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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Kieron J. Barclay (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Martin Hällsten |
| Abstract: | In this study we use Swedish population register data to examine whether parental death differentially affects educational and occupational attainment according to the socioeconomic status of the parent who dies, and the socioeconomic status of the surviving parent and extended kin. That is, we examine whether parental death has an equalizing or exacerbating effect on offspring socioeconomic attainment, and also whether the socioeconomic status of the rest of the family plays a meaningful role in compensating for parental death. Using data on cohorts born 1973 to 1982 we examine five different outcomes, which are grade point average (GPA) at age 16 in high school, the transition from lower to upper-secondary education, the transition to tertiary education, overall educational attainment, and occupational status by age 30. We match families based upon antemortem parental socioeconomic trajectories. Overall we find mixed results in our between-family regression analyses adjusting for observables, with inconsistent evidence suggesting that losing a parent with very high socioeconomic resources is worse, and some evidence for a protective effect if the socioeconomic resources of the surviving parent and extended family members are at the top of the distribution. Using sibling fixed effects models that adjust for unobservable factors shared within the family, we see zero results for moderation by parents’ SES, but find consistent evidence that it is worse to lose a father at a younger age if grandparents have higher ranked occupations. We discuss possible interpretations of our findings. |
| Keywords: | Sweden, education, mortality, parents |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2019-008&r=all |
| By: | Zachary Parolin |
| Abstract: | Routine-biased technological change has emerged as a leading explanation for the differential wage growth of routine occupations, such as manufacturers or office clerks, relative to less routine occupations. Less clear, however, is how the effects of technological advancement on occupational wage trends vary across political-institutional context. This paper investigates the extent to which collective bargaining agreements and union coverage shape the relative wage growth of automatable occupations. Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study and the United States Current Population Survey, I measure the ‘routine task intensity’ of occupations across 15 OECD Member States and the 50 United States from the 1980s onward. Findings suggest that bargaining coverage is more consequential for the wage growth of high routine occupations relative to less routine occupations, and that high routine occupations lose coverage at a faster rate when bargaining coverage at the national level declines. As a result, declines in bargaining coverage within a country are associated with declining relative wage growth for automatable occupations. Estimates suggest that had union coverage in the United States not declined from 1984 levels, the earnings of high routine occupations might have grown at the same rate as low pay occupations between 1984 and 2015, rather than experiencing a relative wage decline. However, the findings also suggest that gains in the relative wage growth may increasingly come at the cost of reduced employment shares of automatable occupations. |
| Keywords: | automation, collective bargaining, occupations, trade unions, wages |
| JEL: | E24 J51 |
| Date: | 2019–05–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:228-en&r=all |
| By: | Francois Gerard; Joana Naritomi |
| Abstract: | The most common forms of government-mandated job displacement insurance are Severance Pay (SP; lump-sum payments at layoff) and Unemployment Insurance (UI; periodic payments contingent on non-employment). While there is a vast literature on UI, SP programs have received much less attention, even though they are prevalent across countries and predominant in developing countries. In particular, little is known about their insurance value, which critically relies on workers’ ability to dissave the lump-sum progressively to smooth consumption after layoff. Using de-identified high-frequency expenditure data and matched employee-employer data from Brazil, we find that displaced workers eligible for both UI and SP increase consumption at layoff by 35% despite experiencing a 17% consumption loss after they stop receiving any benefits. Moreover, this sensitivity of consumer spending to cash-on-hand is present across spending categories and sources of variation in UI benefits and SP amounts. We show that a simple structural model with present-biased workers can rationalize our findings, and we use it to illustrate their implications for the incentive-insurance trade-off between SP and UI. Specifically, the insurance value of SP programs – or of other policies that provide liquidity to workers at layoff – can be severely reduced when consumption is over-sensitive to the timing of benefit disbursement, undermining their advantage in terms of job-search incentives. Our findings highlight the importance of the difference between SP and UI in their disbursement policy, and shed new light on the need for job displacement insurance in a developing country context. |
| Keywords: | unemployment insurance, severance pay, consumption, Brazil |
| JEL: | E21 E26 J65 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7625&r=all |
| By: | Heinisch, Dominik; Koenig, Johannes; Otto, Anne (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "Only scarce information is available on doctorate recipients' career outcomes in Germany (BuWiN 2013). With the current information base, graduate students cannot make an informed decision whether to start a doctorate (Benderly 2018, Blank 2017). Administrative labour market data could provide the necessary information, is however incomplete in this respect. In this paper, we describe the record linkage of two datasets to close this information gap: data on doctorate recipients collected in the catalogue of the German National Library (DNB), and the German labour market biographies (IEB) from the German Institute of Employment Research. We use a machine learning based methodology, which 1) improves the record linkage of datasets without unique identifiers, and 2) evaluates the quality of the record linkage. The machine learning algorithms are trained on a synthetic training and evaluation dataset. In an exemplary analysis we compare the employment status of female and male doctorate recipients in Germany." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | C81 E24 I20 |
