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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Jerg Gutmann; Léa Marchal; Betül Simsek |
| Abstract: | This is the first global study of how institutionally entrenched gender discrimination affects the gender migration gap (GMG) using data on 158 origin and 37 destination countries over the period 1961-2019. We estimate a gravity equation derived from a random utility maximization model of migration that accounts for migrants’ gender. Instrumental variable estimates indicate that increasing gender equality in economic or political rights generally deepens the GMG, i.e., it reduces female emigration relative to that of men. In line with our theoretical model, this average effect is driven by higher-income countries. In contrast, increased gender equality in rights reduces the GMG in lower-income countries by facilitating female emigration. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, gender equality, individual rights, migration, RUM model |
| JEL: | F22 J16 J71 K38 O15 P48 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10222&r=lab |
| By: | Gordon H. Hanson |
| Abstract: | Society’s transition toward more sustainable energy sources is well underway. But substantially reducing the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity, to power vehicles, and to manufacture the stuff of everyday life will profoundly disrupt the communities that currently dedicate themselves to carbon-intensive industries. In this paper, I consider the potential for adverse labor market consequences from the energy transition and the suitability of existing policies to counteract them. Top of mind in this discussion is to avoid repeating the painful adjustment to globalization and automation, which in recent decades brought concentrated job loss and long-lasting economic distress to local labor markets that had been specialized in manufacturing. I begin by mapping the spatial distribution of employment in fossil-fuel-intensive activities across US commuting zones from 2000 forward. Then, using the labor market consequences of the post-1980 decline of coal as a backdrop, I discuss policy options for easing adjustment to the energy transition, including letting market forces work, reinforcing the social safety net, and expanding place-based policies. |
| JEL: | J6 Q3 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30871&r=lab |
| By: | Bonaccolto-Töpfer, Marina; Schnabel, Claus |
| Abstract: | Using representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this paper finds a statistically significant union wage premium in Germany of almost three percent which is not simply a collective bargaining premium. Given that the union membership fee is typically about one percent of workers' gross wages, this finding suggests that it pays off to be a union member. Our results show that the wage premium differs substantially between various occupations and educational groups, but not between men and women. We do not find that union wage premia are higher for those occupations and workers which constitute the core of union membership. Rather, unions seem to care about disadvantaged workers and pursue a wider social agenda. |
| Keywords: | union wage premium, collective bargaining, union membership, Germany |
| JEL: | J31 J53 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwqwdp:022023&r=lab |
| By: | Wiedner, Jonas; Schaeffer, Merlin (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) |
| Abstract: | Social science research demonstrates that dispersal policies and restrictions on the freedom of residence have inhibited refugees’ socio-economic integration. The dominant explanation is that such policies prevent refugees from moving to places where they can employ their skills most fruitfully. However, previous studies of refugees’ actual residential choices in Europe provide little evidence that refugees move to places with good employment prospects. The combination of negative effects of residence restrictions and emerging evidence of disadvantaging secondary migration forms what we call the ‘refugee mobility puzzle’. In this study, we address this puzzle and ask: What attracts refugees to deprived areas, and can their seemingly unfortunate residential choices be understood as moves to labor market opportunity after all? Empirically, we draw on the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees, track the location of more than 2, 500 refugee respondents, and estimate discrete choice models across all German counties and postcodes. Our results confirm the existence of the refugee-mobility puzzle and complicate recent critiques of dispersal policies and restrictions by suggesting that refugees’ need for affordable housing and their desire to be close to (co-ethnic) friends and family may turn into an unintended lock-in factor in the mid- and long-run. |
| Date: | 2023–01–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:rnzbc&r=lab |
| By: | Bernardus F Nazar Van Doornik; Armando Gomes; David Schoenherr; Janis Skrastins |
| Abstract: | We assess the employment and income effects of access to credit dedicated to investment in individual mobility by exploiting time-series variation in access to credit through random lotteries for participants in a group-lending mechanism in Brazil. We find that access to credit for investment in individual mobility increases formal employment rates and salaries, yielding an annual rate of return of 12 percent. Consistent with a geographically broader job search, individuals transition to jobs farther from home and public transportation. Our results suggest that accessing distant labor markets through credit for investment in individual mobility yields high and persistent returns. |
