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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Henrik Kleven; Giulia Olivero; Eleonora Patacchini |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether the effects of children on the labor market outcomes of women relative to men — child penalties — are shaped by the work behavior of peers’ parents during adolescence. Leveraging quasi-random variation in the fraction of peers with working parents across cohorts within schools, we find that greater exposure to working mothers during adolescence substantially reduces the child penalty in employment later in life. Conversely, we find that greater exposure to working fathers increases the penalty. Our findings suggest that parental role models during adolescence are critical for shaping child-related gender gaps in the labor market. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33002 |
| By: | Libertad González; Luis Guirola; Laura Hospido |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence of fathers’ time-use during paternity leave by studying the timing of paternity leave spells around a large sports event with strong male following: the 2022 Soccer World Cup. We use administrative data from Spain, a country with generous paternity leave policies and a strong following of soccer competitions. Our data cover the universe of paternity (and maternity) leave spells, and we exploit the exact dates of the 2022 World Cup in a difference-in-differences framework. We show that, during the exact dates of the Qatar World Cup (November 20-December 18, 2022), there was a daily excess of more than 1, 000 men on paternity leave (1.3%), relative to the surrounding dates, and using the year before and after as controls (for seasonality). We also show in triple-differences specifications that this excess is not present in maternity leave spells, or in paternity leave spells among self-employed workers (with much more flexible schedules). We interpret these results as direct evidence that (at least a fraction of) fathers use paternity leave for purposes unrelated to childcare. |
| Keywords: | gender inequality, paternity leave, childcare |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1463 |
| By: | Barbara Boelmann (University of Cologne); Uta Schoenberg (HKU Business School); Anna Raute (Queen Mary University of London) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of cultural norms in shaping women’s labor supply decisions after childbirth. Specifically, we are interested in the interplay between childhood socialization and adulthood environment. To that end, we leverage the setting of the German reunification when East Germany’s gender egalitarian culture induced by socialism and West Germany’s more traditional culture were brought together. We find that East German gender norms are persistent whereas West German ones are not. West German mothers adjust their behavior to that of their East German peers not only when immersed in East German environment but even after returning to the West. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, cultural persistence, cultural adoption, maternal labor force participation, German reunification |
| JEL: | J1 J2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2409 |
| By: | Mickael Melki; Hillel Rapoport; Enrico Spolaore; Romain Wacziarg |
| Abstract: | We argue that migrants played a significant role in the diffusion of the demographic transition from France to the rest of Europe in the late 19th century. Employing novel data on French immigration from other European regions from 1850 to 1930, we find that higher immigration to France translated into lower fertility in the region of origin after a few decades - both in cross-region regressions for various periods, and in a panel setting with region fixed effects. These results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls, and across multiple specifications. We also find that immigrants who themselves became French citizens achieved lower fertility, particularly those who moved to French regions with the lowest fertility levels. We interpret these findings in terms of cultural remittances, consistently with insights from a theoretical framework where migrants act as vectors of cultural diffusion, spreading new information, social norms and preferences pertaining to modern fertility to their regions of origin. |
| JEL: | J13 N33 Z10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32990 |
| By: | Nicolò Russo; Rory McGee; Mariacristina De Nardi; Margherita Borella; Ross Abram |
| Abstract: | We measure health inequality during middle and old age by race, ethnicity, and gender and evaluate the extent to which it can explain inequalities in other key economic outcomes using the Health and Retirement Study data set. Our main measure of health is frailty, which is the fraction of one's possible health deficits and is related to biological age. We find staggering health inequality: At age 55, Black men and women have the frailty, or biological age, of White men and women 13 and 20 years older, respectively, while Hispanic men and women exhibit frailty akin to White men and women 5 and 6 years older. The health deficits composing frailty reveal that most health deficits are more likely for Black and Hispanic people than for White people, with the notable exception of those requiring a diagnosis. Imputing medical diagnoses to Black and Hispanic people uncovers even larger health gaps, especially for Black men. Health inequality also emerges as a powerful determinant of economic inequality. If Black individuals at age 55 had the health of their White peers, the life expectancy gap between these two groups would halve, and the gap in disability duration would decrease by 40-70%. Other outcomes are similarly affected by health at age 55, indicating that targeted health interventions for minority groups before middle age could substantially reduce economic disparities in the quantity and quality of life. |
| JEL: | D1 D10 H4 I14 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32971 |
| By: | Christopher J. Ruhm |
| Abstract: | Increases in “deaths of despair” have been hypothesized to provide an important source of the adverse mortality experiences of some groups at the beginning of the 21st century. This study examines this possibility and uncovers the following primary findings. First, mental health deteriorated between 1993 and 2019 for all population subgroups examined. Second, these declines raised death rates and contributed to the adverse mortality trends experienced by prime-age non-Hispanic Whites and, to a lesser extent, Blacks from 1999-2019. However, worsening mental health is not the predominant explanation for them. Third, to extent these relationships support the general idea of “deaths of despair”, the specific causes comprising it should be both broader and different than previously recognized: still including drug mortality and possibly alcohol deaths but replacing suicides with fatalities from heart disease, lower respiratory causes, homicides, and conceivably cancer. Fourth, heterogeneity in the consequences of a given increase of poor mental health are generally more important than the sizes of the changes in poor mental health in explaining Black-White differences in the overall effects of mental health on mortality. |
| JEL: | I1 I14 I18 J10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32978 |