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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Janet Currie; Hannes Schwandt |
| Abstract: | Scholars have been examining the relationship between fertility and unemployment for more than a century. Most studies find that fertility falls with unemployment in the short run, but it is not known whether these negative effects persist since women may simply postpone child bearing to better economics times. Using over 140 million U.S. birth records for the period 1975 to 2010, we analyze both the short and long-run effects of unemployment on fertility. We follow fixed cohorts of U.S. born women defined by their own state and year of birth, and relate their fertility to the unemployment rate experienced by each cohort at different ages. We focus on conceptions that result in a live birth. We find that women in their early 20s are most affected by high unemployment rates in the short-run and that the negative effects on fertility grow over time. A one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate experienced between the ages of 20 and 24 reduces the short-run fertility of women in this age range by 6 conceptions per 1,000 women. When we follow these women to age 40, we find that a one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate experienced at 20 to 24 leads to an overall loss of 14.2 conceptions. This long-run effect is driven largely by women who remain childless and thus do not have either first births or higher order births. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, unemployment |
| JEL: | J6 J11 J12 J13 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1387&r=dem |
| By: | Willem Adema; Chris Clarke; Valérie Frey |
| Abstract: | The United States is at a crossroads in its policies towards the family and gender equality. Currently America provides basic support for children, fathers, and mothers in the form of unpaid parental leave, child-related tax breaks, and limited public childcare. Alternatively, the United States’ OECD peers empower families through paid parental leave and comprehensive investments in infants and children. The potential gains from strengthening these policies are enormous. Paid parental leave and subsidised childcare help get and keep more women in the workforce, contribute to economic growth, offer cognitive and health benefits to children, and extend choice for parents in finding their preferred work-life strategy. Indeed, the United States has been falling behind the rest of the OECD in many social and economic indicators by not adequately investing in children, fathers and mothers.<BR>Les États-Unis se trouvent à la croisée des chemins dans le domaine des politiques familiales et de promotion de l’égalité hommes-femmes. À l’heure actuelle, les enfants américains et leurs parents ne bénéficient que d’une aide minimum, qui comprend un congé parental non rémunéré, des allégements fiscaux liés aux enfants et une offre restreinte de services publics d’accueil des jeunes enfants. A contrario, les pairs des États-Unis au sein de l'OCDE offrent aux parents et aux familles la possibilité de prendre un congé parental rémunéré et investissent massivement dans les politiques de l’enfance. Des politiques plus généreuses dans ces domaines pourraient générer des bénéfices considérables. Le congé parental rémunéré et les services subventionnés de garde d’enfants contribuent à augmenter le nombre de femmes qui rejoignent le marché du travail ou qui y restent, participent à la croissance économique, ont des effets bénéfiques sur les compétences cognitives et la santé des enfants, et offrent aux parents un éventail de choix plus large afin de concilier au mieux vie professionnelle et vie privée. Les États-Unis accusent en effet du retard par rapport aux autres pays de l'OCDE à l’aune de nombreux indicateurs sociaux et économiques, car ils n’ont pas suffisamment investi dans le bien-être des enfants et des parents. |
| Keywords: | employment, United States, OECD countries, children, parental leave, Women, work |
| JEL: | H53 I38 J13 J21 |
| Date: | 2015–11–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:172-en&r=dem |
| By: | Malapit, Hazel J.; Sraboni, Esha; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Ahmed, Akhter U. |
| Abstract: | Development programs that reduce gender gaps are expected to not only improve women’s well-being, but also their children’s. This draws on a growing body of literature that shows a strong positive association between women’s status and control over resources and improvements in children’s outcomes, particularly nutrition and education. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence on the relationship between empowerment gaps between men and women in the same household and children’s well-being using nationally representative data from the 2012 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS). We measure children’s well-being using nutritional status for younger children (ages 0–5) and education outcomes for older children (ages 6–10 and 11–17). We measure relative empowerment using direct measures of empowerment collected from men and women in the same households using the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index. Our findings suggest that gender gaps in empowerment are only weakly linked to children’s nutrition, although different measures of empowerment reveal significant differences between boys’ and girls’ outcomes, depending on the measures used. Overall, the household head’s (father’s) education is significantly associated with better nutrition and education outcomes for children, but younger girls (ages 6–10) and older boys and girls (ages 11–17) are more likely to receive more education when mothers are more educated. Our results on parental education suggest that fathers’ empowerment may be reflecting a “wealth†effect that is invested in children’s nutrition and education when they are young, while mothers’ empowerment becomes more important in girls’ education in general and keeping older children, regardless of sex, in school. |
| Keywords: | gender, women, education, nutrition, children, social welfare, households, role of women, empowerment, well being, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1470&r=dem |
| By: | Olivia Bertelli (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) |
| Abstract: | Despite the worldwide decrease in fertility rates, Sub-Saharan Africa is still an exception, showing an almost non-declining trend over the past 50 years. In a high child mortality context parents might prefer a larger number of children, anticipating the risk of child mortality. This paper tests the short-term impact of an exogenous decrease in child mortality on household fertility. By exploiting positive exogenous weather shocks together with household panel data, I find that abundant rainfall increases child survival in the Nigerian context. Large households are the ones who benefit the most from this, and they are also the ones who respond by decreasing their fertility the most. Conversely, small households only slightly benefit from a decrease in child mortality and they continue to increase their birth rate. For a household with the average number of three children, mortality decreases by 0.013 while fertility increases by 0.046 children. When positive shocks occur, households get on average larger, as more children survive and parents only partially reduce their fertility. Consistent with such partial adjustment, household food security and children's anthropometric measures deteriorate. This matches the predictions of the theoretical framework, which shows that the magnitude of the fertility adjustment depends on the number of children alive at the moment of the shock. The empirical analysis tests this prediction, by using the gender of the first-born as instrument for the initial number of children. |
