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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | John Ameriks; Joseph S. Briggs; Andrew Caplin; Minjoon Lee; Matthew D. Shapiro; Christopher Tonetti |
| Abstract: | Older Americans, even those who are long retired, have strong willingness to work, especially in jobs with flexible schedules. For many, labor force participation near or after normal retirement age is limited more by a lack of acceptable job opportunities or low expectations about finding them than by unwillingness to work longer. This paper establishes these findings using an approach to identification based on strategic survey questions (SSQs) purpose-designed to complement behavioral data. These findings suggest that demand-side factors are important in explaining late-in-life labor market behavior and may be the most appropriate target for policy aimed at promoting working longer. |
| JEL: | E24 J22 J26 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24008&r=dem |
| By: | Haan, Peter (DIW Berlin); Kemptner, Daniel (DIW Berlin); Lüthen, Holger (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | This study uses German social security records to provide novel evidence about the heterogeneity in life expectancy by lifetime earnings and, additionally, documents the distributional implications of this earnings-related heterogeneity. We find a strong association between lifetime earnings and life expectancy at age 65 and show that the longevity gap is increasing across cohorts. For West German men born 1926–28, the longevity gap between top and bottom decile amounts to about 4 years (about 30%). This gap increases to 7 years (almost 50%) for cohorts 1947–49. We extend our analysis to the household context and show that lifetime earnings are also related to the life expectancy of the spouse. The heterogeneity in life expectancy has sizable and relevant distributional consequences for the pension system: when accounting for heterogeneous life expectancy, we find that the German pension system is regressive despite a strong contributory link. We show that the internal rate of return of the pension system increases with lifetime earnings. Finally, we document an increase of the regressive structure across cohorts, which is consistent with the increasing longevity gap. |
| Keywords: | mortality, lifetime inequality, pensions, redistribution |
| JEL: | H55 I14 J11 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11121&r=dem |
| By: | Evan Taylor (University of Chicago); Bryan Stuart (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the effect of social connectedness on crime across U.S. cities from 1960- 2009. Migration networks among African Americans from the South generated variation across destinations in the concentration of migrants from the same birth town. Using this novel source of variation, we find that social connectedness considerably reduces murders, robberies, assaults, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts, with a one standard deviation increase in social connectedness reducing murders by 13 percent and motor vehicle thefts by 9 percent. Our results appear to be driven by stronger relationships among older generations reducing crime committed by youth. |
| Keywords: | crime, social connectedness, Great Migration |
| JEL: | K42 N32 R23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2017-24&r=dem |
| By: | Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes (San Diego State University); Esther Arenas-Arroyo (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Tougher immigration enforcement has been responsible for 1.8 million deportations between 2009 and 2013 alone, most of them involving fathers and heads of household. We exploit the geographic and temporal variation in intensified enforcement to gauge its impact on children’s propensity to live without their parents in households headed by relatives or friends, or in households singly headed by their mothers with absentee spouses. Given the emotional, cognitive and long run socioeconomic costs of being raised without parents or in a single-headed household, gaining a better understanding of the collateral damage of heightened enforcement on the families to which these children belong is well warranted. |
| Keywords: | Immigration Enforcement, Unauthorized Immigration, Family Structure, United States |
| JEL: | J13 J15 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1711&r=dem |
| By: | Jose Manuel Aburto Flores (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Alyson A. van Raalte (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Central and Eastern Europe have experienced considerable instability in mortality since the 1960s. Long periods of stagnating life expectancy were followed by rapid increases in life expectancy and in some cases even more rapid declines before more recent periods of improvement. These trends have been well documented but to date, no study has comprehensively explored trends in lifespan variation. We improve such analyses by incorporating life disparity as a health indicator alongside life expectancy. We analyzed how lifespan variation has changed since the 1960s for 12 countries from the region and determined the ages which have contributed the most to the observed variability in age at death. Furthermore, we quantified the effect of mortality related to alcohol consumption on life disparity since 1994. Our results showed that life disparity was high and strongly fluctuating over the time period. Life expectancy and life disparity moved independently from one another, particularly during periods of life expectancy stagnation. Fluctuations in mortality were, to a large extent, directly or partially attributable to changes in alcohol consumption. These trends run counter to the common patterns observed in most developed countries and contribute to the life expectancy-disparity discussion by showing that expansion/compression levels do not necessarily mean lower/higher life expectancy or mortality deterioration/improvements. |
| Keywords: | Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, age at death, alcoholism, causes of death, differential mortality, inequality, life expectancy |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2017-018&r=dem |
| By: | Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | I analyze the adult age at death of 115,650 European nobles from 800 to 1800. Longevity began increasing long before 1800 and the Industrial Revolution, with marked increases around 1400 and again around 1650. Declines in violent deaths from battle contributed to some of this increase, but the majority must reflect other changes in individual behavior. There are historic spatial contours to European elite mortality; Northwest Europe achieved greater adult lifespans than the rest of Europe even by 1000 ad. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–06–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:83576&r=dem |
| By: | Jan Eeckhout (University College London and Barcelona); Hector Chade (Arizona State University) |
