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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Hanna Wang |
| Abstract: | I develop and estimate a life-cycle discrete-choice model of fertility and female labor supply to study the optimal design of a range of child-related policies. First, I examine two German reforms that introduced wage-contingent parental leave payments and expanded access to low-cost public childcare. I find that both reforms raised completed fertility, with the parental leave reform having a particularly strong impact on highly educated women. Second, I solve for a budget-neutral optimal policy portfolio that maximizes either aggregate welfare or fertility, while ensuring that welfare and fertility do not decline for any education group. I consider four prominent child subsidies as well as the degree of tax jointness. My results show that optimal policy has the potential to increase welfare by 0.5% or fertility by 5.7%. While the solutions are qualitatively similar, they prioritize different policy instruments depending on the specific objective being targeted. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Parental Leave, Childcare Subsidies, Optimal Policy |
| JEL: | H21 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26029 |
| By: | Anson Zhou |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the nexus among fertility, family structure, and gender income equality. I document a novel three-way trade-off in cross-country data: simultaneously achieving high fertility, low single parenthood, and gender income equality is unlikely at all levels of economic development. To explain this fact, I develop a unified theory where the trade-off emerges as an equilibrium outcome. Among various policy instruments, I show that reducing women's child-rearing costs stands out as the unique one that mitigates the trade-off, but the policy costs grow as wages increase. When I calibrate the model to fit Mexico's experience from 1990 to 2015, I find that gender-neutral technological progress explains half of rising single parenthood and declining fertility, while gender-biased productivity growth and the gender education gap reversal account for the narrowing gender income and welfare gaps. |
| Keywords: | Gender equality, family structure, fertility |
| JEL: | D13 J11 J12 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:25134 |
| By: | Simon Bensnes; Ingrid Huitfeldt; Edwin Leuven |
| Abstract: | This paper reconciles different approaches to estimating the labor market effects of children. Combining elements from event-study and instrumental-variable estimators we find that while both approaches imply a 15 percent increase in the mother-partner earnings gap ("child penalty"), they differ in what drives this gap. The standard event study attributes it primarily to reduced maternal earnings, but our results suggest maternal changes account for less than half. We show that women time fertility as their earnings profile flattens, causing the event study to overestimate the maternal penalty. This finding has broader implications for event-study designs, as pre-trends may be uninformative about selection bias. |
| Keywords: | Child penalty, female labor supply, event study, instrumental variable |
| JEL: | C36 J13 J16 J21 J22 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26043 |
| By: | Ahmet Gulek |
| Abstract: | I investigate how parenthood reshapes employment patterns across occupations and how this occupational heterogeneity contributes to earning disparities. Using a novel rotating panel approach to estimating child penalties, I document that both men and women change occupations. The well-established null effect of fatherhood hides that men's employment rate decreases in some occupations like finance and increases in others like construction. Women leave most occupations but select into occupations with part-time options. These occupational changes explain 40% of the income penalty for women, most of the income penalty for men, and most of the wage penalty for both genders. |
| Keywords: | Child Penalty, Gender Inequality, Occupational Choice |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26036 |
| By: | Greta Morando; Lauro Carnicelli |
| Abstract: | The motherhood penalty is a major source of gender inequality, yet it varies substantially across women. We exploit the random gender of the firstborn in Finnish register data to study how parental preferences for family time interact with occupational constraints to generate this heterogeneity. We document a consistent preference for daughters across education groups, reflected in fertility behavior and maternal leave duration. Despite similar preferences, long-run labor market consequences differ sharply by maternal education. Ten years after birth, university-educated mothers experience a 10% larger earnings penalty when their first child is a son, whereas less educated mothers incur a 5% larger penalty when the first child is a daughter. These differences are consistent with lower employment among non-tertiary-educated women and with job sorting into more family-friendly positions among tertiary-educated women following the birth of a firstborn daughter. Our findings show that parental preferences, mediated by education-specific labor market opportunities, generate substantial heterogeneity in the motherhood penalty. |
| Keywords: | Motherhood penalty; gender inequality; parental preferences; child gender; labor-market sorting; work-family balance; education heterogeneity |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26101 |
| By: | Mikko Silliman; Juuso Mäkinen |
| Abstract: | This paper provides large-scale evidence linking the economic effects of childcare programs to social skills measured in adulthood. We examine Finland's first national public childcare program, and document that it increased parental labor supply - through retirement - while reducing the intergenerational persistence of income. Critically, we leverage Finnish Defence Forces data on the near population of males to show that effects on children's adult income are underlied by lasting effects on social skills. Further, we show that life-cycle cost-effectiveness estimates based on the assumption of constant effects after typical observation windows can considerably overestimate the net costs of public childcare. |
| Keywords: | early childhood, social skills, parental labor supply |
| JEL: | J08 I24 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26004 |
| By: | Giuseppe Pio Dachille; Maria De Paola; Roberto Nisticò |
| Abstract: | We study the fertility effects of guaranteed minimum income (MI) programs using Italy's Reddito di Cittadinanza (RdC), a national income floor introduced in 2019. Using administrative social security microdata and a Regression Discontinuity Design, we find that the RdC had no aggregate effect on fertility but increased childbearing by 18% over two years in Southern Italy, where economic insecurity is higher and gender norms more traditional. The effect appears driven not only by higher income but also by greater economic stability. These results suggest that MI schemes-though not designed with pronatalist intent-can shape fertility in economically disadvantaged settings. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; Guaranteed Minimum Income; RDD |
