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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Aïcha Ben Dhia; Bruno Crépon; Esther Mbih; Louise Paul-Delvaux; Bertille Picard; Vincent Pons |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the impact of an online platform giving job seekers tips to improve their search and recommendations of new occupations and locations to target, based on their personal data and labor market data. Our experiment used an encouragement design and was conducted in collaboration with the French public employment agency. It includes 212,277 individuals. We find modest effects on search methods: the users of the platform adopt some of its tips and they are more likely to use resources provided by public employment services. However, following individual trajectories for 18 months after the intervention, we do not observe any impact on time spent looking for a job, search scope (occupational or geographical), or self-reported well-being. Most importantly, we do not find any effect on any employment outcome, whether in the short or medium run. We conclude that the enthusiasm around the potential for job-search assistance platforms to help reduce unemployment should be toned down. |
| JEL: | D83 D84 J22 J24 J62 J64 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29914&r= |
| By: | Hani Mansour; Daniel I. Rees; Bryson M. Rintala; Nathan N. Wozny |
| Abstract: | Although women earn approximately 50 percent of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) bachelor’s degrees, more than 70 percent of scientists and engineers are men. We explore a potential determinant of this STEM gender gap using newly collected data on the career trajectories of United States Air Force Academy students. Specifically, we examine the effects of being assigned female math and science professors on occupation choice and postgraduate education. We find that, among high-ability female students, being assigned a female professor leads to substantial increases in the probability of working in a STEM occupation and the probability of receiving a STEM master’s degree. |
| JEL: | I20 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9643&r= |
| By: | Zuazu-Bermejo, Izaskun |
| Abstract: | Automation transforms the combination of tasks performed by machines and humans, and reshapes existing labour markets by replacing jobs and creating new ones. The implications of these transformations are likely to differ by gender as women and men concentrate in different tasks and jobs. This article argues that a gender-biased technological change framework will advance our understanding of the differentiated role of robots in labour market outcomes of women and men. The article empirically analyses the impact of industrial robots in gender segregation and employment levels of women and men using an industry-level disaggregated panel dataset of 11 industries in 14 developed and developing countries during 1993-2015. Within fixed-effects and instrumental variables estimates suggest that robotization increases the share of women in manufacturing employment. However, this impact hinges upon female labour force participation. As female labour participation rate increases, robots are associated with a negative effect of robotization in the female share of manufacturing employment. Results also show that the impact of robotization varies at different levels of economic development. The estimates point to a reducing employment effects of robotization, although the effect for women is larger. The results are robust to a variety of various sensitivity checks. |
| Keywords: | gender-biased technological change,robotization,manufacturing employment,gender industrial segregation |
| JEL: | C23 F16 J16 F14 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifsowp:19&r= |
| By: | Matthias Doepke; Anne Hannusch; Fabian Kindermann; Michèle Tertilt |
| Abstract: | In this survey, we argue that the economic analysis of fertility has entered a new era. First-generation models of fertility choice were designed to account for two empirical regularities that, in the past, held both across countries and across families in a given country: a negative relationship between income and fertility, and another negative relationship between women's labor force participation and fertility. The economics of fertility has entered a new era because these stylized facts no longer universally hold. In high-income countries, the income-fertility relationship has flattened and in some cases reversed, and the cross-country relationship between women's labor force participation and fertility is now positive. We summarize these new facts and describe new models that are designed to address them. The common theme of these new theories is that they view factors that determine the compatibility of women's career and family goals as key drivers of fertility. We highlight four factors that facilitate combining a career with a family: family policy, cooperative fathers, favorable social norms, and flexible labor markets. We also review other recent developments in the literature, and we point out promising new directions for future research on the economics of fertility. |
| JEL: | D13 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29948&r= |
| By: | Paul Hufe; Martyna Kobus; Andreas Peichl; Paul Schüle |
