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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Victor Lavy; Giulia Lotti; Zizhong Yan |
| Abstract: | Empowering women and enhancing children’s early development are two important goals that are often pursued via independent policy initiatives in developing countries. In this paper we study a unique approach that pursues both goals at the same time: empowering mothers through tools that also advance their children’s development. A program operated by AVSI, an Italian NGO, in a poor neighborhood of Quito, Ecuador, targets parents of children from birth to age 5. It provides family advisor-guided parent training sessions once every two weeks for groups of six to eight mothers and their children. We find that the program empowered women in various dimensions, including higher labor force participation and employment, higher likelihood of a full-time job in the formal-sector and higher wages. Treated mothers are also more likely to continue their education, make independent decisions regarding their own finances, have greater role in intra-household decisions, especially on issues involving children’s education and discipline and increase parental inputs into their children’s development. We find that treated children improve their cognitive and non-cognitive skills, for example, they are less likely to repeat a grade or temporarily drop-out from schooling, are less absent from and have improved behaviors in school, have better attitudes towards learning, and achieve higher scores on cognitive tests. Applying a recently suggested factor model of children's relative non-cognitive skills reaffirms our finding of significant gains in children non-cognitive skills. All results hold when we estimate aggregate treatment impacts, use summary indices instead of individual outcomes in order to account for multiple inference, when we use entropy balancing to adjust for differences in pre-treatment covariates, and when we use other robustness checks. |
| JEL: | I25 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22963&r=dem |
| By: | David Cuberes (Clark University); Marc Teignier (Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the quantitative effects of gender gaps in entrepreneurship and workforce participation in an occupational choice model with a household sector. Gender gaps in entrepreneurship affect negatively both income and aggregate productivity, since they reduce the entrepreneurs’ average talent and female labor force participation. We estimate the gender gaps for 37 European countries and we find that gender gaps cause an average market output loss of 11.5% when they are considered constant across talent levels. The loss in total output, which also includes household production, varies between 6.4% and 8.7%, depending on the household productivity parameter. |
| Keywords: | Gender-specific occupational choice frictions, Entrepreneurhsip talent misallocation, Total output. |
| JEL: | E2 J21 O40 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ewp:wpaper:356web&r=dem |
| By: | Adelina Gschwandtner; Sarah L. Jewell; Uma Kambhampati |
| Abstract: | In the present paper we attempt to analyse the relationship between ‘lifestyle’ and happiness in the UK using fixed effects and granger causality tests to test for endogeneity. We split the analysis by gender and find different effects between women and men. While men seem to be more physically active and this active lifestyle impacts stronger on their wellbeing than on the one of women, women seem to be more conscientious with respect to nutrition and nutrition impacts stronger on the wellbeing of women than on the wellbeing of men. In general lifestyle variables have a significantly positive impact on happiness and the impact remains significant with the use of fixed effects for both genders. This suggests that a ‘healthy lifestyle’ has a positive impact on happiness and that any policy improving our lifestyle proxies would also make people happier in the UK. |
| Keywords: | Wellbeing; Life Satisfaction; Happiness; Nutrition; Exercise; Lifestyle; Fixed Effects; Granger Causality |
| JEL: | D31 I31 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1613&r=dem |
| By: | Gilberto Antonelli (Department of Economics and SDIC, University of Bologna; AlmaLaurea Interuniverisity Consortium); Sara Binassi (AlmaLaurea Interuniversity Consortium); Giovanni Guidetti (Department of Economics and SDIC, University of Bologna); Giulio Pedrini (Interuniversity Research Centre on Public Services (CRISP) and SDIC, University of Bologna) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at investigating the phenomenon of graduates’ migration from an OECD country at microeconomic level in order to offer an insight into the scholarly debate on migration decision of high-skilled workers living in a developed country. By merging data on working conditions on Italian graduates with the results of an ad-hoc survey on Italian graduates working abroad, the paper assesses the selectivity of migration choices, the wage premium associated to migration decision on their earnings, and the determinants of the earning function for those graduates that work abroad. Results partially confirms the applicability of the Borjas model on selectivity of migration choice. It also shows the existence of a substantial wage premium associated with the decision to work abroad in line with an extended human capital approach. However, it also suggests a greater complexity of both the selection and the earning function of high-skilled workers, due to their longer and differentiated educational career, the stronger weight attached to preference variables, the degree of skills’ portability attached to university’s location and fields of study, and, in general, to the capability of a tertiary education system to provide their graduates with the skills required by international labour markets. |
| Keywords: | higher education, migration, international labour markets, inequality |
| JEL: | J61 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:76&r=dem |
| By: | Avdic, Daniel (University of Duisburg-Essen, IFAU, CINCH); Karimi, Arizo (Department of Economics at Uppsala University, UCLS, IFAU) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of unanticipated changes to the intra-household division of parental leave on family stability exploiting two parental leave reforms in Sweden. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we find that a decrease in the mother’s share of parental leave increases the probability of separation among couples that were married or cohabiting at the time of the reforms. Our results also suggest a lower likelihood of cohabiting couples to upgrade to marriage. Examination of reform compliers reveal that the increased separation risk is mainly driven by more traditional couples, and among couples with previous children. |
| Keywords: | marital stability; parental leave; intra-household division; regression discontinuity |
| JEL: | C26 D13 J13 J31 |
| Date: | 2016–12–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2016_023&r=dem |
| By: | Simon Lange; Marten von Werder |
| Abstract: | Proponents of tracking argue that the creation of more homogeneous classes increases effciency while opponents point out that tracking aggravates initial differences between students. We estimate the effects on the intergenerational transmission of education of a reform that delayed tracking by two years in one of Germany's federal states. While the reform had no effect on educational outcomes on average, it increased educational attainment among individuals with uneducated parents and decreased attainment among individuals with educated parents. The effect is driven entirely by changes in the gradient for males and to a large extent by an effect on the likelihood to complete the academic secondary track. |
| Keywords: | tracking; educational institutions; educational inequality; equality of opportunity; intergenerational mobility |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I28 J62 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp880&r=dem |
| By: | Claudia Goldin; Joshua Mitchell |
| Abstract: | A new lifecycle of women’s employment emerged with cohorts born in the 1950s. For prior cohorts, lifecycle employment had a hump shape; it increased from the twenties to the forties, hit a peak and then declined starting in the fifties. The new lifecycle of employment is initially high and flat, there is a dip in the middle and a phasing out that is more prolonged than for previous cohorts. The hump is gone, the middle is a bit sagging and the top has greatly expanded. We explore the increase in cumulative work experience for women from the 1930s to the 1970s birth cohorts using the SIPP and the HRS. We investigate the changing labor force impact of a birth event across cohorts and by education and also the impact of taking leave or quitting. We find greatly increased labor force experience across cohorts, far less time out after a birth and greater labor force recovery for those who take paid or unpaid leave. Increased employment of women in their older ages is related to more continuous work experience across the lifecycle. |
| JEL: | J16 J21 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22913&r=dem |