|
on Labour Economics |
| By: | Hammer, Luisa (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | "Gender gaps in employment have narrowed but remain substantial, particularly among couples. To estimate how improved female wage opportunities influence partners’ employment choices, I exploit demand-driven wage changes in job tasks and German administrative data. Results indicate women respond positively, albeit at a diminishing rate, to relative wage improvements, while male partners also increase their labor supply in response. Consequently, the work hours gap within couples narrows, but doesn’t close and even widens in certain groups. Potential explanations for these patterns building on Becker’s household model include comparative advantages for women, and relative income preferences and gender identity norms for men." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | IAB-Open-Access-Publikation |
| JEL: | D13 E32 J12 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–01–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202501 |
| By: | Yoosoon Chang; Steven N. Durlauf; Bo Hu; Joon Park |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a fully nonparametric model to investigate the dynamics of intergenerational income mobility for discrete outcomes. In our model, an individual’s income class probabilities depend on parental income in a manner that accommodates nonlinearities and interactions among various individual and parental characteristics, including race, education, and parental age at childbearing. Consequently, we offer a generalization of Markov chain mobility models. We employ kernel techniques from machine learning and further regularization for estimating this highly flexible model. Utilizing data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we find that race and parental education interact with parental income in children’s economic prospects in ways that can create bottlenecks in mobility. |
| JEL: | C10 C50 D30 I24 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33349 |
| By: | Amarante, Verónica; Galván, Estefanía; Yapor, Mijail |
| Abstract: | This paper provides novel insights into labor market dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent recovery period in Uruguay. Using social security administrative records, we focus on the gender-differentiated patterns of labor market transitions following the pandemic outbreak, compared to a previous period. Furthermore, we evaluate the role of unemployment insurance (UI) as an instrument for employment protection during the pandemic-induced recession. The analysis reveals that womenparticularly those with children and earning low wagesexperienced greater employment and wage losses compared to men at the pandemics onset, though they showed signs of recovery in later periods. Moreover, women were more likely to transition from UI to formal employment during the pandemic, diverging from previous trends, largely due to the suspension modality (similar to a temporary lay-off) of the Uruguayan UI program. Through a regression discontinuity (RD) approach, the study identifies positive local effects of the beneficiaries of the UI suspension program on the probability of being employed and earning higher wages for both men and women, eight and twelve months after entering the program. These findings carry significant policy implications, underlying the importance of maintaining and potentially expanding UI programs with temporary suspension schemes, and the necessity of adapting social protection systems to respond quickly to crises. Our results underscore the potential of temporary layoff unemployment insurance schemes in developing countries as effective tools to address unexpected crises or shocks like COVID-19, preserving employment relationships and facilitating faster economic recovery. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19;gender;labor market;Unemployment insurance |
| JEL: | J16 J08 J21 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:13944 |
| By: | Anna Aizer; Gabrielle Grafton; Santiago Pérez |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of Federal alcohol Prohibition in 1919 on workers in the alcohol industry and their families using newly linked census records that allow us to follow spouses, sons and daughters. Immediately after Prohibition, men previously working in alcohol-related industries were less likely to be in the labor force, and when working, employed in lower skilled occupations. By 1940, 21 years after Prohibition, workers were still more likely to be in unskilled occupations, but they were more likely to be employed, consistent with delayed retirement. In the short run, sons are largely unaffected but in the long run, they complete slightly more schooling and earn more. Interestingly, daughters were more likely to remain at home, delay marriage and be employed, even 20 years later. These effects are driven by daughters living at home in 1920. Daughters, not sons, appear to have acted as the family's safety net in this period before public provision of relief. |
| JEL: | J13 J20 J62 N32 N62 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33346 |
| By: | Jason Sockin; Michael Sockin |
| Abstract: | In the United States and other large economies, women receive less variable pay than men, even within the same firms and job titles. We argue this disparity in pay partly reflects labor market sorting. Since women are less-represented in more variable-pay-intensive jobs, even within occupations, women accumulate less variable pay over time. Women apply relatively less often to and early in their careers separate faster from such roles. Compared with their male peers, women perceive variable-paying jobs as offering worse amenities, including culture, work-life balance, and paid family leave. Compensation schemes appear to induce disparities in pay through worker sorting. |
| Keywords: | gender gap, variable pay, job search, amenities |
| JEL: | J16 M52 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11608 |
