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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Altmann, Steffen (IZA and University of Copenhagen); Glenny, Anita Marie (Aarhus University); Mahlstedt, Robert (University of Copenhagen); Sebald, Alexander (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Abstract: | We study how online job search advice affects the job search strategies and labor market outcomes of unemployed workers. In a large-scale field experiment, we provide job seekers with vacancy information and occupational recommendations through an online dashboard. A clustered randomization procedure with regionally varying treatment intensities allows us to account for treatment spillovers. Our results show that online advice is highly effective when the share of treated workers is relatively low: in regions where less than 50% of job seekers are exposed to the treatment, working hours and earnings of treated job seekers increase by 8.5–9.5% in the year after the intervention. At the same time, we find substantial negative spillovers on other treated job seekers for higher treatment intensities, resulting from increased competition between treated job seekers who apply for similar vacancies. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, job search, job search assistance, public policy, field experiments, information frictions, occupational recommendations, online advice |
| JEL: | J62 J23 J68 D83 C93 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15830&r=lab |
| By: | Basu, Arnab K. (Cornell University); Chau, Nancy H. (Cornell University); Lin, Gary C. (Johns Hopkins University) |
| Abstract: | We develop and estimate a theory-consistent gravity model for interregional migration flows in the presence of unemployment. Micro-founded in a setting where search friction regulates labor market transitions, we derive a migration gravity equation for bilateral mobility that embodies a co-determined local unemployment term. As a theory of migration, our model connects directly with longstanding migration puzzles (e.g. declining internal mobility) as well as more novel concepts (e.g. home bias). As a model of unemployment, a migration gravity approach uncovers hitherto under-appreciated interregional roots of local unemployment, and furnishes an unemployment sufficient statistic interpretation to the familiar multilateral migration resistance term. We empirically test the predictions of the model using U.S. county-level data on bilateral migration and unemployment rates, bilateral connectedness data such as Facebook friendship links, and instrumental variable identification based on a novel similarity index of counties' historical ethnic-composition. |
| Keywords: | friendship networks, gravity equation, internal migration |
| JEL: | J61 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15808&r=lab |
| By: | Boneva, T.; Golin, M.; Kaufmann, K.; Rauh, C. |
| Abstract: | This paper provides representative evidence on the perceived returns to maternal labor supply. We design a novel survey to elicit subjective expectations, and show that a mother’s decision to work is perceived to have sizable impacts on child skills, family outcomes, and the future labor market outcomes of the mother. Examining the channels through which the impacts are perceived to operate, we document that beliefs about the impact of additional household income can account for some, but not all, of the perceived positive effects. Beliefs about returns substantially vary across the population and are predictive of labor supply intentions under different policy scenarios related to childcare availability and quality, two factors that are also perceived as important. Consistent with socialization playing a role in the formation of beliefs, we show that respondents whose own mother worked perceive the returns to maternal labor supply as higher. |
| Keywords: | child penalties, Childcare, maternal labor supply, Subjective expectations |
| JEL: | J22 J13 I26 |
| Date: | 2022–12–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2270&r=lab |
| By: | Kyyrä, Tomi (VATT, Helsinki); Tuomala, Juha (VATT, Helsinki) |
| Abstract: | In Finland, large firms are partially liable for the costs of disability and unemployment benefits paid to their former workers. To estimate the effects of such costs, we exploit a reform that extended this cost-sharing to cover a new group of blue-collar workers. We show that experience rating in disability insurance reduces inflows to sickness and disability benefits and increases participation in vocational rehabilitation programs, whereas employers' unemployment insurance costs reduce excess layoffs of older workers who are eligible for extended unemployment benefits until retirement age. We find no evidence of spillover effects: employers' costs in one benefit type do not affect inflows to other types of the benefits. |
| Keywords: | experience rating, coinsurance, disability insurance, unemployment insurance |
| JEL: | J14 J26 H32 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15797&r=lab |
| By: | Kevin André Pineda-Hernández; François Rycx; Mélanie Volral |
