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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Henrik Kleven |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a new approach to estimating child penalties based on crosssectional data and pseudo-event studies around child birth. The approach is applied to US data and validated against the state-of-the-art panel data approach. Child penalties can be accurately estimated using cross-sectional data, which are widely available and give more statistical power than typical panel datasets. Five main empirical findings are presented. First, US child penalties have declined significantly over the last five decades, but almost all of this decline occurred during the earlier part of the period. Child penalties have been virtually constant since the 1990s, explaining the slowdown of gender convergence during this period. Second, child penalties vary enormously over space. The employment penalty ranges from 12% in the Dakotas to 38% in Utah, while the earnings penalty ranges from 21% in Vermont to 61% in Utah. Third, child penalties correlate strongly with measures of gender norms. The evolution of child penalties mirrors the evolution of gender progressivity over time, with a greater fall in child penalties in states where gender progressivity has increased more. Fourth, an epidemiological study of gender norms using US-born movers and foreign-born immigrants is presented. The child penalty for US movers is strongly related to the child penalty in their state of birth, adjusting for selection in their state of residence. Parents born in high-penalty states (such as Utah or Idaho) have much larger child penalties than those born in low-penalty states (such as the Dakotas or Rhode Island), conditional on where they live. Similarly, the child penalty for foreign immigrants is strongly related to the child penalty in their country of birth. Immigrants born in high-penalty countries (such as Mexico or Iran) have much larger child penalties than immigrants born in low-penalty countries (such as China or Sweden). Evidence is presented to show that these effects are not driven by selection. Finally, immigrants assimilate to US culture over time: A comparison of child penalties among first-generation and later-generation immigrants shows that differences by country of origin eventually disappear. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J21 J22 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30176&r= |
| By: | Luis Guirola (Banco de España); María Sánchez-Domínguez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | While motherhood is one of the main reasons for the persistence of gender gaps, its impact on the rising share of immigrant mothers in Europe is less well understood. This paper asks how the burden of childcare affects the labor market integration of immigrants. To identify the contribution of this burden to the native-immigrant employment gap, it exploits European Labor Force Survey (EU-LFS) microdata from 2004 to 2019. This survey collects information on respondents’ counterfactual behaviour, in the event that: a) they had no care responsibilities; b) they could find a job compatible with their care responsibilities; c) they had access to childcare services. This information allows estimates to be obtained of the impact of childcare on labor supply comparable across eleven countries. Our results show that the burden of childcare is the major obstacle to the integration of immigrant mothers. While the employment gap between non-EU immigrant and native mothers in Northern and Southern Europe is 35 and 17 percentage points (pp) respectively, two-thirds (24 pp and 12 pp) of it is explained by childcare motivated inactivity. We reject the hypothesis that the childcare gap is solely driven by immigrants’ sociodemographic traits or traditional parenting norms. Our estimates suggest that at least a quarter (5.8 pp and 2.6 pp) of the gap is due to the higher opportunity cost of paid work faced by immigrant mothers; that equal access to childcare could reduce it by 10 pp and 7 pp; and that immigrants’ exclusion from flexible time arrangements could explain the larger size and higher persistence of the gap in the North. This paper contributes to the literature on immigrant integration, highlighting that the child penalty is the main obstacle to female migrant labor supply and that differences in howEuropean societies handle the burden of care can account for their records on the integration of immigrant households, suggesting that family policies could be central to the integration policy mix and even influence the migration decision. |
| Keywords: | female labor supply, care burden, immigrant and native women, opportunity cost, Europe |
| JEL: | J13 J15 J16 J18 J31 J61 J70 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:2216&r= |
| By: | Alessandra Casarico; Elena Del Rey; Jose I. Silva |
| Abstract: | We develop a model to study the impact on gender gaps in participation and wages of a liquidity constraint that prevents some households from paying child care. We show that this liquidity constraint generates an inefficiency and amplifies gender gaps in the labour market. In this framework, an extension of paid maternity leave duration has ambiguous effects on gender inequality. In contrast, child care subsidies, which require higher taxes, and loans, which do not, unambiguously reduce gender inequality. We illustrate the mechanisms at play in a numerical example using Spanish data. |
| Keywords: | liquidity constraints, gender wage and participation gaps, statistical discrimination, numerical example |
| JEL: | J16 J18 J13 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9827&r= |
| By: | Asli Ebru Şanlıtürk (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Samin Aref (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Emilio Zagheni (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Francesco C. Billari (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2022-019&r= |
| By: | Ian Burn; Daniel Firoozi; Daniel Ladd; David Neumark |
| Abstract: | Correspondence studies have found evidence of age discrimination in callback rates for older workers, but less is known about whether job advertisements can themselves shape the age composition of the applicant pool. We construct job ads for administrative assistant, retail, and security guard jobs, using language from real job ads collected in a prior large-scale correspondence study (Neumark et al., 2019a). We modify the job-ad language to randomly vary whether or not the job ad includes ageist language regarding age-related stereotypes. Our main analysis relies on machine learning methods to design job ads based on the semantic similarity between phrases in job ads and age-related stereotypes. In contrast to a correspondence study in which job searchers are artificial and researchers study the responses of real employers, in our research the job ads are artificial and we study the responses of real job searchers. We find that job-ad language related to ageist stereotypes, even when the language is not blatantly or specifically age-related, deters older workers from applying for jobs. The change in the age distribution of applicants is large, with significant declines in the average and median age, the 75th percentile of the age distribution, and the share of applicants over 40. Based on these estimates and those from the correspondence study, and the fact that we use real-world ageist job-ad language, we conclude that job-ad language that deters older workers from applying for jobs can have roughly as large an impact on hiring of older workers as direct age discrimination in hiring. |
| JEL: | J14 J6 J7 J78 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30287&r= |
| By: | Deschenes, Olivier (University of California, Santa Barbara) |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews and extends the recent empirical literature on the impact of climate change on mortality and adaptation in the United States. The analysis produces several new facts. First, the reductions in the impact of extreme heat on mortality risk previously documented up to 2004 have continued up to 2019, consistent with continued investments in health-protecting adaptations to high temperatures. The second part of the paper examines the private and external costs of electricity generation and consumption related to high temperatures, a commonly-used proxy for measuring the consumption of adaptation services. Extreme temperatures increase electricity demand in the residential sector (relative to moderate temperatures), but not in the commercial, industrial, and transportation end-use sectors. The additional electricity demand in response to high temperatures results in significant external costs due to the release of local and global pollutants caused by the combustion of fossil fuels in order to produce electricity. These external costs, documented for the first time in this paper, are one order of magnitude larger than the private cost of adaptation associated with electricity consumption. |
| Keywords: | climate change, extreme temperature, mortality, adaptation, air pollution |
| JEL: | I1 Q4 Q5 Q54 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15448&r= |