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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Peter Q. Blair; Rui Guo |
| Abstract: | The paper develops a framework for evaluating credential-coded algorithmic screens under existing civil rights law. AI-powered hiring tools trained on historical data often encode and automate bachelor's degree requirements as a proxy for worker skill, producing what this paper terms algorithmic credentialism. Drawing on labor economics research on workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs), disability theory's critique of the medical model, and disparate-impact doctrine from Griggs v. Duke Power Co. through the Civil Rights Act of 1991, it argues that such screens misidentify the source of hiring exclusion, locating it in the worker rather than in the design of the selection system. This institutional-design problem is amenable to evaluation under the existing disparate-impact doctrine. Under the paper's proposed framework, a credential-coded screen producing disparate impact triggers a legal obligation to validate the screen as job-related and consistent with business necessity, with skills-based hiring supplying the less-discriminatory alternative. The paper further argues that the efficiency rationale historically offered for degree screens is weakened, not strengthened, by AI. The same computational power that automates credentialism at scale can instead match applicants to jobs on multidimensional skill profiles, making the bachelor's degree a less necessary (and less legally defensible) proxy than it was in the pre-AI labor market. |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J31 J60 J78 K31 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35192 |
| By: | Nickolas Gagnon; Daniele Nosenzo |
| Abstract: | We investigate preferences for engaging in or opposing discrimination, focusing on moral preferences beyond self-interest. Some individuals may oppose statistical discrimination on grounds of protected-group equality, while others may prefer it to reward groups with higher average merit. Likewise, individuals may oppose taste discrimination or assert their tastes for groups. We conduct incentivized online experiments to elicit discrimination preferences in three domains: ethnicity, gender, and LGBTQ+ status. Analyzing over 60, 000 anonymous decisions about how to pay workers, we report highly heterogeneous preferences and a paradox of meritocracy-while merit may be a reason to reject discrimination, it also justifies discrimination. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination, Ethnicity, Gender, LGBTQ+, Moral principles, Experiment |
| JEL: | D63 D90 J23 J31 J71 J78 K31 M52 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26125 |
| By: | Joacim Tåg; Fredrik Heyman; Malin Gardberg; Martin Olsson |
| Abstract: | We examine how gender-based occupational sorting before the release of ChatGPT relates to predicted exposure to generative AI and its potential implications for the gender wage gap. Using Swedish administrative data, we find that women are overrepresented in occupations predicted to be more affected by generative AI. Mechanical partial-equilibrium simulations, based on hypothesized deviations from the 2021 occupational and wage distribution and incorporating predicted AI exposure and task complementarity, show that generative AI can widen the gender wage gap through existing patterns of gender-based occupational sorting. |
| Keywords: | Generative AI, gender wage gap, technological change, occupational sorting, complementarity |
| JEL: | J16 J31 O33 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26118 |
| By: | Bargain, Olivier (University of Bordeaux); Jara, H. (London School of Economics); Rivera, David (Bordeaux University) |
| Abstract: | Tax–benefit systems in Latin America have expanded alongside social protection, yet persistently high informality continues to constrain fiscal capacity and redistribution. This paper examines how tax policy changes affect formal employment in Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador over three periods (2008–2014/15-2019). The multi-country, multi-period design generates multiple quasi-experiments, enhancing external validity relative to studies focused on single reforms. We measure the implicit tax burden of moving from informal to formal work and estimate behavioral responses using grouped estimations robust to treatment heterogeneity. Higher tax burdens on formalization significantly reduce formal employment, with stronger responses concentrated among low-skilled, often self-employed workers facing high social contributions. Counterfactual simulations show that revenue-neutral reforms combining the removal of contribution floors with higher top taxation may simultaneously raise formalization and income tax progressivity, suggesting that expanding redistribution and limiting efficiency costs need not be in conflict in Latin American labor markets. |
| Keywords: | informality, employment, self-employment, tax burden, social contributions, income tax, benefits |
| JEL: | H24 H31 J24 J46 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18621 |
| By: | Judith M. Delaney; Paul J. Devereux |
