nep-dem New Economics Papers
on Demographic Economics
Issue of 2015‒08‒19
seven papers chosen by
Michele Battisti
ifo Institut

  1. The Effects of Longer School Days on Mothers' Labor Force Participation By Berthelon, Matias; Kruger, Diana; Oyarzún, Melanie
  2. How Have Employment Transitions for Older Workers in Germany and the UK Changed? By David Wright
  3. Early Life Circumstances and Life Cycle Labor Market Outcomes By Manuel Flores; Pilar Garcia-Gomez; Adriaan Kalwij
  4. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: Religion and Female Employment over Time By Fischer, Justina A.V.; Pastore, Francesco
  5. Male-female labor market participation and the extent of gender-based wage discrimination in Turkey By Günalp, Burak; Cilasun, Seyit Mümin; Acar, Elif Öznur
  6. Revisiting the Income Tax Effects of Legalizing Same-sex Marriages By James Alm; J. Sebastian Leguizamon; Susane Leguizamon
  7. Preschools and early childhood development in a second best world: Evidence from a scaled-up experiment in Cambodia By Adrien Bouguen; Deon Filmer; Karen Macours; Sophie Naudeau

  1. By: Berthelon, Matias (Universidad Adolfo Ibañez); Kruger, Diana (Universidad Adolfo Ibañez); Oyarzún, Melanie (Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Chile)
    Abstract: Lack of adequate childcare is a main reason women cite for not participating in the labor force. We investigate the effect of a reform that lengthened school schedules from half to full days in Chile – essentially providing zero-cost childcare – on different maternal labor participation outcomes. We identify the effect of the policy from its implementation across municipalities over time and rule out alternative explanations, finding evidence of positive and important effects on participation and more permanent attachment to the labor force. Additionally, we also find results are driven by the provision of full day schooling in 1st and 2nd grades.
    Keywords: full day schooling, primary education, female labor participation, education reform, Chile
    JEL: H4 J2 J4 I2
    Date: 2015–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9212&r=dem
  2. By: David Wright
    Abstract: Extending working life is an objective for many nations. However, the UK government has recently reported only modest improvement “compared to many nations”. A comparison of European, Labour Force Surveys show that Germany has reversed early retirement much faster than the UK since 2003. This was not forecast by previous researchers. In particular, Ebbinghaus’ influential cross-national analysis of early retirement, published in 2006, had predicted that liberal welfare states regimes like the UK would react faster than conservative ones like Germany. A review of changes to pensions and employment policies suggests the UK puts more emphasis on recruitment of older workers, flexible working and gradual retirement while Germany puts more emphasis on retention of older workers through age-management and employment protection. The paper compares the employment transitions of older workers using data covering 1993 to 2013 from the longitudinal surveys British Household Panel Survey, Understanding Society and the German Socio-Economic Panel. It finds little evidence for the recruitment of older workers or gradual retirement in either the UK or Germany and concludes it was the greater employment protection for older workers in Germany that enabled the employment rate for older workers to increase even during the recent recession.
    Keywords: Older workers, United Kingdom, Germany
    JEL: J21
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp782&r=dem
  3. By: Manuel Flores (OECD, France); Pilar Garcia-Gomez (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands); Adriaan Kalwij (Utrecht University, the Netherlands)
    Abstract: We investigate how early life circumstances—childhood health and socioeconomic status (SES)—are associated with labor market outcomes over an individual’s entire life cycle. A life cycle approach provides insights not only into which labor market outcomes are associated with adverse childhood events but also into whether these associations show up early or only later in working life, and whether they vanish or persist over the life cycle. The analysis is conducted using the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe, which contains retrospective information on early life circumstances and full work histories for over 20,000 individuals in thirteen European countries. We find that the associations between early life circumstances and (accumulated) labor market outcomes vary over an individual’s life cycle. For men and women, the effect of childhood SES on lifetime earnings accumulates over the life cycle through the associations with both working years and annual earnings. Moreover, for men this association with lifetime earnings reverses sign from negative to positive over their working life. We also find a smaller, positive long-term association between childhood health and lifetime earnings operating mainly through annual earnings and only to a lesser extent through working years, and which is not present at the beginning of the working life for women. Most of these life cycle profiles differ between European country-groups. Finally, for women we find a so-called buffering effect, i.e. that a higher parental SES reduces the negative impact of poor health during childhood on accumulated earnings over the life cycle.
    Keywords: Early life circumstances; lifetime earnings; life cycle; SHARE
    JEL: D10 I14 J14 J24 J31 O15
    Date: 2015–08–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20150094&r=dem
  4. By: Fischer, Justina A.V. (University of Mannheim); Pastore, Francesco (University of Naples II)