| Abstract: | Are the United States still a land of opportunity? We provide new insights on this question by invoking a novel measurement approach that allows us to target the joint distribution of income and wealth. We show that inequality of opportunity has increased by 77% over the time period 1983-2016. Increases are driven by two distinct forces: (i) a less opportunity-egalitarian distribution of income until 2000, and (ii) a less opportunity-egalitarian distribution of wealth after the financial crisis in 2008. In sum, our findings suggest that the US have consistently moved further away from a level playing field in recent decades. |
| Keywords: | fairness, intergenerational mobility, time trends, measurement |
| JEL: | D31 D63 J62 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9630&r= |
| By: | STRAULINO Daniel; DIODATO Dario (European Commission - JRC); O'CLERY Neave |
| Abstract: | Are recessions drivers of structural change? Here we investigate the resilience of cities, and argue that a re-allocation of labour between industrial sectors in times of crisis induces an acceleration in structural change. Using UK data, we find that cities experienced a sharp increase in inter-sectoral job transitions, and that local employment in skill-related sectors is most strongly associated with employment growth, during the recession, which we identify with the period of employment contraction between 2008 and 2011. This coincides with a massive but short-lived increase in the rate of structural change (i.e. the total change in employment shares of different industries) around 2009. These findings suggest that cities with skill-related sectors re-allocate workers in a crisis, thus inducing structural change. |
| Keywords: | Cities, resilience, financial crisis, labour markets, structural change, labour mobility |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:202202&r= |
| By: | Eric Chyn; Diego Daruich |
| Abstract: | To study the effects of neighborhood and place-based interventions, this paper incorporates neighborhood effects into a general equilibrium (GE) heterogeneous-agent overlapping-generations model with endogenous location choice and child skill development. Importantly, housing costs as well as neighborhood effects are endogenously determined in equilibrium. Having calibrated the model based on U.S. data, we use simulations to show that predictions from the model match reduced form evidence from experimental and quasi-experimental studies of housing mobility and urban development programs. After this validation exercise, we study the long-run and large-scale impacts of vouchers and place-based subsidies. Both policies result in welfare gains by reducing inequality and generating improvements in average skills and productivity, all of which offset higher levels of taxes and other GE effects. We find that a voucher program generates larger long-run welfare gains relative to place-based policies. Our analysis of transition dynamics, however, suggests there may be more political support for place-based policies. |
| JEL: | H53 I31 J13 R13 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29927&r= |
| By: | Xavier D'Haultfoeuille; Christophe Gaillac; Arnaud Maurel |
| Abstract: | We consider the identification of and inference on a partially linear model, when the outcome of interest and some of the covariates are observed in two different datasets that cannot be linked. This type of data combination problem arises very frequently in empirical microeconomics. Using recent tools from optimal transport theory, we derive a constructive characterization of the sharp identified set. We then build on this result and develop a novel inference method that exploits the specific geometric properties of the identified set. Our method exhibits good performances in finite samples, while remaining very tractable. Finally, we apply our methodology to study intergenerational income mobility over the period 1850-1930 in the United States. Our method allows to relax the exclusion restrictions used in earlier work while delivering confidence regions that are informative. |
| JEL: | C14 C21 J62 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29953&r= |
| By: | Kunaschk, Max (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany ; University of Groningen); Lang, Julia (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany ; Univ. Regensburg) |
| Abstract: | "In this paper, we compare two popular statistical learning techniques, logistic regression and random forest, with respect to their ability to classify jobseekers by their likelihood to become long-term unemployed. We study the performance of the two methods before the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the impact of the pandemic and its associated containment measures on their prediction performance. Our results show that random forest consistently out-performs logistic regression in terms of prediction performance, both, before and after the beginning of the pandemic. During the lockdowns of the first wave, the number of unemployment entries and the fraction of individuals that become long-term unemployed strongly increases, and the prediction performance of both methods declines. Finally, while the composition of the (long-term) unemployed changed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we do not find systematic patterns across groups with different levels of labor market attachment or across different sectors of previous employment in terms of declines in prediction performance." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | IAB-Open-Access-Publikation |
| Date: | 2022–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202208&r= |
| By: | Bruce D. Meyer; Connacher Murphy; James X. Sullivan |
