nep-dem New Economics Papers
on Demographic Economics
Issue of 2019‒01‒21
six papers chosen by
Héctor Pifarré i Arolas
Universitat Pompeu Fabra

  1. The Causal Impact of Removing Children from Abusive and Neglectful Homes By Anthony Bald; Eric Chyn; Justine S. Hastings; Margarita Machelett
  2. Mothers’ Care: Reversing Early Childhood Health Shocks through Parental Investments By Cristina Bellés-Obrero; Antonio Cabrales; Sergi Jiménez-Martín; Judit Vall-Castello
  3. Female Earnings Inequality: The Changing Role of Family Characteristics on the Extensive and Intensive Margins By David Card; Dean R. Hyslop
  4. Early child care and maternal employment: empirical evidence from Germany By Zimmert, Franziska
  5. Childlessness and Economic Development: a Survey By Thomas TB Baudin; David De la Croix; Paula Eugenia Gobbi
  6. How Do Households Allocate Risk? By Christoph Engel; Alexandra Fedorets; Olga Gorelkina

  1. By: Anthony Bald (Brown University); Eric Chyn (University of Virginia); Justine S. Hastings (Brown University); Margarita Machelett (Brown University)
    Abstract: This paper uses administrative data to measure causal impacts of removing children from families investigated for abuse or neglect. We use the removal tendency of quasi-experimentally assigned child protective service investigators as an instrument for whether authorities removed and placed children into foster care. Our main analysis estimates impacts on educational outcomes by gender and age at the time of an investigation. We find that removal significantly increases standardized test scores for young girls. There are no detectable impacts on the test scores of girls removed at older ages or boys of any age. For older children, we also find few significant impacts of removal on the likelihood of having a juvenile conviction, graduating from high school, enrolling in a postsecondary institution, or having a teenage birth. We investigate potential mechanisms driving heterogeneous impacts by gender and age. Our results do not appear to be driven by heterogeneous effects on foster care placement, school mobility and quality, or participation in special education programs. For girls, we find that removal significantly increases the likelihood of post-investigation criminal charges or incarceration for parents and caretakers who are the perpetrators of abuse or neglect.
    Keywords: child abuse and neglect, human capital
    JEL: H75 I21 I24 I28 I38 J12 J13 J24
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2019-001&r=all
  2. By: Cristina Bellés-Obrero; Antonio Cabrales; Sergi Jiménez-Martín; Judit Vall-Castello
    Abstract: We explore the effects of a child labor regulation that changed the legal working age from 14 to 16 over the health of their offspring. We show that the reform was detrimental for the health of the son’s of affected parents at delivery. Yet, in the medium run, the effects of the reform are insignificant for both male and female children. The sons of treated mothers are perceived as still having worse health at older ages, even if their objective health status has recovered. These boys are also more likely to have private health insurance, which suggests more concerned mothers.
    Keywords: minimum working age, education, child health, gender
    JEL: J81 I25 I12 J13
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1068&r=all
  3. By: David Card; Dean R. Hyslop
    Abstract: Although women make up nearly half the U.S. workforce, most studies of earnings inequality focus on men. This is at least in part because of the complexity of modeling both the decision to work (i.e., the extensive margin) and the level of earnings conditional on work (the intensive margin). In this paper we document a series of descriptive facts about female earnings inequality using data for three cohorts in the PSID. We show that inequality in annual earnings of women fell sharply between the late 1960s and the mid-1990s, with a particularly large decline in the extensive margin component. We then fit earnings-generating models that incorporate both intensive- and extensive-margin dynamics to data for the three cohorts. Our models suggest that over 80% of the decline in female earnings inequality can be attributed to a weakening of the link between family-based factors (including the number of children of different ages and the presence and incomes of partners) and the intensive and extensive margins of earnings determination.
    JEL: J22
    Date: 2018–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25387&r=all
  4. By: Zimmert, Franziska (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany])
    Abstract: "This paper examines the effect of an expansion of subsidized early child care on maternal labor market outcomes. It contributes to the literature by analyzing, apart from the employment rate and agreed working hours, preferred working hours. Using the legal claim for subsidized child care introduced in Germany in August 2013 for children aged one to three years, I apply a semi-parametric difference-in-differences estimator to examine maternal labor market outcomes. Findings based on survey data from the German Micro Census show a positive effect on the employment rate, as well as on agreed and preferred working hours in districts where the child care coverage rate increases intensely in contrast to districts with a lower expansion of subsidized child care. As agreed and preferred working hours adjust in line with each other, expansion of early child care can tap labour market potentials beyond those of currently underemployed mothers." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))
    Keywords: Mütter, Erwerbsquote, Arbeitszeit, Arbeitszeitwunsch, Arbeitsvolumen, Kinderbetreuung
    JEL: J21 J22
    Date: 2019–01–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201902&r=all
  5. By: Thomas TB Baudin; David De la Croix; Paula Eugenia Gobbi
    Abstract: This paper provides an introduction to the analysis of childlessness, first by describing the stylized facts and the relevant literature, and then by proposing a theoretical framework. We show that both poverty-driven childlessness and opportunity-driven childlessness matter and are essential to a thorough understanding of childlessness as a socioeconomic phenomenon.
    Keywords: Childlessness, fertility, education, marriage, children, sterility, economic development, poverty-driven childlessness, opportunity-driven childlessness, female em- powerment, childcare, Malthusian economy, educational homogamy, reproductive health, demographic economics, developed countries, developing countries, historical childless- ness, quantity and quality of children, inequality.
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/280863&r=all
  6. By: Christoph Engel; Alexandra Fedorets; Olga Gorelkina
    Abstract: Individuals often have to decide to which degree of risk they want to expose others, or how much risk to accept if their choice has an externality on third parties. One typical application is a household. We run an experiment in the German Socio-Economic Panel with two members from 494 households. Participants have a good estimate of each other’s risk preferences, even if not explicitly informed. They do not simply match this preference when deciding on behalf of the other household member, but shy away from exposing others to risk. We model the situation, and we find four distinct types of individuals, and two distinct types of households.
    Keywords: risk preference, household, reticence to expose others to risk, trade-off between individual and foreign risk preference
    JEL: C45 D13 D81 D91
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1000&r=all

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