|
on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Celikaksoy, Aycan (SOFI, Stockholm University); Wadensjö, Eskil (Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | The number of unaccompanied minors has increased over the past ten years in Sweden, the European country that receives the most children from this group. Some of them emigrate after a period of time in Sweden, but the vast majority stay. Most of the arriving children are teenage boys who have not yet turned 18. However, the largest increase over the latest years is observed for the younger age groups. Furthermore, gender composition is also age dependent, where it is quite balanced for the younger age groups unlike the oldest age group. In the years following their arrival, most of them are enrolled in schools. When it comes to those aged 20 or over, the proportion undergoing education is higher among women but a higher proportion of men are employed. The group that neither works nor studies is much larger among women than among men. |
| Keywords: | unaccompanied minors, refugee children, migration, education |
| JEL: | J13 J15 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8963&r=dem |
| By: | María Prada; Graciana Rucci; Sergio Urzúa |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of mandated employer-provided child care on the wages of women hired in large firms in Chile. We use a unique employer-employee database from the country's unemployment insurance (UI) system containing monthly information for all individuals that started a new contract between January 2005 and March 2013. We estimate the impact of the program using regression discontinuity design (RDD) exploiting the fact that child care provision is mandatory for all firms with 20 or more female workers. The results indicate that the monthly starting wages of the infra-marginal woman hired in a firm with 20 or more female workers is between 9 percent and 20 percent less than those of female workers hired by the same firm when no requirement of providing childcare was imposed. |
| Keywords: | Wages, Workforce & Employment, Gender Equality, Child development, Mandated benefits, Female wages, Regression discontinuity, Policies for gender |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:88839&r=dem |
| By: | Bharadwaj, Prashant; De Giorgi, Giacomo (Federal Reserve Bank of New York); Hansen, David; Neilson, Christopher |
| Abstract: | Using a large administrative data set from Chile, we find that, on average, boys perform better than girls in mathematics. In this paper, we document several features of their relative performance. First, we note that the gender gap appears to increase with age (it doubles between fourth grade and eighth grade). Second, we test whether commonly proposed explanations such as parental background and investment in the child, unobserved ability, and classroom environment (including teacher gender) help explain a substantial portion of the gap. While none of these explanations help in explaining a large portion of the gender gap, we show that boys and girls differ significantly in perceptions about their own ability in math. Conditional on math scores, girls are much more likely to state that they dislike math, or find math difficult, compared to boys. We highlight differences in self-assessed ability as areas for future research that might lead to a better understanding of the gender gap in math. |
| Keywords: | gender gap; education; middle-income countries |
| JEL: | I00 I25 J16 |
| Date: | 2015–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:721&r=dem |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses several approaches to examining the relationship between child care and mothers' labor supply. The focus is on child care for children aged 0-3, because this is a critical period for working mothers and their children and because most European and American households with children aged 3-5 already use child care centers. The paper provides data concerning availability of, government spending on, and quantity and quality standards for child care in different countries, then compares different approaches to the determinants of child care demand and labor supply. The paper subsequently reviews and compares empirical results regarding the impact of child care costs, availability and quality. Finally, the paper discusses different impacts across different groups and provides concluding remarks. |
| Keywords: | Labor Policy, Child development, Child care, Mothers' employment, Child development, IDB-WP-569 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:88074&r=dem |
| By: | Patricia Gallego-Granados; Johannes Geyer |
| Abstract: | The gender wage gap is a persistent labor market phenomenon. Most research focuses on the determinants of these wage differences. We contribute to this literature by exploring a different research question: if wages of women are systematically lower than male wages, what are the distributional consequences (disposable income) and what are the labor market effects (labor supply) of the wage gap? We demonstrate how the gender gap in gross hourly wages shows up in the distribution of disposable income of households. This requires taking into account the distribution of working hours as well as the tax-benefit system and other sources of household income. We present a methodological framework for deriving the gender wage gap in terms of disposable income which combines quantile decomposition, simulation techniques and structural labor supply estimation. This allows us to examine the implications of the gender wage gap for income inequality and working incentives. We illustrate our approach with an application to German data. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, quantile regression, wage decomposition, labor supply, microsimulation, income distribution, tax-benefit system |