| Date: | 2019–05–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201913&r=all |
| By: | Pilar Beneito (University of Valencia. ERI-CES); José Joaquin García-Gómez (University of Almeria) |
| Abstract: | What role did women play during industrialization? Interpretations of this key period of our history have been largely based on analyses of male work. In this paper, we offer evidence of the effects of women's involvement in the industrialization process that took place in Alcoy, Spain, over the period 1860-1914. Using data drawn from historical sources, we analyse labour-force participation rates and wage series for women and men in the textile industry and three other sectors of activity (education, health and low-skill services). We then connect the gender pay gaps with life expectancy indicators. Our results suggest that women's contribution to household income might have favoured the female life-expectancy advantage, an effect that seems to have been channelled through a reduction in the relative mortality rates of female infants and girls, at the expense of a higher mortality rate of working-age women. |
| Keywords: | Industrialization, gender wage gap, female mortality advantage |
| JEL: | J16 J31 N33 O14 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbe:wpaper:0119&r=all |
| By: | Quentin Lippmann; Alexandre Georgieff; Claudia Senik |
| Abstract: | Using the 41-year division of Germany as a natural experiment, we show that the GDR’s gender-equal institutions created a culture that has undone the male breadwinner norm and its consequences. Since reunification, East Germany still differs from West Germany not only by a higher female contribution to household income, but also because East German women can earn more than their husbands without having to increase their number of housework hours, put their marriage at risk or withdraw from the labor market. By contrast, the norm of higher male income, and its consequences, are still prevalent in West Germany. |
| Keywords: | Gender norms, Culture, Institutions, German division, Family, Housework, Divorce, Labor market |
| JEL: | D13 I31 J16 P51 Z1 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1031&r=all |
| By: | Christine Le Clainche (Lille University, Lille Économie Management, UMR CNRS 9221); Pascale Lengagne (IRDES Institut de recherche et documentation en économie de la santé) |
| Abstract: | This article assesses the effects of mass layoffs on the mental health of workers remaining in plants after layoffs, using a French survey merged with administrative health insurance data covering the period 2010–2013. We rely on the consumption of psychotropic drugs prescribed by doctors as an indicator of mental health. Results show that mass layoffs induce a sizeable rise in the use of psychotropic drugs amongst job stayers: we measure an increase of 41% in psychotropic drug consumption rates amongst them after displacement, as compared with the pre-displacement period. We find evidence for a social gradient whereby employees belonging to the lowest socio-economic are more affected by the adverse effect of mass layoffs on their mental health, leading to psychotropic drug consumption, than those in the highest socio-economic groups. |
| Keywords: | Mass layoffs, Downsizing, Mental health, Psychotropic drug prescriptions |
| JEL: | J6 I10 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irh:wpaper:dt78&r=all |
| By: | Stepan Mikula (Masaryk University); Josef Montag (Charles University in Prague) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of homeownership on labor force participation and unemployment. We exploit housing privatization and restitution after the fall of communism as a source exogenous assignment of homeowner/renter status, using a unique dataset from the city of Brno, Czech Republic. We do not find any evidence of homeownership hindering labor force participation. In fact, our estimates suggest that homeownership reduces unemployment by four to six percentage points. Homeownership appears to decrease the risk of unemployment by about one third to one half, relative to renters. The estimated effects on labor force participation are systematically around zero. |
| Keywords: | homeownership, labor force participation, unemployment, housing privatization and restitution |
| JEL: | J21 J64 P14 P25 P26 R31 |
| Date: | 2019–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mub:wpaper:2019-06&r=all |
| By: | Bíró, Anikó; Dieterle, Steven; Steinhauer, Andreas |
| Abstract: | We use administrative data from Austria to analyze labor market returns to delaying motherhood. We exploit delays due to pregnancy loss to provide bounds on the returns that account for imperfect instruments and selection into the sample for mothers that suffer a loss. Our results suggest small effects of delay on earnings, employment, and firm quality--- in contrast with the prior literature. The lower bounds suggest little difference in earnings trajectories around the first birth. This raises the possibility that much of the return may come from delaying the "child penalty" rather than changing how the career responds to children. |
| Keywords: | Female Earnings; fertility timing; imperfect instrument |
| JEL: | C26 J13 J31 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13732&r=all |