| Abstract: | We use population-level administrative data covering secondary school students in England to study how mathematical and verbal skills shape education and labour market outcomes. Following cohorts completing national exams at age 16 through higher education and into employment until age 34, we show that mathematics and verbal skills operate through fundamentally different pathways. Verbal skills strongly predict educational attainment-including college enrolment, graduation, and postgraduate study-while mathematics skills generate substantially larger earnings returns. At ages 30-34, moving from the 25th to the 75th percentile of the mathematics skill distribution is associated with 29% higher earnings, compared with 14% for verbal. This divergence operates partly through field-of-study choice: individuals with stronger verbal skills disproportionately select into fields with higher graduation rates but lower earnings returns, while those with stronger mathematics skills enter STEM and other high-paying majors. Gender differences in skills explain the female advantage in college attendance and part of the STEM gap but have little effect on the gender earnings gap due to offsetting effects across these pathways: women's verbal advantage facilitates educational access but also steers them toward lower-return fields. |
| Keywords: | returns to skills |
| JEL: | J24 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26114 |
| By: | Valentin Kecht; Alessandro Lizzeri; Farzad Saidi |
| Abstract: | This paper documents that the age at which CEOs are appointed has risen sharply over the past several decades. Using newly assembled data covering a wide set of firms, we show that this increase is concentrated outside the largest listed firms and driven primarily by longer and more diverse external career paths prior to CEO appointment. These patterns are difficult to reconcile with explanations based on demographics, schooling, or tenure, and are instead consistent with a matching framework in which rising demand for generalist human capital leads firms to trade off peak ability for accumulated experience. We investigate the forces behind this shift. Using variation in consulting networks, we establish that firms place greater weight on diversified managerial experience as operating environments have become increasingly uncertain and complex. We also provide evidence for a supply-side response in which prospective CEOs broaden their skill portfolio as demand for generalist skills rises. |
| Keywords: | CEOs, aging, executive labor markets, generalist skills, uncertainty |
| JEL: | D22 J21 J24 M12 M51 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_746 |
| By: | Moser, Christian (Columbia University); Saidi, Farzad (University of Bonn); Wirth, Benjamin (avarian State Office for Statistics); Wolter, Stefanie (Institute for Employment Research, IAB) |
| Abstract: | We study the distributional consequences of monetary policy-induced credit supply in the German labor market. Firms in relationships with banks that are more exposed to the introduction of negative interest rates in 2014 experience a relative contraction in credit supply, associated with lower average wages. Within firms, initially lower-paid workers are more likely to leave employment, while initially higher-paid workers see a relative decline in wages. Between firms, wages fall by more at initially higher-paying employers. Our results suggest that credit affects the distribution of wages and employment both within and between firms. |
| Keywords: | wages, employment, distribution, credit supply, monetary policy, downward wage rigidity |
| JEL: | J31 E24 J23 E51 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18633 |
| By: | James Lennox; Janine Dixon |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a task-based computable general equilibrium model to analyse the long-run economic effects of generative AI (GenAI) on the Australian economy. Each occupation performs a continuum of tasks executed in three modes: with raw labour; with AI-augmented labour; or automated using equipment and AI services. Task-level productivities in AI-using modes are draws from correlated Frechet distributions, captur ing heterogeneous within-occupation exposure. The model covers 45 industries and 97 occupations, calibrated to occupation-level GenAI exposure scores. The reference simulation yields a 29.8% real GDP increase: roughly one third from task-level productivity gains, the rest from capital deepening and general equilibrium reallocation. Real consumption - our long-run welfare metric - rises by 16.2%, substantially less because additional investment is required to equip automated tasks. Augmentation accounts for more tasks than automation in nearly all industries and occupations. Labour-market adjustment is dominated by within-occupation change - extensive-margin task reallocation equivalent to two thirds of current work - rather than net employment shifts between occupations. Losses con centrate in clerical, administrative, and sales roles, while most blue-collar occupations gain. Real wage effects are weakly correlated with initial wages; the rising capital share of income may matter more for distribution. Sensitivity analysis shows aggregate outcomes hinge on the distribution of task-level productivity gains: fatter tails roughly double the GDP gain while preserving the adjustment pattern, whereas variation in the dependence parameter shifts the augmentation - automation balance and the incidence of adjustment. Conventional substitution elasticities matter less. |
| Keywords: | Generative artificial intelligence, Computable general equilibrium, Task-based production, Occupational reallocation, Augmentation, Automation |
| JEL: | C68 J23 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cop:wpaper:g-367 |
