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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Drydakis, Nick (Anglia Ruskin University) |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether signalling AI-related digital skills improves employment outcomes for women from underrepresented groups in England, defined by race, age, sexual orientation, and autism-spectrum disclosure. The study finds that underrepresented women receive fewer interview invitations and are considered for lower-paid vacancies than majority-group women. In pooled analyses, signalling AI-related digital skills increases interview invitations for underrepresented applicants, but does not eliminate their disadvantage. These findings are consistent with AI Capital and productivity-signalling frameworks, as employers appear to value AI-related capabilities while the returns to such credentials remain constrained by persistent demographic inequalities. The study therefore demonstrates that positive returns to AI-related skills and labour-market disadvantage can coexist. Its broader implication is that digital upskilling can strengthen the recruitment prospects of underrepresented women, but cannot by itself deliver parity in employment outcomes. A dual policy response is therefore required, combining wider and more equitable access to AI education and training with stronger anti-discrimination enforcement. |
| Keywords: | AI Capital, artificial intelligence, skills, discrimination, hiring, wages, sexual orientation, race, age, autism spectrum |
| JEL: | J71 J24 J31 J64 C93 J15 J16 J14 O33 M51 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18964 |
| By: | Bredtmann, Julia (RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research); Otten, Sebastian (University of Duisburg-Essen); Rammert, Timo (University of Duisburg-Essen) |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of occupational deregulation on incumbent master craft workers’ wages by exploiting a 2004 reform in the German crafts sector that removed the requirement to hold a master certificate for business entry in roughly half of all craft occupations. Using administrative, employee-level data and a triple-difference design, we find that the reform increased the wage premium of incumbent masters by 3% in deregulated relative to regulated occupations. The results are consistent with a scarcity mechanism whereby the decline in the inflow of newly certified masters increased the relative market value of incumbent masters. The wage premium increase is most pronounced in small firms and in East Germany, where pre-existing shortages of high-skilled labor amplified the scarcity effect. These findings suggest that deregulation may have unintended distributional consequences by reducing the private return to obtaining advanced occupational certification, thereby raising incumbent wage premia and widening skill-based wage gaps. |
| Keywords: | occupational licensing, deregulation, skill investment, skill scarcity, wage premium |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J48 L51 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18961 |
| By: | Mark Colas |
| Abstract: | Occupational licenses are typically jurisdiction-specific: workers who cross borders must relicense before resuming work. I quantify the resulting misallocation in the United States. I estimate a dynamic equilibrium model of occupation and location choice with occupational licensing and interstate relicensing costs. Non-portability reduces migration among workers in non-portable occupations, reduces employment among those who move, and deters entry into these occupations altogether because workers anticipate future relicensing costs. As a result, non-portability reduces aggregate earnings by roughly $18 billion annually. Workers in these occupations benefit, however, as non-portability raises their earnings. |
| Keywords: | occupational licensing, spatial equilibrium, labor market dynamics |
| JEL: | J44 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12992 |
| By: | Danielle Sanderson Edwards; Matthew A. Kraft |
| Abstract: | We examine whether early exposure to the teaching career has the potential to expand the size and diversity of new teacher supply. Exploiting the staggered expansion of high school education courses across Texas, we find little evidence that these courses increased new teacher supply or diversity despite course takers being substantially more diverse than the teacher workforce. High school education course takers who become teachers are similarly effective and more likely to be retained than their peers. Most course takers drop out of the teacher pipeline prior to college enrollment where racial gaps in 4-year college going serve as major barriers. Our findings suggest that early exposure without support to increase college going is unlikely to increase teacher supply or diversity. |
| JEL: | I21 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35776 |
