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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2018‒09‒03
eight papers chosen by Héctor Pifarré i Arolas Max-Planck-Institut für demografische Forschung |
| By: | Titan Alon; Matthias Doepke (Northwestern University); Sena Ekin Coskun (Northwestern University) |
| Abstract: | In recent decades, the correlation between U.S. men's wages and hours worked has reversed: low-wage men used to work the longest hours, whereas today it is men with the highest wages who work the most. This changing correlation accounts for roughly 30 percent of the rise in the variance of male earnings between 1975 and 2015. In this paper, we rationalize these trends in a model of joint household labor supply. Our quantitative model generates similar changes to what is observed in the data as a reaction to shifts in women's education and labor supply, the gender gap, and assortative mating. Our model is consistent with the observations that the changing wage-hours correlation among men is driven by married men, and that there is little change in the wage-hours correlation among employed women and at the household level. The results suggest that taking into account joint household decision making is essential for understanding the dynamics of labor supply. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:552&r=dem |
| By: | Bargain, Olivier (University of Bordeaux); Lacroix, Guy (Université Laval); Tiberti, Luca (Partnership for Economic Policy (pep)) |
| Abstract: | Recent advances in the collective model literature suggest ways to estimate the complete allocation of resources within households, using assignable goods and assuming adult preference similarity across demographic groups (or across spouses). While it makes welfare analysis at the individual level possible, the predictive power of the model is unknown. We propose the first validation of this approach, exploiting a unique dataset from Bangladesh in which the detailed expenditure on private goods by each family member is collected. Individualized expenditure allows us to test the identifying assumptions and to derive 'observed' resource sharing within families, which can be compared to the resource allocation predicted by the model. Sharing between parents and children is well predicted on average while the model detects key aspects like the extent of pro-boy discrimination. Results overall depend on the identifying good: clothing provides the best t compared to other goods as it best validates the preference-similarity assumption. The model leads to accurate measures of child and adult poverty, indicating the size and direction of the mistakes made when using the traditional approach based on per adult equivalent expenditure (i.e. ignoring within-household inequality). This assessment of existing approaches to measure individual inequality and poverty is crucial for both academic and policy circles and militates in favor of a systematic use of collective models for welfare analyses. |
| Keywords: | collective model, Engel Curves, Rothbarth Method, sharing rule |
| JEL: | D11 D12 I31 J12 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11653&r=dem |
| By: | DIARRA, Setou; LEBIHAN, Laetitia; MAO TAKONGMO, Charles Olivier |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use the Demographic and Health Survey conducted in Mali to compare children in polygynous families and their counterparts in monogamous families. We also analyse the link between the mothers' order of marriage and their children's outcomes. We finally propose a theoretical model to rationalise our findings. Our results show that children in polygynous families are less enrolled in school, progress less at school and do less domestic household work compared to children from monogamous families. For polygynous families, we found that educational enrolment and progress of children of the first wife are higher than that of children of the second and subsequent wives. Moreover, weight-for-height and body mass index are both lower for children of first wives compared to children of second and subsequent wives. Children of first wives work more at home compared to children of second and subsequent wives. Our theoretical model predicts that if fathers discriminate against their first wives and if effort at school is positively correlated to the father's discrimination, then, on average, children of first wives will perform better at school but will consume less and will have a lower health outcomes compared to children of second wives |
| Keywords: | Family structure, Polygyny, Education, Health, Child labour, Mali. |
| JEL: | I14 J13 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2018–08–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:88518&r=dem |
| By: | Ariel J. Binder; David Lam |