    Abstract: This study analyses whether the role of religion for employment of married women in Europe has changed over time and along women's life cycles. Using information on 44'000 married European women from the World Values Survey 1981-2013, we find that in OECD-Europe there is little difference among women of any age since 1997. For non-OECD-Europe, we find differences by religion among young women, but not among those older than 40 years, which we attribute to an upbringing under communist regimes. Only Muslim women show a lower employment probability that persists across time, regions, and life cycles.
    Keywords: religion, labor market participation, modernization, gender, Europe, transition countries, Eastern Europe, OECD, World Values Survey
    JEL: D83 J16 J22 N34 Z12 Z13
    Date: 2015–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9244&r=dem
  5. By: Günalp, Burak; Cilasun, Seyit Mümin; Acar, Elif Öznur
    Abstract: A gender differential in wages is considered to be discriminatory if the differential cannot be explained by gender differences in productivity. Numerous studies have been performed to measure the extent of gender wage discrimination in countries across the world, and most report a substantial amount of wage differential after adjusting for productivity differences. This differential has been attributed to labor market discrimination against women. Using data from 2003 and 2010 Household Budget Surveys conducted by Turkish Statistical Institute, this study examines the male-female earnings differentials and measures the extent of pay discrimination in Turkey. To analyze the components of the earnings gap, two methodologies are employed: The standard Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method and the Juhn-Murphy-Pierce decomposition method. The results of the study indicate that in both years, a significant portion of the observed wage differential is attributable to wage discrimination which records a rise over the period.
    Keywords: male-female earnings differentials,gender wage discrimination,Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition,Juhn-Murphy-Pierce decomposition
    JEL: J16 J31 J70 J71 O15
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201556&r=dem
  6. By: James Alm (Department of Economics, Tulane University); J. Sebastian Leguizamon (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University); Susane Leguizamon (Department of Economics, Western Kentucky University)
    Abstract: In this paper, we estimate the impacts on income tax collections of legalizing same-sex marriage. We utilize new individual-level data sources to estimate the federal income tax consequences of legalizing same-sex marriages. These data sources also allow us to estimate the impact of legalization on state income tax collections. We find that 23 states would realize a net fiscal benefit from legalization, while 21 states w ould experience a decline in revenue. The potential (annual) changes in state tax revenue range from negative $29 million in California to positive $16 million in New York. At the federal level, our estimates suggest an overall reduction in revenues, ranging from a potential loss of $187 million to $580 million. Overall, we find that the federal and state impacts are quite modest. We also find that our estimates are only marginally affected by alternative assumptions about how many same-sex couples will choose to marry and which partner will claim any children for tax deduction purposes.
    Keywords: marriage, individual income tax, marriage tax, taxable unit
    JEL: H24 J12 J16
    Date: 2014–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tul:wpaper:1402&r=dem
  7. By: Adrien Bouguen (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics); Deon Filmer (Banque Mondiale - Centre de recherche de la Banque Mondiale - Banque Mondiale); Karen Macours (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics); Sophie Naudeau (Banque Mondiale - Centre de recherche de la Banque Mondiale - Banque Mondiale)
    Abstract: Interventions targeting early childhood development, such as investment in preschools, are often seen as promising mechanisms to increase human capital and to reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty and inequality. This paper presents results from a randomized evaluation of a large scale preschool construction program in Cambodia, and indicates a cautionary tale. The overall impact of the program on a wide set of children’s early childhood outcomes was small and not statistically significant, and for the cohort with highest exposure the program led to a negative impact on early childhood cognition. Moreover, for this group, the intervention increased inequality as the negative impacts are largest for children of poorer and less educated parents. The results can be explained by the frequent occurrence of underage enrollment in primary school in the absence of preschools, stricter enforcement of the minimum age for primary school entry after the intervention, substitution between primary and preschool following intervention, and difference in demand responses of more and less educated parents to the new preschools. These results indicate that the design of ECD interventions needs to start from a good understanding of parental and teacher decisions pre-program. More generally, they show how implementation and demand-side constraints might not only limit positive impacts, but could even lead to perverse effects of early childhood interventions.
    Date: 2014–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:hal-01090361&r=dem

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