| By: | Berggren, Andrea (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Jeppsson, Louise (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the causal impact of an upper secondary curriculum reform in Sweden that increased students' course-taking flexibility in year 2000. In the most popular upper secondary program, it led to a significant decrease in mandatory mathematics requirements. Using administrative Swedish data, we estimate the causal impact of the reform on tertiary education outcomes and expected earnings using a differences-in-discontinuity identification strategy. The method compares students born immediately before and after the cutoff date. The inclusion of students born in neighboring non-reform cutoff years enables us to disentangle the school starting age effect from the unconfounded effect of the reform. We find no negative effects of the reduced mathematics requirements. Rather, we find a positive effect of the reform on students' probability of enrolling in, and earning a degree from, tertiary education. Our heterogeneity analysis suggests that relatively disadvantaged students were not negatively affected by the reform. |
| Keywords: | Educational Economics; Upper secondary school curriculum; Course selection; Tertiary education; Returns to education; Reform evaluation; Human Capital |
| JEL: | I21 I23 I28 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0764&r=all |
| By: | Mathilde Godard (University of Lyon); Pierre Koning (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Maarten Lindeboom (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We examine the targeting effects of increased scrutiny in the screening of Disability Insurance (DI) applications using exogenous variation in screening induced by a policy reform. The reform raised DI application costs and revealed more information about the true disability status of applicants at the point of the award decision. We use administrative data on DI claims and awards and merge these with other administrative data on hospitalization, mortality and labor market outcomes. Regression Discontinuity in Time (RDiT) regressions show substantial declines in DI application rates and changes in the composition of the pool of applicants. We find that the health of those who are not discouraged from applying is worse than those who are. This suggests that the pool of applicants becomes more deserving. At the same time, compared with those who did not apply under the old system of more lax screening, those who are discouraged from applying are in worse health, have substantially lower earnings and are more often unemployed. This indicates that there are spillovers of the DI reform to other social insurance programs. As we do not find additional screening effects on health at the point of the award decision, we conclude that changes in the health condition of the pool of awarded applicants are fully driven by self-screening of (potential) applicants. |
| Keywords: | Disability Insurance, Screening, Composition effects, Targeting efficiency |
| JEL: | H2 I3 |
| Date: | 2019–05–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20190036&r=all |
| By: | Patrick Button; Brigham Walker |
| Abstract: | We conducted a resume correspondence experiment to measure discrimination in hiring faced by Indigenous Peoples in the United States (Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians). We sent employers realistic 13,516 resumes for common jobs (retail sales, kitchen staff, server, janitor, and security) in 11 cities and compared callback rates. We signaled Indigenous status in one of four different ways. We almost never find any differences in callback rates, regardless of the context. These findings hold after numerous robustness checks, although our checks and discussions raise multiple concerns that are relevant to audit studies generally. |
| JEL: | C93 J15 J7 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25849&r=all |
| By: | Arthur Turrell; Bradley J. Speigner; Jyldyz Djumalieva; David Copple; James Thurgood |
| Abstract: | Using a dataset of 15 million UK job adverts from a recruitment website, we construct new economic statistics measuring labour market demand. These data are ‘naturally occurring’, having originally been posted online by firms. They offer information on two dimensions of vacancies—region and occupation—that firm-based surveys do not usually, and cannot easily, collect. These data do not come with official classification labels so we develop an algorithm which maps the free form text of job descriptions into standard occupational classification codes. The created vacancy statistics give a plausible, granular picture of UK labour demand and permit the analysis of Beveridge curves and mismatch unemployment at the occupational level. |
| JEL: | E24 J63 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25837&r=all |
| By: | Michaela Bednarik; Slavomir Hidas; Gabriel Machlica |
| Abstract: | Roma account for almost one-tenth of the population in the Slovak Republic. They live mostly excluded from the general population in concentrated settlements, separated neighbourhoods or ghettos. The majority live in poverty and face social exclusion in almost all aspects of everyday life. Only a small share of Roma work, and a majority suffer from long spells of unemployment, their educational attainment is low, and a large number are illiterate. Social exclusion is further exacerbated by rising general animosity and mistrust between Roma and non-Roma groups. This calls for immediate policy action. The government should ensure easy access to all public services and provide additional support for the disadvantaged Roma communities. Individual policies should be effectively coordinated, because the problems that the Roma are facing are interconnected. A necessary precondition for successful Roma integration is the support of the general population. Policy interventions towards Roma integration should be accompanied by measures to eliminate the prejudices among parts of the majority population against their fellow citizens. |
| Keywords: | inclusion, poverty, pre-school education, Roma |
| JEL: | I24 I32 J15 J48 |
| Date: | 2019–05–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1551-en&r=all |
| By: | Kyvik Nordås, Hildegunn (Örebro University School of Business); Lodefalk, Magnus (Örebro University School of Business); Tang, Aili (Örebro University School of Business) |
