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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Robert Mahlstedt (University of Copenhagen); Sonja Settele (University of Cologne, ECONtribute & Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics); Johannes Wohlfart (University of Cologne, ECONtribute & Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics) |
| Abstract: | We study economic narratives---causal accounts of observed events---in a high-stakes real-world context: long-term unemployment. We use open-ended questions to measure narratives about long-term unemployment in samples of Danish unemployed job seekers, firm managers, households from the general population, and experts at labor market institutions, as well as international academic experts. We document three main results. First, there is pronounced heterogeneity in narratives both within and across samples. For instance, job seekers are more likely to attribute long-term unemployment to factors outside the control of the individual and less likely to attribute it to job seekers’ own decisions than respondents in the other samples. Second, narratives strongly reflect job seekers' personal experiences during both the current and previous unemployment spells. Third, narratives shape job seekers' and firm managers' quantitative beliefs, decisions and labor market outcomes as measured in survey and linked administrative data, which we demonstrate in a field experiment and correlationally. Our findings highlight the experiential origins of economic narratives and underscore the key role of narratives in belief formation and decision making. |
| Keywords: | Narratives, belief formation, job search |
| JEL: | D83 D84 J64 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:399 |
| By: | Alaina Barca; Evan Mast |
| Abstract: | We construct a new neighborhood geography using a revealed preference intuition: If people disproportionately move within neighborhoods, their boundaries can be backed out from migration flows. Our “districts, ” which consist of about nine census tracts each, correspond to recognizable local areas, as their boundaries align with physical barriers, sharp demographic changes, and local government borders. To illustrate applications, we first show that tract-level analyses of neighborhood sorting miss important broader patterns. Second, aggregating tract-level intergenerational mobility estimates to the district level increases precision threefold while introducing little aggregation bias, resulting in improved predictive power in a hold-out sample. |
| Keywords: | Neighborhood definition; residential mobility; residential sorting |
| JEL: | R23 |
| Date: | 2026–03–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:102934 |
| By: | Muñoz, Ercio; Sansone, Dario; Tampellini Silva, Joao Pedro |
| Abstract: | Using census data from over 500, 000 dual-earner households in Mexico, we show that couples in which the wife earns just above half of the household income are far less common than those in which she earns just below that threshold a pattern that has been attributed to gender norms that create an aversion to wives outearning their husbands. This gap is two to five times larger than documented in the United States and Northern Europe and has grown over the 20002015 period. Unlike findings for the United States and Northern Europe, the discontinuity is not driven by equal earners, self-employed workers, or co-working couples, and persists across married and cohabiting couples, households with and without children, female-headed households, and couples where the wife is the older partner. Extending the analysis to Brazil and Panama, we find comparable patterns, establishing this as a regional rather than country-specific phenomenon. Among female same-sex couples in Mexico, we detect a similar discontinuity, whereas no consistent pattern emerges for male same-sex couples. Even when women are the primary earners, they continue to supply substantially more nonmarket labor than their male partners on average 36 more weekly hours and convergence in household production slows as the wife's income share rises further above the threshold. |
| Keywords: | Participación laboral femenidad;Parejas del mismo sexo;uso del tiempo |
| JEL: | D13 D91 J12 J15 J16 O15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14545 |
| By: | Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina (University of California, Merced); Bucheli, Jose (University of Texas at El Paso) |
| Abstract: | Access to the labor market is crucial for the economic integration of asylum seekers. This study estimates the causal impact of work authorization timing on the labor market outcomes of likely asylum seekers. We link USCIS administrative records with American Community Survey microdata and use congestion-driven variation in processing times within an instrumental variable framework. Faster authorization boosts labor force participation, employment, and earnings, while effects on hours worked and occupational choices are modest. The impacts are concentrated within the first decade after arrival and diminish over time, indicating that processing delays slow integration but do not permanently hinder it. |
| Keywords: | asylum seekers, work authorization, labor market integration, United States |
| JEL: | J15 J61 J68 K37 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18462 |