| By: | Mark Hellsten; Giuseppe Pulito; Sarah Schroeder |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on how automation reshapes firms' demand for skills, not only by changing the occupational composition, but also by reshaping what existing jobs require. Using matched data on firm-level automation investments and detailed job vacancy postings from Denmark, we extract multidimensional skill profiles through natural language processing and decompose changes in skill demand into within- and between-occupation components. Within-occupation adjustment is a quantitatively important margin, accounting for 14-39% of total skill demand change depending on skill type and occupational group. Drawing on a task-based framework that links automation to shifts in multiple skill types within occupations, we estimate the causal effect of automation using a staggered difference-in-differences design. The effects are heterogeneous across the occupational hierarchy: among managers and professionals, automation increases the demand for soft skills, shifting the within-occupation skill mix toward interpersonal and cognitive competencies; among production workers, adjustment operates primarily through reduced hiring rather than changes in skill requirements, while retraining intensity rises by 5 percentage points. Our findings highlight that automation operates through multiple adjustment margins, with implications for training policy and labour market resilience. |
| Keywords: | automation, skills, task content, labour demand, technological change, job vacancies, within-occupation adjustment |
| JEL: | J24 O33 M51 L23 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26122 |
| By: | Christian Moser; Farzad Saidi; Benjamin Wirth; Stefanie Wolter |
| Abstract: | We study the distributional consequences of monetary policy-induced credit supply in the German labor market. Firms in relationships with banks that are more exposed to the introduction of negative interest rates in 2014 experience a relative contraction in credit supply, associated with lower average wages. Within firms, initially lower-paid workers are more likely to leave employment, while initially higher-paid workers see a relative decline in wages. Between firms, wages fall by more at initially higher-paying employers. Our results suggest that credit affects the distribution of wages and employment both within and between firms. |
| Keywords: | wages, employment, distribution, credit supply, monetary policy, downward wage rigidity |
| JEL: | J31 E24 J23 E51 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12656 |
| By: | Elia Benveniste |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of labor management - majority employee ownership of a firm - on firm-level wage distributions and performance. Using matched employer-employee data from Italy, I exploit worker buyouts (WBOs) as sharp transitions from conventional ownership to labor management. I compare WBO firms to observationally similar restructuring firms that remain conventionally owned. Labor management reduces base wages by 9 percent, but (insignificantly) increases total compensation when accounting for profit-based labor dividends. Within-firm wage inequality decreases markedly, and firms become significantly less hierarchical. I find no evidence of lower productivity or reduced investment. Overall, labor management generates substantial within-firm wage compression without reduced operational efficiency. |
| Keywords: | labor management, worker buyouts, wage compression |
| JEL: | G34 J31 J54 M54 P13 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26117 |
| By: | Fang, Tony (Memorial University of Newfoundland); Gahramanov, Emin (Department of Economics, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates); Ming, Hui (College of Economics, Sichuan Agriculture University, Sichuan, China); Tang, Xueli (Faculty of Business and Law, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia) |
| Abstract: | Building on seminal contributions by Bloom et al. (2015) and Davis (2024), we develop a simple theoretical model that captures the trade-off between externalities associated with remote work and those derived from in-office work. The model is based on the premise that both productivity and firm profitability are influenced by the intensity or proportion of remote work arrangements by firms. Ultimately, higher workforce productivity and firm profitability due to remote work translate into higher wages. While remote work can lead to cost savings and positive externalities, excessive adoption may undermine benefits, increase management complexity, and raise the risk of employee shirking. The central theoretical result is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the extent of remote work and wages. To test this prediction, we use data from the Canadian Labour Force Survey to examine the relationship between industry-level remote work intensity and individual wages. The empirical findings reveal that wages rise with remote work intensity up to a threshold, approximately 52.1–63.9%, beyond which they begin to decline, supporting the model’s non-linear prediction. |
| Keywords: | work from home, remote work, wages, productivity, externality |
| JEL: | D24 E24 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18643 |
| By: | Bosch, Mariano; Rojas Valero, Paola Nelly |
| Abstract: | Using census microdata from 78 countries, we study how pension systems shape labor supply at older ages. While male employment rates are similar in midlife, they diverge sharply later in life: by age 75, 54% of men remain employed in low-income countries compared with 8% in high-income ones, with even larger gaps among those with lower education. Patterns for women are similar. Exploiting variation in retirement ages and pension coverage, we find that a 10-percentage-point increase in coverage reduces post-retirement employment by 2.1 percentage points. Limited pension access keeps many lower educated workers from retiring, driving global disparities in late-life employment. |
| JEL: | D14 J14 H55 J26 J32 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14576 |
