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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Tabellini, Marco |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I jointly investigate the political and the economic effects of immigration and study the causes of anti-immigrant sentiments. I exploit exogenous variation in European immigration to U.S. cities between 1910 and 1930 induced by World War I and the Immigration Acts of the 1920s as well as instrument immigrants' location decision relying on pre-existing settlement patterns. I find that immigration triggered hostile political reactions, such as the election of more conservative legislators, higher support for anti-immigration legislation, and lower redistribution. Exploring the causes of natives' backlash, I document that immigration increased natives' employment, spurred industrial production, and did not generate losses even among natives working in highly exposed sectors. These findings suggest that opposition to immigration was unlikely to have economic roots. Instead, I provide evidence that natives' political discontent was increasing in the cultural differences between immigrants and natives. Results in this paper indicate that, even when diversity is economically beneficial, it may nonetheless be socially hard to manage. |
| Keywords: | Age of Mass Migration; Cultural diversity; Immigration; Political Backlash |
| JEL: | J15 J24 N32 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14317&r=all |
| By: | Carlana, Michela; Tabellini, Marco |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the effects of immigration on natives' marriage, fertility, and family formation across U.S. cities between 1910 and 1930. Instrumenting immigrants' location decision by interacting national changes in migration flows across ethnic groups with pre-existing immigrants' enclaves across U.S. cities, we find that immigration raised marriage rates and the probability of having children for young native men and women. We show that these effects were driven by the large and positive impact of immigration on native men's employment and occupational standing, which increased the supply of "marriageable men." We explore alternative mechanisms-changes in sex ratios, natives' cultural responses, and displacement effects of immigrants on female employment-and provide evidence that none of them can account for a quantitatively relevant fraction of our results. |
| JEL: | J12 J13 J61 N32 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14316&r=all |
| By: | Tabellini, Marco |
| Abstract: | Between 1915 and 1930, during the First Great Migration, more than 1.5 million African Americans migrated from the South to the North of the United States, altering the racial profile of several northern cities for the first time in American history. I exploit this episode to study how an increase in racial heterogeneity affects the provision of public goods and city finances. I predict black in-migration by interacting 1900 settlements of southern born blacks across northern cities with variation in outmigration from the South after 1910. I find that black inflows had a strong, negative impact on both public spending and tax revenues in northern cities. The decline in tax revenues was not due to cities' decision to cut tax rates, but was entirely driven by a reduction in property values. These findings suggest that the housing market response to black arrivals imposed a negative fiscal externality to receiving cities that, unable or unwilling to raise taxes, were forced to cut spending. Consistent with this interpretation, cities did not change the allocation of spending across categories, while the negative effects of black in-migration were smaller when controlling for the (predicted) white outflows triggered by black arrivals. |
| JEL: | H41 J15 N32 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14319&r=all |
| By: | Alicia de Quinto (Banco de España); Laura Hospido (Banco de España); Carlos Sanz (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | The role of parenthood in the gender pay gap has been extensively discussed in the literature. Using data from social security records, we adopt the methods used for other countries to evaluate the existence of a child penalty in Spain, looking at disparities for women and men across different labor outcomes following the birth of the first child. Our findings suggest that, the year after the first child is born, mothers’ annual earnings drop by 11 percent while men’s remain unaffected. The gender gap is even larger ten years after the birth. Our estimate of the long-run child penalty in earnings equals 28 percent, similar in magnitude to that found for Sweden and Denmark, and smaller than in the UK, the US, Germany, and Austria. In addition, we identify channels that may drive this phenomenon, including reductions in working days and shifts to part-time or fixed-term contracts. Finally, we encounter heterogeneous responses in earnings and labor market participation by educational level: college-educated women react to motherhood more on the intensive margin (working part-time), while non-college-educated women are relatively more likely to do so in the extensive margin (working fewer days). |
| Keywords: | gender, labor supply, employment, wage differentials, parenting, education |
| JEL: | I24 J13 J16 J21 J22 J31 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:opaper:2017&r=all |
| By: | Guner, Nezih; Kulikova, Yuliy; Valladares Esteban, Arnau |