| Abstract: | As immigrants born in developing countries and their descendants represent a growing share of the working-age population in the developed world, their labour market integration constitutes a key factor for fostering economic development and social cohesion. Using a granular, matched employer-employee database of 1.3 million observations between 1999 and 2016, our weighted multilevel log-linear regressions first indicate that in Belgium, the overall wage gap between workers born in developed countries and workers originating from developing countries remains substantial: it reaches 15.7% and 13.5% for first- and second-generation immigrants, respectively. However, controlling for a wide range of observables (e.g. age, tenure, education, type of contract, occupation, firm-level collective agreement, firm fixed effects), we find that, whereas first-generation immigrants born in developing countries still experience a sizeable adjusted wage gap (2.7%), there is no evidence of an adjusted wage gap for their second-generation peers. Moreover, our reweighted, recentered influence function Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions agree with these findings. Indeed, while the overall wage gap for first-generation immigrants born in developing countries is driven by unfavourable human capital, low-paying occupational/sectoral characteristics, and a wage structure effect (e.g. wage discrimination), the wage gap for their second-generation peers is essentially explained by the fact that they are younger and have less tenure than workers born in developed countries. Furthermore, our results emphasize the significant moderating role of geographical origin, gender, and position in the wage distribution. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants; intergenerational studies; labour market integration; wage decompositions; unconditional quantile regressions; employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J15 J16 J21 J24 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/352284&r=lab |
| By: | Alonso Alfaro-Urena; Benjamin Faber; Cecile Gaubert; Isabela Manelici; Jose P. Vasquez |
| Abstract: | Multinational enterprises (MNEs) increasingly impose “Responsible Sourcing” (RS) standards on their suppliers worldwide, including requirements on worker compensation, benefits and working conditions. Are these policies just “hot air” or do they impact exposed suppliers and their workers? What is the welfare incidence of RS in sourcing countries? To answer these questions, we develop a quantitative general equilibrium (GE) model of RS and combine it with a unique new database. In the theory, we show that the welfare implications of RS are ambiguous, depending on an interplay between what is akin to an export tax (+) and a labor market distortion (-). Empirically, we combine the near-universe of RS rollouts by MNE subsidiaries in Costa Rica since 2009 with firm-to-firm transactions and matched employer- employee microdata. We find that RS rollouts lead to significant reductions in firm sales and employment at exposed suppliers, an increase in their salaries to initially low-wage workers and a reduction in their low-wage employment share. We then use the estimated effects and the microdata to calibrate the model and quantify GE counterfactuals. We find that while MNE RS policies have led to significant gains among the roughly one third of low-wage workers employed at exposed suppliers ex ante, the majority of low-wage workers lose due to adverse indirect effects on their wages and the domestic price index. |
| Keywords: | multinationals, responsible sourcing, FDI, labor standards |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10108&r=lab |
| By: | Addison, John T. (University of South Carolina); Teixeira, Paulino (University of Coimbra) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between worker job satisfaction and workplace representation, to include works councils as well as local union agencies. The paper marks a clear shift away from the traditional focus on union membership per se because its sample of EU nations have industrial relations systems that diverge markedly from those of Anglophone countries. Our dataset comprises two waves of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). Pooled cross-section data indicate that workers in establishments with workplace representation have less job satisfaction than their counterparts in plants without formal representation. We proceed to upgrade these findings of conditional correlation by constructing a pseudo-panel with cohort fixed effects to take account of unobserved worker heterogeneity. Causality issues are directly tackled using an endogenous treatment effects model to address the possible endogeneity of worker representation. A persistence of our central finding leads us to conclude that, despite the recent evidence of a turnaround in the association between job satisfaction and unionism, it would be premature to conclude that this result can be generalized to continental European nations. |
| Keywords: | job satisfaction, workplace representation, European Working Conditions Survey, sorting, exit-voice |
| JEL: | I31 J28 J52 J53 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15809&r=lab |
| By: | Breda, Thomas (Paris School of Economics); Haywood, Luke (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC)); Wang, Haomin (University of Konstanz) |
| Abstract: | Recent empirical literature documents that targeted tax reductions or minimum wages can have unintended reallocation and spillover effects on workers not directly targeted by these policies. We quantify these effects using an equilibrium search-and-matching model estimated on French data before a low-wage payroll tax reduction in 1995; the model features heterogeneous workers and firms, labor taxation, and a minimum wage. Based on our model, the tax reduction led to changes in the vacancy distribution such that it becomes harder for workers to move up the job ladder in terms of firm productivity. We refer to this as the negative reallocation effect. The tax reduction also increased labor force participation of low-productivity workers, leading to a negative spillover effect because these workers create congestion in the labor market, lowering the job-finding rate for all workers. Given these unintended effects, low-wage tax reduction should cover jobs in a broad wage range. Finally, we find that the efficiency-maximizing policy mix involves moderately regressive payroll taxation and a low but binding minimum wage. |
