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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Madeeha Gohar Qureshi (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad) |
| Abstract: | How do we achieve target of universal primary education in Pakistan and how do we keep students that have enrolled to continue with schooling to higher levels are the most important policy questions which can only be effectively answered if one is well-informed about the trends in educational outcomes and of proportion of students indulging in continuation or discontinuation of schooling at critical transitions say from primary to secondary benchmark and higher. Hence an accurate description of patterns in educational achievements is crucial for both understanding the dynamic of low human capital stock build up and also for finding ways of getting out of such low-educational trap. In this context gender discrepancy in human capital building process plays an important role and in this paper an attempt is made to examine in-depth how gap in attained schooling measures for males and females at different levels of education have evolved in Pakistan through analysing the varying behaviour over age cohorts by gender. Further not only patterns of gender gap in achieved education are formulated for overall economy and across rural-urban divide both at national and provincial level but a rough estimate for attrition or continuation in studies as one move from lower to higher educational level for males and females within age cohort 15–19 are also evaluated so as to capture in totality the gender dynamics in education sector. Our findings show that though there is conspicuous deviations in percentage shares of population with completed grades by gender in favour of the males and against females at all levels of education from basic to higher studies within each province (only exception to this trend is at tertiary level of education within urban Punjab where females are in slightly higher proportion), however the analysis by age cohort show that as one move from oldest to youngest age group with individuals belonging to attained education from primary to tertiary level of education, there is a present a tilt towards university level of education for females within their own attainment distribution indicating that there is emerging a tendency of break in patriarchal force against female education. Further such tendencies are more apparent in urban parts of Pakistan and that too from mainly Province Punjab. |
| Keywords: | Schooling Attainment, Gender, Age Cohort Analysis, Pakistan |
| JEL: | I21 J16 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2015:125&r=dem |
| By: | Koen Decancq; Alexander Michiels |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how to measure successful aging in a manner consistent with the preferences of older persons about what matters in their lives. First it considers the extent to which existing objective and subjective measures of successful aging reflect those preferences. It is found that both objective and subjective measures may contradict preferences that are held unanimously by older persons. Subsequently a new measure of successful aging is proposed that is consistent with those preferences. The implementation of the preference-based measure is illustrated with data for 11 European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The proposed measure is found to yield different results than existing objective and subjective measures in terms of how successful aging has evolved between 2007 and 2013, how countries are ranked for successful aging, and the shape of the age distribution of successful aging. |
| Keywords: | preferences, SHARE, successful aging |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1604&r=dem |
| By: | Wei Huang |
| Abstract: | I use the experience of China's One Child Policy to examine how fertility restrictions affect economic and social outcomes over the lifetime. The One Child Policy imposed a birth quota and heavy penalties for ?out-of-plan? births. Using variation in the fertility penalties across provinces over time, I examine how fertility restrictions imposed early in the lives of individuals affected their educational attainment, marriage and fertility decisions, and later life economic outcomes. Exposure to stricter fertility restrictions when young leads to higher education, more white-collar jobs, delayed marriage, and lower fertility. Further consequences include lower rates of residing with the elderly, higher household income, consumption, and saving. Finally, exposure to stricter fertility restrictions in early life increases later life female empowerment as measured by an increase in the fraction of households headed by women, female-oriented consumption, and gender-equal opinions. Overall, fertility restrictions imposed when people are young have powerful effects throughout the life cycle. (JEL classification: H70, I20, J00, O12) |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:462311&r=dem |
| By: | Bruno Rodrigues; Vincent Vergnat |
| Abstract: | Using French administrative data, we estimate the impact of the birth of a first, second and third child on hourly wages, as well as for hours worked, for both women and men. We compute the impact on these out- come variables, two, four and six years after the birth of the child, and focus on the distinction between highly educated women and women with a high school degree or less. We also take the maternity leave (or pa- ternity leave in case of men) duration into account. Estimation is done with difference-in-differences and we compute bootstrapped confidence intervals. Results show both lower and highly educated women decrease significantly their working hours after the birth of their child. Men are, for the most part, not much impacted by the birth of their children. Ma- ternity leave duration influences the magnitude of the impact of the birth, especially on the hourly wages of educated women. |