| By: | Andy Chung (Department of Economics, University of Reading); Tin Cheuk Leung (Wake Forest University); James Reade (Department of Economics, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | Digital platforms expose workers and managers to immediate, public, and persistent evaluations from external audiences, creating a form of social pressure that may shape workplace decisions. We examine whether such digital social pressure predicts subsequent opportunity allocation and worker performance, using professional football as a high-frequency empirical setting. We link player-match data from Europe’s five major leagues to post-match Twitter commentary and construct measures of negative sentiment, toxicity, and racial abuse. Comparing players with themselves over time and teammates in the same current match, we find that greater negative sentiment is associated with a lower probability of appearing in the team’s next match. Toxicity shows a similar but less stable association, while racial-abuse intensity is imprecisely estimated when the measures enter jointly. By contrast, associations with performance conditional on a subsequent appearance are small and imprecise. Overall, the findings suggest that digital social pressure is reflected more strongly in the allocation of subsequent opportunities than in worker performance, showing how public evaluations generated outside formal organizational boundaries can become part of the reputational environment surrounding internal managerial decisions. |
| Keywords: | digital social pressure, online criticism, managerial decision-making, worker performance, social media, professional football, racial abuse |
| JEL: | J24 M54 D91 Z22 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2026-10 |
| By: | Nikolova, Milena (University of Groningen); Angelini, Viola (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | As populations age, longer working careers become more essential, and technological advancements may prolong or shorten career spans. We examine how exposure to industrial robots, information and communication technology (ICT), and artificial intelligence (AI) relate to retirement expectations among workers in 20 European countries. To this end, we link individual-level data from the European Working Conditions Survey (2005–2024) with lagged technology-exposure measures. Technology exposure shows little systematic association with preferred retirement timing. Nevertheless, robots and especially AI are linked to the perception of being able to work until age 60. These associations vary across workers and tasks, suggesting that job design and worker adaptation determine whether technology supports longer working lives. |
| Keywords: | retirement, expectations, technological change, robots, ICT, AI |
| JEL: | I31 J26 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18938 |
| By: | Dahlstrand, Amanda (University of Zurich); Huang, Shan (Stockholm School of Economics); Le Nestour, Nestor (Stockholm University); Michaels, Guy (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Many organizations use knowledge hierarchies (KHs): frontline workers attempt tasks and pass unresolved ones to experts. But the implications of using KHs are poorly understood, especially when firm revenues depend on who resolves tasks or the firm generates downstream externalities. We study a KH using 500, 000 patient cases from an online primary care firm, linked to outcomes and costs across Sweden's healthcare system, exploiting assignment variation from temporary doctor congestion. Nurses resolve 70% of KH cases, passing the rest to doctors. Relative to doctor-only care, the KH modestly increases external primary care and emergency department visits but has no adverse effects on hospitalizations, earnings losses, or mortality. Its mean effect on systemwide (including downstream) costs is small but masks heterogeneity. Compared with doctor-only care, the firm's selective KH use saves 1.6% of online primary care costs; however, crucially, reassigning cases within 15-minute windows to minimize systemwide costs would save 6.8%. |
| Keywords: | division of labor, productivity, healthcare |
| JEL: | J24 I19 L23 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18965 |
| By: | Annika Bacher; Andreas Fagereng; Marius A. K. Ring; Ella Getz Wold |
| Abstract: | Governments have long imposed minimum equity requirements on new corporations. Opponents view them as barriers to entry while proponents argue that they protect stakeholders from financially unviable businesses. We study this quantity-quality trade-off using a Norwegian reform and comprehensive data linking entrepreneurs to their firms. A 70% reduction in required capital nearly doubled entrepreneurial entry, with no deterioration in survival, profitability, productivity, or interest-bearing leverage and no differences in founders’ ex-ante income, liquidity, or ability. These results suggest capital requirements restrict entrepreneurship without screening on quality or liquidity. Rather, we highlight returns-to-scale heterogeneity as an important determinant of the observed entry response. |
| JEL: | G38 G50 H10 H32 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35780 |
