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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Afzal, Uzma; d Adda, Giovanna; Fafchamps, Marcel; Said, Farah |
| Abstract: | Theoretical and empirical work on intra-household decision making capture empowerment through bargaining weights given to individual preferences, and infer such weights from household consumption allocations. In this paper we test two key hypotheses underlying this work: first, that spousal influence is the same for all private consumption goods; and second, that women have pent up demand for pure agency. We use data from a survey and a novel laboratory experiment implemented with adult couples in Pakistan. We find that women's influence on household decisions is decreasing in the importance of the decision. We find no evidence that women have pent up demand for agency. Instead, women are less willing to pay for agency when facing an unknown man. We interpret this evidence as suggesting that women in our study population have internalized gender norms, and that these norms regulate interactions between genders most strongly outside of the household. We also find little evidence, within our experimental setting, that willingness to pay for agency is affected by the instrumental value of agency. |
| Keywords: | agency; Consumption; empowerment; intrahousehold efficiency; sharing rule |
| JEL: | D13 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11464&r=dem |
| By: | Johanna Wallenius (Stockholm School of Economics); Tobias Laun (Uppsala university) |
| Abstract: | Sweden boasts high fertility and high female employment. Notably, also women with young children work. However, part-time employment is very prevalent. There is a notable gender gap in both wages and earnings, which widens substantially after women have children. In this paper we study the effect of family policies on female employment, fertility and the gender wage gap. We are particularly interested in understanding why part-time employment is so prevalent in Sweden, despite heavily subsidized daycare, and the effect of this on the widening of the gender wage gap. We are also interested in understanding the role of home production, particularly the unequal division of home work across genders, in shaping women’s career paths. To this end, we develop a structural, life cycle model of heterogenous households which features endogenous labor supply, endogenous human capital accumulation, endogenous fertility and home production. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed016:518&r=dem |
| By: | Foged, Mette (University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | A unitarian model of family migration in which families may discount wives' private gains is used to derive testable predictions regarding the type of couples that select into migrating. The empirical tests show that gender neutral family migration cannot be rejected against the alternative of husband centered migration. Couples are more likely to migrate if household earnings potential is disproportionally due to one partner, and families react equally strongly to a male and a female relative advantage in educational earnings potential. These results are driven by households with a strong relative advantage to one of the partners while results are less clear for small dissimilarities within the couple, suggesting that gender identity norms may play a role when the opportunity costs of adhering to them are small. |
| Keywords: | international migration, family migration, gender identity norms, selection |
| JEL: | F22 D19 J16 J61 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10180&r=dem |
| By: | Mathieu Lefebvre; Sergio Perelman |
| Abstract: | It has been long suggested that public pension wealth may crowd out household savings. However, there remains controversy about the extent of this displacement effect. In this paper we use an original microsimulation model based on retrospective survey data collected through the third wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to estimate the displacement effect of public pension wealth on other wealth in Belgium. Combining this rich dataset with an accurate estimation of the individual pension entitlements allows us to circumvent some of the main measurement errors problems faced by previous studies. We estimate that an extra euro of public pension wealth is associated with about 14-25 cent decline in non-pension wealth. |
| Keywords: | Social security, saving, microsimulation, crowding-out effect. |
| JEL: | D91 H55 E21 J14 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2016-38&r=dem |
| By: | Dayanand S. Manoli; Andrea Weber |
| Abstract: | We present quasi-experimental evidence on the effects of increasing the Early Retirement Age (ERA) on older workers' retirement decisions. The analysis is based on social security reforms in Austria in 2000 and 2004, and administrative data allows us to distinguish between pension claims and job exits. Using a Regression Kink Design, we estimate that, within a birth cohort, a 1.0-year increase in the ERA leads to a 0.4-year increase in the average job exiting age and a 0.5-year increase in the average pension claiming age. When the ERA increases, many older workers remain in their jobs longer. |
| JEL: | H55 J21 J26 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22561&r=dem |
| By: | Adermon, Adrian (IFAU; Department of Economics, Uppsala University); Lindahl, Mikael (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Waldenström, Daniel (Paris School of Economics and Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), CEPR, IZA, UCLS and UCFS) |
