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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2018‒02‒19
nine papers chosen by Héctor Pifarré i Arolas Max-Planck-Institut für demografische Forschung |
| By: | Henrik Kleven; Camille Landais; Jakob Egholt Søgaard |
| Abstract: | Despite considerable gender convergence over time, substantial gender inequality persists in all countries. Using Danish administrative data from 1980-2013 and an event study approach, we show that most of the remaining gender inequality in earnings is due to children. The arrival of children creates a gender gap in earnings of around 20% in the long run, driven in roughly equal proportions by labor force participation, hours of work, and wage rates. Underlying these “child penalties”, we find clear dynamic impacts on occupation, promotion to manager, sector, and the family friendliness of the firm for women relative to men. Based on a dynamic decomposition framework, we show that the fraction of gender inequality caused by child penalties has increased dramatically over time, from about 40% in 1980 to about 80% in 2013. As a possible explanation for the persistence of child penalties, we show that they are transmitted through generations, from parents to daughters (but not sons), consistent with an influence of childhood environment in the formation of women’s preferences over family and career. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J21 J22 J31 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24219&r=dem |
| By: | Matteo Picchio (Di.S.E.S. - Universita' Politecnica delle Marche); Claudia Pigini (Di.S.E.S. - Universita' Politecnica delle Marche); Stefano Staffolani (Di.S.E.S. - Universita' Politecnica delle Marche); Alina Verashchagina (Di.S.E.S. - Universita' Politecnica delle Marche) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of childbirth and its timing on female labour market outcomes in italy. The impact on yearly labour earnings and participation is traced up to 21 years since school completion by estimating a factor analytic model with dynamic selection into treatments. We find that childbearing, especially the first delivery, negatively affects female labour supply. Women having their first child soon after school completion are able to catch up with childless women only after 12-15 years. The timing matters, with minimal negative consequences observed if the first child is delayed up to 7-9 years after exiting formal education |
| Keywords: | Female labour supply; fertility; discrete choice models; dynamic treatment effect; factor analytic model |
| JEL: | C33 C35 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:425&r=dem |
| By: | Christelle Dumas (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - Université de Cergy Pontoise - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Arnaud Lefranc (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - Université de Cergy Pontoise - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the tradeoff between child quantity and quality in developing countries by estimating the effect of family size on child education in urban Philippines. To isolate exogenous changes in family size, we exploit a policy shock: in the late 1990s, the mayor of Manila enacted a municipal ban on modern contraceptives. Since other comparable cities in the Manila metropolitan area were not affected by the ban, this allows us to implement a difference-in-difference estimation of the effect of family size. We also exploit the fact that older mothers were less likely to become pregnant during the ban. Our results indicate that the contraceptive ban led to a significant increase in family size. They also provide evidence of a quality-quantity tradeoff: increased family size led to a sizable decrease in school performance. |
| Keywords: | Philippines,quantity-quality tradeoff,family size,human capital investment,fertility |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00867874&r=dem |
| By: | Pierre-Richard Agénor |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how social norms influence gender bias in the workplace and in the family, how these two forms of discrimination interact among themselves and with intra-household bargaining, and how gender norms evolve in the course of development. The presence of women in the labor market is a key determinant of the degree of gender bias in the workplace. Household preferences towards girls' education depend on women's bargaining power which, through the male-female wage gap, depends itself on gender bias in the labor market. Experiments with a calibrated version of the model for a stylized low-income country show that interactions between social norms, women's time allocation, and gender gaps are a critical source of growth dynamics. Initial measures aimed at mitigating the influence of discriminatory norms regarding gender roles in the workplace and in the family can magnify over time the benefits of standard policy prescriptions (aimed for instance at fostering childhood education) in promoting development and gender equality. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:man:cgbcrp:237&r=dem |
| By: | Xiaodong Fan (University of New South Wales); Ananth Seshadri (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Christopher Taber (University of Wisconsin-Madison) |
| Abstract: | We develop and estimate a model in which individuals make decisions on consumption, human capital investment, labor supply, and retirement. Unlike all previous work, our model allows both an endogenous wage process (which is typically assumed exogenous in the human capital and earnings dynamics literature). In addition, we introduce health shocks. We estimate the model and match the life-cycle profiles of wages, hours and retirement from SIPP data. We analyze the impact of health shocks on retirement, as well as the effect of changes in payroll taxes and increases in the Normal Retirement Age on labor force participation of older Americans. |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrr:papers:wp367&r=dem |
