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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Bhalotra, Sonia (University of Warwick); Daysal, N. Meltem (University of Copenhagen); Fréget, Louis (Paris-Dauphine PSL University); Cuzulan Hirani, Jonas (VIVE); Majumdar, Priyama (University of Warwick); Trandafir, Mircea (Rockwool Foundation); Wüst, Miriam (University of Copenhagen); Zohar, Tom (CEMFI) |
| Abstract: | Using Danish administrative data linked to two independent, validated postpartum depression screenings, we study how postpartum mental health shocks shape women’s labor market trajectories. Event-study estimates show no pre-birth differences in trends between depressed and non-depressed mothers, but persistent employment gaps that widen immediately after birth. Health-care utilization patterns indicate that these differences reflect acute mental health shocks rather than pre-existing trends. The penalties are concentrated among less educated mothers and those in less family-friendly jobs. Our results highlight postpartum depression as a meaningful and unequal contributor to the motherhood penalty. |
| Keywords: | Postpartum depression, motherhood penalty, labor market inequality JEL Classification: I12, J13, J16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:786 |
| By: | Lindsey Uniat |
| Abstract: | What is the contribution of changes in female labor supply to the decline of employment in routine jobs observed in the U.S. between 1970 and 2000? While typically attributed to changes in labor demand, the decline of routine employment has been larger for women than for men, as women moved out of routine clerical roles and into high-skill professions. This paper assesses the contribution of the Quiet Revolution—a concurrent shift in women’s life-cycle labor supply from intermittent to continuous—to the reallocation of aggregate employment from routine to abstract jobs over this period. The Quiet Revolution plausibly contributed to women’s movement out of routine and into abstract occupations because the latter feature stronger human capital dynamics, offering returns to continuous work. I develop and calibrate an equilibrium model of the labor market that incorporates both the Quiet Revolution and changes in production technology. Counterfactual analyses reveal that while the Quiet Revolution accounts for 12% to 22% of the drop in the aggregate routine employment share, technology is the dominant force in explaining changes in the overall distribution of employment. Nonetheless, the Quiet Revolution is essential for gender-specific trends: without it, women would neither have entered the labor force nor transitioned into abstract occupations to the extent observed. |
| JEL: | E24 J16 J21 J22 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–01–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:102313 |
| By: | Esther Arenas-Arroyo (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Elisabeth Wurm (Department of Economics, Central European University.) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the long-run effects of women’s economic rights on generations exposed to property and earnings acts during childhood. We find that childhood exposure to these reforms reduced the probability of marriage—particularly among women—and increased female labor force participation in adulthood. To explore potential mechanisms, we document several short-run effects among the adult generation contemporaneous to the reforms, including improved occupational standing, reduced fertility, lower child mortality, and increased schooling among children. Taken together, our findings suggest that expanding economic rights for women can shape outcomes across multiple generations, underscoring the enduring importance of legal and institutional reforms that promote women’s economic empowerment. |
| Keywords: | Women’s economic rights, Intergenerational mobility, Long-run effects |
| JEL: | D13 J12 J16 N31 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp390 |
| By: | Kory Kroft; Isaac Norwich; Matthew J. Notowidigdo; Stephen Tino |
| Abstract: | Many temporary foreign worker programs issue “closed” visas that effectively tie workers to a single employer, restricting worker mobility and weakening bargaining power. We study the labor market return to temporary foreign workers (TFWs) gaining permanent residency (PR), which loosens this mobility restriction. Using administrative data linking matched employer-employee data in Canada to temporary and permanent visa records from 2004–2014 along with an event-study design, we find that gaining PR leads to a sharp, immediate, and persistent increase in the job switching rate of 21.7 percentage points and an increase in earnings of 5.7 percent three years after PR. Workers also sort into high-wage firms after gaining PR, and the increase in the firm pay premium is roughly 56 percent of the total earnings gain. We find larger earnings gains for job switchers across industries, low-skilled workers, and workers from low-income countries. To guide and interpret our reduced-form results, we develop a search-and-matching model featuring heterogeneous workers and firms. Permanent residents and native-born workers search for jobs in the same labor market and engage in on-the-job search, while TFWs search separately within a segmented labor market and do not receive outside wage offers. We calibrate the model to match our reduced-form results, and we use it to simulate the long-run effects of PR and consider two counterfactual policies: (1) increasing the cost to firms of posting a TFW vacancy and (2) allowing TFWs to switch employers freely under “open” visas. We evaluate how these policies affect output, wages, profits, and overall social welfare. |
| JEL: | F22 J42 J61 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34630 |