| By: | Federica Coelli; Difei Ouyang; Weidi Yuan; Yuan Zi |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that human capital accumulation can accelerate structural transformation without accelerating growth. We study China's 1999 higher education expansion, a large, rapid, and largely unanticipated increase in college graduates. We find that more exposed prefectures experienced larger increases in the skilled-labor share and shifted employment and value added from agriculture toward services. The reallocation extended to low-skilled workers. Consumer services absorbed most of the increase in employment, while producer services accounted for a disproportionate share of high-skilled employment growth. Yet more-exposed prefectures did not grow faster. A four-sector model rationalizes these patterns, showing how greater skill supply can generate broad-based servitization, but also a Baumol-type growth penalty when labor reallocates toward slower-growing sectors. Our findings highlight that the payoff to higher education depends not only on how much skill it creates, but also on whether the resulting structural transformation directs resources toward the economy’s engines of productivity growth. |
| Keywords: | human capital, structural transformation, higher education expansion, servitization, China |
| JEL: | I25 J24 L16 O11 O14 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13003 |
| By: | Benjamin W. Cowan; Mohamed Hafis Zida |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the causal effect of fertility on mothers’ work arrangements, with a particular focus on remote work. Using harmonized individual-level data from the American Community Survey (ACS) for the period 2003--2024, we exploit exogenous variation in fertility generated by the sex composition of the first two children and twin births at the second parity. We find that fertility significantly reduces labor force participation across our sample period, consistent with existing evidence, but its effects on remote work are nuanced. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, an additional child increases the likelihood of working remotely. However, these effects turn negative after 2020 when remote work became common. We show that these patterns are not driven by changing selection into teleworkable occupations nor by changes in the observable characteristics of compliers over time. The limited feasibility or attractiveness of remote work for many women, combined with changes in the nature of remote work over time, are more likely explanations. Taken together, these findings suggest that remote work, in its current form, has limited potential to meaningfully reduce child penalties for higher-order births. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J24 J32 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35763 |
| By: | Busso, Matias (Inter American Development Bank); Gonzalez-Velosa, Carolina (Inter American Development Bank); Muñoz-Morales, Juan (IÉSEG School of Management); Ruiz, Juanita (Georgetown University); Valencia, Juan (Inter American Development Bank); van der Werf, Cynthia (Inter American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether government-issued skill certification improves labor market integration when workers' skills are hard to verify. We evaluate a randomized offer of access to an occupation-specific certification program in Colombia among locals and migrants, two groups with different ex ante signaling capacity. The program certifies existing skills rather than providing training. Among locals, the offer increases employment by reducing inactivity and raises hours worked. The effects persist unevenly over time and are robust to attrition bounds and alternative outcome measures. Among migrants, estimates are less precise and provide no evidence of effects in employment, hours, or wages. The results show that a common skill certification generates different patterns of labor-market adjustment among locals and migrants. |
| Keywords: | signaling, certifications, skills, migration, Colombia |
| JEL: | J24 J61 J64 I26 O15 D82 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18963 |
| By: | Claudia Bruschi; Francesco D'Acunto; Fiorella De Fiore; Damiano Sandri; Michael Weber |
| Abstract: | Artificial intelligence may augment workers, displace labor, or do both. We elicit beliefs from more than 64, 000 adults across 32 countries, covering 65% of the world's population and 85% of global output. Workers are substantially more likely to expect artificial intelligence to facilitate than threaten their jobs. Facilitation is more prevalent in lower-productivity countries, whereas threat is unrelated to productivity. Facilitation and threat often coexist within individuals, indicating that perceived benefits and risks are distinct rather than opposite dimensions. They are also associated with different macroeconomic expectations: facilitation with stronger expected growth and employment, and threat with weaker employment and higher inflation. These heterogeneous beliefs may shape the diffusion and acceptance of artificial intelligence across countries. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence, subjective expectations, labor markets |
| JEL: | D84 O33 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13006 |
| By: | Marco Alberto De Benedetto; Maria De Paola; Marco Francesconi |
| Abstract: | We estimate the labor market effects of Italy's statutory priority to work from home (WFH) for parents of children under age twelve. Using population-wide administrative data and a sharp regression discontinuity design, we find that eligibility raises mothers' annual earnings by 1.6-2.3 percent in high-WFH-intensity firms, alongside increases in paid days and weeks. Mothers in low-WFH-intensity firms and fathers in general show no detectable effects. The estimates have an intention-to-treat interpretation and persist beyond the pandemic. Placebo tests show no effects before the pandemic, in firms that never adopted WFH, or among manual workers, consistent with a WFH mechanism. |
