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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen; Landais, Camille; Leite Mariante, Gabriel |
| Abstract: | This paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on microdata from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using panel data for a subset of countries. Most countries display clear and sizable child penalties: men and women follow parallel trends before parenthood, but diverge sharply and persistently after parenthood. While this pattern is pervasive, there is enormous variation in the magnitude of the effects across different regions of the world. The fraction of gender inequality explained by child penalties varies systematically with economic development and proxies for structural transformation. At low levels of development, child penalties represent a minuscule fraction of gender inequality. But as economies develop—incomes rise and the labour market transitions from subsistence agriculture to salaried work in industry and services—child penalties take over as the dominant driver of gender inequality. The relationship between child penalties and development is validated using historical data from current high-income countries, back to the 1700s for some countries. Finally, because parenthood is often tied to marriage, we also investigate the existence of marriage penalties in female employment. In general, women experience both marriage and child penalties, but their relative importance depends on the level of development. The development process is associated with a substitution from marriage penalties to child penalties, with the former gradually converging to zero. |
| Keywords: | child penalty; motherhood; gender inequality; labour market outcomes |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–02–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123685 |
| By: | Guillaume Blanc; Romain Wacziarg |
| Abstract: | For most of human history, until the fertility transition, technological progress translated into larger populations, preventing sustained improvements in living standards. We argue that migration offered an escape valve from these Malthusian dynamics after the European discovery and colonization of the Americas. We document a strong relationship between fertility and migration across countries, regions, individuals, and periods, in a variety of datasets and specifications, and with different identification strategies. During the Age of Mass Migration, persistently high fertility across much of Europe created a large reservoir of surplus labor that could find better opportunities in the New World. These migrations, by relieving demographic pressures, accelerated the transition to modern growth. |
| JEL: | F22 J13 N33 O11 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33542 |
| By: | Reader, Mary; Portes, Jonathan; Patrick, Ruth |
| Abstract: | We study the fertility effects of restricting child-related social assistance to the first two children in the family. As of 2017, all third and subsequent children born on or after 6 April 2017 in the UK were made ineligible for approximately 3000 GBP of means-tested child benefits per year. Using a triple difference and regression discontinuity design, we leverage administrative births microdata to identify the impact of the two-child limit on higher-order births. We find little to no decline in higher-order fertility among low-income families, with our estimates indicating at most small elasticities relative to the literature. |
| Keywords: | fertility; family size; social assistance; welfare reform |
| JEL: | J18 H53 J13 H31 |
| Date: | 2025–03–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127503 |
| By: | Orazio Attanasio (University College London); Gabriella Conti (University College London); Pamela Jervis (University of Chile); Costas Meghir (Yale University); Aysu Okbay (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate impacts heterogeneity of an Early Childhood Intervention, with respect to the Educational Attainment Polygenic Score (EA4 PGS) constructed from DNA data based on GWAS weights from a European population. We find that the EA4 PGS is predictive of several measures of child development, mother’s IQ and, to some extent, educational attainment. We also show that the impacts of the intervention are significantly greater in children with low PGS, to the point that the intervention eliminates the initial genetic disadvantage. Lastly, we find that children with high PGS attract more parental stimulation; however, the latter increases more strongly in children with low PGS. |
| Keywords: | gene-environment interactions, early childhood development, stimulation programs |
| JEL: | C21 J13 I24 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2025-003 |
| By: | Valeska Araujo; Linden McBride; Danielle H. Sandler |
| Abstract: | The rising costs of childcare pose challenges for families, leading to difficult choices including those impacting mothers’ labor force participation. This paper investigates the relationship between childcare costs and maternal employment. Using data from the National Database of Childcare Prices, the American Community Survey, and the Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics, we estimate the impact of childcare costs on mothers’ labor force participation through two empirical strategies. A fixed-effects approach controls for geographic and temporal heterogeneity in costs as well as mothers’ idiosyncratic preferences for work and childcare, while an instrumental variables approach addresses the endogeneity of mothers’ preferences for work and childcare by leveraging exogenous geographic and temporal variation in childcare licensing requirements. Our findings across both research designs indicate that higher childcare costs reduce labor force participation among mothers, with lower-income mothers exhibiting greater responsiveness to changes in childcare costs. |
| Keywords: | childcare, female labor force participation, child penalty |
| JEL: | J16 M50 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:25-25 |
| By: | Matthias Doepke; Hanno Foerster; Anne Hannusch; Michèle Tertilt |
| Abstract: | During the first half of the twentieth century, many US states enacted laws restricting women's labor market opportunities, including maximum hours restrictions, minimum wage laws, and night-shift bans. The era of so-called protective labor laws came to an end in the 1960s as a result of civil rights reforms. In this paper, we investigate the political economy behind the rise and fall of these laws. We argue that the main driver behind protective labor laws was men's desire to shield themselves from labor market competition. We spell out the mechanism through a politico-economic model in which singles and couples work in different sectors and vote on protective legislation. Restrictions are supported by single men and couples with male sole earners who compete with women for jobs. We show that the theory's predictions for when protective legislation will be introduced are well supported by US state-level evidence. |
| JEL: | D13 D72 D78 E24 J12 J16 N30 O10 O43 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33720 |