| By: | Alger, Ingela; Lehmann, Laurent; Weibull, Jörgen W. |
| Abstract: | Humans have evolved in populations structured in groups that extended beyond the nuclear family. Individuals interacted with each other within these groups and there was limited migration and sometimes conáicts between these groups. Suppose that during this evolution, individuals transmitted their behaviors or preferences to their (genetic or cultural) o§spring, and that material outcomes resulting from the interaction determined which parents were more successful than others in producing (genetic or cultural) o§spring. Should one then expect pure material self-interest to prevail? Some degree of altruism, spite, inequity aversion or morality? By building on established models in population biology we analyze the role that di§erent aspects of population structureó such as group size, migration rates, probability of group conáicts, cultural loyalty towards parentsó play in shaping behaviors and preferences which, once established, cannot be displaced by any other preference. In particular, we establish that uninvadable preferences under limited migration between groups will consist of a materially self-interested, a moral, and an other-regarding component, and we show how the strength of each component depends on population structure. |
| Keywords: | Strategic interactions; Preference evolution; Evolution by natural selection; Cultural transmission; Pro-sociality; Altruism; Morality; Spite |
| JEL: | A12 A13 B52 C73 D01 D63 D64 D91 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:32434&r=dem |
| By: | Guido Friebel (Goethe University Frankfurt, CEPR and IZA); Miriam Manchin (University College of London); Mariapia Mendola (Università di Milano-Bicocca and IZA); Giovanni Prarolo (Università di Bologna) |
| Abstract: | Africa-to-Europe irregular migration depends heavily on human smuggling services. The demise of the Gaddafi regime in 2011 marked the end of a bilateral agreement between Italy and Libya and opened the Central Mediterranean Route for irregular border crossing. How did this remarkable increase in human smuggling services affect migration intentions in the rest of the region? This paper isolates a causal impact by exploiting the spatial dimension of the smuggling network and its change over time, which produced a heterogeneous decrease in bilateral migration distances between countries in Africa and Europe. We use this source of variation and a novel dataset of bilateral distances along irregular land and sea routes, combined with cross-country survey data on individual intentions to move from Africa to Europe between 2010 and 2012. Netting out pair- and country-by-time-specific fixed effects, we find a large negative effect of distance along smuggling routes on individual migration intentions. Shorter distances increase the willingness to migrate especially for youth, (medium) skilled individuals and those with a network abroad. The effect is stronger in origin countries not too far from Libya and with weak rule of law. |
| Keywords: | International Migration, Human Smuggling, Illegal Migration, Libyan Civil War |
| JEL: | K23 K42 |
| Date: | 2018–01–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:432&r=dem |
| By: | Jauer, Julia; Liebig, Thomas; Martin, John P.; Puhani, Patrick A. |
| Abstract: | We estimate whether migration can be an equilibrating force in the labour market by comparing pre- and post-crisis migration movements at the regional level in both Europe and the United States, and their association with asymmetric labour market shocks. Based on fixedeffects regressions using regional panel data, we find that Europe’s migratory response to unemployment shocks was almost identical to that recorded in the United States after the crisis. Our estimates suggest that, if all measured population changes in Europe were due to migration for employment purposes – i.e. an upper-bound estimate – up to about a quarter of the asymmetric labour market shock would be absorbed by migration within a year. However, in Europe and especially in the Eurozone, the reaction to a very large extent stems from migration of recent EU accession country citizens as well as of third-country nationals. |
| Keywords: | Free mobility; migration; economic crisis; labour market adjustment; Eurozone; Europe; United States |
| JEL: | F15 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2018:02&r=dem |
| By: | Clemens, Michael A.; Hunt, Jennifer |
| Abstract: | An influential strand of research has tested for the effects of immigration on natives’ wages and employment using exogenous refugee supply shocks as natural experiments. Several studies have reached conflicting conclusions about the effects of noted refugee waves such as the Mariel Boatlift in Miami and post-Soviet refugees to Israel. We show that conflicting findings on the effects of the Mariel Boatlift can be explained by a large difference in the pre- and post-Boatlift racial composition in subsamples of the Current Population Survey extracts. This compositional change is specific to Miami, unrelated to the Boatlift, and arises from selecting small subsamples of workers. We also show that conflicting findings on the labor market effects of other important refugee waves are caused by spurious correlation between the instrument and the endogenous variable introduced by applying a common divisor to both. As a whole, the evidence from refugee waves reinforces the existing consensus that the impact of immigration on average native-born workers is small, and fails to substantiate claims of large detrimental impacts on workers with less than high school |
| Keywords: | refugees; immigration; instrumental variables |
| JEL: | J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2017–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86582&r=dem |