| Keywords: | flexible work arrangements, female labor supply, work-family policy, remote-work intensity, work organization, regression discontinuity |
| JEL: | C31 J16 J22 J31 J81 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13010 |
| By: | Diris, Ron (Leiden University); Meekes, Jordy (Leiden University); van Vliet, Olaf (Leiden University) |
| Abstract: | This study analyses whether temporary work agency (TWA) employment is a stepping stone to better labour market outcomes for displaced workers. Using monthly Dutch administrative data for the period 2010-2022, we focus on a sample of incumbent employees who are displaced because of a firm bankruptcy, and analyse the causal effect of the first job after displacement being a TWA job vs. another job. The main contribution of this study is that we exploit variation in firm bankruptcy dates in a novel instrumental variable approach to deal with the endogeneity of TWA employment. We find that TWA causes negative effects on employment and working hours, which dissipate around 30 months after firm bankruptcy. Effects on hourly wages are negative (20\%) and consistent up until seven years after firm bankruptcy. TWA employment also reduces the probability of having a permanent contract by around 20 percentage points in the long run. |
| Keywords: | temporary work agency, stepping stone, labour market flexibilization, instrumental variables, displaced workers |
| JEL: | J31 J64 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18959 |
| By: | Amanda Dahlstrand; Shan Huang; Nestor Le Nestour; Guy Michaels |
| Abstract: | Many modern organizations use knowledge hierarchies, where frontline workers try to resolve tasks and pass those they cannot resolve to experts. But the implications of this organization of expertise are not well understood, especially if firm revenues depend on who resolves each task or the firm generates downstream externalities. We study a knowledge hierarchy (KH) using 500, 000 patient cases from an online primary care firm, linked to outcomes and costs across Sweden's healthcare system. We use variation in assignment arising from temporary doctor congestion, controlling for date-by-three-hour windows and flexible case characteristics. Within the KH, nurses resolve 70% of cases and pass the remainder to doctors. Relative to doctor-only care, the KH modestly increases external primary care and ED visits but has no adverse effects on hospitalizations, earnings losses, or mortality. Although the mean effect of KH on systemwide (firm plus downstream) production costs is small, this masks substantial heterogeneity. Compared to using only doctors, the savings from the firm's selective use of the KH equal 1.6% of online primary care costs. However, our main finding is that reassigning cases between the direct-to-doctor and KH routes within 15-minute windows to minimize systemwide production costs would save 6.8% of online primary care costs. |
| Keywords: | division of labor, productivity, healthcare |
| JEL: | J24 I19 L23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13012 |
| By: | José María Guerrero Mata; Brendan Burchell |
| Abstract: | While debates surrounding reduced working hours and four-day working week models have expanded internationally, existing evidence remains concentrated in high-income countries and service-based sectors. Limited research has explored how working-time reduction operates within physically demanding industrial environments, particularly in Latin America, where long working hours and productivity concerns continue to shape organisational practices. This research examines the technical and social feasibility of phased working-time reduction within a Mexican industrial setting through a real-world intervention conducted in a precast concrete manufacturing plant in Monterrey. The study addresses this gap through a mixed-methods intervention implemented over three consecutive phases, gradually reducing the working week from 51 to 42 hours while maintaining operational continuity. Quantitative analysis combined objective operational indicators, including productivity, absenteeism and production costs, with repeated employee wellbeing surveys measuring stress, fatigue, recovery, sleep quality and work–life balance. Qualitative interviews further contextualised employees’ experiences. The findings suggest that phased working-time reduction can be implemented without negatively affecting operational performance. Despite substantial reductions in working hours, labour productivity per hour increased across the intervention phases, while absenteeism and production costs remained stable or decreased. Employees also reported better wellbeing, sleep quality and work–life balance without corresponding increases in perceived workload pressure. Rather than supporting the assumption that productivity depends primarily on extending working hours, the intervention suggests that organisational performance may also be linked to enhanced recovery, greater motivation and more sustainable forms of work organisation. |