| Abstract: | Spousal characteristics such as age, height, and earnings are often used to infer social preferences. For example, a “male taller” norm has been inferred from the fact that fewer wives are taller than their husbands than would occur with random matching. The large proportion of husbands out-earning their wives has been cited as evidence for a “male breadwinner” norm. We show that it can be misleading to infer social preferences about an attribute from observed marital sorting on that attribute. We show that positive assortative matching on an attribute is consistent with a variety of underlying preferences. Given gender gaps in height and earnings, positive sorting implies it will be rare for women to be taller or richer than their husbands--even without an underlying preference for shorter or lower-earning wives. Simulations which sort couples positively on permanent earnings can largely replicate the observed distribution of spousal earnings differences in US Census data. Further, we show that an apparent sharp drop in the distribution function at the point where the wife out-earns the husband results from a mass of couples earning identical incomes, a mass which we argue is not evidence of a norm for higher-earning husbands. |
| JEL: | D10 J12 J16 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24907&r=dem |
| By: | Silvio Rendon (The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia); J. Ignacio García-Pérez (Universidad Pablo de Olavide) |
| Abstract: | We develop and estimate a model of family job search and wealth accumulation. Individuals' job finding and job separations depend on their partners' job turnover and wages as well as common wealth. We fit this model to data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). This dataset reveals a very asymmetric labor market for household members, who share that their job finding is stimulated by their partners' job separation, particularly during economic downturns. We uncover a job search-theoretic basis for this added worker effect. We also show that this effect is robust to having more children in the household, but that this effect and the interdependency between household members is underestimated if wealth and savings are not considered. Moreover, our analysis shows that the policy goal of supporting job search by increasing unemployment transfers is partially offset by the partner's cross-effect in lower unemployment and wages. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:503&r=dem |
| By: | Chiara Kofol and Tommaso Ciarli |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of conflict on both the extensive and the intensive margin of child labor in Afghanistan. We identify and test two main mechanisms. First, if conflict reduces a household income through a decline in parent's compensations, child labor may insure against the decrease in consumption (extensive margin). Second, a child may work longer hours if the marginal benefits of working under conflict is greater than its marginal cost, which may depend on the relative compensations between adults and children, and on the alternative activities (e.g. schooling). Using detailed conflict data from the Afghan War Diary we identify the effect of conflict relying on a shift-share IV strategy. We find that conflict increases the probability that girls work, but reduces the number of hours worked. Our results suggest that this is due to a decrease in household income and an increase in the relative compensations of adults. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2017–07–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:260275&r=dem |
| By: | Thomas Davoine |
| Abstract: | Population aging challenges the financing of social security systems in developed economies, as the share of the working age population declines. The resulting pressure on capital-labor ratios tends to push up factor prices and production. While European countries all face this challenge, the speed at which their populations are aging differs. If capital markets are integrated, differences in population aging may lead to cross-country spillovers, as investors freely seek the best returns on their capital. Using a multi-country overlapping-generations model covering 14 European Union countries, this paper quantifies spillovers and finds that capital market integration leads to redistribution across countries over the long run. It also shows that pension reforms can change the cross-country redistribution patterns, some countries losing from capital market integration without the reform but winning with it. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:econwp:_9&r=dem |
| By: | Michal Burzynski (University of Luxembourg); Fre´de´ric Docquier (Universite Catholique de Louvain); Hillel Rapoport (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the welfare implications of two pre-crisis immigration waves (1991– 2000 and 2001–2010) and of the post-crisis wave (2011–2015) for OECD native citizens. To do so, we develop a general equilibrium model that accounts for the main channels of transmission of immigration shocks – the employment and wage effects, the fiscal effect, and the market size effect – and for the interactions between them. We parameterize our model for 20 selected OECD member states. We find that the three waves induce positive effects on the real income of natives, however the size of these gains varies considerably across countries and across skill groups. In relative terms, the post-crisis wave induces smaller welfare gains compared to the previous ones. This is due to the changing origin mix of immigrants, which translates into lower levels of human capital and smaller fiscal gains. However, differences across cohorts explain a tiny fraction of the highly persistent, cross-country heterogeneity in the economic benefits from immigration. |
| Keywords: | immigration, welfare, crisis, Inequality, general equilibrium |
| JEL: | C68 F22 J24 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2018-057&r=dem |