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on Labour Economics |
| By: | V. Joseph Hotz; Per Johansson; Arizo Karimi |
| Abstract: | We consider the role that firm attributes play in accounting for the divergence in the careers of women and men, with the onset of parenthood. We exploit a matched employer-employee data set from Sweden that provides a rich set of firm and worker attributes. We index firms by their “family friendliness” and analyze the effect of firm family friendliness on the career gap between mothers and fathers. We find that women disproportionately sort into family friendly firms after first birth and that the wage penalty to motherhood is diminished by being assigned to a more family friendly firm or job. We also find that working in a more family friendly firm or job diminishes the parenthood penalty to labor earnings and makes it easier for mothers to work more hours. At the same time, the smaller wage and income penalties to parents from working in family friendly firms and jobs come at the expense of their occupational progression, especially among mothers, impeding their ability to climb career ladders. Finally, we find that family friendly jobs are more easily substitutable for one another. This latter finding suggests that family friendly firms are able to accommodate the family responsibilities of their workers while still managing to keep their costs low. Our findings also suggest that paid parental leave with job protection – which are features of the Swedish context – may not be sufficient to achieve the balancing of career and family responsibilities, but that the way firms and jobs are structured can play a crucial role in facilitating this balance. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24173&r=lab |
| By: | Krolikowski, Pawel (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland); Coate, Patrick (National Council for Compensation Insurance); Zabek, Michael A. (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | Young adults, ages 25 to 35, who live in the same neighborhoods as their parents experience stronger earnings recoveries after a job displacement than those who live farther away. This result is driven by smaller on-impact wage reductions and sharper recoveries in both hours and wages. We show that geographic mobility, different job search durations, housing transfers, and ex-ante differences between individuals are unlikely explanations. Our findings are consistent with a framework in which some individuals living near their parents face a better wage-offer distribution, though we find no direct evidence of parental network effects. |
| Keywords: | Parents; adult children; job loss; neighborhood; transfers; networks; |
| JEL: | J61 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2017–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1722&r=lab |
| By: | Daniel Alonso-Soto (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)); Hugo Ñopo (Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE)) |
| Abstract: | Indicators for quality of schooling are not only relatively new in the world but also unavailable for a sizable share of the world’s population. In their absence, some proxy measures have been devised. One simple but powerful idea has been to use the schooling premium for migrant workers in the U.S. (Bratsberg and Terrell, 2002). In this paper we extend this idea and compute measures for the schooling premium of immigrant workers in the U.S over a span of five decades. Focusing on those who graduated from either secondary or tertiary education in Latin American countries, we present comparative estimates of the evolution of such premia for both schooling levels. The results show that the schooling premia in Latin America have been steadily low throughout the whole period of analysis. The results stand after controlling for selective migration in different ways. This contradicts the popular belief in policy circles that the education quality of the region has deteriorated in recent years. In contrast, schooling premium in India shows an impressive improvement in recent decades, especially at the tertiary level. |
| Keywords: | Schooling premium (returns to education), Wage differentials, Immigrant workers |
| JEL: | J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apc:wpaper:2017-112&r=lab |
| By: | Contini, Bruno (LABORatorio R. Revelli); Garcia Perez, J. Ignacio (Universidad Pablo de Olavide); Pusch, Toralf (Hans Böckler Stiftung); Quaranta, Roberto (Collegio Carlo Alberto) |
| Abstract: | This study proposes a new approach to the analysis of non-employment and its duration in Germany, Italy and Spain using administrative longitudinal databases. Non-employment includes the discouraged unemployed not entitled to draw unemployment benefits and the long-term inactive. Many of the non-employed individuals will never return to the official labour market. We estimate the magnitude and duration of non-employment, applying the survival methodology developed in recent years to deal with 'workforce disposal'. Long-term non-employment (LTNE) may lead to dramatic changes in individual lifestyles, family and childbearing projects, levels of poverty and welfare at large. |
| Keywords: | labor economics, inactivity, long-term unemployment, turnover |
| JEL: | D1 J0 J1 J6 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11167&r=lab |
