes, and these effects are bigger for boys than for girls. The effects on birth outcomes seems to be driven by deaths due to cardiovascular causes suggesting that sudden deaths are more difficult to deal with. However, we find no evidence of adverse effects on adult outcomes. The results are robust to alternative specifications. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; grief; children; health shocks. |
| JEL: | I10 I12 J13 |
| Date: | 2014–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2014_023&r=all |
| By: | Bhuller, Manudeep (Statistics Norway); Mogstad, Magne (University of Chicago); Salvanes, Kjell G. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | What do the education premiums look like over the life cycle? What is the impact of schooling on lifetime earnings? How does the internal rate of return compare with opportunity cost of funds? To what extent do progressive taxes attenuate the incentives to invest in education? This paper exploits Norwegian population panel data with nearly career long earnings histories to answer these important questions. We provide a detailed picture of the causal relationship between schooling and earnings over the life cycle, following individuals over their working lifespan. To account for endogeneity of schooling, we apply three commonly used identification strategies. Our estimates show that additional schooling gives higher lifetime earnings and steeper age-earnings profile, in line with predictions from human capital theory. These estimates imply an internal rate of return of around 10 percent, after taking into account income taxes and earnings-related pension entitlements. Under standard conditions, this finding suggests it was financially profitable to take additional schooling because the rates of return were substantially higher than the market interest rates. By comparison, Mincer regressions understate substantially the rates of return. We explore the reasons for this downward bias, finding that it is driven by Mincer’s assumptions of no earnings while in school and exogenous post-schooling employment. |
| Keywords: | Education premium; internal rate of return; life cycle earnings. |
| JEL: | J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2014–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2014_024&r=all |