| By: | Esther Arenas-Arroyo (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the home sewing machine on women’s work and intergenerational mobility—an innovation that enabled women to generate income from within the household. Marketed directly to women as a tool for both domestic use and paid work, it provides a unique setting to examine how household technologies reshaped labor markets and intergenerational outcomes. Exploiting the expansion of sewing machine sales agents, which generated geographic and temporal variation in access, I show that access to sewing machines increased demand for dressmakers, raised women’s employment in this occupation, and reduced reliance on child labor. In the long run, children exposed in early life attained higher literacy, formed smaller families, and experienced greater intergenerational mobility. These findings highlight the household as a crucial site of technological change, showing how domestic innovations could expand women’s opportunities and generate lasting gains across generations. |
| Keywords: | women’s work, home production, child labor, children |
| JEL: | J16 N31 J22 J24 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp389 |
| By: | Ahammer, Alexander (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz); Halla, Martin (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); Austrian National Public Health Institute (GOEG); Rockwool Foundation Berlin; and Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO)); Heckl, Pia (ifo Institute. Poschingerstraße 5, Germany; Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and CESifo); Rudolf Winter-Ebmer (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS); Rockwool Foundation Berlin, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)) |
| 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: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ihs:ihswps:number63 |
| By: | Khorunzhina, Natalia (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School); Wedewer, Jesse (Duke University); Wu, Runling (Duke University) |
| Abstract: | Measures of intergenerational mobility primarily focus on earnings and often overlook substantial heterogeneity in job amenities. We propose a novel measure of intergenera-tional welfare mobility, “value-value” slope, including both pecuniary and non-pecuniary value of a job. We apply a revealed preference approach to construct common rankings of jobs based on worker flows. Using Danish administrative data, we document that there is 31% more intergenerational mobility than earnings-based mobility measures alone would suggest: the value-value slope is 0.105 and the wage-premia slope is 0.151. Importantly, this aggregate pattern masks striking gender differences: comparing within each gender, daughters exhibit 38% greater mobility in total welfare than in wages; for sons, the two measures nearly align. Gender differences trace to how family background shapes educa-tional and occupational paths. Daughters pursue academic tracks and enter white-collar jobs with similar amenities at high rates regardless of background. Sons’ paths are more stratified: those from disadvantaged families disproportionately follow vocational routes into blue-collar work, where both wages and amenities differ sharply from the professional jobs that advantaged sons obtain. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; earnings inequality; amenities |
| JEL: | D31 J30 J62 |
| Date: | 2025–12–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2026_001 |
| By: | Felix Degenhardt |
| Abstract: | I examine whether the early but temporary availability of low-barrier employment opportunities in the hospitality sector affects the labor market integration of refugees. My identification strategy combines the quasi-exogenous allocation of refugees to Austrian regions with high seasonality in Austria's hospitality sector, where 25% of refugees find initial employment. Exploiting within region, within year variation, I find that receiving labor market access during high seasonal demand increases employment probability initially, with significant employment effects of up to 3 percentage points, or 9% of the mean, in the first months. Employment advantages diminish after the first year, indicating that such early employment opportunities do not serve as a stepping stone. Still, treated refugees have in total earned more in the first three years, with no significant differences in medium-term wages and job quality. One disadvantage of early employment in hospitality is the increased labor market segregation, as treated refugees are more likely to work in industries more typical for refugees and in firms with higher non-Austrian coworker shares. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.17422 |
| By: | Egshiglen Batbayar; Christoph Breunig; Peter Haan; Boryana Ilieva |
| Abstract: | We propose a new approach to estimate selection-corrected quantiles of the gender wage gap. Our method employs instrumental variables that explain variation in the latent variable but, conditional on the latent process, do not directly affect selection. We provide semiparametric identification of the quantile parameters without imposing parametric restrictions on the selection probability, derive the asymptotic distribution of the proposed estimator based on constrained selection probability weighting, and demonstrate how the approach applies to the Roy model of labor supply. Using German administrative data, we analyze the distribution of the gender gap in full-time earnings. We find pronounced positive selection among women at the lower end, especially those with less education, which widens the gender gap in this segment, and strong positive selection among highly educated men at the top, which narrows the gender wage gap at upper quantiles. |