| By: | Iain W. Long; Vito Polito |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the incentives that may induce workers to supplement income from unemployment benefits by engaging in temporary informal work. Using a dynamic model of job-search with moral hazard that incorporates a stylised schedule of benefit payments, we describe how informal sector participation changes over the duration of unemployment, in turn affecting the incentive to search for formal employment. We find that increasing benefit generosity makes job seekers less reliant on informal work, enabling them to search more intensively. At the same time, when detection rates are low, informal work participation may decline as benefit exhaustion approaches, reinforcing this effect. From a policy perspective, the analysis identifies scope for reallocation of resources towards less generous programmes within unemployment protection, which would reduce the size of the informal sector and unemployment in the economy. |
| Keywords: | job-search, informal sector, unemployment insurance, moral hazard |
| JEL: | J64 J65 K42 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6763&r=lab |
| By: | Cinnirella, Francesco; Streb, Jochen |
| Abstract: | We argue that, for a given level of scientific knowledge, tolerance and diversity are conducive to technological creativity and innovation. In particular, we show that variations in innovation within Prussia during the second industrial revolution can be ascribed to differences in religious tolerance that developed in continental Europe from the Peace of Westphalia onwards. By matching a unique historical dataset about religious tolerance in 1,278 Prussian cities with valuable patents for the period 1877-1890, we show that higher levels of religious tolerance are strongly positively associated with innovation during the second industrial revolution. Religious tolerance is measured through population's religious diversity, diversity of churches, and diversity of preachers and religious teachers, respectively. Endogeneity issues are addressed using local variation across cities, within counties. Estimates using preindustrial levels of religious tolerance address issues of reverse causality. As for the channels of transmission, we find significant complementarity between religious tolerance and human capital. Furthermore, we find that cities with higher levels of religious tolerance attracted a larger share of migrants. Finally, higher levels of religious diversity in the population translated into higher levels of religious diversity in the workforce by industrial sector. This result suggests that religious diversity did not generate labor market segmentation by denomination but might have fostered interaction of different denominations. |
| Keywords: | diversity; Innovation; openness; Patenting Activity; Pluralism; Tolerance |
| JEL: | N13 N33 O14 O31 Z12 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12466&r=lab |
| By: | Emanuela Cardia (Universite de Montreal and CIREQ); Paul Gomme (Concordia University and CIREQ) |
| Abstract: | Raising children takes considerable time, particularly for women. Yet, the role of childcare time has received scant attention in the macroeconomics literature. We develop a life-cycle model in which the time dimension of childcare plays a central role. An important contribution of the paper is estimation of the parameters of a childcare production function using data on primary and secondary childcare time as reported in the American Time Use Survey (2003--2015). The model does a better job matching the observed life-cycle patterns of womens' time use than a model without childcare. Our counterfactual experiments show that the increase in the relative wage of women since the 1960s is an important factor in the increase in womens' work time; changes in fertility associated with the baby boom play a smaller role, and changes in the price of durables are found to have a negligible effect. We consider the effects of cheaper daycare. Not surprisingly, this experiment leads to greater use of daycare and more time allocated to market work. A knock-on effect of cheaper daycare is a substantial decline in primary childcare time. |
| Keywords: | Household Technology; Childcare; Women Labor Force Participation; Home Production |
| JEL: | D13 E24 J13 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crd:wpaper:15007&r=lab |
| By: | Tamar Khitarishvili |
| Abstract: | The goal of this paper is to examine the patterns and movements of the gender pay gaps in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and to place them in the context of advanced economies. We survey over 30 publications and conduct a meta-analysis of this literature. Gender pay gaps in the region are considerable and above the levels observed in advanced economies. Similar to advanced economies, industrial and occupational segregation widens the gaps in the FSU countries, whereas gender differences in educational attainment tend to shrink them. However, a much higher proportion of the gaps remain unexplained, pointing toward the role of unobserved gender differences related to actual and perceived productivity. Over the last 25 years, the gaps contracted in most FSU countries, primarily due to the reduction in the unexplained portion. Underlying the contraction at the mean are different movements in the gap across the pay distribution. Although the glass-ceiling effect has diminished in some FSU countries, it has persisted in others. We investigate the reasons underlying these findings and argue that the developments in the FSU region shed new light on our understanding of the gender pay gaps. |
| Keywords: | Gender Pay Gap; Former Soviet Union; Meta-analysis |
| JEL: | J16 J31 P2 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_899&r=lab |