| Abstract: | This study estimates intergenerational correlations in mid-life wealth across three generations, and a young fourth generation, and examines how much of the parent-child association that can be explained by inheritances. Using a Swedish data set we find parent-child rank correlations of 0.3–0.4 and grandparents- grandchild rank correlations of 0.1–0.2. Conditional on parents’ wealth, grandparents’ wealth is weakly positively associated with grandchild’s wealth and the parent-child correlation is basically unchanged if we control for grandparents’ wealth. Bequests and gifts strikingly account for at least 50 per cent of the parent-child wealth correlation while earnings and education are only able to explain 25 per cent. |
| Keywords: | multigenerational mobility; bequests; mid-life wealth |
| JEL: | D31 J62 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0670&r=dem |
| By: | Adermon, Adrian; Lindahl, Mikael; Waldenström, Daniel |
| Abstract: | This study estimates intergenerational correlations in mid-life wealth across three generations, and a young fourth generation, and examines how much of the parent-child association that can be explained by inheritances. Using a Swedish data set we find parent-child rank correlations of 0.3-0.4 and grandparents-grandchild rank correlations of 0.1-0.2. Conditional on parents' wealth, grandparents' wealth is weakly positively associated with grandchild's wealth and the parent-child correlation is basically unchanged if we control for grandparents' wealth. Bequests and gifts strikingly account for at least 50 per cent of the parent-child wealth correlation while earnings and education are only able to explain 25 per cent. |
| Keywords: | Income mobility; inequality; Inheritance |
| JEL: | D31 J62 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11456&r=dem |
| By: | Armand, Alex; Attanasio, Orazio; Carneiro, Pedro; Lechene, Valérie |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the differential effect of targeting cash transfers to men or women on the structure of household expenditures on non-durables. We study a policy intervention in the Republic of Macedonia, offering cash transfers to poor households, conditional on having their children attending secondary school. The recipient of the transfer is randomized across municipalities to be either the household head or the mother. Using data collected to evaluate the conditional cash transfer program, we show that the gender of the recipient has an effect on the structure of expenditure shares. Targeting transfers to women increases the expenditure share on food by about 4 to 5%. To study the allocation of expenditures within the food basket, we estimate a demand system for food and we find that targeting payments to mothers induces, for different food categories, not only a significant intercept shift, but also a change in the slope of the Engel curve. |
| Keywords: | CCT; expenditure.; Gender; intra-household |
| JEL: | D12 D13 E21 O12 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11465&r=dem |
| By: | Kieron Barclay (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Martin Hällsten; Mikko Myrskylä (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Previous research on birth order has consistently shown that later-borns have lower educational attainment than first-borns, however it is not known whether there are birth order patterns in college major. Given empirical evidence that parents disproportionately invest in first born children, there are likely to be birth order patterns attributable to differences in both opportunities and preferences, related to ability, human capital specialization through parent-child transfers of knowledge, and personality. Birth order patterns in college major specialization may shed light on these explanatory mechanisms, and may also account for long-term birth order differences in educational and labour market outcomes. Furthermore, given that within-family differences in resource access are small compared to between-family differences, the explanatory potential of these mechanisms has the potential to say much more about inequality production mechanisms in society at large. Using Swedish population register data and sibling fixed effects we find large birth order differences in university applications. First-borns are more likely to apply to, and graduate from, medicine and engineering programs at university, while later-borns are more likely to study journalism and business programs, and to attend art school. We also find that these birth order patterns are stronger in high SES families. These results indicate that early life experiences and parental investment shapes sibling differences in ability, preferences, and ambitions even within the shared environment of the family. |
| Keywords: | Sweden, birth order |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2016-008&r=dem |
| By: | Bloom, David E. (Harvard University); Kuhn, Michael (Vienna Institute of Demography); Prettner, Klaus (University of Hohenheim) |
| Abstract: | We assess Africa's prospects for enjoying a demographic dividend. While fertility rates and dependency ratios in Africa remain high, they have started to decline. According to UN projections, they will fall further in the coming decades such that by the mid-21st century the ratio of the working-age to dependent population will be greater than in Asia, Europe, and Northern America. This projection suggests Africa has considerable potential to enjoy a demographic dividend. Whether and when it actually materializes, and also its magnitude, hinges on policies and institutions in key realms that include macroeconomic management, human capital, trade, governance, and labor and capital markets. Given strong complementarities among these areas, coordinated policies will likely be most effective in generating the momentum needed to pull Africa's economies out of a development trap. |
| Keywords: | Africa, declining fertility, demographic dividend, development, education, health, infrastructure |
| JEL: | J11 J13 J16 O10 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10161&r=dem |