| Keywords: | access to credit, household finance, labor mobility, spatial mismatch |
| JEL: | D14 G23 J62 R20 R23 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1071&r=lab |
| By: | Gomes, Sandra; Jacquinot, Pascal; Lozej, Matija |
| Abstract: | Differences in labour market institutions and regulations between countries of the monetary union can cause divergent responses even to a common shock. We augment a multi-country model of the euro area with search and matching framework that differs across Ricardian and hand-to-mouth households. In this setting, we investigate the implications of cross-country heterogeneity in labour market institutions for the conduct of monetary policy in a monetary union. We compute responses to an expansionary demand shock and to an inflationary supply shock under the Taylor rule, asymmetric unemployment targeting, and average inflation targeting. For each rule we distinguish between cases with zero weight on the unemployment gap and a negative response to rising unemployment. Across all rules, responding to unemployment leads to lower losses of employment and higher inflation. Responding to unemployment reduces cross-country differences within the monetary union and the differences in consumption levels of rich and poor households. JEL Classification: E24, E32, E43, E52, F45 |
| Keywords: | business cycles, DSGE modelling, monetary union, search and matching |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20232769&r=lab |
| By: | Grant M. Seiter; Mary J. Lopez; Sita Slavov |
| Abstract: | As the share of U.S. adult children living with their parents increases, it is important to understand how children who “boomerang” back home impact their parents in their pre-retirement and post-retirement years. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the effects of boomerang children on their parents’ labor market expectations and choices, as well as on their wealth, health, and life satisfaction. Event study analysis suggests that boomerang children return home due to short-term instabilities, such as negative shocks to marriage, income, and employment. We find that boomerang children are associated with a small increase in their parents’ subjective probability of working after age 65. However, there is no clear statistically significant evidence that they impact parents’ current or future labor market choices; nor is there any evidence that they affect parents’ wealth, health, or life satisfaction. |
| JEL: | J12 J14 J26 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30863&r=lab |
| By: | Zhou, Haiwen |
| Abstract: | A country’s unemployment rate can be affected by technology choice and the opening of international trade. This general equilibrium model examines the impact of international trade with the presence of dual labor markets in which manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose technologies with different marginal and fixed costs to maximize profits. In a closed economy, it is shown that an increase in labor market efficiency or a population increase induces manufacturing firms to adopt more advanced technologies and the wage rate in the manufacturing sector increases. With the existence of a continuum of technologies, technology choice is not a source of firm heterogeneity. The opening of international trade leads to an increase in the wage rate in the manufacturing sector and the price of the agricultural good. When countries are identical, international trade always increases national welfare. |
| Keywords: | International trade, dual labor markets, oligopoly, technology choice, increasing returns |
| JEL: | E24 F12 F16 F66 J64 |
| Date: | 2023–01–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:116169&r=lab |
| By: | Hristina Gaydarska (Center for iPS Cell Research and Applicaton, Kyoto University, JAPAN); Miwa Matsuo (Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University, JAPAN) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates transitions in gender differences and parenthood penalties in the chance of business travel, focusing on variations by occupation and technology usage. Although literature documents that women and parents of small children are substantially less likely to travel for business, particularly long ones, little research has explored changes in the gap. Moreover, not much attention has been given to whether they vary by business travel distance, occupation, or technology adaptations. This study analyzes domestic intra-regional business travel likelihood by different distance thresholds, using three U.S. National Household Travel Surveys from 2001 to 2017. By employing the Probit model, our analysis finds narrowing gender gaps and parenthood penalties in business mobility, thanks to the shrinking travel needs. Internet-savvy workers, in particular, experienced narrower gender gaps, especially among those without small children. The conditional prediction suggests a disappearing gender gap and parenthood gap for the sales and service workers, even for trips over 50 miles per day. Contrary, the gender gap in business mobility among the professional and managerial workers persistently remained in 2017 for long-distance trips. The declining trend in the gender gap and parenthood penalty for the business travel likelihood is a vital sign for reducing inequalities and work-life balances. |
