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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Ana C. Gómez Ugarte Valerio (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Ugofilippo Basellini (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Carlo G. Camarda (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Fanny Janssen; Emilio Zagheni (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Commonly used measures of socioeconomic inequalities in mortality, such as the slope and the relative index of inequality, are based on summary measures of the group-specific age-at-death distributions (e.g. life expectancy). While this approach is informative, it ignores valuable information contained in the group-specific distributions. We apply and evaluate a novel measure of socio-economic inequality in mortality. Leveraging a metric of statistical distance, our Population Total Variation (PTV) measure is sensitive not only to changes in the means or variances, but also to broader mortality changes that affect distributional shapes. The PTV also allow the levels and trends of socioeconomic inequalities in mortality to be decomposed into mortality changes versus changes in the composition of the population. We use mortality data by socioeconomic groups to assess mortality inequalities with both established measures and our proposed PTV. Our findings suggest that levels and trends in mortality inequalities computed with the PTV differ compared to other conventional summary-based measures. The method we propose can be applied to any context where mortality rates are available by socio-economic groups. We conclude that measuring distributional similarities in mortality enhances our understanding of between groups inequalities in mortality. |
| Keywords: | Denmark, England, Sweden, inequality, mortality |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2024-007&r=dem |
| By: | Aiva Jasilioniene (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Domantas Jasilionis (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Dmitri A. Jdanov (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Mikko Myrskylä (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | At the turn of 2021-2022, monthly birth rates declined in many higher-income countries. We explore how COVID-19 vaccination was associated with this decline. Using an interrupted time series design, we evaluate the impact of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the start of COVID-19 vaccination on seasonally-adjusted monthly total fertility rates in 22 high-income countries. Our findings show that the start of the pandemic had an immediate effect on fertility in most countries, although the size and direction of level changes considerably varied. The impact of COVID-19 vaccination was less all-embracing. A negative association between the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and fertility nine months later was found for ten out of 22 studied countries. For several countries, the decline was preceded by fertility increase that took place after the onset of the pandemic. Only four out of 22 countries had post-vaccination fertility declines that resulted in fertility being on a lower level than what the pre-pandemic trend predicted. Additional controlling for youth unemployment, stringency index, and vaccination coverage changed the associations only little. The COVID-19 vaccination campaign contributed to the variation in the short-term fertility trends. Fertility appeared to have responded in short run to vaccination, however, the resulting decline returned fertility closer to the pre-pandemic trend in most cases, and only in few countries, fertility dropped below the pre-pandemic trend. |
| Keywords: | Canada, Europe, Israel, Japan, Korea, South, USA, fertility, fertility decline, vaccination |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2024-006&r=dem |
| By: | Koopmans, Pim (Leiden University); van Lent, Max (Leiden University); Been, Jim (University of Leiden) |
| Abstract: | The consequence of the arrival of children for the gender wage gap - known as the child penalty - is substantial and has been documented for many countries. Little is still known about the impact of having children beyond paid work in the labor market, such as home production. In this paper we estimate - deploying an event study with Dutch survey data - the child penalty in both home production and the labor market. In line with the literature we find no labor market effects for men. For women we find a strong reduction in work hours and lower wages. However, we find an increase in home production for women roughly similar to the decline in paid work. Consequently, time allocated to the labor market plus home production is roughly equal across gender before and after the arrival of children. This result rejects the hypothesis that women substitute paid work for leisure after the arrival of children. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, child penalty, intra-household allocation, event study, home production |
| JEL: | C33 D12 D13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16871&r=dem |
| By: | Britto, Diogo (University of Milan Bicocca); Rocha, Roberto Hsu (University of California at Berkeley); Pinotti, Paolo (Bocconi University); Sampaio, Breno (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effect of having a child on parents' criminal behavior using rich administrative data from Brazil. Fathers' criminal activity sharply increases by up to 10% during the pregnancy period, and by up to 30% two years after birth, while mothers experience only a transitory decline in criminal activity around childbirth. The effect on fathers lasts for at least six years and can explain at least 5% of the overall male crime rate. Domestic violence within the family also increases after childbirth, reflecting both increases in actual violence and women's propensity to report. The generalized increase in fathers' crime stands in sharp contrast with previous evidence from developed countries, where childbirth is associated with significant and enduring declines in criminal behavior by both parents. Our findings can be explained by the costs of parenthood and the pervasiveness of poverty among newly formed Brazilian families. Consistent with this explanation, we provide novel evidence that access to maternity benefits largely offsets the increase in crime by fathers after childbirth. |