| By: | Ueno, Yuko (Hitotsubashi University); Usui, Emiko (Hitotsubashi University) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates gender differences in labor market outcomes among highly educated individuals in Japan, emphasizing heterogeneity by fields of study, with a focus on STEM. Using data from the Japanese Panel Study of Employment Dynamics (JPSED), we find that women with STEM degrees begin their careers with earnings comparable to men with at least a bachelor’s degree in any field; yet the gap widens to 24.4 percent six to ten years after graduation. Penalties are especially large for mothers and remain sizable for childless women. Field differences are stark: six to ten years out, women with STEM bachelor’s degrees, Social Sciences, or Humanities degrees earn less than men with high-school or junior-college education. In contrast, women with STEM advanced degrees or Medicine/Pharmacy degrees earn more than men with a high-school or junior-college education, and women with Medicine/Pharmacy degrees maintain wage parity with men holding at least a bachelor’s degree in any field. These findings indicate that family responsibilities matter, but structural barriers against women also contribute to persistent gender gaps, with holders of advanced degrees in STEM, Medicine, or Pharmacy as notable exceptions. |
| Keywords: | STEM, field of study, female, Japan |
| JEL: | J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18465 |
| By: | Karim Bekhtiar; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | Providing recently laid offworkers with cash benefits may help them overcome mobility costs and thereby stimulate labor mobility. On the other hand, cash benefits may dampen the employment shock and reduce the incentive to move. In this paper, we test these two competing mechanisms against each other. For this we use a severance pay regulation in Austria, which generated a sharp cutoff after which workers became eligible to a severance payment of two monthly salaries. Our results indicate that this cash payment increased labor mobility by around 8% to 12%. This increase is much stronger for worker groups with lower baseline mobility rates. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment, labor mobility, internal migration, commuting |
| JEL: | J18 J61 J65 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2026-03 |
| By: | Lucia Torres Frasele (Health Economics, Policy and Innovation Institute, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the causal effects of Menopause Hormone Therapy (MHT) on health and labor market outcomes among U.S. women aged 40–61. I leverage the MHT treatment arm of the first large-scale randomized evaluation of MHT’s effects on postmenopausal women’s health, which was stopped early due to elevated health risks and publicly announced in July 2002. The announcement led to a rapid global decline in MHT prescriptions, which I use as a quasi-exogenous shock. Using nationally representative U.S. data on prescriptions, health, and labor market outcomes, I apply difference-in-differences, instrumental variables, and fixed-effects approaches. Results show MHT significantly improves physical health, increasing physical functioning scores by up to one standard deviation, but effects on employment and wages are modest and sensitive to specification. |
| Keywords: | women’s health; menopause; aging; employment |
| JEL: | I12 J14 J16 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mub:wpaper:2026-01 |
| By: | St'Anna, Pedro (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Sardoschau, Sulin (Humboldt University Berlin); Schmeisser, Aiko (Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | Empirical studies of racial wage disparities typically rely on self-reported race and treat racial categories as fixed. This paper shows that racial classification in the labor market is produced by social perception, and that modeling this process is essential for measuring wage gaps. We combine two large administrative data sets to construct three racial identity measures for 330, 000 workers in Brazil (2003-2015): employer classification, self-identification, and an algorithmic skin-tone measure. Self-identified and employer-ascribed race differ in over 20 percent of cases, and employers disagree about the same worker. We estimate a "race function" describing how employers map phenotypic cues, self-identification, education, and employment histories into racial categories. Holding skin tone constant, university graduates are substantially more likely to be perceived as White. Measured wage gaps vary across racial definitions, and accounting for perception meaningfully alters disparity estimates. We show that conventional approaches overstate the role of productivity differences in explaining racial wage gaps. |
| Keywords: | Race, identity, disparity, wage gap, Brazil |
| JEL: | J15 J50 J71 Z10 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18473 |