| By: | Gabriella Conti; Sarah Cattan; Christine Farquharson |
| Abstract: | Early childhood programmes frequently lose effectiveness at scale, yet the role of the workforce remains poorly understood. We document substantial heterogeneity in workforce effectiveness in England's national home-visiting programme for first-time teenage mothers, despite a highly-structured curriculum and well-qualified staff. Exploiting quasi-random assignment of mothers to family nurses, we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in workforce effectiveness raises children's cognitive and socio-emotional development by 0.20-0.23 SD. Structural quality - observable worker characteristics - does not predict effectiveness, but process quality - how visits are delivered - does. Greater effectiveness is linked with improvements in maternal mental health and risk behaviours. |
| Keywords: | early childhood development; home visiting; workforce quality; process quality; scaling; Family Nurse Partnership |
| JEL: | I18 I38 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26124 |
| By: | Sylwia Radomska (Institute of Economics, Polish Academy of Sciences (INE PAN) and Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE)) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies optimal intergenerational transfers when altruistic parents can transfer resources to their children through financial bequests or through investment in human capital. The key distinction is that education is a productive transfer: it changes the mapping from privately observed ability to output, whereas bequests are budgetary transfers. The paper characterizes how this distinction affects information rents in a dynastic Mirrlees environment. The main result is a decomposition of the informational effect of education relative to bequests. With endogenous labor supply, both instruments affect incentive provision through marginal-utility and labor-supply responses. Education, however, generates an additional productivity-rent component governed by the cross-partial between ability and human capital in production. This component is absent for purely budgetary transfers. When ability and human capital are sufficiently complementary, the productivity-rent component can dominate the standard labor-requirement channel, so that education may be optimally distorted downward relative to the bequest margin. The analysis clarifies why education and bequests are not equivalent instruments of intergenerational redistribution. The difference is not only that education has risky returns, but also that it changes the sensitivity of output to privately observed ability. This distinction provides a force that can work against the standard education-subsidy logic in Mirrlees models. |
| Keywords: | optimal taxation; intergenerational transfers; human capital; financial bequests; private information; education wedge; ability risk. |
| JEL: | D64 D82 H21 H24 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fme:wpaper:115 |
| By: | Joseph Emmens; Dennis C. Hutschenreiter; Stefano Manfredonia; Felix Noth; Tommaso Santini |
| Abstract: | We study whether common ownership affects the direction of technological change. We develop a task-based model with multiple local labor markets in which commonly owned firms internalize wage externalities from portfolio rivals when hiring from the same labor pool, increasing incentives to automate. We establish causality by exploiting institutional investor mergers in a dynamic DiD design, using U.S. data on institutional ownership, establishment level employment, and text-classified automation patents. Increases in common ownership among local labor-market rivals raise firms' automation propensity by 22.7 percentage points and reduce employment growth. The effect disappears when firms do not compete within labor markets. |
| Keywords: | Common Ownership, Automation, Local Labor Markets, Market Power |
| JEL: | O33 G23 J42 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26113 |
| By: | Nicholas Bloom; Gordon B. Dahl; Dan-Olof Rooth |
| Abstract: | There has been a dramatic rise in disability employment since the pandemic. At the same time, work from home (WFH) has risen four-fold. This paper asks whether the two are causally related. Controlling for compositional changes and labor market tightness, a 1 percentage point increase in WFH increases full-time employment by 1.0% for individuals with a physical disability. The postpandemic increase in working from home explains 68%-85% of the rise in full-time employment. Wage data suggests that WFH increased the supply of workers with a physical disability, likely by reducing commuting costs and enabling better control of working conditions. |
| Keywords: | Disability Employment, Work from Home |
| JEL: | J14 J42 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26112 |
| By: | Levy Yeyati, Eduardo |
| Abstract: | We study how the speed of Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption affects labor market outcomes during technological transitions. In a dynamic model where displaced routine workers enter a retraining pipeline with finite capacity, faster adoption compresses the displacement window without reducing total displacement, overwhelming the pipeline and generating permanent labor force exit through worker discouragement. The central result is that, even when two economies share the same long-run automation level, adoption speed alone determines transition welfare: faster adoption produces a larger discourage stock, a steeper and more persistent decline in labor force participation, and a sustained compression of the labor share throughout the transition window. Non-routine employment and wages exhibit a crossing pattern initially higher under fast adoption, then lower so that faster adoption can simultaneously raise long-run wages for survivors while permanently reducing participation. Social welfare is strictly concave in adoption speed and maximized at an interior optimum below the market rate, because firms do not internalize the congestion externality they impose on the retraining queue, the irreversibility of permanent exit, or the wage depression borne by non-routine incumbents. The socially optimal speed and retraining capacity are complements: stronger institutions raise the optimal adoption speed. |