| By: | Clemente Pignatti; Alessandro Tondini |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of a reform in South Africa anticipating children’s entry into primary school on children’s school enrollment and mothers’ labour supply. We use Census data and exploit month-of-birth discontinuities and the before/after variation introduced by the reform. We report a net increase of 7pp. in school attendance at age 5. However, contrary to an established finding in the literature, we find no impact on mother’s employment and the type of jobs held. We reconcile our finding with those of previous studies by noting that South Africa is characterized by relatively high initial rates of school attendance and relatively low rates of maternal employment. In districts where these contextual factors are more similar to previous studies, we find that higher enrollment does lead to higher maternal employment. |
| Keywords: | Childcare, Maternal labor supply, South Africa |
| JEL: | I28 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fbk:wpaper:2025-01 |
| By: | Itzik Fadlon; Astrid Sophie Fugleholm; Torben Heien Nielsen |
| Abstract: | We use administrative records on the healthcare utilization and economic outcomes of the universe of Danish households to characterize survivors' mental health following their spouse's death. We provide visually clear evidence for the inevitable immediate, large, and lingering adverse impacts and focus on studying the role of potential mediators: economic conditions and the presence of children. We find no evidence of heterogeneity in family composition. As for economic outcomes, baseline levels of income and net wealth play only a modest role: there is no meaningful cross-household inequality gradient in mental health declines, so that spousal death is devastating for both the rich and the poor. Rather, a key source of heterogeneity in the decline in mental health is the household's degree of income insurance, that is, the within-household income variation. Specifically, the least-insured households experience an immediate decline in mental health that is 80 percent larger. Our findings suggest that the consumption smoothing welfare gains from income protection policies can have important spillovers to improved mental health in the context of severe household events. |
| JEL: | D1 H5 I1 I3 J1 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33359 |
| By: | Christopher M. Hair; Sabrina T. Howell; Mark J. Johnson; Siena Matsumoto |
| Abstract: | Younger entrepreneurs are disadvantaged by traditional loan underwriting, which relies heavily on personal credit scores. With data from three fintech companies, we show that incorporating timely information about ability to repay from business checking account statements particularly improves default prediction performance for younger business owners. We develop a novel method to compare model predictions across subgroups—Tail Analysis for Comparative Outcomes (TACO)—which finds that switching from a Baseline (FICO-driven) model to a Cash Flow-enhanced model benefits younger entrepreneurs. We confirm this in causal analysis of approval decisions, showing that access to cash flow-intensive underwriting increases approval rates for younger vs. older entrepreneurs. |
| JEL: | G21 G23 G32 J14 J16 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33367 |
| By: | Ran Abramitzky; Leah Platt Boustan; Osea Giuntella |
| Abstract: | Immigrant enclaves offer valuable ethnic amenities but may delay assimilation. We study enclave formation in the Age of Mass Migration by using the centralized location decisions for “ethnic” Catholic churches. After a church opening, same-ethnicity residents of chosen neighborhoods experienced falling earnings but strengthened communal ties, as compared to residents of areas matched on baseline characteristics. Treated residents held more manual occupations, and increased in-group marriage and naming. These effects persist into the second generation and are not observed for non-ethnic neighbors. Consistent with the historical record, Poles organized communal life around neighborhood parishes, but Italians were less church-centered. |
| JEL: | N92 R23 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33362 |
| By: | Deza, María Cecilia; Dondo, Mariana; Jara, H. Xavier; Rodríguez Guerrero, David Arturo; Torres, Javier |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to assess the extent to which cash transfers, direct taxes, and social contributions help to reduce gender income inequalities in seven Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. We apply microsimulation techniques to household survey data and allocate incomes within the household, assuming that each person retains the income they receive (e.g., earnings, benefits targeting mothers) and pays taxes and social insurance contributions on an individual basis according to each countrys rules. Then, we compare gender income ratios based on market (before taxes and benefits) and disposable (after taxes and benefits) income. Our results show that, at the bottom of the distribution, tax-benefit systems significantly reduce gender income disparities in most countries due to the effect of social assistance benefits received by mothers in poor households. Additionally, we find that women have substantially higher poverty rates than men based on individual disposable income. Gender differences in poverty fade away when income is pooled at the couple level and, even more so, at the household level. |
| Keywords: | taxes;benefits;microsimulation;gender gap |
| JEL: | D31 J16 H24 I32 I38 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:13941 |
| By: | Kim, Cholwoo (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | 1539 - |
| Keywords: | labor market frictions ; search and matching ; international co-movement ; wage rigidity JEL Codes: E24 ; E32 ; F41 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1538 |
| By: | Kim, Cholwoo (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces search frictions in labor and goods markets to explore which condition leads to deviation from LOP, and how asymmetric shocks have an impact on deviation of LOP in an open economy. First, we show that the LOP gap only depends on the ratio of marginal utility of aggregate search across countries. Then, we express the LOP gap in terms of consumption gap across countries and show that asymmetric productivity shocks between countries entail deviations from LOP. This is because asymmetric productivity shocks affect markups via the matching probability, and in turn, induce firms to move across markets. Finally, we also examine responses of macroeconomic variables with respect to country-specific productivity and preference shocks. |
