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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Lars Dommermuth (Statistics Norway); Adrian Farner Rogne; Astri Syse |
| Abstract: | Cash-for care policies are contested in many contexts, as they represent an incentive for childrearing over work that may reduce labour market participation, especially among immigrant women. From 1 July 2017, immigrants (both the mother and the father) from outside the European Economic Area must have at least 5 years of residence in Norway to be entitled to cash-for-care benefits. Previous research indicates that this reform did not lead to increased labour market participation of mothers and fathers treated by the reform. In this article, we examine whether the changes in the cash-forcare benefits policy have resulted in a substantive change in income and if the reform had an impact on the childbearing behaviour among those affected by the reform. Our descriptive analyses indicate no change in employment rates and household income. To detect possible changes in fertility, we employ a Difference-in-Difference approach, in which we compare the treatment group with four comparison groups. Overall, we find no substantial effect of the cash-for-care reform on childbearing behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; cash-for-care; immigrant fertility |
| JEL: | J13 J6 J15 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:993&r=dem |
| By: | Hermes, Henning (Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)); Krauß, Marina (University of Augsburg); Lergetporer, Philipp (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Peter, Frauke (DZHW-German Centre for Research on Higher Education and Science Studies); Wiederhold, Simon (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We present experimental evidence that enabling access to universal early child care for families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) increases maternal labor supply. Our intervention provides families with customized help for child care applications, resulting in a large increase in enrollment among lower-SES families. The treatment increases lower-SES mothers' full-time employment rates by 9 percentage points (+160%), household income by 10%, and mothers' earnings by 22%. The effect on full-time employment is largely driven by increased care hours provided by child care centers and fathers. Overall, the treatment substantially improves intra-household gender equality in terms of child care duties and earnings. |
| Keywords: | child care, maternal employment, gender equality, randomized controlled trial |
| JEL: | D90 J13 J18 J22 C93 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15814&r=dem |
| By: | Yongkun Yin (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the number of siblings that parents have affects their fertility decisions. I exploit the population control policies in China, which affected individuals unequally across birth cohorts and regions. The exogenous variation in fertility is used to identify the effect of the number of siblings on the number of children for the next generation. The results show that a couple tends to have 0.068 more children (4.3% of the average number of children) and is 5.6 percentage points more likely to violate the One-Child Policy (19.4% of the violation rate) if the husband and the wife have one more sibling each. Moreover, the effect on fertility is stronger for couples in rural areas where the One-Child Policy was enforced less strictly. I also show that ideal family size, especially that of the wife, is an important channel through which the number of siblings affects fertility. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational transmission, fertility, siblings, preference formation, population policies, China. |
| JEL: | D19 J13 J18 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2022_2211&r=dem |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Nicolaj S{\o}ndergaard M\"uhlbach; Andrew J. Scott |
| Abstract: | In 1990, one in five U.S. workers were aged over 50 years whereas today it is one in three. One possible explanation for this is that occupations have become more accommodating to the preferences of older workers. We explore this by constructing an "age-friendliness" index for occupations. We use Natural Language Processing to measure the degree of overlap between textual descriptions of occupations and characteristics which define age-friendliness. Our index provides an approximation to rankings produced by survey participants and has predictive power for the occupational share of older workers. We find that between 1990 and 2020 around three quarters of occupations have seen their age-friendliness increase and employment in above-average age-friendly occupations has risen by 49 million. However, older workers have not benefited disproportionately from this rise, with substantial gains going to younger females and college graduates and with male non-college educated workers losing out the most. These findings point to the need to frame the rise of age-friendly jobs in the context of other labour market trends and imperfections. Purely age-based policies are insufficient given both heterogeneity amongst older workers as well as similarities between groups of older and younger workers. The latter is especially apparent in the overlapping appeal of specific occupational characteristics. |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2212.03355&r=dem |