| Abstract: | We perform a granular analysis of Swedish labor market dynamics, using matched employer employee and firm level trade data for Sweden over a 15-year period. The employment share in firms that are directly exposed to international trade has decreased, due to a shift in employment towards personal and public services. Analyzing the dynamics, we find that workers in firms that change export status are slightly less likely to obtain the same wage rise as their peers. However, workers that stay in the same job in trading firms are less affected by changes in export and offshoring volumes, with the exception of high-skilled workers in manufacturing firms who face a downward pressure on wages from services offshoring, but higher wages from services exports. Finally, we find that exports and offshoring of goods and services stimulate labor demand. While exports and offshoring of services increase relative demand for skilled workers, exports and offshoring of goods stimulate relative demand for middle and low skilled workers. |
| Keywords: | Worker flows; Job flows; Trade; Wages; Labor Demand |
| JEL: | E24 F16 J63 P23 |
| Date: | 2019–05–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2019_002&r=all |
| By: | W. Similan Rujiwattanapong (Aarhus Universitet; Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM)) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of endogenous unemployment insurance (UI) extensions on the dynamics of unemployment and its duration structure in the US. Using a search and matching model with worker heterogeneity, I allow for the maximum UI duration to depend on unemployment and for UI benefits to depend on worker characteristics. UI extensions have a large effect on long-term unemployment during the Great Recession via job search responses and a moderate effect on total unemployment via job separations. Disregarding rational expectations about the timing of UI extensions implies an overestimation of the unemployment rate by over 2 percentage points. |
| Keywords: | Business cycles, Long-term unemployment, unemployment insurance, Unemployment duration, Rational expectations |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J24 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:1909&r=all |
| By: | Ingwersen, Kai; Thomsen, Stephan L |
| Abstract: | This study provides new evidence on the levels of economic integration experienced by foreigners and naturalised immigrants relative to native Germans from 1994 to 2015. We decompose the wage gap using the method for unconditional quantile regression models by employing a regression of the (recentered) influence function (RIF) of the gross hourly wage on a rich set of explanatory variables. This approach enables us to estimate contributions made across the whole wage distribution. To allow for a detailed characterization of labour market conditions, we consider a comprehensive set of socio-economic and labour-related aspects capturing influences of, e.g., human capital quality, cultural background, and the personalities of immigrants. The decomposition results clearly indicate a significant growing gap with higher wages for both foreigners (13.6 to 17.6 percent) and naturalised immigrants (10.0 to 16.4 percent). The findings further display a low explanation for the wage gap in low wage deciles that is even more pronounced within immigrant subgroups. Cultural and economic distances each have a significant influence on wages. A different appreciation of foreign educational qualifications, however, widens the wage gap substantially by 4.5 ppts on average. Moreover, we observe an indication of deterioration of immigrants’ human capital endowments over time relative to those of native Germans. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; wage gap; unconditional quantile regression; Germany |
| JEL: | J61 J31 J15 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-653&r=all |
| By: | Hervé Boulhol |
| Abstract: | The mission of the French High Commission for Pension Reform is to prepare the reform introducing a universal pension points system in France. This paper explains why implementing a universal points system in France would increase transparency, reduce inequality and generate efficiency gains for the whole economy. It documents the experience of OECD countries which have opted for a points or a notional defined contribution (NDC) schemes, and provides a technical framework to compare defined benefit, points and NDC pension systems. The paper discusses some key issues related to the main parameters of the new system. While it can include a wide range of redistribution schemes depending on political choices, indexation rules should be designed in a way that maximises, as much as possible, the rates of return on pension contributions within a pay-as-you-go system while ensuring financial sustainability and accounting for changes in life expectancy. This implies that the value of the point would vary at the individual level depending on the cohort and the effective age of retirement based on actuarial principles. No country having a points system currently uses age-cohort point values, and France could be the first one to introduce such an innovation.This Working Paper relates to the 2019 OECD Economic Survey of France (http://www.oecd.org/economy/surveys/fra nce-economic-snapshot/) |
| Keywords: | France, life expectancy, pensions, redistribution, reform |
| JEL: | H53 H55 J11 J26 |
| Date: | 2019–05–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1553-en&r=all |
| By: | Carlo Ciccarelli (CEIS & DEF University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Matteo Gomellini (Bank of Italy); Paolo Sestito (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Population ageing and lack of productivity growth characterize most western countries. We focus on Italy and investigate whether the availability of a young population represents a determinant of manufacturing productivity growth. We follow a historical comparative analysis and provide evidence of the strength of this relation in the past (1861-1911) and today (1961-2011). To account for the sizeable regional heterogeneity characterizing historically the country we use data disaggregated at the provincial level. Our analysis suggests that the availability of a young population represents indeed one of the determinant of manufacturing productivity growth. The strength of the relation was higher in the past than today, but ageing is still nevertheless a factor that cannot be neglected from a policy perspective. |
| Keywords: | manufacturing, productivity, population ageing, Italy. |
| JEL: | O14 J11 N33 N93 |
| Date: | 2019–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:457&r=all |