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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Drange, Nina (Statistics Norway); Havnes, Tarjei (University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | Young children are thought to be vulnerable to separation from the primary caregiver/s. This raises concern about whether early child care enrollment may harm children's development. We use child care assignment lotteries to estimate the effect of child care starting age on early cognitive achievement in Oslo, Norway. Getting a lottery offer lowers starting age by about four months, from a mean of about 19 months in the control group. Lottery estimates show significant score gains for children at age seven. Survey evidence and an increase in labor supply of both mothers and fathers following the offer, suggest that parental care is the most relevant alternative mode of care. We document that the assignment lottery generates balance in observable characteristics, supporting our empirical approach. |
| Keywords: | early child care, child development |
| JEL: | I21 J13 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8904&r=dem |
| By: | Marchetta, Francesca (CERDI, University of Auvergne); Sahn, David E. (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of education and family background on age at marriage, age at first birth, and age at labor market entry for young women in Senegal using a rich individual-level survey conducted in 2003. We use a multiple-equation framework that allows us to account for the endogeneity that arises from the simultaneity of the decisions that we model. Differences in the characteristics of the dependent variable informed the choice of the models that are used to estimate each equation: an ordered probit model is used to analyze the number of completed years of schooling, and a generalized hazard model for the other three decisions. Results show the importance of parental education, especially the father, on years of schooling. We find that each additional year of schooling of a woman with average characteristics delays marriage and the age at first birth by 0.5 and 0.4 years, respectively. Parents' education also reduces the hazard of marriage and age of first birth, while the death of parents has just the opposite effect, with the magnitudes of effects being larger for mothers. Delaying marriage also leads to an increase in the hazard of entering the formal labor market, as does the education and death of the women's parents. |
| Keywords: | multiple equations, duration models, unobserved heterogeneity, Senegal |
| JEL: | J12 J13 C3 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8876&r=dem |
| By: | Elizabeth M. Caucutt; Lance Lochner; Youngmin Park |
| Abstract: | The economic and social mobility of a generation may be largely determined by the time it enters school given early developing and persistent gaps in child achievement by family income and the importance of adolescent skill levels for educational attainment and lifetime earnings. After providing new evidence of important differences in early child investments by family income, we study four leading mechanisms thought to explain these gaps: an intergenerational correlation in ability, a consumption value of investment, information frictions, and credit constraints. In order to better determine which of these mechanisms influence family investments in children, we evaluate the extent to which these mechanisms also explain other important stylized facts related to the marginal returns on investments and the effects of parental income on child investments and skills. |
| JEL: | D1 I24 J24 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21023&r=dem |
| By: | Beata Javorcik; Esther Ann Boler; Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe |
| Abstract: | While the impact of globalization on income inequality has received a lot of attention, little is known about its effect on the gender wage gap (GWG). This study argues that there is a systematic difference in the GWG between exporting firms and non-exporters. By the virtue of being exposed to higher competition, exporters require greater commitment and flexibility from their employees. If commitment is not easily observable and women are perceived as less committed workers than men, exporters will statistically discriminate against female employees and will exhibit a higher GWG than non-exporters. We test this hypothesis using matched employer-employee data from the Norwegian manufacturing sector from 1996 to 2010. Our identification strategy relies on an exogenous shock, namely, the legislative changes that increased the length of the parental leave that is available only to fathers. We argue that these changes have narrowed the perceived commitment gap between the genders and show that the initially higher GWG observed in exporting firms relative to non-exporters has gone down after the changes took place. |
| Keywords: | Exporters, Globalization, Gender Wage Gap |
| JEL: | F10 F14 F16 J16 |
| Date: | 2015–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:743&r=dem |
| By: | Jie Cai (University of New South Wales, School of Economics, Australian School of Business); Andrey Stoyanov (York University, Department of Economics, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we show that demographic di§erences between countries are a source of comparative advantage in international trade. Since many skills are age-dependent, population aging decreases the relative supply and increases the relative price of skills which depreciate with age. Thus, industries relying on skills in which younger workers are relatively more efficient will be more productive in countries with younger labor force and less productive in countries with older populations. Building upon the behavioral and economics literature, we construct industry-level measures of intensities in various age- dependent skills and show that population aging leads to specialization in industries which use age-appreciating skills intensively and erodes comparative advantage in industries for which age-depreciating skills are more important. |
| Keywords: | trade patterns; comparative advantage, population aging, cognitive skills |
| JEL: | F14 F16 J11 J24 |
| Date: | 2015–02–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yca:wpaper:2015_1&r=dem |
| By: | Chiara Falco |
