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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Stefania Albanesi; Claudia Olivetti; Barbara Petrongolo |
| Abstract: | Using comparable data for 24 countries since the 1970s, we document gender convergence in schooling, employment and earnings, marriage delay and the accompanying decline in fertility, and the large remaining gaps in labor market outcomes, especially among parents. A model of time allocation illustrates how the specialization of spouses in home or market production responds to preferences, comparative advantages and public policies. We draw lessons from existing evidence on the impacts of family policies on women's careers and children's wellbeing. There is to date little or no evidence of beneficial effects of longer parental leave (or fathers' quotas) on maternal participation and earnings. In most cases longer leave delays mothers' return to work, without long-lasting consequences on their careers. More generous childcare funding instead encourages female participation whenever subsidized childcare replaces maternal childcare. Impacts on child development depend on counterfactual childcare arrangements and tend to be more beneficial for disadvantaged households. In-work benefits targeted to low-earners have clear positive impacts on lone mothers' employment and negligible impacts on other groups. While most of this literature takes policy as exogenous, political economy aspects of policy adoption help understand the interplay between societal changes, family policies and gender equality. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, spousal specialisation, family policies |
| Date: | 2022–11–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1887&r=dem |
| By: | Kate Kennedy-Moulton; Sarah Miller; Petra Persson; Maya Rossin-Slater; Laura Wherry; Gloria Aldana |
| Abstract: | We use linked administrative data that combines the universe of California birth records, hospitalizations, and death records with parental income from Internal Revenue Service tax records and the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics file to provide novel evidence on economic inequality in infant and maternal health. We find that birth outcomes vary non-monotonically with parental income, and that children of parents in the top ventile of the income distribution have higher rates of low birth weight and preterm birth than those in the bottom ventile. However, unlike birth outcomes, infant mortality varies monotonically with income, and infants of parents in the top ventile of the income distribution---who have the worst birth outcomes---have a death rate that is half that of infants of parents in the bottom ventile. When studying maternal health, we find a similar pattern of non-monotonicity between income and severe maternal morbidity, and a monotonic and decreasing relationship between income and maternal mortality. At the same time, these disparities by parental income are small when compared to racial disparities, and we observe virtually no convergence in health outcomes across racial and ethnic groups as income rises. Indeed, infant and maternal health in Black families at the top of the income distribution is markedly worse than that of white families at the bottom of the income distribution. Lastly, we benchmark the health gradients in California to those in Sweden, finding that infant and maternal health is worse in California than in Sweden for most outcomes throughout the entire income distribution. |
| JEL: | I1 I14 I30 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30693&r=dem |
| By: | R. Anton Braun; Daisuke Ikeda |
| Abstract: | We provide a quantitative theory of deflation and secular stagnation. In our lifecycle framework, an aging population puts persistent downward pressure on the price level, real interest rates, and output. A novel feature of our theory is that it also recognizes the reactions of government policy. The central bank responds to falling prices by reducing its policy nominal interest rate, and the fiscal authority responds by allowing the public debt–gross domestic product ratio to rise. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy; lifecycle; portfolio choice; secular stagnation; nominal government debt; aging; Tobin effect; fiscal policy; deflation |
| JEL: | E52 E62 G51 D15 |
| Date: | 2022–09–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:95073&r=dem |
| By: | Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | The "healthy immigrant effect" refers to the well-documented fact that immigrants are healthier than natives upon arrival, but their health level converges to that of natives over time. Unfortunately, little is known about whether environmental, institutional, or selective return migration mechanisms are behind the convergence. In this paper, I test whether immigrants' naturalization influences health convergence speed. Using restricted-access Spanish health data from the National and European Health Surveys, I estimate the impact of naturalization on health by exploiting that naturalization is possible after two years of residence for Latinoamerican immigrants and after ten years for all other immigrants. I find that naturalization worsens immigrants' health and thus accelerates the speed of convergence to natives' health. In particular, naturalization increases the propensity to suffer from varicose veins, cervical problems, lower back pain, constipation, depression, and anxiety. Changes in dietary habits and increases in employment are potential mechanisms behind these effects. |
| Keywords: | naturalization, immigrants' health, healthy immigrant effect |
| JEL: | J15 J61 I14 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15659&r=dem |
| By: | Peter Fallesen; Lars Dommermuth; Julia Hellstrand (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Emil Simonsen; Lisbeth Trille Gylling Loft; Laust H. Mortensen |
| Abstract: | We examine whether cohort ideals for children exhibit similar trends as those produced by cohort fertility forecasts in Denmark and Norway – two Nordic countries on diverging fertility trajectories. We use recent data from the Generation and Gender Survey to obtain measures of stated ideal family sizes and compare these stated ideals to those suggested by forecasts. In both Denmark and Norway, women express higher ideal family sizes than the number of children they can expect to have. For Denmark, the difference between stated ideal and expected number of children is stable over forecasts for more recent birth cohorts, whereas for Norway there is an increasing gap across recent birth cohorts between women’s ideal number of children and their expected cohort fertility driven by forecasted decline in cohort fertility. Norway either must see a fertility schedule for cohorts still in the childbearing age drastically different to any schedule ever recorded previously or should expect an increasing deficit in childbearing quantum relative to ideals. Keywords: fertility, forecasting, Generation and Gender Survey, ideals, Nordic countries |
| Keywords: | Denmark, Norway |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2022-031&r=dem |