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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2018‒01‒15
eight papers chosen by Héctor Pifarré i Arolas Max-Planck-Institut für demografische Forschung |
| By: | Baranov, Victoria (University of Melbourne); Bhalotra, Sonia R. (University of Essex); Biroli, Pietro (University of Zurich); Maselko, Joanna (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the long-term impact of treating maternal depression on women’s financial empowerment and parenting decisions. We leverage experimental variation induced by a cluster-randomized control trial that provided psychotherapy to perinatally depressed mothers in rural Pakistan. It was one the largest psychotherapy interventions in the world, and the treatment was highly successful at reducing depression. We locate mothers seven years after the end of the intervention to evaluate its long-run effects. We find that the intervention increased women’s financial empowerment, increasing their control over household spending. Additionally, the intervention increased both time- and monetary-intensive parental investments, with increases in investments tending to favor girls. |
| Keywords: | parenting, early life, empowerment, women’s labor supply, maternal depression, mental health, child development, randomized controlled trial, Pakistan |
| JEL: | I15 I30 O15 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11187&r=dem |
| By: | V. Joseph Hotz; Per Johansson; Arizo Karimi |
| Abstract: | We consider the role that firm attributes play in accounting for the divergence in the careers of women and men, with the onset of parenthood. We exploit a matched employer-employee data set from Sweden that provides a rich set of firm and worker attributes. We index firms by their “family friendliness” and analyze the effect of firm family friendliness on the career gap between mothers and fathers. We find that women disproportionately sort into family friendly firms after first birth and that the wage penalty to motherhood is diminished by being assigned to a more family friendly firm or job. We also find that working in a more family friendly firm or job diminishes the parenthood penalty to labor earnings and makes it easier for mothers to work more hours. At the same time, the smaller wage and income penalties to parents from working in family friendly firms and jobs come at the expense of their occupational progression, especially among mothers, impeding their ability to climb career ladders. Finally, we find that family friendly jobs are more easily substitutable for one another. This latter finding suggests that family friendly firms are able to accommodate the family responsibilities of their workers while still managing to keep their costs low. Our findings also suggest that paid parental leave with job protection – which are features of the Swedish context – may not be sufficient to achieve the balancing of career and family responsibilities, but that the way firms and jobs are structured can play a crucial role in facilitating this balance. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24173&r=dem |
| By: | Li, Li; Mak, Eric |
| Abstract: | Unilateral divorce catalyzes the dissolution of unstable marriages and reorganizing better ones. To examine how unilateral divorce affects marital duration, we develop a simple DID stochastic dominance comparison across legal regimes and marital cohorts. This DID comparison identifies that unilateral divorce catalyzes the dissolution of unstable marriages; more importantly, remarriages after the termination of first marriages also undergo significantly faster in the unilateral regime. We study the underlying mechanism using a parsimonious unitary model of marriage-remarriage cycle with three features: 1) on-the-job (marriage) search (OJS); 2) marital investment; 3) OJS feedbacks as an exogenous spousal separation event in the equilibrium. Under unilateral divorce, the lowered time cost involved in separation results in front-loaded OJS. |
| Keywords: | Marriage, OJS, Unilateral Divorce |
| JEL: | J12 |
| Date: | 2016–12–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:83330&r=dem |
| By: | ONDER Harun (World Bank); PESTIEAU Pierre (Université de Liège, CORE, Paris School of Economics); PONTHIERE Gregory (Université Paris East and Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses an equivalent income approach to quantify the domestic welfare loss due to the Syrian Civil War. Focusing on the (income, life expectancy) space, we show that the equivalent income has fallen by about 60 % in comparison to the pre-confl ic |
| Keywords: | Syrian war, conflict, mortality, welfare, equivalent income, measurement |
| JEL: | I31 J17 N35 |
| Date: | 2017–09–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2017025&r=dem |
| By: | LEFEBVRE Mathieu (Université de Strasbourg); PESTIEAU Pierre (Université de Liège and CORE); PONTHIERE Gregory (Université Paris Est) |
| Abstract: | Following Kanbur and Mukherjee (2007), a solution to the “missing poor” problem (i.e. selection bias in poverty measures due to income-differentiated mortality) consists in computing hypothetical poverty rates while assigning a fictitious income to the prematurely dead. However, in a dynamic general equilibrium economy, doing “as if” the prematurely dead were still alive is likely to affect wages, output and capital accumulation, with an uncertain effect on poverty. We develop a 3-period OLG model with income-differentiated mortality, and compare actual poverty rates with hypothetical poverty rates that would have prevailed if everyone faced the survival conditions of the top income class. Including the prematurely dead has an ambiguous impact on poverty, since it affects income distribution through capital dilution, composition effets and horizon effects. Our results are illustrated by quantifying the impact of income-differentiated mortality on poverty measures for France (1820-2010). |
| Keywords: | income-differentiated mortality, poverty measures, missing poor, OLG models, capital accumulation |
| JEL: | E13 E21 I32 |
| Date: | 2017–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2017016&r=dem |
| By: | FLEURBAEY Marc (Princeton University); LEROUX Marie-Louise (Université du Québec à Montréal); PESTIEAU Pierre (Université de Liège and CORE); PONTHIERE Gregory (Université Paris East); ZUBER Stéphane (CNRS and Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | While little agreement exists regarding the taxation of bequests in general, there is a widely held view that accidental bequests should be subject to a confiscatory tax. We propose to reexamine the optimal taxation of accidental bequests in an economy wh |
| Keywords: | mortality, accidental bequests, optimal taxation, egalitarianism, OLG models. |
| JEL: | D63 D64 D91 H31 J10 |
| Date: | 2017–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2017034&r=dem |
| By: | Krolikowski, Pawel (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland); Coate, Patrick (National Council for Compensation Insurance); Zabek, Michael A. (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | Young adults, ages 25 to 35, who live in the same neighborhoods as their parents experience stronger earnings recoveries after a job displacement than those who live farther away. This result is driven by smaller on-impact wage reductions and sharper recoveries in both hours and wages. We show that geographic mobility, different job search durations, housing transfers, and ex-ante differences between individuals are unlikely explanations. Our findings are consistent with a framework in which some individuals living near their parents face a better wage-offer distribution, though we find no direct evidence of parental network effects. |
| Keywords: | Parents; adult children; job loss; neighborhood; transfers; networks; |
| JEL: | J61 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2017–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1722&r=dem |
| By: | de Silva, Tiloka; Tenreyro, Silvana |
| Abstract: | Over the past four decades, fertility rates have fallen dramatically in most middle- and low-income countries around the world. To analyze these developments, we study a quantitative model of endogenous human capital and fertility choice, augmented to allow for social norms over the number of children. The model enables us to gauge the role of human capital accumulation on the decline in fertility and to simulate the implementation of population-control policies aimed at affecting social norms and fostering the use of contraceptive technologies. Using data on several socio-economic variables as well as information on funding of population-control policies to parametrize the model, we find that policies aimed at altering family-size norms have provided a significant impulse to accelerate and strengthen the decline in fertility that would have otherwise gradually taken place as economies move to higher levels of human capital. |
| Keywords: | fertility rates; birth rate; convergence; macro-development; Malthusian growth; population. |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86157&r=dem |