| Keywords: | artificial intelligence;labor market;labor force |
| JEL: | O33 J24 J64 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14580 |
| By: | Bingley, Paul (VIVE - The Danish Center for Social Science Research); Lanot, Gauthier (Department of Economics, Umeå University) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the elasticity of taxable income (ETI) in Denmark from 1980 to 2022 using a consistent bunching design. Leveraging six distinct tax regimes, we document that behavioral responses depend crucially on employment status and the tax base definition. While employees exhibit negligible responsiveness (ETI ≈ 0.01) across all regimes, the self-employed show larger, variable elasticities (0.05–0.45) that track opportunities for income shifting. For job changers and by the composition of capital income, we show that small employee elasticities reflect institutional constraints on reported income rather than infrequent adjustment, explaining why aggregate bunching elasticities are smaller than macro estimates. |
| Keywords: | Elasticity of Taxable Income; Micro-Macro Puzzle; Third-Party Reporting; Income Shifting; Bunching |
| JEL: | H24 H26 H31 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–05–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:1046 |
| By: | Sylwia Radomska (Institute of Economics, Polish Academy of Sciences (INE PAN); Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE)); Marek Kapicka (Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute (CERGE-EI)) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies optimal education finance in a dynastic Mirrlees economy in which parents derive direct utility from their children’s human capital alongside standard dynastic discounting. Education-specific parental altruism adds a non-productive utility return to investment: it raises parental utility independently of the output it generates. We show that this second channel alters the constrained-efficient human-capital wedge: sufficiently strong altruism reverses the wedge from negative to positive, the optimal education subsidy is decreasing in altruism, and stronger altruism shifts intergenerational transfers away from financial bequests toward education. Calibrated to the U.S. economy, the model implies that optimal education support is non-monotonic in income and decreasing in bequests: low-income dynasties receive support due to borrowing constraints, while middle-income families face the weakest case for intervention. Income-contingent loans raise schooling, output, and welfare, but widen educational dispersion. Income-dependent subsidies reduce educational inequality more directly, at the cost of labor-supply distortions and lower aggregate output. |
| Keywords: | optimal taxation; human capital, parental altruism, asymmetric information, dynastic Mirrlees model, income-contingent loans, education subsidies, intergenerational transfers, bequests. |
| JEL: | H21 H52 I22 J24 D82 D64 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fme:wpaper:116 |
| By: | Koettl, Johannes (World Bank); Gomez Tamayo, Sofia (World Bank); Alrayess, Dana (World Bank); Fostier de Moraes, Gael (Inter-American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | Female labor force participation (FLFP) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains the lowest globally, averaging just 19% in 2023 compared to a global average of 48%. Social norms, care responsibilities, restrictive legal frameworks, skills mismatches, and limited access to supportive infrastructure continue to act as barriers for women’s economic engagement. This paper examines the structural drivers behind these gaps and highlights the region’s heterogeneity in barriers, outcomes, and reform trajectories. The paper highlights Saudi Arabia as a case of rapid transformation. Between 2017 and 2023, FLFP more than doubled following legal reforms, deployment of active labor market programs, and effective communication initiatives. Key drivers of Saudi Arabia’s experience include expanded private-sector demand, sectoral diversification, and the correction of misperceived norms regarding women’s employment. The paper also identifies remaining constraints for Saudi Arabia, including childcare gaps, mobility barriers, and public-private employment preferences and proposes policy recommendations for MENA countries, including legal reforms, care-economy investments, flexible work arrangements, and norm-changing interventions. |
| Keywords: | Female Labor Force participation, gender and labor markets, Middle East and North Africa, labor market reforms, Saudi Arabia |
| JEL: | J08 J16 J21 J22 O53 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18632 |
| By: | Rathore, Udayan; Singh, Ashish |