| Keywords: | payroll tax, minimum wage, equilibrium job search, worker and firm heterogeneity |
| JEL: | J64 E24 H24 J38 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15810&r=lab |
| By: | Timothy N. Bond; Osea Giuntella; Jakub Lonsky |
| Abstract: | We develop a theoretical framework to analyze the effects of immigration on native job amenities, focusing on work schedules. Immigrants have a comparative advantage in production at, and lower disamenity cost for nighttime work, which leads them to disproportionately choose nighttime employment. Because day and night tasks are imperfect substitutes, the relative price of day tasks increases as their supply becomes relatively more scarce. We provide empirical support for our theory. Native workers in local labor markets that experienced higher rates of immigration are more likely to work day shifts and receive a lower compensating differential for nighttime work. |
| JEL: | F60 J31 J6 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30742&r=lab |
| By: | Richard Audoly; Federica De Pace; Giulio Fella |
| Abstract: | High-tenure workers losing their job experience a large and prolonged fall in wages and earnings. The aim of this paper is to understand and quantify the forces behind this empirical regularity. We propose a structural model of the labor market with (i) on-the-job search, (ii) general human capital, and (iii) firmspecific human capital. Jobs are destroyed at an endogenous rate due to idiosyncratic productivity shocks and the skills of workers depreciate during periods of non-employment. The model is estimated on German Social Security data. By jointly matching moments related to workers’ mobility and wages, the model can replicate the size and persistence of the losses in earnings and wages observed in the data. We find that the loss of a job with a more productive employer is the primary driver of the cumulative wage losses following displacement (about 50 percent), followed by the loss of firm-specific human capital (about 30 percent). |
| Keywords: | job loss; on-the-job search; human capital |
| JEL: | J0 J3 J6 |
| Date: | 2022–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:95392&r=lab |
| By: | Hermes, Henning (Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)); Krauß, Marina (University of Augsburg); Lergetporer, Philipp (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Peter, Frauke (DZHW-German Centre for Research on Higher Education and Science Studies); Wiederhold, Simon (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We present experimental evidence that enabling access to universal early child care for families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) increases maternal labor supply. Our intervention provides families with customized help for child care applications, resulting in a large increase in enrollment among lower-SES families. The treatment increases lower-SES mothers' full-time employment rates by 9 percentage points (+160%), household income by 10%, and mothers' earnings by 22%. The effect on full-time employment is largely driven by increased care hours provided by child care centers and fathers. Overall, the treatment substantially improves intra-household gender equality in terms of child care duties and earnings. |
| Keywords: | child care, maternal employment, gender equality, randomized controlled trial |
| JEL: | D90 J13 J18 J22 C93 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15814&r=lab |
| By: | Mann, Katja (Copenhagen Business School); Pozzoli, Dario (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Abstract: | Changes in the supply of low-skill labor may affect robot adoption by firms. We test this hypothesis by exploiting an exogenous increase in the local labor supply induced by a large influx of immigrants into Danish municipalities. Using the Danish employer-employee matched dataset over the period 1995-2019, we show in a shift-share regression that a larger share of migrants in a municipality leads to fewer imports of robots at the firm-level. We rationalize this finding in a simple model of robot adoption in which robots and low-skill workers are substitutes. As many advanced economies are facing labor shortages, this paper sheds light on the future of robotization. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, immigration, robots, shift-share |
| JEL: | E22 J20 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15791&r=lab |
| By: | Doris, Aedin (National University of Ireland, Maynooth); O'Neill, Donal (National University of Ireland, Maynooth); Sweetman, Olive (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores gender wage dynamics using an administrative dataset covering Irish graduate earnings from 2010-2020. Our data allows us to look at a broad range of degrees and compare workers who are identical in important observable characteristics. We find that although male and female graduates have similar returns to study field immediately after graduation, a substantial gap soon emerges. This is particularly true when considering women with children and is driven by a 27 percent fall in earnings immediately after childbirth. We find no striking differences between fields of study; there is a substantial and persistent motherhood effect for all field groupings. We examine and dismiss the possibility that the gender difference in earnings dynamics is driven by job mobility; in fact, almost all of the difference is accounted for by changes within a job. Although there is a large and persistent reduction in hours of work after childbirth, this does not seem to explain all of the reduction in earnings. |