| Keywords: | Working time reduction, labour productivity, employee wellbeing, work-life balance, blue-collar labour, Mexico, organisational change |
| JEL: | J22 J24 J28 J81 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp554 |
| By: | Daniele Checchi (Università degli Studi di Milano = University of Milano); Daniel Kreisman (Georgia College and State University); Cecilia García-Peñalosa (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | We examine the contribution of the intensive margin of labour supply (hours worked above zero) to the gender wage gap over a long time-horizon across four high-income economies: France, Germany, the UK, and the US. We do so by bridging a recent literature on gender differences in high-paying, high-hour jobs with traditional wage gap decomposition methods. We first build a model in which firms offer two wage contracts – one that pays a fixed wage but allows workers to choose their preferred number of hours up to "full time", and a second in which wages are determined by imperfectly observable productivity and can require working more than standard hours. The former includes partand full-time work, while the latter requires workers to supply long hours but allows them to earn a higher remuneration. We then decompose the hourly wage gap separately for part-, full-, and overtime workers to observe the relative contribution of sorting and remuneration across these "hours regimes" over time and across countries. We show that while female employment in overtime work has increased and the gender wage gap has decreased in most countries and hours regimes, this was not driven by increasing selection on observables but rather by a decline over time of the unexplained component of the wage gap — a pattern that holds for most countries and hours regimes. We conclude by considering the contribution of institutional framework (unions, labour market flexibility, parental leaves) to these cross-country differences. |
| Keywords: | Oaxaca decomposition; Overtime work; Gender wage gap; Labour supply |
| JEL: | J01 J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2623 |
| By: | Le Thi, Nga (School of Economics, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam); Heshmati, Almas (University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City) |
| Abstract: | Labor market conditions (LMC) play an important role in business development (BD) and provincial income, yet their interaction at the provincial level in Vietnam remains underexplored. This study examines how LMC are associated with BD and Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) per capita across 63 provinces during 2018–2023, using data from the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO) and the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI). A simultaneous equation framework estimated by three-stage least squares (3SLS) is applied to capture the interdependence between enterprise density and GRDP per capita. The findings reveal a nonlinear and bidirectional relationship, with diminishing marginal effects at higher development levels. LMC and selected PCI dimensions are associated with enterprise activity and income differences, while regional disparities persist. The results highlight the importance of balanced regional development, improved labor allocation, and stronger institutional quality to support sustainable BD and reduce provincial gaps. |
| Keywords: | business development, labor market conditions, Provincial Competitiveness Index, GRDP per capita, Vietnamese provinces |
| JEL: | J21 J24 L26 R11 C33 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18954 |
| By: | Lepinteur, Anthony (University of Luxembourg); Nieto Castro, Adrian (Lund University) |
| Abstract: | We study whether pay timing shapes employment stability using staggered state reforms that allow employers to pay less frequently. Combining rich longitudinal labor-market records with multiple complementary data sources, we show that deregulation reduces pay frequency and produces a sharp but temporary increase in employment-to-unemployment transitions, concentrated among workers in the lowest prior-income quartile. The employment separations arise through layoffs, while quits remain unchanged. We provide detailed evidence on the mechanisms underlying this asymmetry. Less frequent pay tightens workers’ financial constraints, reduces their use of medical and professional services, worsens their health-care affordability and functional health, and lowers the time they spend working and interacting at work, thereby weakening employment relationships and contributing to employer-initiated separations. To explain the absence of quits, we examine responses on both sides of the labor market. Workers do not increase on-the-job search or interviewing, while employers neither compensate for less frequent pay by increasing earnings nor broadly reduce job openings. |
| Keywords: | pay frequency, payday regulation, unemployment transitions, layoffs, quits |
| JEL: | J33 J63 J64 D14 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18925 |