| Abstract: | We leverage a quasi-natural experiment from India on introduction of free bus schemes for women to study its impact on women's labour force participation (WLFP) and other welfare indicators. We use two rounds of the representative Time Use Survey (2019 and 2024) and a triple difference estimation strategy, complemented by an event study type framework to identify the causal relationship of interest. Findings reveal that the bus scheme is successful in improving women's paid work participation and the duration of employment. These results are not a continuation of prior trends. The effects are mainly concentrated among early adopters like Punjab and Tamil Nadu, two states with historically different levels of WLFP. Moreover, the effects are disproportionately higher for women residing in more patriarchal districts and those facing higher mobility restrictions. We argue that the scheme works through easing of non-financial binding constraints, which lowers barriers to women's mobility and workforce participation. |
| Keywords: | Women labour force participation, Women's mobility, Patriarchy, Public transit subsidies, Time-Use, India |
| JEL: | J16 J17 J22 J28 R48 O53 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1755 |
| By: | Devos, Louise (Ghent University (UGent@Work, CESSMIR)); Rycx, François (Free University of Brussels); Senterre, Thomas (ULB (CEBRIG, DULBEA), UMONS (Soci&ter)); Volral, Mélanie (UMONS (Soci&ter) and ULB (CEBRIG, DULBEA)) |
| Abstract: | Using matched employer-employee data on more than 62, 000 master’s graduates, this paper examines how gender differences in wage returns to fields of study vary by migration background and how educational specialisation contributes to the gender wage gap. We estimate wage regressions and apply a decomposition approach to separate sorting across fields from differences in pay within fields. Returns vary widely, with law, economics and management, and science yielding the highest returns, and women earning less than men within all fields, especially in high-paying ones. First-generation immigrants from developing countries obtain the lowest returns regardless of field of study, while second-generation immigrants approach but do not fully match natives. Fields of study explain a substantial share of gender wage inequality among natives and second-generation immigrants, whereas among first-generation immigrants broader wage disadvantages dominate. Results further vary with the number of parents originating from developing countries and with age at arrival. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, first- and second-generation immigrants, field of study, employer-employee data |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18640 |
| By: | Shameena Khatoon (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research; Institute of Economic Growth) |
| Abstract: | This study examines how maternity leave policies affect female labor force participation (FLP) across 160 countries from 2000 to 2023. We analyze the crucial but overlooked dimension of payment structure whether governments or employers bear the costs. Using fixedeffects panel regression models, we find that leave duration alone shows no significant effect on FLP in full sample. However, government-funded maternity leave is associated with 1.49 percentage points higher participation rates. Crucially, we uncover heterogeneous effects by income level: in upper-middle-income countries, longer leave durations reduce FLP when costs fall on employers but this negative effect vanishes when leave is publicly funded. In low-income countries, extended leave modestly boosts participation, while high-income countries show diminishing returns to paid leave. Our findings challenge the assumption that longer leave universally benefits FLP, demonstrating instead that policy design especially public financing is pivotal for mitigating unintended labor market disincentives. These insights are critical for policymakers seeking to balance gender equity with economic efficiency in maternity leave reforms. |
| Keywords: | Maternity leave, female labor force participation, fully government funded leave, paid leave, policy design, income heterogeneity, fixed-effects regression |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2026-008 |
| By: | Evelina Linnros; J. Peter Nilsson |
| Abstract: | We estimate the long-term mental health impact of an alcohol policy experiment on individuals exposed to the policy in utero. The policy lasted for 8.5 months and significantly expanded access to alcohol, especially for those under age 21. Armed with administrative data on healthcare visits, drug prescriptions, and psychological assessments and applying a tripple-differences strategy, we show that prenatal policy exposure had a substantial, early, and persistent impact on the mental health of the children of young mothers. The exposed cohorts conceived just before the policy started are 16% more likely to be diagnosed with a mental condition in midlife. We find effects on common midlife conditions such as depression and anxiety, on the ability to cope with psychologically stressful situations at age 18, and on neurodevelopmental disorders that manifest in early childhood. Among individuals with predicted mental health care needs, the impact of the policy on midlife earnings is significantly lower when they reside in areas with lower barriers to accessing mental health care, with a one–standard-deviation increase in local treatment intensity reducing the negative earnings effect by about one-third. Our findings indicate that policies increasing access to mental health treatments could substantially improve labor market outcomes, even for conditions with early-life origins. |
| Keywords: | ADHD, depression, earnings, treatment barriers, prenatal alcohol, boys, FASD |
| JEL: | I12 I14 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12654 |