| Keywords: | crime, parenthood, maternity benefits |
| JEL: | D10 J13 K42 H55 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16910&r=dem |
| By: | Thomas Baudin (IESEG School of Management, Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 9221 - LEM - Lille Economie Management and IRES, UCLouvain); Bram De Rock (Université libre de Bruxelles (ECARES), KU Leuven and CEPR); Paula E. Gobbi (Université libre de Bruxelles (ECARES) and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | Household decisions are one of the key elements impacting many dimensions of any economy. Decisions at the household level, have strong repercussions at the macroeconomic level. For instance, decisions regarding how much to save, a ect the economy investment possibilities, or decisions regarding children's education a ect the overall level of human capital. Economists who study household behaviour have focused on the understanding of nuclear families. However, family types are heterogeneous across and within countries, both in the past and in present times. This paper reviews the economic literature on family types, focusing on nuclear, stem, and complex families. We establish how each family type could relate to the basic ingredients of standard structural models of household decisions. This overview sets the stage for an interesting research avenue to improve the structural models of household decision making. The focus on nuclear families limits our capacity to analyse the impact of institutional phenomena or public policies. More research to understand the determinants and functioning of other types of families hence matters both from an academic and a policy perspective. |
| Keywords: | Family structures, Economic development, Household decisions, Nuclear families, Complex families, Stem families |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ies:wpaper:e202404&r=dem |
| By: | Carta, Francesca (Bank of Italy); Casarico, Alessandra (Bocconi University); De Philippis, Marta (Bank of Italy); Lattanzio, Salvatore (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how firms respond to the exit of mothers from the labour market after childbirth. As an exogenous shifter in mothers' quits, we use a policy reform that extended the potential duration of unemployment benefits, which Italian mothers can receive also upon resigning within 12 months of giving birth. In response to the reform, we find that mothers have a higher probability of quitting in the first year after childbirth, a slightly decreased likelihood of being laid off, and a greater probability of remaining non-employed for at least 3 years following childbirth. Firms employing more exposed mothers respond by signicantly increasing net hiring and turnover, especially of young women. The surge in women's hiring primarily occurs through temporary contracts that are not converted into permanent ones, implying a persistent increase in the share of female temporary jobs. This outcome suggests the presence of statistical discrimination, manifesting through a decline in the quality of job opportunities available to women. |
| Keywords: | quits, hirings, separations, unemployment benets, statistical discrimination, child penalty |
| JEL: | J16 J23 J21 J38 J65 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16908&r=dem |
| By: | Parag Mahajan; Nicolas Morales; Kevin Shih; Mingyu Chen; Agostina Brinatti |
| Abstract: | We study how random variation in the availability of highly educated, foreign-born workers impacts firm performance and recruitment behavior. We combine two rich data sources: 1) administrative employer-employee matched data from the US Census Bureau; and 2) firm level information on the first large-scale H-1B visa lottery in 2007. Using an event-study approach, we find that lottery wins lead to increases in firm hiring of college-educated, immigrant labor along with increases in scale and survival. These effects are stronger for small, skill-intensive, and high-productivity firms that participate in the lottery. We do not find evidence for displacement of native-born, college-educated workers at the firm level, on net. However, this result masks dynamics among more specific subgroups of incumbents that we further elucidate. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, firm dynamics, productivity, H-1B visa, high-skilled migration |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-19&r=dem |
| By: | Minghao Qiu; Jessica Li; Carlos F. Gould; Renzhi Jing; Makoto Kelp; Marissa Childs; Mathew Kiang; Sam Heft-Neal; Noah Diffenbaugh; Marshall Burke |
| Abstract: | Wildfire activity has increased in the US and is projected to accelerate under future climate change. However, our understanding of the impacts of climate change on wildfire smoke and health remains highly uncertain. We quantify the past and future mortality burden in the US due to wildfire smoke fine particulate matter (PM2.5). We construct an ensemble of statistical and machine learning models that link variation in climate to wildfire smoke PM2.5, and empirically estimate smoke PM2.5-mortality relationships using georeferenced data on all recorded deaths in the US from 2006 to 2019. We project that climate-driven increases in future smoke PM2.5 could result in 27, 800 excess deaths per year by 2050 under a high warming scenario, a 76% increase relative to estimated 2011-2020 averages. Cumulative excess deaths from wildfire smoke PM2.5 could exceed 700, 000 between 2025-2055. When monetized, climate-induced smoke deaths result in annual damages of $244 billion by mid-century, comparable to the estimated sum of all other damages in the US in prior analyses. Our research suggests that the health cost of climate-driven wildfire smoke could be among the most important and costly consequences of a warming climate in the US. |
| JEL: | Q51 Q53 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32307&r=dem |