| By: | Görg, Holger (Kiel Institute for the World Economy); Merchan, Federico (Kiel Institute for the World Economy) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the Brexit referendum in 2016 as a quasi-natural experiment to estimate the effect of an exogenous negative shock to globalization on executive compensation for German companies listed in the DAX and MDAX stock indices. We show that it matters whether they work for firms exporting goods or services. The main results indicate that executive compensation in firms operating in sectors that export services was negatively affected, in particular through lower variable compensation. On the contrary, executives of firms that operate in sectors exporting goods were not negatively affected overall, though they experienced a compositional change (from bonuses to equity payments). Sectoral regressions suggest that manufacturing firms redirected successfully exports from the UK to other relevant trade partners, while this was not the case in the service sector. |
| Keywords: | Brexit, executive compensation, disintegration, services |
| JEL: | F14 F16 E24 J33 G35 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18946 |
| By: | Beata Osiewalska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam); Cracow University of Economics); Karel Neels (University of Antwerp); Anna Matysiak (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam)) |
| Abstract: | The expansion of working from home (WFH) has transformed paid work, but access to remote-workable jobs remains strongly stratified by education. We examine how regional WFH availability is associated with fertility among women with different educational levels in Belgium. We link Belgian population register data (2001–2019) with regional WFH indicators from the Labour Force Survey and estimate discrete-time birth hazards, followed by microsimulation of aggregate fertility patterns. Higher WFH availability is associated with lower first-birth risks at younger ages across educational groups, with later recuperation only among highly educated women. For second and higher-order births, WFH availability is generally associated with higher birth risks, especially among the highly educated. Microsimulation shows that these parity-specific associations produce only modest changes in total fertility and the educational gradient. WFH therefore appears less as a universal reconciliation resource than as a stratified labour-market change with parity-specific fertility implications. |
| Keywords: | working from home, remote work, fertility, educational gradient, parity progression microsimulation, register data, Belgium |
| JEL: | J13 J11 J22 J24 O33 R23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-38 |
| By: | Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln; Jonas Jessen; Pinchuan Ong; Jessica Pan |
| Abstract: | We assess whether survey responses to hypothetical policy scenarios can recover actual labor supply responses from policy variation. We study the German Mütterrente, a pension benefit crediting parents for child-rearing, benchmarking against Artmann et al. (forthcoming). Surveying mothers and fathers about a hypothetical reform modeled on that expansion, we find that mothers expect to reduce their labor supply, with an implied marginal propensity to earn of −0.65—close to the quasi-experimental estimate of −0.54. The response is sensible across subgroups, falls mainly on the extensive margin, and spills over to fathers. In the aggregate, spousal predictions match partners’ own reports. |
| Keywords: | marginal propensity to earn, pension reform, hypothetical scenarios |
| JEL: | J22 H55 D84 J26 D10 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12993 |
| By: | Richard Blundell; Monica Costa-Dias; Graham Mazeine; Costas Meghir; Tom Waters |
| Abstract: | Work experience has been found to be a key determinant of work and wages for educated women, but it seems to play a smaller role for the less educated. For them, welfare, tax credits and family composition matter more, and increasingly so does participation in disability programmes. Here we document how labor supply, wages, health, and disability claims have evolved in the UK over the last three decades, and examine how reforms to tax credits, disability benefits and other welfare programs have changed work incentives over this period. We then introduce these features into an empirical dynamic structural model of life-cycle labor supply, human capital and disability benefit application, in which human capital combines health capital, experience accumulated in work, and education. Estimating the model on a panel of working-age women in the UK, we examine the interactions between experience capital and health capital in driving life-cycle earnings across different education groups. Our results highlight the importance of interactions in the disability benefit, welfare and tax credit systems for understanding the life cycle pattern of hours, employment, earnings, and disability claims, and for evaluating policy counterfactuals. |
| Date: | 2026–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:26/851 |
| By: | Koutmeridis, Theodore (University of Glasgow) |