| By: | Ali Abboud; Samuel Bazzi; Serena Canaan; Antoine Deeb; Pierre Mouganie |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how authority figures in higher education shape gender norms over the long run. We exploit the random assignment of first-year students to faculty advisors at an elite university in the Middle East and combine administrative records with an alumni survey measuring gender attitudes up to 24 years later. Women assigned to female advisors adopt more egalitarian views about politics and work, while men become more conservative. These effects are strongest among religious students and in male-dominated STEM fields, where female authority is especially counter-stereotypical. The effects may persist through reinforcement, as women assigned to female advisors later sort toward female instructors and more gender-themed courses. Our results do not appear to be driven by generic exposure to successful women. Instead, they point to a distinct role for authority in transmitting gender norms: randomized exposure to high-achieving female peers has little effect, while the largest impacts come from senior and high-value-added female advisors. A simple framework combining belief updating and identity-based status threat helps explain these patterns of female empowerment and male backlash. More broadly, our findings reveal a progress paradox whereby gains in female representation in elite authority expand opportunities for women while intensifying backlash among men, thereby deepening gender polarization. |
| JEL: | I24 J16 J24 P00 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35174 |
| By: | Eric Chyn; Katherine Cohen; Kareem Haggag; Bryan A. Stuart |
| Abstract: | In the United States, long hailed as the land of opportunity, is access to political office truly open across society, or do the most privileged children disproportionately rise to enter political life? This question speaks to a longstanding concern that elite families may entrench themselves in positions of power, reproducing a form of hereditary privilege within a democratic system. We study the family backgrounds of U.S. politicians over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and show that children from wealthy and privileged households have been substantially overrepresented in elected office. This imbalance has changed little over time and, at the highest levels of office, varies little across political parties. To test whether political access depends on family resources, we exploit the sudden economic shock caused by the end of slavery. Despite the large and concentrated losses at the top of the wealth distribution, the children of slaveholders continued to enter government at high rates. Finally, we examine whether politicians' socioeconomic origins shape policy by constructing a new sample of close elections linked to detailed information on U.S. House candidates' family backgrounds. Comparing otherwise similar districts in which a candidate from a high socioeconomic status family narrowly wins rather than loses, we find that districts represented by higher status candidates are less likely to support pro-tax positions in roll-call voting. Together, the evidence across our analyses shows that family background strongly predicts entry into political office and has measurable consequences for policy choices. |
| JEL: | H10 H70 J45 J62 P16 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35180 |
| By: | Rigissa Megalokonomou |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how gender representation affects collective decision-making in expert committees. I exploit quasi-random assignment of judges to panels in the Greek Supreme Court using newly digitized data on 3, 700 criminal appeals. I find that panels with more female judges are more likely to reject appeals and less likely to delegate cases. Effects are nonlinear and emerge primarily once at least three of five judges are female; below this level, representation has no detectable effect. The mechanism appears to operate at the panel rather than the individual level — panels with a higher share of female judges take significantly longer to decide, especially in complex cases and in familiar panel compositions, consistent with more thorough deliberation rather than coordination costs. These findings suggest that diversity policies targeting modest increases in female representation will have limited impact unless they shift the deliberative composition of the group itself. |
| Keywords: | panel decisions, gender composition, quasi-random assignment, Supreme Court |
| JEL: | J16 D03 D71 J78 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12661 |
| By: | Del Boca, Daniela (University of Turin); Favero, Luca (University of St Andrews); Pronzato, Chiara (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Many advanced economies face persistently low fertility alongside rapid population ageing, raising concerns about economic sustainability and demographic balance. Addressing these challenges requires both sustained labor market participation among the working-age population and conditions that support childbearing. These objectives place women, and particularly mothers, at the center of the demographic debate, as motherhood remains a key turning point in employment trajectories and family formation. Using experimental evidence from an intervention targeting mothers who curtailed employment due to childcare responsibilities, the paper finds that improving work–family reconciliation can support mothers’ labor market reintegration, promote investments in existing children, and, under conditions of greater stability, strengthen fertility desires. |
| Keywords: | work, motherhood, family friendly policies, fertility desire |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J11 C93 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18630 |