| By: | Kazuharu Yanagimoto |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the barriers to gender convergence using Japan as a salient environment to explore the interactive effects of labor market structures and social norms. I develop a quantitative model of household labor supply where couples jointly decide their occupations and working hours. The model features a labor market with inflexible "regular" jobs with convex pay schedules and flexible "non-regular" jobs, interacting with social norms regarding spousal earnings. The calibrated model successfully reproduces observed gender gaps in participation, occupation, and working hours, and explains 48% of the gender wage gap. The model also accounts for cross-regional differences in gender gaps solely through variation in social norms. Counterfactual simulations show that while increasing job flexibility substantially reduces wage and occupational gaps, the working hours gap persists due to the unequal burden of domestic work. Closing this remaining gap requires policies such as affordable household services. Furthermore, the model suggests that the effects of structural reforms can depend on the strength of gender norms, with larger reductions in gender gaps in more conservative environments. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.20817 |
| By: | Ilyana Kuziemko; Donato A. Onorato; Suresh Naidu |
| Abstract: | We argue that the Cold War contributed to the inclusive growth of the post-war decades. On the labor-demand side, we isolate exogenous shifts in military procurement across states and firms. We show that military procurement increases manufacturing employment and reduces inequality. Overall, the 1950s-to-1990s decline in defense production explains roughly one-quarter of the decline in manufacturing employment and nearly one-tenth of the rise of top-ten income share. On the labor-supply side, the Cold-War-era draft removed millions of young men from the labor force, significantly reducing young male civilian unemployment. Military procurement also increased voter support for hawkish foreign policy. |
| JEL: | J01 N42 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35008 |
| By: | Margarita Pavlova |
| Abstract: | I re-evaluate the long-term effects of graduating from college during a recession by focusing on entire business cycle trajectories, as opposed to unemployment at graduation. Using CPS data from 1976-2024, I suggest that the persistent gap in earnings between those graduating during high versus low unemployment chiefly corresponds to the effects of unemployment at graduation on graduates of lower GPA, SAT scores and socio-economic background who enrolled in lower-tier colleges because unemployment was high at the time of their high-school graduation. While the scarring effects of graduating during a recession are large and last for over a decade for these marginal graduates, the scarring effects are smaller than previously thought and fade within three years for student cohorts enrolling in college in a low-unemployment labor market. I also show that adverse labor market conditions beyond the year of college graduation exert a stronger influence on long-term outcomes of graduates than the unemployment rate at graduation. Following unemployment trajectories and accounting for selective enrollment highlights the policyrelevant vulnerability of marginal graduates to recessions. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp816 |
| By: | Petach, Luke |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between union membership and deaths of despair. Using state-level variation in the timing of the adoption of right-to-work (RTW) laws as a natural experiment, I show that right-to-work laws are associated with a decline in union membership and an increase in deaths of despair. Two-way fixed-effects (TWFE) differencein- differences (DiD) estimates suggest that the adoption of a right-to-work law is associated with an approximately 2.6 percentage point reduction in union membership at the state-level and an increase in deaths of despair mortality between 12 and 13 additional persons per 100, 000, suggesting that each percentage point decline in union membership is associated with approximately five additional deaths from suicide, drug overdose, or alcoholic liver disease per 100, 000 persons. I support the TWFE results with state-level estimates from the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) estimator and the Borusyak et al. (2024) estimator, which are robust to concerns about treatment effect heterogeneity and variation in treatment timing. Estimates from a county-level specification using the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) estimator similarly suggest that RTW laws increase deaths of despair mortality by 6 to 11 additional persons per 100, 000. |
| Keywords: | Labor Unions, Right-to-Work Laws, Deaths of Despair, Health Economics, Labor Economics |
| JEL: | J51 I12 I14 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1729 |
| By: | Han, Luyi (Pennsylvania State University); Winters, John (Iowa State University); Betz, Michael (The Ohio State University) |
| Abstract: | The 21st century fracking boom transformed American energy production, but new jobs were often filled by temporary in-migrants and long-distance commuters, possibly reducing economic benefits for prior residents. We use novel restricted-access data from the U.S. Census Bureau to assess fracking impacts on prior residents. We examine impacts on earnings and employment for persons born in non-metropolitan fracking counties. We utilize an event study design to estimate annual impacts during the fracking boom, drilling downturn, and subsequent periods. We find sizable impacts on average log earnings that peaked during the boom and partially persisted during and after the downturn. The fracking boom also increased the probability of being employed but the effect largely disappeared after fracking activity peaked. We also compare our main result for non-metropolitan natives to persons born in metropolitan counties and conduct several other extensions. |