| Abstract: | We examine the distribution of household consumption, income and savings from 2019 through the end of 2020 using the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) and other data. This is the first work to study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic well-being using nationally representative consumption data. We find that low percentiles of the consumption distribution see pre-pandemic growth and little change with the onset of the pandemic. On the other hand, higher percentiles of the consumption distribution do not increase before the pandemic and fall in 2020. Leveraging the rich demographics of our microdata, we find the most pronounced decline for high-educated families near the top of the consumption distribution and seniors in the top half of the distribution. The decrease in the top half is less evident for non-Whites. These patterns for consumption are different than those for income, particularly in the upper part of the distribution. Liquid assets increase in the upper half of the distribution, consistent with the divergence between the upper half of the income and consumption distributions. Our results suggest that the policy response to the pandemic averted a decrease in consumption for the most materially disadvantaged families, while changes in aggregate consumption accord with the observed patterns in the top of the consumption distribution. The changes for various types of consumption, and the distribution of those changes across the material resource distribution, are consistent with reductions in travel to work—which were large for those with greater material advantage—and restrictions on outlets for consumption. |
| JEL: | D12 D31 E21 H31 I31 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29878&r= |
| By: | Resul Cesur; Núria Rodriguez-Planas; Jennifer Roff; David Simon |
| Abstract: | Using Difference-in-Differences models, we estimate the impact of an exogenous increase in income on the incidence and intensity of intimate partner violence (IPV). Using National Crime Victimization Survey data from 1992 to 2000, we exploit time and family-size variation in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The OBRA-93 expansion caused statistically significant decreases in both reports of any physical or sexual assault and counts of physical or sexual assaults per 100 women surveyed with the effects being strongest for those groups more likely to both experience IPV and be eligible for EITC: unmarried women and black women. If increased income (rather than changes in employment) is the only channel by which the EITC decreases domestic violence, an additional $1,000 of after-tax income decreases the incidence of physical and sexual violence of unmarried low-educated women by 9.73% and the intensity of physical and sexual violence by 21%. We explore potential mechanisms behind these findings. After ruling out a decrease in time exposure to a partner (due to more time spent at work than at home) or increases in cash on hand with tax returns, we find evidence in support of EITC allowing for changes in living conditions during the summer. |
| JEL: | H2 I3 J08 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29930&r= |
| By: | Michael Bailey; Drew M. Johnston; Martin Koenen; Theresa Kuchler; Dominic Russel; Johannes Stroebel |
| Abstract: | We use de-identified data from Facebook to study the social integration of Syrian migrants in Germany, a country that received a large influx of refugees during the Syrian Civil War. We construct measures of migrants' social integration based on Syrians' friendship links to Germans, their use of the German language, and their participation in local social groups. We find large variation in Syrians' social integration across German counties, and use a movers' research design to document that these differences are largely due to causal effects of place. Regional differences in the social integration of Syrians are shaped both by the rate at which German natives befriend other locals in general (general friendliness) and the relative rate at which they befriend local Syrian migrants versus German natives (relative friending). We follow the friending behavior of Germans that move across locations to show that both general friendliness and relative friending are more strongly affected by place-based effects such as local institutions than by persistent individual characteristics of natives (e.g., attitudes toward neighbors or migrants). Relative friending is higher in areas with lower unemployment and more completed government-sponsored integration courses. Using variation in teacher availability as an instrument, we find that integration courses had a substantial causal effect on the social integration of Syrian migrants. We also use fluctuations in the presence of Syrian migrants across high school cohorts to show that natives with quasi-random exposure to Syrians in school are more likely to befriend other Syrian migrants in other settings, suggesting that contact between groups can shape subsequent attitudes towards migrants. |
| JEL: | D85 F22 J15 K37 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29925&r= |
| By: | Elliott Ash; Ruben Durante; Maria Grebenshchikova; Carlo Schwarz |
| Abstract: | We propose a new method for measuring gender and ethnic stereotypes in news reports. By combining computer vision and natural language processing tools, the method allows us to analyze both images and text as well as the interaction between the two. We apply this approach to over 2 million web articles published in the New York Times and Fox News between 2000 and 2020. We find that in both outlets, men and whites are generally over-represented relative to their population share, while women and Hispanics are under-represented. We also document that news content perpetuates common stereotypes such as associating Blacks and Hispanics with low-skill jobs, crime, and poverty, and Asians with high-skill jobs and science. For jobs, we show that the relationship between visual representation and racial stereotypes holds even after controlling for the actual share of a group in a given occupation. Finally, we find that group representation in the news is influenced by the gender and ethnic identity of authors and editors. |