| JEL: | H53 J13 C21 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2588 |
| By: | Oded Galor; Daniel C. Wainstock |
| Abstract: | Is income inequality in the United States primarily driven by disparities between ethnic groups or within them? The evidence reveals a striking pattern: 96% of U.S. income inequality arises from variation within groups sharing common ancestral origins, far overshadowing the comparatively small share attributable to differences between these groups. This pattern remains remarkably stable across time and regions. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, Ethnicity, Within Group Inequality, Between Group Inequality |
| JEL: | O15 Z13 D63 J15 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26003 |
| By: | Suphanit Piyapromdee; Lindsay Jacobs |
| Abstract: | Partial and reverse retirement are two key behaviors characterizing labor force dynamics for individuals at older ages, with half working part-time and over a third leaving and later re-entering the labor force at some point. The high rate of exit and re-entry is especially puzzling when considering the flat and declining wage profiles observed at older ages and uncertainty about future re-employment. Using Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data, we document the timing and prevalence of these behaviors and show that reverse retirees resemble permanent retirees across many observables, but differ notably in reported job stress and polygenic scores linked to stress sensitivity. To understand what drives these behaviors, we develop and estimate a dynamic model of retirement that incorporates uncertainty in wages and health, along with a novel ``burnout-recovery'' process representing the accumulation and dissipation of work-related stress. The model replicates key patterns in the data, accounting for over two-thirds of reverse retirement and 40 percent of transitions to part-time work---patterns that cannot be explained by health or wealth shocks alone. Our findings suggest that reverse retirement is largely a predictable response to recoverable stress rather than a reaction to shocks. Policy simulations show that part-time subsidies and sabbaticals enhance labor force attachment and welfare by reducing burnout, while eliminating the Retirement Earnings Test raises re-entry but also increases stress exposure. Together, these findings highlight the central role of stress dynamics in shaping retirement behavior and inform the design of policies to support work at older ages. |
| Keywords: | Retirement, Mental Health, Burnout |
| JEL: | J26 I12 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2564 |
| By: | Xiao Ma; Alejandro Nakab; Camila Navajas-Ahumada; Daniela Vidart |
| Abstract: | Women experience slower wage growth than men over their lifetimes, a gap often attributed to the “motherhood wage penalty, ” as childbearing reduces earnings. This paper links this penalty to differences in human capital using a pseudo-event study of first childbirth in Europe to document a “motherhood training penalty.” Before parenthood, full-time male and female workers exhibit similar on-the-job training trends, but their trajectories diverge afterward. In the first 1–3 years of parenthood, women are 17%–21% less likely to train, compared to a 1%–5% decline for men. Additional evidence suggests this gap reflects employers’ lower willingness to finance training for mothers, and that it is larger in countries with higher childcare costs and weaker government support for training. |
| Keywords: | On-the-Job Training, Human Capital Accumulation, Lifecycle Wage Growth, Gender Gaps |
| JEL: | J24 J16 M53 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udt:wpgobi:wp_gob_2026_04 |
| By: | Jim Albrecht; Per-Anders Edin; Raquel Fernandez; Jiwon Lee; Peter Skogman Thoursie; Susan Vroman |
| Abstract: | In 2002, Sweden reformed its parental leave system by adding a second "daddy month, " i.e., a second month of pay-related parental leave reserved exclusively for each parent. In addition to giving fathers an economic incentive to take more leave, this change had an effect on cultural norms. We develop and estimate a model of the household in which preferences towards leave depend on the behavior of one's peers and use it to quantify the magnitudes of the economic-incentive effects as well as the evolving norms. We find that endogenously evolving cultural norms play a major role. We use our model to evaluate the effects of several potential policy changes including decreasing the cost of child care and giving each parent a substantially larger non-transferable endowment of parental leave and conclude that only the latter would have a significant effect on the share of parental leave taken by men. |
| Keywords: | Parental Leave, Gender Equality, Childcare, Culture |
| JEL: | D10 J16 Z10 Z18 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26038 |
| By: | Sarah Cattan (Institute for Fiscal Studies, HCEO, IZA, CESifo); Gabriella Conti (University College London, Institute for Fiscal Studies, CEPR, CESifo, CSEF, IZA, RFBerlin); Christine Farquharson (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | Early childhood programmes frequently lose effectiveness at scale, yet the role of the workforce remains poorly understood. We document substantial heterogeneity in workforce effectiveness in England’s national home-visiting programme for first-time teenage mothers, despite a highly-structured curriculum and well-qualified staff. Exploiting quasi-random assignment of mothers to family nurses, we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in workforce effectiveness raises children’s cognitive and socio-emotional development by 0.20-0.23 SD. Structural quality—observable worker characteristics —does not predict effectiveness, but process quality —how visits are delivered— does. Greater effectiveness is linked with improvements in maternal mental health and risk behaviours. |
| Keywords: | Early Childhood Development, Home Visiting, Workforce Quality, Process Quality, Scaling, Family Nurse Partnership |
| JEL: | I18 I38 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–04–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:777 |
| By: | Sonia Bhalotra; N. Meltem Daysal; Louis Fréget; Jonas Hirani; Priyama Majumdar; Mircea Trandafir; Miriam Wüst; Tom Zohar |
| Abstract: | Using Danish administrative data linked to two independent, validated postpartum depression screenings, we study how postpartum mental health shocks shape women's labor market trajectories. Event-study estimates show no pre-birth differences in trends between depressed and non-depressed mothers, but persistent employment gaps that widen immediately after birth. Health-care utilization patterns indicate that these differences reflect acute mental health shocks rather than pre-existing trends. The penalties are concentrated among less educated mothers and those in less family-friendly jobs. Our results highlight postpartum depression as a meaningful and unequal contributor to the motherhood penalty. |
| Keywords: | Postpartum depression, motherhood penalty, labor market inequality |
| JEL: | I12 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26015 |