| Keywords: | Fertility decisions, Labour Supply, Difference in Differences, Family pay gap. |
| JEL: | D10 J13 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2016-48&r=dem |
| By: | Michele Di Maio (University of Naples Parthenope); Roberto Nisticò (Università di Napoli Federico II and CSEF) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effect of parental job loss on child school dropout using data from the Palestinian Labour Force Survey. To identify the effect, we exploit conflict-induced job separations of Palestinian workers employed in Israel during the Second Intifada. Our results show that parental job loss increases child's school dropout probability by 9 percentage points. The effect varies with the gender, grade, and academic ability of the child, with parental education and the number of children in the household. The effect appears to be driven by a drop in household income. We do not find evidence of alternative mechanisms such as parental divorce or relocation. |
| Keywords: | Job loss, school dropout, conict, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Israel |
| JEL: | H56 I20 J63 |
| Date: | 2016–10–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:456&r=dem |
| By: | Zuzana Brixiová (SALDRU, University of Cape Town); Thierry Kangoye (African Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines gender differences in entrepreneurial performance and their links with start-up capital utilizing a search model and empirical analysis of survey of entrepreneurs from Swaziland. The results show that entrepreneurs of both genders with higher start-up capital record better sales performance than those with smaller amounts of capital. For women entrepreneurs, formal finance sources of start-up capital are also associated with higher sales. However, as in other developing countries, women entrepreneurs in Swaziland have smaller start-up capital and are less likely to fund it from formal sources than men. Among women entrepreneurs, those with college education and confident in their skills tend to start their firms with higher amounts of capital. Professional support also matters, as women with such support are more likely to fund their start-up capital from the formal financial sector. |
| Keywords: | women's entrepreneurship, start-up capital, search model, multivariate analysis |
| JEL: | L53 O12 C61 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:192&r=dem |
| By: | van Santen, Peter (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between household saving and pensions, and estimates both the displacement effect of pensions on private saving and the precautionary saving effect due to uncertainty in pension income. I estimate the savings equation derived from a lifecycle model featuring income uncertainty using survey data for Dutch households, with subjective expectations on pension benefits and uncertainty. Exploiting exogenous variation due to pension fund performance, I find that households save significantly more due to uncertainty in pension income. Not controlling for uncertainty biases the estimated displacement effect of pensions on private savings towards zero. |
| Keywords: | Precautionary saving; Displacement effect; Subjective expectations |
| JEL: | D91 H55 J26 |
| Date: | 2016–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0330&r=dem |
| By: | Ning Sun; Zaifu Yang |
| Abstract: | Abstract: We study a general model of marriage in which there are finitely many singles (unmarried men or women) and married couples. Singles wish to marry. Married couples can divorce and thus remarry as long as both parties will not be made worse off than they maintain the status quo. This is called mutual consent divorce. We examine the problem of how to make marriages between men and women as well as possible by allowing mutual consent divorce. We show the existence of a nonempty core of marriage matchings and also propose a finite procedure for finding a core matching. The procedure is a novel blend of modifications of two celebrated algorithms: the deferred acceptance procedure of Gale and Shapley (1962) and the top trading cycle method from Shapley and Scarf (1974). |
| Keywords: | Marriage, core, stability, mutual consent divorce, partial commitment. |
| JEL: | C71 C78 J12 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:yorken:16/14&r=dem |
| By: | Gröbel, Sören; Ihle, Dorothee |
| Abstract: | Housing property is the most important position in a household's wealth portfolio. Even though there is strong evidence that house price cycles and saving patterns behave synchronously, the underlying causes remain controversial. The present paper examines if there is a wealth effect of house prices on savings using household-level longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 1996-2012. We find that young renters increase and young homeowners decrease their savings in response to unanticipated house price shocks, whereas old households only hardly respond to house price changes. We interpret this as evidence of a housing wealth effect. |
| Keywords: | housing wealth,saving behavior,SOEP,Germany |
| JEL: | D91 E21 R31 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cawmdp:90&r=dem |