| Keywords: | stereotypes, gender, race, media, computer vision, text analysis |
| JEL: | L82 J15 J16 Z10 C45 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9686&r= |
| By: | Ana Venâncio; João Pereira dos Santos |
| Abstract: | The effect of Brexit is an important topic in the European and British political agendas. This study examines the perspective of the EU countries, with regards how British citizens working in an EU country reacted to the end of free movement of workers. Employing synthetic control methods and using data from Portugal, we estimate how the behaviour of UK citizens working in Portugal would have evolved if the Remain vote had won the referendum. Our results suggest that the Brexit referendum reduced the number of UK citizens working in Portugal, particularly in the case of non-university educated, male individuals with temporary employment contracts. This reduction is explained by the decrease in the number of incomers. We also find that those UK citizens who were already working in Portugal before Brexit are less likely to leave the country. |
| Keywords: | Brexit, employment, migration |
| JEL: | J10 J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9659&r= |
| By: | Herwig Immervoll; Rodrigo Fernandez; Raphaela Hyee; Jongmi Lee; Daniele Pacifico |
| Abstract: | Social protection systems play a key stabilising role for individuals and societies, especially in the recent context of heightened uncertainties. This paper proposes a new empirical approach for quantifying the accessibility and value of income transfers following an earnings loss. The approach allows to estimate and monitor gaps in the accessibility and value of social transfers between so-called “standard” and “non-standard” workers. It first presents a methodology for assessing support levels for jobless individuals in specific circumstances that allows for comparisons across countries and over time. It then illustrates the approach using longitudinal survey data in 16 OECD countries. |
| Keywords: | social protection |
| JEL: | I38 J65 H55 H53 C31 C35 |
| Date: | 2022–05–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:271-en&r= |
| By: | So Yoon Ahn (University of Illinois at Chicago); Yu Kyung Koh |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how spousal bargaining power affects consumption patterns of married households in the US, using a detailed barcode-level dataset. We use two distribution factors as proxies for spousal bargaining power: (1) spouses' relative education and (2) spouses' relative potential wage, which is our preferred distribution factor. As an arguably exogenous measure of bargaining power, our relative potential wage is constructed as a Bartik style measure of female-to-male wage ratio, exploiting county-level variations in heterogeneous exposure to different industries and state-wide wage growth. We find that the expenditure shares on women's beauty goods increase and the expenditure shares on alcohol decrease significantly both when relative education of wife increases and when relative potential wages of wives increase. These results are consistent with household bargaining explanations. For couples with children, improved women's household bargaining position is associated with higher budget share on books, stationary, and school supplies, which are potentially related to investment in children. For singles, we do not find statistically meaningful effects of relative potential wage on any of their consumption outcomes, which strengthens the interpretation that the relative wage only affects couples' consumption decisions. |
| Keywords: | relative education, wage ratio, children |
| JEL: | D13 C78 J12 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-010&r= |
| By: | David Silver; Jonathan Zhang |
| Abstract: | We study impacts of a cash transfer program with no means-test and no work restrictions: the US Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Disability Compensation program. Our empirical strategy leverages quasi-random assignment of veterans claiming mental disorder disability to examiners who vary in their assessing tendencies. We find that an additional $1,000 per year in transfers decreases food insecurity and homelessness by 4.1% and 1.3% over five years, while the number of collections on VA debts declines by 6.4%. Despite facing virtually no direct monetary costs, healthcare utilization increases by 2.5% over the first five years, with greater engagement in preventive care and improved medication adherence. This demand response is in part explained by the ability to overcome indirect costs of accessing care ("ordeals"). Additionally, VA-conducted surveys suggest that transfers improve communication and trust between veterans and VA clinicians, leading to greater overall satisfaction. Apart from a reduction in self-reported pain, we estimate precise null effects on mental and physical health, including depression, alcohol and substance use disorders, body mass index, blood pressure, and glucose levels. Effects on mortality are small: we can rule out reductions greater than 0.011 percentage points (0.14%) over five years. |
| JEL: | H51 H53 I1 I3 I38 J01 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29877&r= |