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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Cesar Barreto; Antoine Bertheau; Dogan Gulumser; Alexander Hijzen; Astrid Kunze; Marta Lachowska; Anne Sophie Lassen; Salvatore Lattanzio; Benjamin Lochner; Stefano Lombardi; Jody Meekes; Balazs Murakozy; Oskar Nordstrom Skans; Marco Palladino |
| Abstract: | We quantify the role of gender-specific firm wage premiums in explaining the private-sector gender gap in hourly wages using a harmonized research design across 11 matched employer-employee datasets—ten European countries and Washington state, USA. These premiums contribute to the gender wage gap through two channels: women’s concentration in lower-paying firms (sorting) and women receiving lower premiums than men within the same firm (pay-setting). We find that firm wage premiums account for 10 to 30 percent of the gender wage gap. While both mechanisms matter, sorting is the predominant driver of the firm contribution to the gender wage gap in most countries. We document three patterns that are broadly consistent across countries: (1) women’s sorting into lower-paying firms increases with age; (2) women are more concentrated in low-paying firms with a high share of part-time workers; and (3) women receive about 90 percent of the rents that men receive from firm surplus gains. |
| Keywords: | Gender wage gap; Firms; Cross country comparison |
| JEL: | C52 J24 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2025–12–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:102275 |
| By: | Ross Chu; Sohee Jeon; Hyun Seung Lee; Tammy Lee |
| Abstract: | Using detailed data on workplace benefits linked with administrative registers in Korea, we analyze patterns of separations and job transitions to study how parents sort into family-friendly firms after childbirth. We examine two quasi-experimental case studies: 1) staggered compliance with providing onsite childcare, and 2) mandated enrollment into paternity leave at a large conglomerate. In both cases, introducing family-friendly changes attracted more entry by parents who would gain from these benefits, and parents with young children stayed despite slower salary growth. We use richer data on a wider range of benefits to show that sorting on family-friendliness mainly occurs through labor force survival rather than job transitions. Most mothers do not actively switch into new jobs after childbirth, and they are more likely to withdraw from the labor force when their employers lack family-friendly benefits. We explain these findings with a simple model of sorting that features heterogeneity in outside options and opportunity costs for staying employed, which change after childbirth and vary by gender and family-friendliness at current jobs. Taken together, our findings indicate that mothers are concentrated at family-friendly firms not because they switch into new jobs after childbirth, but because they exit the labor force when their employers lack such benefits. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.22810 |
| By: | Abi Adams (Northwestern University); Oguz Bayraktar (Department of Economics, University of Bath); Thomas H. Jørgensen (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Hamish Low (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago); Alessandra Voena (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | Joint custody following divorce is widespread, but implementation is costly when individuals live in different states and so affects interstate mobility. Migration of separated fathers has fallen significantly more than married fathers. We show the causal effect of joint custody using two strategies. First, we survey separated parents to elicit beliefs about the likelihood of interstate moves. Second, we use the staggered adoption of joint custody laws across US states, and show a reduction in actual migration of 11 percentage points for fathers. For mothers, there is no impact on mobility but suggestive evidence of beneficial labor market outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Migration; Child Custody; Divorce. |
| JEL: | D10 R23 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–12–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2516 |
| By: | Hemanshu Kumar; Meeta Kumar (Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi); Rohini Somanathan (Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi) |
| Abstract: | Literacy was extremely low in colonial India - by 1931, average gross literacy was about 8%. In comparison, the princely state of Baroda stood out by achieving an average literacy rate close to 18% in the same year. The ruler of Baroda introduced a set of policies in 1906 that included compulsory education and public provision of free, primary schools. We examine the short and long-run effects of this set of policies. We do this through a comparison of areas within Baroda with regions bordering them, using a difference-in-difference framework. Since administrative boundaries changed dramatically over this period, our long-run comparisons rely on a careful mapping of boundaries. We find large effects through the colonial period and in the decades immediately following independence. These differences eventually narrowed as public good provision expanded. In 2011, sixty-four years after independence, there still remained a gap in literacy rates in areas that were historically in Baroda, and those that were outside it. |
| Keywords: | Literacy, persistence, education policy, compulsory education, colonial India, princely states, Baroda JEL codes: I21, I28, N35 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:356 |
| By: | Rosa Cheesman; Nicolai T. Borgen; Astrid M. J. Sandsor; Paul Hufe |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether better schools can compensate for the effects of children’s genetic differences. To this end, we combine data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) with Norwegian register data to estimate the interaction between genetic endowments and school quality. We use MoBa’s genetic data to compute polygenic indices for educational attainment (PGIEA). Importantly, MoBa includes information on the genetic endowments of father-mother-child trios, allowing us to identify causal genetic effects using within-family variation. We calculate school value-added measures from Norwegian register data, allowing us to causally estimate school quality effects. Leveraging the advantages of both data sources, we provide the first causally identified study of geneenvironment interactions in the school context. We find evidence for substitutability of PGIEA and school quality in reading but not numeracy: a 1 SD increase of school quality decreases the impact of the PGIEA on reading test scores by 6%. The substitutability arises through gains of students at the lower end of the PGIEA distribution. This shows that investments in school quality may help students to overcome their draw in the genetic lottery |