| Keywords: | consumer search ; labor market frictions ; search and matching ; international co-movement JEL Codes: E24 ; E31 ; F41 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1540 |
| By: | Priti Kalsi; Zachary Ward |
| Abstract: | Is the top tail of wealth a set of fixed individuals or is there substantial turnover? We estimate upper-tail wealth dynamics during the Gilded Age and beyond, a time of rapid wealth accumulation and concentration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Using various wealth proxies and data tracking tens of millions of individuals, we find that most extremely wealthy individuals drop out of the top tail within their lifetimes. Yet, elite wealth still matters. We find a non-linear association between grandparental wealth and being in the top 1%, such that having a rich grandparent exponentially increases the likelihood of reaching the top 1%. Still, over 90% of the grandchildren of top 1% wealth grandfathers did not achieve that level. |
| JEL: | D31 J62 N31 N32 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33355 |
| By: | Mrs. Paola Ganum; Can Sever |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the relationship between violent conflicts and gender inequality in a global sample since the 1990s. Based on a composite index, it shows that conflicts, including both interstate and intrastate events, predict a higher gender inequality in outcomes. Focusing on specific gender outcomes, school enrollment rate by females in primary education and share of seats in parliament held by women tend to decrease in the aftermath of those episodes, whereas maternal mortality rate increases. Moreover, conflicts tend to widen cross-country gaps in gender inequality in outcomes. Focusing on gender inequality in opportunities, conflicts are associated with lower economic rights for women in legislation. Considering the role of women’s empowerment in economic growth and development, these associations between conflicts and gender inequality provide a channel for the observed, long-lasting drag on economic performance following those episodes. The ongoing political and security-related challenges across the globe make the implications of the findings even more crucial for sustainable and inclusive economic growth in the post-Covid-19 era. |
| Keywords: | Gender inequality; women's empowerment; women’s legal rights; conflict; wars; economic growth and development |
| Date: | 2025–01–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2025/012 |
| By: | Costa, Dora L. (UCLA); Bygren, Lars Olov (Karolinska Institutet); Graf, Benedikt (NBER); Karlsson, Martin (University of Duisburg-Essen); Price, Joseph (Brigham Young University) |
| Abstract: | Explanations for the West's escape from premature mortality have focused on chronic malnutrition or income and on public health or state capacity. We argue that by ignoring the multigenerational effects of variance in ancestors' harvests, we are underestimating the contribution of modern economic growth to the escape from early death at older ages. Using a newly constructed multigenerational dataset for Sweden, we show that grandsons' longevity was strongly linked to spatial shocks in paternal grandfathers' yearly harvest variability when agricultural productivity was low and market integration was limited. We reason that an epigenetic mechanism is the most plausible explanation for our findings. We posit that the removal of trade barriers, improvements in transportation, and agricultural innovation reduced harvest variability. We contend that for older Swedish men (but not women) born 1830-1909 this reduction was as important as decreasing contemporaneous infectious disease rates and more important than eliminating exposure to poor harvests in-utero. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational transmission, longevity, ecomomic growth, harvest variability |
| JEL: | I15 J11 N33 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17620 |
| By: | Pierre-André Chiappori; Monica Costa Dias; Costas Meghir; Hanzhe Zhang |
| Abstract: | Positive assortative matching refers to the tendency of individuals with similar characteristics to form partnerships. Measuring the extent to which assortative matching differs between two economies is challenging when the marginal distributions of the characteristic along which sorting takes place (e.g., education) change for either or both sexes. We show how the use of different measures can generate different conclusions. We provide axiomatic characterization for measures such as the odds ratio, normalized trace, and likelihood ratio, and provide a structural economic interpretation of the odds ratio. We then use our approach to consider how marital sorting by education changed between the 1950s and the 1970s cohort, for which both educational attainment and returns in the labor market changed substantially. |
| JEL: | C78 D1 J1 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33354 |
| By: | Joanna Tyrowicz (Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE); University of Warsaw; Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)); Krzysztof Makarski (Katedra Ekonomii IloÅ›ciowej SzkoÅ‚a GÅ‚ówna Handlowa w Warszawie; Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE); Narodowy Bank Polski); Piotr Zoch (Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE); WydziaÅ‚ Nauk Ekonomicznych Uniwersytet Warszawski) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the contribution of rising longevity to the increase in wealth inequality in the U.S. over the past seventy years. To do so, we construct an overlapping generations (OLG) model with multiple sources of inequality, carefully calibrated to the data. Our key finding is that improvements in old-age longevity have a substantial impact on wealth inequality, accounting for approximately half the effect of income inequality, which has been the focus of much of the existing literature. In contrast, the impact of tax changes is relatively minor. The contribution of rising longevity is expected to continue driving wealth inequality upward in the coming decades. |
| Keywords: | wealth inequality, rising longevity, OLG |
| JEL: | J15 D31 E21 E24 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fme:wpaper:101 |