| Abstract: | The added worker effect (AWE) measures the entry of individuals into the labor force due to their partners' job loss. We propose a new method to calculate the AWE, which allows us to estimate its effect on any labor market outcome. We show that without the AWE reduces the fraction of households with two non-employed members. The AWE also accounts for why women's employment is less cyclical and symmetric compared to men. In recessions, while some women lose their employment, others enter the labor market and find jobs. This keeps the female employment relatively stable. |
| Keywords: | Cyclicality; female employment; Household Labor Supply; Intra-household Insurance; Skewness |
| JEL: | D1 E32 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14346&r=all |
| By: | Julia Schmieder |
| Abstract: | Based on findings from high-income countries, typically economists hypothesize that having more children unambiguously decreases the time mothers spend in the labor mar- ket. Few studies on lower-income countries, in which low household wealth, informal child care, and informal employment opportunities prevail, find mixed results. Using Mexican census data, I find a positive effect of an instrument-induced increase in fertility on maternal employment driven by an increase in informal work. The presence of grandparents and low wealth appear to be important. Econometric approaches that allow extrapolating from this complier-specific effect indicate that the response in informal employment is non-negative for the entire sample. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Female Labor Supply, Middle-Income Countries, Informality |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J46 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1882&r=all |
| By: | Cheng Huang (George Washington University); Xiaojing Ma (School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology); Shiying Zhang (School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology); Qingguo Zhao (Family Planning Research Institute of Guangdong Province) |
| Abstract: | Cultural beliefs may affect demographic behaviors. According to traditional Chinese astrology, babies born on auspicious days will have good luck in their lifetime, whereas those born on inauspicious days will have bad luck. Using administrative data from birth certificates in Guangdong, China, we provide empirical evidence on the short-term effects of such numerological preferences. We find that approximately 3.9% extra births occur on auspicious days and 1.4% of births are avoided on inauspicious days. Additionally, there is a higher male/female sex ratio for births on auspicious days. Since such manipulation of the birthdate is typically performed through scheduled C-sections, C-section births increase significantly on auspicious days. Moreover, we use a second dataset to examine the long-term effect of numerological preferences and find that people born on auspicious days are more likely to attend college |
| Keywords: | s Numerological preferences, Birthdate, Timed births, Chinese astrology |
| JEL: | I21 Z10 J13 D19 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2019-16&r=all |
| By: | Bhalotra, Sonia; Clarke, Damian; Gomes, Joseph Flavian; Venkataramani, Atheendar |
| Abstract: | We show that large declines in maternal mortality can be achieved by raising women's political participation. We estimate that the recent wave of quotas for women in parliament in low income countries has resulted in a 9 to 12% decline in maternal mortality. Among mechanisms are that gender quotas lead to an 8 to 10% increase in skilled birth attendance, a 6 to 12% increase in prenatal care utilization and a 4 to 11% decrease in birth rates. |
| Keywords: | Gender; Maternal mortality; Quotas; reproductive health services; women's political representation |
| JEL: | I14 I15 O15 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14339&r=all |
| By: | Schwandt, Hannes; von Wachter, Till |
| Abstract: | This paper uses several large cross-sectional data sources and a new approach to estimate midlife effects of entering the labor market in a recession on mortality by cause and various measures of socioeconomic status. We find that cohorts coming of age during the deep recession of the early 1980s suffer increases in mortality that appear in their late 30s and further strengthen through age 50. We show these mortality impacts are driven by disease-related causes such as heart disease, lung cancer, and liver disease, as well as drug overdoses. At the same time, unlucky middle-aged labor market entrants earn less and work more while receiving less welfare support. They are also less likely to be married, more likely to be divorced, and experience higher rates of childlessness. Our findings demonstrate that temporary disadvantages in the labor market during young adulthood can have substantial impacts on lifetime outcomes, can affect life and death in middle age, and go beyond the transitory initial career effects typically studied. |
| JEL: | E32 I10 J10 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14325&r=all |
| By: | Richard Blundell; Margherita Borella; Jeanne Commault; Mariacristina De Nardi |
| Abstract: | In old age, consumption can fluctuate because of shocks to available resources and because health shocks affect utility from consumption. We find that even temporary drops in income and health are associated with drops in consumption and most of the effect of temporary drops in health on consumption stems from the reduction in the marginal utility from consumption that they generate. More precisely, after a health shock, richer households adjust their consumption of luxury goods because their utility of consuming them changes. Poorer households, instead, adjust both their necessary and luxury consumption because of changing resources and utility from consumption. |
| JEL: | D1 D11 D12 D14 E2 E21 H2 H31 H51 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27348&r=all |