| Date: | 2025–04–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:25/811 |
| By: | Hertweck, Friederike (RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research); Maris, Robbie (University College London); Tonin, Mirco (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano); Vlassopoulos, Michael (University of Southampton) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines university application patterns in the UK, focusing on the joint decision of selecting both an institution and a subject. Using administrative data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) covering almost all undergraduate applications between 2008 and 2021, we document three key facts: (i) students generally choose subject before university: they apply on average to around 1.6 subject areas across 4.6 institutions, and roughly half apply to a single field across multiple universities; (ii) there are significant gender gaps in application and offer rates that reflect field composition; (iii) high-socioeconomic status students submit more applications, apply less to local institutions, and obtain more offers, but these differences shrink sharply once we control for attainment and the selectivity of the programmes that students apply to. An expert survey suggests that several of these patterns run against conventional wisdom. |
| Keywords: | gender, UCAS data, application patterns, higher education, socioeconomic status |
| JEL: | I20 I23 M38 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18331 |
| By: | Grenet, Juliet (Paris School of Economics and CNRS); Grönqvist, Hans (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Hertegård, Edvin (SOFI, Stockholm University); Nybom, Martin (IFAU, Uppsala University); Stuhler, Jan (Department of Economics, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | We study how students adjust their early career choices in response to economic crises and how these decisions affect their long-run labor market outcomes. Focusing on Sweden’s deep recession in the early 1990s—which hit the manufacturing and construction sectors hardest—we first show that students whose fathers lost jobs in these sectors were more likely to choose career paths tied to less-affected industries. These students later experienced better labor market outcomes, including higher employment and earnings. Our findings suggest that informational frictions are a key obstacle to structural change and identify career choice as an important channel through which recessions reshape labor markets in the long run. |
| Keywords: | High School Major; Recession; Information Frictions; Structural Change |
| JEL: | E32 I25 J24 J63 |
| Date: | 2025–12–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1545 |
| By: | Mello, Ursula (Insper, São Paulo); Nybom, Martin (Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU)); Stuhler, Jan (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | Lacking lifetime income data, most intergenerational mobility estimates are subject to lifecycle bias. Using long income series from Sweden and the US, we illustrate that standard correction methods struggle to account for one important property of income processes: children from affluent families experience faster income growth, even conditional on their own characteristics. We propose a lifecycle estimator that captures this pattern and performs well across different settings. We apply the estimator to study mobility trends, including for recent cohorts that could not be considered in prior work. Despite rising income inequality, intergenerational mobility remained largely stable in both countries. |
| Keywords: | lifecycle bias, intergenerational mobility, income processes |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18329 |
| By: | Margaret Leighton (University of St Andrews); Irina Merkurieva (University of St Andrews) |
| Abstract: | This paper extracts aspirations from texts written in childhood by members of a British longitudinal cohort and explores how these relate to later life outcomes. Applying Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to short essays collected at age 11, we identify four aspiration themes: family, hobbies, financial success, and career. The weight of these four themes varies substantially across respondents, with girls on average placing more weight on family, and boys on financial success. Aspirations extracted using our method are strongly predictive of later life outcomes, even when controlling for detailed measures of early life environment, ability, and family background. These associations are often highly heterogeneous by gender; for example, family-related aspirations are associated with higher educational attainment for men, but lower educational attainment for women. |
| Keywords: | Aspirations; Education; Natural Language Processing; NCDS |
| JEL: | J24 J26 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–12–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:econdp:2505 |
| By: | Martin Eckhoff Andresen; Andreas Kostøl; Ross Milton; Corina Mommaerts; Luisa Wallossek |
| Abstract: | This paper examines monthly earnings volatility and its transmission to household earnings volatility using Norwegian data on the universe of monthly pay histories. We document substantial month-to-month earnings changes: within a job, while over one-quarter of months have no earnings changes, another quarter have at least a 23% change. Accounting for multiple jobs and non-employment increases volatility, while aggregating to households reduces volatility by 12-35%. Event studies around job loss and couple formation, along with decomposition and bounding exercises, show that most of this decline reflects pooling effects rather than sorting or responses to shocks. |