| Keywords: | Quantile regression, sample selection, Roy model, rank invariance, semiparametric inference, gender wage gap, wage inequality |
| JEL: | C14 C31 C36 J16 J21 J31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2151 |
| By: | Sonia Bhalotra, Sonia (University of Warwick, CAGE, IFS, CEPR, RFBerlin, IZA, CESifo); Clarke, Damian (Universidad de Chile, University of Exeter, and IZA); Venkataramani, Atheendar (University of Pennsylvania and NBER) |
| Abstract: | We leverage the introduction of the first antibiotic therapies in 1937 to examine the long run effects of early childhood pneumonia on adult educational attainment, employment, income, and work-related disability. Using census data, we document large average gains on all outcomes, alongside substantial heterogeneity by race and gender. On average, Black men exhibit smaller schooling gains than white men but larger employment and earnings gains. Among Black men (and women), we identify a pronounced gradient in gains linked to systemic racial discrimination in the pre–Civil Rights era: individuals born in more discriminatory Jim Crow states realized much smaller gains than those born in less discriminatory states. There is no similar gradient among white Americans. Women of both races exhibit smaller education and earnings gains than men on average, consistent with cultural and institutional barriers to women’s work. Our findings highlight the role of opportunities in shaping the extent to which investments in early-life health translate into longer run economic gains. |
| Keywords: | early childhood; medical innovation; race; human capital production; education; income; disability; systemic discrimination; institutions; infectious disease; pneumonia; antibiotics; sulfa drugs JEL Classification: I10, I14, J71, H70 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:785 |
| By: | Minwoo Hyun |
| Abstract: | Using matched employer-employee data covering 1.35 million US workers separated from the fossil fuel extraction industry between 1999 and 2019, I estimate how local fossil fuel labor demand shocks affect employment and earnings. Employment probabilities fall markedly after exposure, and earnings decline gradually over the first seven years with only partial recovery by ten years since exposure to the shocks. Workers who remain in the fossil fuel sector, disproportionately men in sector-specific roles, experience nearly twice the earnings losses of those who switch sectors, possibly due to limited occupational mobility. Among non-switchers, losses are larger in labor markets with high employer concentration, indicating that scarce outside options translate into lower reemployment wages and weaker bargaining positions. Geographic movers fare worse than stayers, reflecting negative selection (younger, lower-earning) and relocation to metropolitan areas where fossil fuel or low-skilled service sectors remain highly concentrated, leaving monopsony power intact. |
| JEL: | Q32 R11 J31 J60 J42 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:25-76 |
| By: | Tho Pham; Daniel Schaefer; Carl Singleton |
| Abstract: | National payroll data reveal that men are paid more than women when they enter firms in Great Britain. Although this hiring wage gap has narrowed over the past two decades, it still accounts for over two-thirds of the steady-state gender pay gap – the wage gap that would eventually prevail under constant employment levels. We find that a significant amount of this hiring wage gap is not explained by men and women working in different firms and occupations. Even when a firm hires men and women into the same specific occupation at roughly the same time, and accounting for previous work experience, there remains an unexplained hiring wage gap within jobs that favours men by 2.4 log points. These findings suggest that gender pay gap reporting laws that focus exclusively on the overall gaps within employers miss an important margin. |
| Keywords: | Gender segregation, Occupation-specific wages, Employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J70 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2026-01 |
| By: | Boczon, Marta (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School); Severgnini, Battista (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how regional economic conditions, birth timing, and institutional rules shape talent allocation into high-risk/high-reward payoff structure occupations. Using rich data on English-born professional footballers and exploiting exogenous variation from European Structural Funds in the United Kingdom (1990–2000), we show that improved local conditions reduced the share of summer-born children, who are disadvantaged by age-based cutoffs in youth academies but exhibit higher underlying talent. Although regional income per capita did not significantly change, fertility timing shifted, shrinking this high-potential group: players born after the intervention exhibit lower peak market values, reflecting how economic and institutional factors can misallocate talent. |
| Keywords: | Talent allocation; Early-life conditions; Birth-timing; Professional sports |
| JEL: | J13 J24 R11 Z22 |
| Date: | 2026–01–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2026_002 |
| By: | Friederike Hertweck (RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research); Robbie Maris (University College London); Mirco Tonin (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, FBK-IRVAPP, IZA, CESifo and Dondena Centre); Michael Vlassopoulos (University of Southampton, IFS, and IZA) |
| 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: | Higher Education, Application patterns, UCAS data, Gender, Socioeconomic Status. |
| JEL: | I20 I23 M38 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bzn:wpaper:bemps117 |