| Keywords: | Weather shocks,Child mortality,Fertility,Gender bias,Sub-Saharan Africa,Food security |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01226421&r=dem |
| By: | Sandrine A. Koissy-Kpein |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of gender based violence against women and girls(GBV), in the environment the children live in, on school attendance, school achievement, aswell as boys. and girls. dropouts. Based on the sixth phase of the Demographic and HealthSurveys from 18 sub-Saharan African countries, it appears that the acts of GBV.measuredthrough intimate partner violence, early marriage, and female genital mutilations.negativelyaffect the schooling of boys and girls. Obviously, significant heterogeneities exist amongcountries. However, the effect of GBV seems more important for girls. |
| Keywords: | education, gender-based violence, female genital mutilation, early marriage, intimate partner violence, collective household models |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2015-107&r=dem |
| By: | Perova,Elizaveta; Reynolds,Sarah |
| Abstract: | Although women?s police centers have been gaining popularity as a measure to address domestic violence, to date no quantitative evaluations of their impacts on the incidence of domestic violence or any other manifestations of gender equality have been done. This paper estimates the effects of women?s police stations in Brazil on female homicides, as a measure of the most severe form of domestic violence. Given that a high fraction of female deaths among women ages 15 to 49 years can be attributed to aggression by an intimate partner, female homicides appear the best available proxy for severe domestic violence considering the scarcity of data on domestic violence. The paper uses a panel of 2,074 municipalities and takes advantage of the gradual rollout of women?s police stations from 2004 to 2009, to estimate the effect of establishing a women?s police station on the municipal female homicide rate. Although the analysis does not find an association on average, women?s police stations appear to be highly effective among some groups of women: women living in metropolitan areas and younger women. Establishing a women?s police station in a metropolitan municipality is associated with a reduction in the homicide rate by 1.23 deaths per 100,000 women (which roughly amounts to a 17 percent reduction in the average homicide rate in metropolitan municipalities). The reduction in the homicide rate of women ages 15 to 24 is even higher: 5.57 deaths per 100,000 women. Qualitative work suggests that better economic opportunities and less traditional social norms in metropolitan areas may explain the heterogeneous impacts of women?s police stations in metropolitan areas and outside them. |
| Keywords: | Gender and Health,Gender and Law,Population Policies,Adolescent Health,Gender and Development |
| Date: | 2015–11–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7497&r=dem |
| By: | Pia S. Schober; Gundula Zoch |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how the duration of child care leave taken by mothers and fathers relates to changes in couples’ division of housework and child care after postnatal labour market return in Germany. It explores whether take-up of child care related leave may impact the gender division of domestic work beyond the period of leave and examines three theoretical explanations: 1) development of domestic work skills, 2) bargaining power based on economic resources, and 3) adaptations in gender role or parenting identities. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1992-2012) on 797 and 762 couples with a first or second birth, respectively, we applied OLS regression models with lagged dependent variables in combination with Heckman selection correction. The results suggested that dual-earner couples where mothers took longer leaves experienced a greater shift towards a gender-traditional division of domestic labour after childbirth even in the medium-term after labour market return. The linear relationship and stronger effects on the division of child care than for housework lent support to identity-based explanations. Paternal leave take-up was associated with a more equal division of housework and child care after first births but not after second birth transitions. The relationship with the leave duration was less clear. In terms of explaining the mechanisms for fathers, the findings provided greatest support for explanations relating to domestic skills development possibly in combination with changes in fathering identities. |
| Keywords: | child care; gender division of labour; housework; parenthood; parental leave |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J18 J22 H31 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp803&r=dem |
| By: | Kalabichina, Irina E.; Tyndik, Alla |
| Abstract: | This article is devoted to investigation current demographic policy in Russia impact on fertility of different educational groups. Authors use qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data for this analysis come from the Gender and Generation Survey in Russia (2004, 2007, 2011 waves). Semi-structured interview method (Moscow, 2010) was used to assess the cognitive and emotional aspects of fertility behaviour (to give birth the next child). One of the important results of this study that Russian population could not be satisfated with current demographic policy. Moreover, higher educated people have stronger demand for family-work measures to reach desired family size. People with higher education estimate influence of existing measures lower as a whole, but influence of potential measures (directed on combination of career and parenthood) the estimated higher. |
| Keywords: | demographic policy,fertility,Russia |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J18 |
| Date: | 2014–02–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:121850&r=dem |
| By: | Picchio, Matteo (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); van Ours, Jan (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Using employees’ longitudinal data, we study the effect of working hours on the<br/>propensity of firms to sponsor training of their employees. We show that, whereas male part-time workers are less likely to receive training than male full-timers, parttime working women are as likely to receive training as full-time working women. Although we cannot rule out gender-working time specific monopsony power, we speculate that the gender-specific effect of working hours on training has to do with gender-specific stereotyping. In the Netherlands, for women it is common to work part-time. More than half of the prime age female employees work part-time. Therefore, because of social norms, men working part-time could send a different signal to their employer than women working part-time. This might generate a different propensity of firms to sponsor training of male part-timers than female part-timers. |
| Keywords: | part-time employment; working hours; firm-sponsored training; gender; human capital |
| JEL: | C33 C35 J24 M51 M53 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiucen:4e4080c4-aacf-4ac3-bfb2-2651f2cc9210&r=dem |