| Abstract: | This study examines how the educational level attained by individuals affects their migration propensity. Using an original 2006 Ecuadorian survey, which gathered information on household members who were not in the country at the time of the survey (i.e., emigrants), we implement a Regression Discontinuity Design and control for potential endogeneity of the education explanatory variable based on the 1977 educational reform in Ecuador. Our results provide evidence of positive self-selection among migrants. Taking into account the 27{57 age sample, an individual with a lower secondary level of education increases the migration propensity by 31.30%; this propensity is even higher (34.47%) when the sample of migrants is restricted to the urban areas. Considering both country-specific characteristics and gender differentials, our results do not indicate a significant impact of an increase in human capital on the male migration propensity. However, there is a positive and significant effect on the female migration propensity, in particular, for women from larger cities. The results are consistent with theoretical models related to positive self-selection in response to labor market distortions, such as the disparities between genders. |
| Keywords: | International Migration, Education, Gender |
| JEL: | F22 J16 O15 I25 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:297&r=dem |
| By: | Deidda, Manuela (University of Cagliari); Di Liberto, Adriana (University of Cagliari); Foddi, Marta (University of Cagliari); Sulis, Giovanni (University of Cagliari) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the effects of an ALMP for disadvantaged workers implemented in a depressed area of Italy. Using propensity-score matching, we find that a) the employment subsidy had a positive effect for participants on both the probability of finding a job and income, b) the outcome of the policy was more positive for women, and c) the program was more effective for older and less-educated female workers. Using data on previous contacts between workers and firms and on informal channels for job search activity, we ultimately explore the role of the program in promoting the transition from informal to salaried employment. |
| Keywords: | employment subsidies, female labor-force participation, evaluation, informal economy |
| JEL: | C14 C83 J64 J16 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8886&r=dem |
| By: | Cigno, Alessandro (University of Florence); Giovannetti, Giorgia (University of Florence); Sabani, Laura (University of Florence) |
| Abstract: | Incorporating family decisions in a two-period-model of the world economy, we show that trade liberalization may reduce child labour in developing countries where the initial share of skilled workers in the adult workforce – though not as large as in developed countries – is nonetheless large enough to attract skill-intensive FDI from the latter. If the production activities so relocated are more skill-intensive than those carried out in the destination countries before liberalization, that will in fact tend to offset the downwards pressure on the ratio of skilled to unskilled wage rates (Stolper-Samuelson effect), and thus on the incentive for parents to invest in their children's education, associated with international specialization. The hypothesis is not rejected by the data, and thus helps to explain why child labour has not risen in all developing countries, but risen in some and fallen in others. |
| Keywords: | trade barriers, FDI, skill endowment, skill premium, school enrolment, child labour |
| JEL: | D13 D33 F16 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8878&r=dem |
| By: | Cesarini, David (New York University); Lindqvist, Erik (Stockholm School of Economics); Östling, Robert (Institute for International Economic Studies); Wallace, Björn (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | We use administrative data on Swedish lottery players to estimate the causal impact of wealth on players' own health and their children's health and developmental outcomes. Our estimation sample is large, virtually free of attrition, and allows us to control for the factors such as the number of lottery tickets conditional on which the prizes were randomly assigned. In adults, we find no evidence that wealth impacts mortality or health care utilization, with the possible exception of a small reduction in the consumption of mental health drugs. Our estimates allow us to rule out effects on 10-year mortality one sixth as large the cross-sectional gradient. In our intergenerational analyses, we find that wealth increases children's health care utilization in the years following the lottery and may also reduce obesity risk. The effects on most other child outcomes, which include drug consumption, scholastic performance, and skills, can usually be bounded to a tight interval around zero. Overall, our findings suggest that correlations observed in affluent, developed countries between (i) wealth and health or (ii) parental income and children's outcomes do not reflect a causal effect of wealth. |
| Keywords: | Health; Mortality; Healthcare; Child health; Child development; Human capital; Wealth; Income; Lotteries |
| JEL: | D91 I10 I12 I14 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2015–03–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1060&r=dem |
| By: | Maia Güell (University of Edinburgh, CEPR, FEDEA and IZA.); Michele Pellizzari (UUniversity of Geneva, CEPR, fRDB and IZA.); Giovanni Pica (Università di Salerno, CSEF, Paolo Baffi Centre and Centro Luca D’Agliano); José V. Rodríguez Mora (University of Edinburgh and CEPR.) |
| Abstract: | We apply a novel measure of intergenerational mobility (IM) developed by Güell, Rodríguez Mora, and Telmer (2014) to a rich combination of Italian data allowing us to produce comparable measures of IM of income for 103 Italian provinces. We then exploit the large heterogeneity across Italian provinces in terms of economic and social outcomes to explore how IM correlates with a variety of outcomes. We find that (i) higher IM is positively associated with a variety of \good" economic outcomes, such as higher value added per capita, higher employment, lower unemployment, higher schooling and higher openness and (ii) that also within Italy the "the Great Gatsby Curve" exists: in provinces in which mobility is lower cross-sectional income inequality is larger. We finally explore the correlation between IM and several socio-political outcomes, such as crime and life expectancy, but we do not find any clear systematic relationship on this respect. |
| Keywords: | Surnames, intergenerational mobility, cross-sectional data analysis. |
| JEL: | C31 E24 R10 |
| Date: | 2015–03–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:394&r=dem |