| Keywords: | Business travel; Gender gap; Internet (non) savvy; ICT development |
| JEL: | R4 J16 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2023-02&r=lab |
| By: | Lo, Ashley Wan-Tzu; Kono, Tatsuhito |
| Abstract: | We investigate the time values for married couples by life stage based on an intertemporal model that represents within-individual and within-couple trade-offs between different activities. Using Japan Household Panel Survey, we find that wives value their time greater than 4, 400 yen/hour when their first child is of pre-school age; the value, however, decreases after their first child reaches school age. These changes reflect their time on work and commute. Conversely, the husbands’ time values are not very different in magnitude. We find that some dual-income households have time burden as they highly value their time saving on childcare. |
| Keywords: | Gender equality, household welfare, time allocation, value of time as a resource, value of childcare time saving |
| JEL: | D91 J13 J16 J22 R41 |
| Date: | 2023–01–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:116111&r=lab |
| By: | Amare, Mulubrhan; Abay, Kibrom A.; Chamberlin, Jordan |
| Abstract: | We combine nationally representative data from Nigeria with spatiotemporal data from remote sensing and other sources to study how young migrants respond to observable characteristics of potential destinations, both in absolute terms and relative to origin locations. Migrants prefer destinations with better welfare, land availability and intensity of economic activity. We also find that migrants prefer shorter distances and those destinations with better urban amenities and infrastructure. However, responses vary by type of migrant and migration. For example, rural-rural migrants are more responsive to land availability and agricultural potential, while rural-urban and urban-urban migrants are more responsive to welfare and economic vibrancy (measured by nightlight intensity) in destinations. Distance induces varying impact on migration choices of poor and non-poor migrants as well as across more educated and less educated migrants. Longer distances discourage migration for female migrants, poorer migrants and less educated migrant while the implication for the non-poor and more educated migrants appears to be negligible. This is intuitive because poorer and less educated migrants have liquidity constraints to finance high migration costs. Our results suggest potential scope for predicting how labor mobility responds to alternative regional development policies. |
| Keywords: | NIGERIA; WEST AFRICA; AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA; AFRICA; data; data analysis; destinations; development policies; economics; educational opportunities; labour; land; land access; migration; migrants; provenance; remote sensing; welfare; spatiotemporal data |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2160&r=lab |
| By: | Carlsson, Mikael (Uppsala universitet); Clymo, Alex (University of Essex); Joslin, Knut-Eric (Kristiania University College) |
| Abstract: | We characterize the dispersion of firm-level productivity and demand shocks over the business cycle using Swedish microdata including prices and analyse the consequences for firms and the aggregate economy. Demand dispersion increases by more than productivity dispersion in recessions. Productivity shocks pass through incompletely to prices and have limited effect on sales dispersion. Demand shocks explain most of the variation in sales dispersion. In a heterogeneous-firm model matching the micro facts, demand dispersion has unambiguously negative effects on output via increased uncertainty and a “wait and see” channel. Productivity dispersion does not generate “wait and see” effects, but affects output negatively by inducing markup dispersion. |
| Keywords: | demand estimation; productivity; variable markups; business cycles; dispersion; uncertainty; passthrough; adjustment costs |
| JEL: | D21 D22 D81 E32 L11 |
| Date: | 2023–01–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2023_001&r=lab |
| By: | Áron Kiss; Maria Chiara Morandini; Alessandro Turrini; Anneleen Vandeplas |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to shed light on post-COVID-19 labour market developments across the EU, notably on the simultaneous presence of elements of slack and indications of tightness over the course of 2021. It presents available data on labour market mismatch and discusses possible dynamics going forward. In light of the strong sectoral dimension of the COVID-19 shock, the paper explores differences in the impact of the COVID-19 crisis across countries, relevant sectoral aggregates, and workers’ characteristics. The paper also conducts econometric estimations with a view to gauge whether Beveridge curves have shifted upward after the COVID-19 outbreak. The results indicate a modest upward shift in the EU Beveridge curves in 2020, partly reversed in the course of 2021. Despite the fact that skill mismatch somewhat worsened in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this deterioration appears to have had a very minor impact on the efficiency of labour market matching. Overall, a number of considerations suggest the simultaneous presence of labour market slack and shortages is likely to have been a temporary phenomenon. Labour shortages appear to be driven mainly by the labour market recovery and not by hampered labour market reallocation. |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J08 J21 J63 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:euf:dispap:178&r=lab |