| Keywords: | fracking, local labor markets, resource boom, rural development |
| JEL: | Q4 R2 J3 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18466 |
| By: | Doan, Lina (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | Although it is widely believed that expanding childcare subsidies can increase maternal labour force participation, evidence on the effectiveness of such policies in the Australian context remains limited. We provide new evidence on this relationship using a difference- in-differences approach, leveraging rich Australian panel data and the increase in childcare subsidies introduced by the 2022 Child Care Subsidy (CCS) reform. Our findings show that formal childcare participation and hours of usage increased significantly following the reform; however, there are no robust or significant effects on maternal labour supply, either on the extensive or intensive margin. These results align with a recent body of research suggesting that while childcare subsidies can substantially increase childcare utilisation, their effects on maternal employment are often limited or context-dependent. |
| Keywords: | Child Care Subsidy ; Maternal Employment ; Childcare Usage ; Difference-in-Differences ; Australia. JEL classifications: J13 ; J22 ; I38 ; C21 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:100 |
| By: | Goulas, Sofoklis (foundry10 & Yale University) |
| Abstract: | This study documents a new fact about educational production: Students’ relative standing in noncognitive skills has lasting effects distinct from absolute skills and achievement. Using administrative data from Greece and quasi-random classroom assignment, I identify the causal impact of comparative noncognitive skills, measured as grade 10 classroom rank in grade 9 unexcused absences. A worse rank has persistent, nonlinear effects. While it lowers achievement for both genders, boys respond by sorting into more competitive tracks and higher-earning degrees, whereas girls shift toward less competitive paths. Gender differences in comparative noncognitive skills explain 37% of the gap in expected post-college salaries. Complementary evidence from a survey experiment shows that comparative behavioral labels systematically shift teachers’ expectations and attribution patterns for otherwise identical students. This suggests that relative-standing effects operate through belief-driven institutional responses. |
| Keywords: | noncognitive skills, ordinal rank, peer effects, STEM, gender gap |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J24 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18471 |
| By: | Stephanie G. Coffey; Joshua Goodman; Amy Ellen Schwartz; Leanna Stiefel; Marcus A. Winters; Yunee H. Yoon |
| Abstract: | Special education serves more than one in seven U.S. students yet its causal impact remains understudied. Using longitudinal data from Massachusetts, Indiana, and Connecticut, we estimate the effect of individualized supports with an event-study design that tracks achievement around initial classification. Students’ scores decline prior to placement and rise sharply afterward, yielding a consistent V-shaped pattern. Within three years, achievement is 0.2–0.4σ higher than counterfactual trends imply. Gains are similar across disability categories and subgroups, are not driven by testing accommodations, and remain under conservative assumptions. Individualized supports substantially increase learning productivity. |
| JEL: | I18 I20 I28 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34998 |
| By: | Yana Gallen; Juanna Schrøter Joensen; Eva Rye Johansen; Gregory F. Veramendi; Juanna Schrøter Joensen |
| Abstract: | We study the labor market impact of unplanned pregnancy among women using long-acting reversible contraceptives to delay pregnancy. While most women successfully delay, some have unplanned pregnancies, providing quasi-random variation in pregnancy timing. Analyzing linked health and labor market data from Sweden, we find that unplanned pregnancies halt women's career progression, resulting in income losses of 19% five years later. We find similar effects of unplanned births among women using short-acting reversible contraceptives. Using pregnancy as an instrument for birth in a dynamic treatment effect framework, effects of unplanned children are more detrimental for younger women and those enrolled in education. |
| Keywords: | labor market costs of motherhood, fertility, contraceptives, unplanned pregnancy |
| JEL: | J13 J22 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12586 |
