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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Kaletski, Elizabeth (Ithaca College) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the impact of child labor on child welfare, with a specific focus on the relationship between working and education. I look at the empirical relationship between working and educational expenditure budget shares for children age 5-14 in Mexico. I accomplish this using a household fixed effects model and data from two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS). The results indicate that working increases school expenditure shares for working children. In particular, on average, girls engaged in paid work have total annual education expenditure shares that are 48.6% higher than girls who do not work. This relationship varies significantly with characteristics of both the individual and the household, including the child's gender and type of work performed, as well as the household's income, location, and relative female bargaining power. The results indicate that working does not appear to translate into a decrease in welfare and the additional expenditure is directed towards goods that improve the quality of education. |
| Keywords: | child labor, education, child welfare, child incentives, household decision making |
| JEL: | D13 I21 J22 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10054&r=dem |
| By: | Biewen, Martin (University of Tuebingen); Seifert, Stefanie (University of Tübingen) |
| Abstract: | We analyze individual career transitions of men and women in Germany. Our particular focus is on the association of upward, downward and horizontal job changes with individual fertility. In contrast to most of the literature, we focus on potential rather than realized fertility. Based on mixed multivariate proportional hazard models with competing risks, we find a significant negative relationship between the contemporaneous probability of having a child and horizontal career transitions for women, and a positive significant association of the hazard of parenthood with upward career transitions for men. These effects persist if we apply fixed effects panel data models allowing for correlation of individual parenthood hazards with unobserved individual characteristics. Independent of their sources, our results suggest clear gender differences in the relationship between career patterns and potential fertility. |
| Keywords: | career mobility, gender differences, hazard model |
| JEL: | J6 J7 M5 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10050&r=dem |
| By: | Müller, Steffen; Riphahn, Regina T.; Schwientek, Caroline |
| Abstract: | Using long-running data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2012), we investigate the impact of paternal unemployment on child labor market and education outcomes. We first describe correlation patterns and then use sibling fixed effects and the Gottschalk (1996) method to identify the causal effects of paternal unemployment. We find different patterns for sons and daughters. Paternal unemployment does not seem to causally affect the outcomes of sons. In contrast, it increases both daughters' worklessness and educational attainment. We test the robustness of the results and explore potential explanations. |
| Keywords: | youth unemployment,educational attainment,intergenerational mobility,causal effect,Gottschalk method,sibling fixed effects |
| JEL: | C21 C26 J62 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwhdps:iwh-8-16&r=dem |
| By: | Richard Akresh; Damien de Walque; Harounan Kazianga |
| Abstract: | We conducted a randomized control trial in rural Burkina Faso to estimate the impact of alternative cash transfer delivery mechanisms on education, health, and household welfare outcomes. The two-year pilot program randomly distributed cash transfers that were either conditional or unconditional and were given to either mothers or fathers. Conditionality was linked to older children enrolling in school and attending regularly and younger children receiving preventive health check-ups. Compared to the control group, cash transfers improve children's education and health and household socioeconomic conditions. For school enrollment and most child health outcomes, conditional cash transfers outperform unconditional cash transfers. Giving cash to mothers does not lead to significantly better child health or education outcomes, and there is evidence that money given to fathers improves young children's health, particularly during years of poor rainfall. Cash transfers to fathers also yields relatively more household investment in livestock, cash crops, and improved housing. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:okl:wpaper:1611&r=dem |
| By: | Damian Clarke (Department of Economics, Universidad de Santiago de Chile); Hanna Mühlrad (Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg) |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of a large-scale, free, elective abortion program implemented in Mexico City in 2007. Prior to this program, all states and districts in Mexico had very limited, or no, access to elective abortion. A localized reform in Mexico City resulted in a sharp increase in the request and use of early term elective abortions: approximately 90,000 abortions were administered by public health providers in the four years following the reform, versus only 62 in the five years preceding the reform. We provide evidence using national vital statistics data from Mexico covering over 23 million births and over 11,000 cases of maternal deaths. Our difference-in-difference estimates suggest that this program resulted in a reduction in births by 2.3 to 3.8% among women aged 15-44 and by 5.1 to 7.1% among teenage women (15-19 year-olds). Similar results are found for maternal mortality, for which we find a sharp fall in the rate of maternal deaths, by 8.8 to 16.2% for women aged 15-44 and by 14.9 to as much as 30.3% among teenagers. All told, the reform appears to increase the average age of women at first birth, and reduce the number of mothers giving birth at higher parities. |
| JEL: | J13 I15 I18 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:duh:wpaper:1602&r=dem |
| By: | J. Ignacio Giménez-Nadal (University of Zaragoza, CTUR and BIFI, Spain); Lucia Mangiavacchi (University of the Balearic Islands, Spain); Luca Piccoli (University of the Balearic Islands, Spain) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the relationship between the gender division of housework time of parents, with children living in the parental home, and that of the same children when they become adults and form their own families. Using the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), we exploit its panel structure jointly with detailed information on children and parent’s time use, to analyse the time devoted by parents during their children’s adolescence (between 1994 and 1999) and that of the same children about ten years later (from 2006 to 2009). The results suggest that a greater involvement of fathers in the domestic activities traditionally done by mothers is related to a reduction in gender inequality in their children’s future families: father’s involvement in domestic activities has a significant impact on their sons’ time spent in the same activities. These findings shed light on the persistence of parental behaviour across generations. |
| Keywords: | Time Use, Housework, Gender Roles, Attitudes, Intergenerational Transmission, Russia. |
| JEL: | D13 J16 J22 P13 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2016-402&r=dem |
| By: | Rania Gihleb |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the causal effects of Catholic schooling on educational attainment.Using a novel instrumental-variable approach that exploits an exogenous shockto the Catholic school system, we show that the positive correlation between Catholicschooling and student outcomes is explained by selection bias. Spearheaded by theuniversal call to holiness, the reforms that occurred at the Second Vatican Councilproduced a dramatic exogenous change in the cost/benefit ratio of religious life in theCatholic Church. Using the abrupt decline in the number of Catholic sisters as aninstrument for Catholic schooling, we find no evidence of positive effects on studentoutcomes. |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pit:wpaper:5857&r=dem |
| By: | Lance Lochner (University of Western Ontario); Elizabeth Caucutt (University of Western Ontario) |
| Abstract: | Early developing and persistent gaps in child achievement by family income combined with the importance of adolescent skill levels for educational attainment and lifetime earnings suggest that a key component of intergenerational economic and social mobility is determined by the time individuals enter school. 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. Specifically, we evaluate the extent to which these mechanisms are consistent with other important stylized facts related to the marginal returns on investments and the effects of parental income on child investments and skills. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed016:158&r=dem |
| By: | Umut Oguzoglu (Department of Economics, University of Manitoba, and; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)); Cain Polidano (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Ha Vu (Department of Economics, Deakin University) |
| Abstract: | Governments are responding to fiscal pressures associated with aging populations by increasing the eligibility age for publicly-funded retirement benefits. However, recent studies show large resulting increases in the receipt of disability and unemployment benefits, which raises concern that welfare savings are offset by increased inflows into alternative payments. Using administrative data to examine the impacts of female eligibility age increases in Australia, we find little evidence of this. Instead, most of the increase is because the delay mechanically extends the receipt time of people already on alternative payments. The implication is that fiscal savings are not jeopardized by opportunistic behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Welfare substitution, retirement, aging population |
| JEL: | H53 J26 J01 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2016n20&r=dem |