| Keywords: | motehrhood penalty, gender pay gap, field of study |
| JEL: | J01 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15805&r=lab |
| By: | Ali, Umair (Center for Evaluation and Development (C4ED)); Brown, Jessica H. (University of South Carolina); Herbst, Chris M. (Arizona State University) |
| Abstract: | Immigrants comprise nearly 20% of the child care workforce in the U.S. This paper studies the impact of a major immigration enforcement policy, Secure Communities (SC), on the structure and functioning of the child care market. Relying on the staggered introduction of SC across counties between 2008 and 2014, we find that the program reduced children's participation in center-based child care programs. The estimated reductions are substantially larger among disadvantaged children, raising questions about the possibility of health and developmental spillovers. We also find that SC reduced the supply and wages of immigrant and native child care workers in the center-based sector. We provide descriptive evidence that immigrants and natives may not compete for the same jobs: immigrant child care teachers are more highly skilled, and the children assigned to their classrooms differ on some observable characteristics. Therefore, immigrants and natives are likely to be complements to child care service production. |
| Keywords: | child care, maternal employment, immigration, Secure Communities |
| JEL: | J13 J15 J21 K39 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15821&r=lab |
| By: | Panagiotis Arsenis (University of Surrey); Miguel Flores (National College of Ireland) |
| Abstract: | We study whether the completion of an optional professional year placement during undergraduate studies enhances job quality, in terms of earnings, job security and career _t, for economics graduates from a UK university. Using linear and discrete choice models, we estimate the effect of doing a professional year placement on four graduate outcomes that capture job quality and use a rich data set to control for demographics, educational background, academic achievement, degree, and graduate job characteristics. To account for possible self-selection bias, we use propensity score matching. We find that graduates who did a professional year placement earn 6.5% higher salaries than non-placement graduates, but the salary gap becomes statistically insignificant once we control for self-selection. Similarly, a professional year placement has no effect on job security. However, we find a positive effect of professional year placement on career fit: placement graduates are more likely to find jobs that fit their career plans than non-placement graduates, which holds even after controlling for self-selection. The empirical findings also show that job characteristics, like location and type of industry, and school background are also important factors contributing to graduates' employment quality. Finally, we find no differences in job quality due to gender. |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sur:surrec:0922&r=lab |
| By: | Lars Dommermuth (Statistics Norway); Adrian Farner Rogne; Astri Syse |
| Abstract: | Cash-for care policies are contested in many contexts, as they represent an incentive for childrearing over work that may reduce labour market participation, especially among immigrant women. From 1 July 2017, immigrants (both the mother and the father) from outside the European Economic Area must have at least 5 years of residence in Norway to be entitled to cash-for-care benefits. Previous research indicates that this reform did not lead to increased labour market participation of mothers and fathers treated by the reform. In this article, we examine whether the changes in the cash-forcare benefits policy have resulted in a substantive change in income and if the reform had an impact on the childbearing behaviour among those affected by the reform. Our descriptive analyses indicate no change in employment rates and household income. To detect possible changes in fertility, we employ a Difference-in-Difference approach, in which we compare the treatment group with four comparison groups. Overall, we find no substantial effect of the cash-for-care reform on childbearing behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; cash-for-care; immigrant fertility |
| JEL: | J13 J6 J15 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:993&r=lab |
| By: | Osuna Gómez Daniel |
| Abstract: | I study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the formal employment of entrants from each post-Great Recession year. Using longitudinal Mexican social security records and an individual fixed-effects difference-in-differences design, I find that the pandemic caused more recent entrants from each post-Great Recession year to lose formal employment at higher rates than other post-Great Recession entrants that joined the formal sector before them. However, the gap in employment narrowed as the economy recovered. The impact was larger for women and workers with less formal work experience in industries with more interpersonal interactions, like hotels and restaurants. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19 Pandemic;Post-Great Recession Entrants;Formal Labor Markets;Tenure |
| JEL: | I15 J13 J62 O17 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2022-19&r=lab |