| By: | Teodora Boneva; Christopher Rauh |
| Abstract: | To understand the socio-economic enrollment gap in university attendance, we elicit students’ beliefs about the benefits of university education in a sample of 2,540 secondary school students. Our choice model estimates reveal that perceived non-pecuniary benefits explain a large share of the variation in intentions to enroll. Expected job satisfaction, parental approval, and perceptions about social life during the 3-4 years after finishing secondary school are most important. Students with low socio-economic status perceive pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns to be lower. Beliefs explain 48% of the socio-economic gap in intentions to enroll, while perceived non-pecuniary returns alone account for 37%. |
| Keywords: | higher education, beliefs, socio-economic inequality, intergenerational mobility |
| JEL: | I24 J13 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6756&r=lab |
| By: | Michael D. Frakes; Melissa F. Wasserman |
| Abstract: | Using application-level data from the Patent Office from 2001 to 2012, merged with personnel data on patent examiners, we explore the extent to which the key decision of examiners—whether to allow a patent—is shaped by the granting styles of her surrounding peers. Taking a number of methodological approaches to dealing with the common obstacles facing peer-effects investigations, we document strong evidence of peer influence. For instance, in the face of a one standard-deviation increase in the grant rate of her peer group, an examiner in her first two years at the Patent Office will experience a 0.15 standard-deviation increase in her own grant rate. Moreover, we document a number of markers suggesting that such influences arise, at least in part, through knowledge spillovers among examiners, as distinct from peer-pressure mechanisms. We even find evidence that some amount of these spillovers may reflect knowledge flows regarding specific pieces of prior art that bear on the patentability of the applications in question, as opposed to just knowledge flows regarding general examination styles. Finally, we find evidence suggesting that the magnitude of these peer examiner influences are just as strong, or stronger, than the influence of the examination styles of supervisors. |
| JEL: | J01 M50 O30 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24159&r=lab |
| By: | Algan, Yann; Guriev, Sergei; Papaioannou, Elias; Passari, Evgenia |
| Abstract: | We study the implications of the Great Recession for voting for anti-establishment parties, as well as for general trust and political attitudes, using regional data across Europe. We find a strong relationship between increases in unemployment and voting for non-mainstream, especially populist parties. Moreover, increases in unemployment go in tandem with a decline in trust in national and European political institutions, while we find much attenuated effects of unemployment on interpersonal trust. The correlation between unemployment and attitudes towards immigrants is muted, especially for their cultural impact. To advance on causality, we extract the component of increases in unemployment explained by the pre-crisis structure of the economy, in particular the share of construction in regional value added, which is strongly related both to build-up and the burst of the crisis. Our results imply that crisis-driven economic insecurity is a substantial driver of populism and political distrust. |
| Keywords: | crisis; Europe; Immigration; industrial structure; populism; Trust; voting |
| JEL: | A13 E02 F02 F22 F33 J15 O43 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12444&r=lab |
| By: | Ruiz-Castillo Ucelay, Javier; Carrasco Perea, Raquel |
| Abstract: | Since the late 1970s and, above all, since 1990, a sizable contingent of Spanish economists coming back home after attending graduate school abroad, mostly in the U.S. and the UK, managed to introduce drastic changes in governance in a number of economics departments and research centers, including meritocratic hiring and promotion practices. These initiatives were also favored by the availability of resources to finance certain research needs, including the organization of international Ph.D. programs. Using a dataset of 3,540 economists working in 2007 in 125 academic centers in 22 countries, this paper presents some evidence on the role of this institutional revolution on the patterns of brain gain, brain drain, and net gain in Spain and other countries. Conditional on some personal, department, and country characteristics, the net marginal effect of a given country is defined as the difference between the marginal effect of working in 2007 in that country on the probability of brain gain and the marginal effect of being born in that country on the probability of brain drain. The main result is that the net marginal effect of Spain is greater than the net marginal effect of comparable large, continental European countries, i.e. Germany, France, and Italy, where economists have similar opportunities of publishing their research in English, the lingua franca of science, or in their own languages. On the other hand, the average estimated probability of net gain in Spain is only below that of the U.S., but it is greater than the average probability of net gain in Germany, France or Italy. |
| Keywords: | brain gain; brain circulation; brain drain; economics institutions; governance |
| JEL: | J61 |
| Date: | 2017–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:26093&r=lab |