| By: | Vorster, Mia (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of France’s 2018 gender pay gap transparency law which implements a 100 point gender equity index and two corrective measure thresholds (firms below 85 must publish an action plan; those below 75 for three years are fined) for firms with more than 50 employees. I use firm-level reports with a regression discontinuity design and event-time study to assess the effectiveness of the thresholds in changing firm behaviour, finding evidence that firms improve their gender equity in order to avoid fines below the 75 threshold. I use an individual-level administrative dataset which I transform into a pseudopanel and a difference-in-difference strategy around the 50 employee threshold to assess the overall impact of the policy, finding a 3.7 percentage point increase in women’s hourly wages relative to men in treated firms. This effect is primary driven by a fall in male wages. |
| Keywords: | Gender Pay Gap ; Pseudo-Panel ; Wage Transparency ; Public Policy ; Gender Pay ; Gap Reporting JEL classifications: J16 ; J78 ; K38 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:93 |
| By: | David H. Autor; Caroline Chin; Anna Salomons; Bryan Seegmiller |
| Abstract: | We study the role of expertise in new work - novel occupational roles that emerge as technological and economic conditions evolve - using newly available 1940 and 1950 Census Complete Count files and confidential American Community Survey data from 2011-2023. We show that new work is systematically distinct from simply more work in existing occupations in four respects. First, it attracts workers with distinct characteristics: new work is disproportionately performed by younger and more educated workers, even within detailed occupation-industry cells. Second, new work commands economically significant wage premiums that persist beyond workers' initial entry into new work, consistent with returns to scarce, specialized expertise rather than temporary market disequilibrium. Third, these premiums decline across vintages as expertise diffuses, with `newer' new work commanding larger premiums than older new work. Fourth, the emergence of new work can be traced to specific demand shocks in particular locations and time periods, suggesting that expertise formation responds systematically to economic opportunities. These findings suggest that new work serves as a countervailing force to automation-driven job displacement not merely by creating additional employment, but also by generating new domains of human expertise that command market premiums. This expertise-based mechanism helps explain both the expanding variety of work activities across decades and the historical resilience of the labor share. |
| Keywords: | new work, technological change, occupations, tasks |
| JEL: | E24 J11 J23 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12577 |
| By: | Febriady, Ade; Postepska, Agnieszka; Angelini, Viola |
| Abstract: | This study documents substantial heterogeneity in returns to education by childhood poverty status among Indonesian wage workers aged 15-35. Individuals who grew up poor earn only 1.5 percent per additional year of schooling-less than onefourth of the 6.8 percent earned by those who were never poor. We estimate these returns using a control-function approach that exploits conditional heteroskedasticity for identification in the absence of exclusion restrictions. The control-function coefficient is three times larger among the poor, indicating markedly stronger positive selection into schooling in this group: only individuals with exceptionally favorable unobserved characteristics attain higher levels of education. We also present descriptive evidence of lower skill accumulation per year of schooling and more limited access to high-paying jobs among disadvantaged individuals, patterns consistent with lower marginal returns. These findings highlight the limited equalizing role of education, measured here by years of schooling. |
| Keywords: | Returns to Education, Childhood Poverty, Control-Function Approach |
| JEL: | I24 I26 I3 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1731 |
| By: | Sharon Braun; Jonathan Bushnell; Zachary Cowell; David Dowling Samuel Goldstein; Andrew Johnson; George Miller; John M. Nunley; R. Alan Seals; Mingzhou Wang |
| Abstract: | We conducted a large-scale resume audit of 36, 880 applications to 9, 220 job advertisements for new college graduates across the United States. Firms express task preferences through job-advertisement text, which we link to occupation-level task measures from O*NET and the American Community Survey. We develop a model in which discrimination increases with evaluative discretion, defined as the share of hiring decisions driven by subjective rather than verifiable assessment. Callback gaps vary systematically with the task content of jobs. In management occupations, callbacks are 28 to 43 percent lower for Black men, Black women, White women, and Hispanic men than for otherwise identical White men. Broad occupation categories conceal important variation in task demands. When jobs are grouped by task intensity, discrimination concentrates in positions combining high analytical and interpersonal demands with low routine content. Decomposing task content into subjective-evaluation and objective-precision components, we find that subjective evaluation widens callback gaps while objective precision compresses them. Customer contact amplifies this divergence, widening gaps in non-routine jobs but not in routine jobs. Randomly assigned resume credentials that increase callbacks on average reduce gaps in low-discretion jobs but not in high-discretion jobs. Early-career exclusion from high-return task bundles may entrench long-run demographic gaps in employment outcomes. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.01933 |