| JEL: | D31 J31 J16 H23 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1469&r=dem |
| By: | Thomas, Deckers; Armin, Falk; Fabian, Kosse; Hannah, Schildberg-Hörisch |
| Abstract: | We show that socio-economic status (SES) is a powerful predictor of many facets of a child's personality. The facets of personality we investigate encompass time preferences, risk preferences, and altruism, as well as crystallized and fluid IQ. We measure a family's SES by the mother's and father's average years of education and household income. Our results show that children from families with higher SES are more patient, tend to be more altruistic and less likely to be risk seeking, and score higher on IQ tests. We also discuss potential pathways through which SES could affect the formation of a child's personality by documenting that many dimensions of a child's environment differ systematically by SES: parenting style, quantity and quality of time parents spend with their children, the mother's IQ and economic preferences, a child's initial conditions at birth, and family structure. Finally, we use panel data to show that the relationship between SES and personality is fairly stable over time at age 7 to 10. Personality profiles that vary systematically with SES might offer an explanation for social immobility. |
| Keywords: | personality; human capital; risk preferences; time preferences; altruism; experiments with children; origins of preferences; social immobility; socio-economic status |
| JEL: | C90 D64 D90 D81 J13 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2015–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trf:wpaper:498&r=dem |
| By: | Maria Silvana Salvini (Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Università di Firenze); Giuseppe Gabrielli (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II); Anna Paterno (Università degli Studi di Bari); Isabella Corazziari (ISTAT, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica, Roma) |
| Abstract: | Recent years are characterized by both a rise in life expectancy and a further fall in fertility in the developing countries (DCs). These processes coexist with large heterogeneity according to the specific living conditions of countries. The aim of our research is to analyze the trends of specific demographic parameters regarding mortality and fertility, jointly with some socio-economic characteristics of more than 100 DCs, to assess if convergence patterns in demographic behaviors prevail or if marked differences persist. As the paths of mortality and fertility in fact differ deeply over space and time, we need a specific statistical multi-way analysis technique that consider the time series dimension. Thus, we apply Dynamic Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis of trajectories in order to evaluate at macro-level the main demographic trends of DCs in the 1995-2010 period. Results let us reconsider the processes of convergence and enlighten the heterogeneity among clusters. |
| Keywords: | Mortality; Fertility; Developing Countries; Dynamic Factor Analysis; Cluster Analysis; Convergence |
| JEL: | I15 I24 J13 O10 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fir:econom:wp2015_03&r=dem |
| By: | Tammy Schirle (Wilfrid Laurier University) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the gender gaps in average hourly wages facing private sector full time employees in the Canadian provinces, using data from the Canadian Labour Force Survey. Over the 1997-2014 period, all provinces have made progress toward narrowing the gender wage gap, though notably little progress was made in Newfoundland and Alberta. Much of the variation across provinces in the gender gap is eliminated once we account for gender differences in individual and job characteristics in each province. Decomposition results suggest a large portion of the wage gap in each province is explained by gender differences in industry and occupation. The unexplained portion of the wage gap has been reduced in many provinces as gender differences in industry and occupation play an increasingly important role. |
| Keywords: | Gender, wage differential, discrimination, labour |
| JEL: | J31 J16 |
| Date: | 2015–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wlu:lcerpa:0088&r=dem |
| By: | Erica Field; Seema Jayachandran; Rohini Pande; Natalia Rigol |
| Abstract: | Does the lack of peers contribute to the observed gender gap in entrepreneurial success, and is the constraint stronger for women facing more restrictive social norms? We offered two days of business counseling to a random sample of customers of India’s largest women’s bank. A random subsample was invited to attend with a friend. The intervention had a significant immediate impact on participants’ business activity, but only if they were trained in the presence of a friend. Four months later, those trained with a friend were more likely to have taken out business loans, were less likely to be housewives, and reported increased business activity and higher household income. The positive impacts of training with a friend were stronger among women from religious or caste groups with social norms that restrict female mobility. |
| JEL: | O0 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21093&r=dem |