| Keywords: | monthly earnings volatility, Earnings pooling, marital sorting, added worker effects |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12323 |
| By: | Sébastien Fontenay; Libertad González Luna |
| Abstract: | We estimate the long-term impact of early paternal involvement by exploiting the 2002 Belgian paternity leave introduction as a natural experiment. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the reform significantly increased fathers’ long-term time investment in childcare. Tracking children into early adulthood, we find precisely estimated null effects on a comprehensive set of outcomes, including educational attainment, labor market attachment, and family formation. These results hold across subgroups, including children of low and high- educated fathers. We conclude that while paternity leave may increase father involvement, it does not generate detectable advantages (or disadvantages) in children’s early adult lives. |
| Keywords: | Paternity leave , intergenerational effects |
| JEL: | J08 J13 J16 J18 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1934 |
| By: | Alexander Ahammer; Martin Halla; Pia Heckl; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | Long-term unemployment among older workers is particularly difficult to overcome. We study the impacts of a large-scale job guarantee program that offered up to two years of fully subsidized employment to long-term unemployed individuals aged 50 and above. Using a sharp age-based discontinuity in eligibility, we find that participation increased regular, unsubsidized employment by 43 percentage points two years after the program ended. The gains are driven by transitions into new firms and industries, rather than continued subsidized employment, and we find no evidence of displacement effects for non-participants or spillovers to family members. The program had no measurable short-run health effects. |
| Keywords: | long-term unemployment, temporary job guarantee, subsidized employment, health status |
| JEL: | J64 J08 J78 I14 H51 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12340 |
| By: | Alexander Ahammer; Martin Halla; Pia Heckl; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | Long-term unemployment among older workers is particularly difficult to overcome. We study the impacts of a large-scale job guarantee program that offered up to two years of fully subsidized employment to long-term unemployed individuals aged 50 and above. Using a sharp age-based discontinuity in eligibility, we find that participation increased regular, unsubsidized employment by 43 percentage points two years after the program ended. The gains are driven by transitions into new firms and industries, rather than continued subsidized employment, and we find no evidence of displacement effects for non-participants or spillovers to family members. The program had no measurable short-run health effects. |
| Keywords: | Long-term unemployment, temporary job guarantee, subsidized employment, health status |
| JEL: | J64 J08 J78 I14 H51 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2025-12 |
| By: | Gloria Moroni (Ca' Foscari University of Venice); Cheti Nicoletti (University of York); Kjell Salvanes (Norwegian School of Economics); Emma Tominey (University of York) |
| Abstract: | We revisit the economic effects of marriage, analysing its heterogeneous impact on the intra-household labour division following childbirth. Can marriage promote coordination of work and child activities between parents and a gender egalitarian division of labour? Using a marginal treatment effect framework, we find the average effect of marriage is to increase parental specialization and worsen the mother's child penalty. However, we find differences across couples with varying resistance to marriage. While traditional couples (low-resistance) exhibit increased specialization; in modern couples (high-resistance) fathers have an earnings penalty and take more paternity leave, suggesting more coordination and gender equality. |
| Keywords: | Cohabitation, Marriage, Specialization, Cooperation, Child human capital. |
| JEL: | J11 J12 J13 J18 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucl:cepeow:25-16 |
| By: | Biroli, Pietro (University of Bologna); Di Girolamo, Amalia (University of Birmingham); Sorrenti, Giuseppe (University of Lausanne); Totarelli, Maddalena (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Educational disparities often limit students' access to relatable role models, constraining their aspirations and educational outcomes. We design and implement the Online Role Model Mentoring Program (ORME), a scalable, low-cost intervention connecting middle school students with successful role models from similar backgrounds. Using a randomized controlled trial with over 450 students in Campania, Italy, we find that ORME improves students' beliefs about the returns to effort, increases alignment between aspirations and expectations, and boosts school effort. Treated students also become more academically ambitious: they are more likely to enroll in academically oriented tracks and perform better on standardized language tests. These findings show that brief online mentoring sessions can have a meaningful impact on students’ attitudes and choices at a critical stage of schooling, highlighting a promising tool to support students in low-opportunity contexts. |
| Keywords: | role models, aspirations, mentoring, school interventions |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J24 D91 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18325 |
| By: | Abi Adams; Oguz Bayraktar; Thomas H. Jorgensen; Hamish W. Low; Alessandra Voena |
| Abstract: | Joint custody following divorce is widespread, yet the implementation of joint custody is costly when individuals live in different states, so it affects interstate mobility. Migration of divorced fathers has fallen significantly more than that of married fathers. We show the causal effect of joint custody using two strategies. First, we survey divorced parents to elicit beliefs about the likelihood of interstate moves. Second, we use the staggered adoption of joint custody laws across U.S. states, and show a reduction in actual migration of 11 percentage points for fathers. For mothers, there is no impact on mobility from the adoption of joint custody, though there is suggestive evidence of beneficial labor market outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Migration; Divorce |