| By: | Stephane Bonhomme; Elena Manresa; Thibaut Lamadon |
| Abstract: | The AKM model introduced by Abowd, Kramarz and Margolis (1999) has become a workhorse to study worker and firm heterogeneity, and to understand the sources of wage dispersion in the labor market using linked employer-employee data. In this article, we introduce the model and estimator, discuss some best practices for estimation, and review some empirical findings on the role of worker and firm heterogeneity in wage dispersion. While the AKM methodology has proven useful to analyze a host of questions in a variety of settings within labor economics and beyond, we also point to the need for methodological developments. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.17034 |
| By: | Moïse Drabo; Raquel Fonseca; Marie-Louise Leroux |
| Abstract: | Informal care is a cornerstone of long-term care for older adults but may entail substantial psychological costs for caregivers. Using seven waves (2004–2022) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for 27 countries, we estimate the causal effect of providing regular personal care inside the household on depressive symptoms and quality of life. We estimate dynamic panel instrumental-variable (IV) models with country and wave fixed effects, exploiting the persistence of caregiving and using lagged indicators of caregiving provision as instruments to address reverse causality and unobserved heterogeneity. Our baseline estimates indicate that providing informal care increases depressive symptoms by about 25% and reduces quality of life by roughly 6% relative to non-caregivers. These adverse effects are strongest for spousal caregivers and when caregiving is sustained over time, and they persist even after caregiving ends. Robustness checks using alternative outcomes, subsamples, and specifications suggest that the well-being costs of informal caregiving are sizable and pervasive, underscoring the need for long-term care policies that explicitly account for the mental health burden placed on family caregivers. Les soins informels constituent un pilier de la prise en charge à long terme des personnes âgées, mais peuvent engendrer des coûts psychologiques importants pour les aidants. À partir de sept vagues (2004-2022) de l’enquête sur la santé, le vieillissement et la retraite en Europe (SHARE) menée dans 27 pays, nous estimons l’effet causal de la fourniture régulière de soins personnels à domicile sur les symptômes dépressifs et la qualité de vie. Nous estimons des modèles dynamiques de panel à variables instrumentales (VI) avec effets fixes pays et vague, en exploitant la persistance des soins et en utilisant des indicateurs décalés de la fourniture de soins comme instruments pour traiter la causalité inverse et l’hétérogénéité non observée. Nos estimations de base indiquent que la fourniture de soins informels augmente les symptômes dépressifs d’environ 25 % et réduit la qualité de vie d’environ 6 % par rapport aux personnes ne fournissant pas de soins. Ces effets néfastes sont plus marqués chez les conjoints aidants et lorsque les soins sont prodigués de manière prolongée ; ils persistent même après la fin des soins. Des tests de robustesse utilisant des résultats alternatifs, des sous-échantillons et des spécifications suggèrent que les coûts en matière de bien-être liés aux soins informels sont considérables et généralisés, soulignent la nécessité de politiques de soins de longue durée qui tiennent explicitement compte du fardeau de santé mentale représentant les aidants familiaux. |
| Keywords: | Informal care, Depressive symptoms, Long-term care, Quality of life, Soins informels, Symptômes dépressifs, Soins de longue durée, Qualité de vie, Personnes âgées |
| JEL: | I12 J14 J22 C33 H55 |
| Date: | 2026–03–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2026s-04 |
| By: | Bernhard, Sarah (IAB Nürnberg); Bohmann, Sandra (DIW Berlin); Fiedler, Susann (WU Wien); Kasy, Maximilian; Schupp, Jürgen (DIW Berlin); Schwerter, Frederik (Frankfurt School of Finance and Management) |
| Abstract: | How does basic income (a regular, unconditional, guaranteed cash transfer) impact labor supply? We show that in search models of the labor market with income effects, this impact is theoretically ambiguous: Employment and job durations might increase or decrease, match surplus might be shifted to workers or employers, and worker surplus might be reallocated between wages and job amenities. We thus turn to empirical evidence to study this impact. We conducted a pre-registered RCT in Germany, starting 2021, where recipients received 1200 Euro/month for three years. We draw on both administrative and survey data, and find no extensive margin (employment) response, and no impact on on job transitions from either non-employment or employment. We do find a small statistically insignificant intensive margin shift to parttime employment, which implies an excess burden (reduction of government revenues) of ca 7.5% of the transfer. We furthermore observe a small increase of enrolment in training or education. |
| Keywords: | BASIC INCOME, RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL, LABOR SUPPLY |
| JEL: | I38 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2026-08 |