| Abstract: | Inequality in household earnings has increased enormously in the last decades. The variance of joint male and female earnings has gone up eightfold since 1960. This has often been attributed to marital sorting, the fact that married partners tend to have more similar levels of education. In this paper we investigate how this contrasts with stochastic sorting, the fact that earnings have become more volatile. We characterize conditions for stochastic sorting and propose a measure for marital sorting (or mismatch). Contrary to popular belief, we find that marital sorting has not changed once we account for the changing distributions of education: the distribution of educational attainment has shifted to the right (and more so for the females than for the males). The lion share of the increase in the variance in household earnings stems from the fact that over time: 1. the variance of earnings has increased; and 2. that now there are many more highly educated earners whose variance is substantially higher the that of the low educated. Marital sorting on education contributes nearly nothing. There is a modest increase in the correlation of earnings (from slightly negative to 11%), which could be attributed to marital sorting based on (unobserved) characteristics other than education. But that does not take away from the fact that 80% of the increase in the variance of household income is due to stochastic sorting. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:976&r=dem |
| By: | Hoddinott, John F.; Mekasha, Tseday J. |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of a social protection program, Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), on household size and the factors that cause household size to change: fertility, child fosterage, and in and out migration related to work and marriage. Participation in the PSNP leads to an increase in household size of 0.3 members. PSNP participation lowers fertility by 7.6 to 9.9 percentage points. The increase in household size arises from an increase in the number of girls aged 12 to 18 years. We present suggestive evidence that this occurs because the PSNP causes households to delay marrying out adolescent females. |
| Keywords: | fertility; marriage; sociology |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:esspwp:107&r=dem |
| By: | Virginia Sanchez Marcos (Universidad de Cantabria); Ezgi Kaya (Cardiff Business School); Nezih Guner (CEMFI) |
| Abstract: | How does the dual labor market structure, i.e. the presence of jobs with temporary and permanent contracts, affect the fertility behavior of women in Spain? Using data from the Spanish Social Security Records, we first show that having a temporary contract has a significant and negative effect on the probability that a woman has her first birth. A highly-educated women with permanent contract is twice more likely to have a birth compared to a similar woman with a temporary contract. Second., we show that having a child lowers the probability of being promoted from a temporary to permanent contract and the effect is strongest for highly-educated women. We next build a life-cycle model in which married women decide whether to work or not as well as how many children to have and when to have them. In the model economy, all agents start their labor careers with temporary jobs and children affect the probability of being promoted to a permanent jobs negatively. Given the cost of having children, both in terms of time and money as well as in terms of labor market implications, women make their fertility choices. We use this model to quantify how the dual labor market structure affects fertility decisions as well as potential effects of labor market reforms on fertility. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:1015&r=dem |
| By: | Dyson, Tim; Cetorelli, Valeria |
| Abstract: | In August 1990, Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait and consequently the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. In 1991, an international military alliance expelled the Iraqi army from Kuwait during a short war. Nevertheless, the economic sanctions remained in place—their removal required that Iraq should destroy its weapons of mass destruction. Subsequent years saw reports of acute suffering in Iraq. The sanctions undoubtedly greatly reduced the country’s ability to import supplies of food and medicine. Particular concerns arose about the state of young children. These concerns crystalised in 1999 when, with cooperation from the Iraqi government, Unicef conducted a major demographic survey. The results of the survey indicated that the under-5 death rate in Iraq had increased hugely between 1990 and 1991 and had then continued at a very high level. The survey results were used both to challenge and support the case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And they were cited by Tony Blair in 2010 in his testimony to the Iraq Inquiry established by the British government. Indeed, the results of the 1999 Unicef/Government of Iraq survey are still cited. Since 2003, however, several more surveys dealing with child mortality have been undertaken. Their results show no sign of a huge and enduring rise in the under-5 death rate starting in 1991. It is therefore clear that Saddam Hussein’s government successfully manipulated the 1999 survey in order to convey a very false impression—something that is surely deserving of greater recognition. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:73136&r=dem |
| By: | Goodhart, Charles; Pradhan, Manoj |
| Abstract: | Between the 1980s and the 2000s, the largest ever positive labour supply shock occurred, resulting from demographic trends and from the inclusion of China and eastern Europe into the World Trade Organization. This led to a shift in manufacturing to Asia, especially China; a stagnation in real wages; a collapse in the power of private sector trade unions; increasing inequality within countries, but less inequality between countries; deflationary pressures; and falling interest rates. This shock is now reversing. As the world ages, real interest rates will rise, inflation and wage growth will pick up and inequality will fall. What is the biggest challenge to our thesis? The hardest prior trend to reverse will be that of low interest rates, which have resulted in a huge and persistent debt overhang, apart from some deleveraging in advanced economy banks. Future problems may now intensify as the demographic structure worsens, growth slows, and there is little stomach for major inflation. Are we in a trap where the debt overhang enforces continuing low interest rates, and those low interest rates encourage yet more debt finance? There is no silver bullet, but we recommend policy measures to switch from debt to equity finance. |
| Keywords: | demography; global labor supply; ageing; real interest rates; inequality |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:84208&r=dem |
| By: | Guido Neidhöfer (Freie Universität Berlin); Joaquín Serrano (CEDLAS-FCE-UNLP & CONICET); Leonardo Gasparini (CEDLAS-FCE-UNLP & CONICET) |
| Abstract: | The causes and consequences of the intergenerational persistence of inequality are a topic of great interest among various fields in economics. However, until now, issues of data availability have restricted a broader and cross-national perspective on the topic. Based on rich sets of harmonized household survey data, we contribute to filling this gap computing time series for several indexes of relative and absolute intergenerational education mobility for 18 Latin American countries over 50 years, and making them publicly available. We find that intergenerational mobility has been rising in Latin America, on average. This pattern seems to be driven by the high upward mobility of children from low-educated families; at the same time, there is substantial immobility at the top of the distribution. Significant cross-country differences are observed and are associated with income inequality, poverty, economic growth, public educational expenditures and assortative mating. |
| JEL: | D63 I24 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0215&r=dem |