| JEL: | D10 J13 R23 |
| Date: | 2025–12–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:102276 |
| By: | William Skoglund (Uppsala History of Inequality and Labor Lab, Uppsala University); Jakob Molinder (Uppsala History of Inequality and Labor Lab, Uppsala University, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of unionization in shaping income distributions during the Great Leveling, comparing Sweden and the United States—two countries with markedly different union traditions and levels of organization. Using data from the 1940 and 1950 U.S. censuses and Swedish tax registers, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in unionization and estimate distributional effects using quantile regressions and interactions with worker characteristics. Our results indicate that stronger unions elevated earnings in both countries, but the elasticity was roughly double in the United States compared with Sweden. U.S. unions also had a more radical impact on the earnings distribution: the effect at the 10th percentile was almost twice that at the 90th percentile while also reducing earnings differences between workers with different levels of skill and education. We relate the difference between the two countries to their patterns of union membership: in the United States, it was concentrated among lower-skilled workers, whereas in Sweden it was high across the occupational distribution and among employees with both low and high levels of education, shaping their incentives to negotiate higher wages and compress the earnings distribution. Our study shows that unions played a pivotal role in the Great Leveling in two countries at opposite ends of the labor-market-regime continuum. While there appears to be a trade-off between unions’ organizational reach and impact on wages, Sweden’s more encompassing unions have been more successful in engendering a compressed income distribution. U.S. unions have instead gradually lost their power to affect outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, Unions |
| JEL: | J31 J51 N41 N44 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0292 |
| By: | Hamish W. Low; Costas Meghir; Luigi Pistaferri; Alessandra Voena |
| Abstract: | The 1996 U.S. welfare reform introduced time limits on welfare receipt. We use quasi-experimental evidence and a rich life cycle model to understand the impact of time limits on different margins of behavior and well-being. We stress the impact of marital status and marital transitions on mitigating the cost and impact of time limits. Time limits cause women to defer claiming in anticipation of future needs and to work more, effects that depend on the probabilities of marriage and divorce. They also cause an increase in employment among single mothers and reduce divorce, but their introduction costs women 0.7% of lifetime consumption, gross of the redistribution of government savings. |
| Keywords: | Welfare; Welfare reform; Limited commitment |
| JEL: | D91 H53 J12 J21 |
| Date: | 2025–12–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:102278 |
| By: | Sekyu Choi; Benjamin Villena-Roldan; Nincen Figueroa |
| Abstract: | We estimate high real wage cyclicality using over a decade of online job ads. Our unique, high-quality data—featuring reliable wage rates, firm identifiers, job titles, hiring standards, vacancy counts, and applicant demographics— provides an accurate measure of firms’ marginal labor cost due to its demand-side and ex ante nature and leads to dependable estimates. Crucially, omitting countercyclical hiring standards leads to underestimating real wage procyclicality. A search and matching model with endogenous hiring standards rationalizes these findings, showing how highquality data is crucial for understanding labor market dynamics |
| Date: | 2025–04–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:25/812 |
| By: | Thomas Baudin; Yajna Govind; Simone Moriconi |
| Abstract: | Do symbolic aspects of integration policies affect migrants’ integration into the host society? In this paper, we study the effects of a symbolic change in birthright citizenship rules in France that requires second-generation immigrants to state their allegiance on their integration. Adopting a Difference-in-Differences approach, we show that, contrary to its stated aim of fostering a greater sense of belonging, this policy led to a loss of national identity and an increase in perceptions of discrimination among the target group. We document that these effects are not driven by changes in naturalization rates or an increased general hostility. We also show that while the reform did not affect their economic or political integration, it did reduce their cultural integration, as measured by religiosity and naming patterns. Overall, rather than promoting integration, such migration policies can lead to a backlash. |
| Keywords: | naturalization, migrant integration, policy backlash, national identity |
| JEL: | J1 J15 J21 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12362 |
| By: | Katrine M. Jakobsen; Thomas H. Jorgensen; Hamish W. Low |
| Abstract: | We study how fertility decisions interact with labor supply and human capital accumulation of men and women. First, we use longitudinal Danish register data and tax reforms to show that increases in wages of women decrease fertility while increases in wages of men increase fertility. Second, we estimate a life-cycle model to quantify the importance of fertility adjustments for labor supply and long-run gender inequality. Wage elasticities of women are more than 10% lower if fertility cannot be adjusted. Finally, we show that the long-term consequences of human capital depreciation around childbirth are an important driver of the long-run gender wage gap in the model. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; Labor supply; human capital accumulation; Gender inequality; Tax reform |
| JEL: | D15 H24 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–12–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:102277 |
| By: | Julia Baarck (LMU Munich); Moritz Bode (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Andreas Peichl (LMU Munich) |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational Mobility, Social Mobility, Income, Education, Inequality. |
| JEL: | J62 I24 D63 |
| Date: | 2025–12–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2515 |