| Abstract: | Wage inequality has evolved differently across education–experience groups. This paper offers a composition-based explanation. When access to education expands, constrained higher-ability workers leave the non-college pool, reducing its average ability and entry wage as the absence of a credential signals lower expected ability. Experienced non-college wages also respond, but less, because private employer learning gives incumbent firms an informational advantage that shields them from the compositional shift. As cream-skimming progresses, the informational wedges of the two education groups can converge because the remaining non-college pool becomes more compressed and the expanding college pool broadens at its lower end. This convergence appears as a narrowing of the gap in education premia between inexperienced and experienced workers or, equivalently, in experience premia between non-college and college workers. U.S. Current Population Survey data document this compression and a pronounced decline in the relative wage of non-college entrants. The mechanism complements demand-side explanations by highlighting the informational roles of education (signaling) and experience (employer learning) in shaping the wage structure. |
| Keywords: | wage inequality, education premium, experience premium, signaling, college expansion, asymmetric employer learning |
| JEL: | D31 D82 I26 J3 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18957 |
| By: | Fang, Guanfu (School of Business, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics); Qian, Benyu (School of Economics, Jinan University); Zhao, Zhong (Renmin University of China) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the labor market effects of China's After-School Care policy—commonly known as the After-School 3:30 PM Service reform—on maternal employment and earnings. Introduced in 2017, the policy addresses the longstanding mismatch between early school dismissal times and standard work schedules by extending on-campus supervision and enrichment activities into the late afternoon. Exploiting the staggered rollout of the program across counties and over time, we show that the policy significantly increases mothers' labor supply and earnings. We document null effects for fathers. The policy operates by reducing maternal housework time, enabling longer commutes, and facilitating access to formal employment, while also inducing firms to increase job postings for female workers. Effects are concentrated among mothers with egalitarian gender attitudes, with minimal impact on those holding traditional views. |
| Keywords: | after-school care, maternal labor supply, gender norms |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J18 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18949 |
| By: | Riccardo Di Francesco; Peter Hull; Seetha Menon |
| Abstract: | We study how firms’ orientation toward employee well-being shapes the health of their workers. Because this orientation is not directly observable, we measure it from the language Danish firms use in their public disclosures, applying language models to construct a firm-level well-being salience score. We link this score to population-wide administrative registers of health and sickness absence over 2013–2022, and exploit workers’ mobility between firms to estimate how workers respond to a change in the salience of their employer. We find an asymmetry: workers who move to higher-salience firms take substantially more sickness absence, while their use of health care does not change. Because worsening health would raise both, the absence response suggests a behavioral change rather than deteriorating health. Broadly, our results show that firms shape not only worker health but how workers act on it, and that the language of routine corporate disclosure can reveal economically meaningful features of the workplace that administrative data leave unrecorded. |
| JEL: | I12 J28 J32 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35760 |
| By: | Becker, Sascha (University of Warwick); Fernandes, Ana (Bern University of Applied Sciences); Lalayev, Nurlan (University of Warwick); Weichselbaumer, Doris (University of Linz) |
| Abstract: | We study gender differences in employers’ responses to commuting distance using data from a large-scale correspondence test in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. A 10 km increase in driving distance reduces women’s probability of receiving an interview invitation by 1.8 percentage points, around 9 percent of the mean female invitation rate, while commuting distance has no corresponding effect for men. The gender difference is statistically significant and robust to alternative distance measures and thresholds, firms’ rural or urban location, and local labor-market tightness. The female distance penalty does not vary detectably with applicants’ reported marital status or the presence of children, providing no support for screening based on these observed indicators of household responsibilities. |
| Keywords: | gender discrimination, commuting, labor market, field experiment, Germany, Switzerland, Austria |
| JEL: | C93 J16 J61 J71 R41 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18950 |
| By: | Braxton, John (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Eley, Marlena (University of Wisconsin); Rothbaum, Jonathan (US Census Bureau); Sledz, Shannon (Joint Committee on Taxation) |
| Abstract: | Using linked employee--employer data, we show that recessions shift earnings changes toward negative skewness through more frequent layoffs, larger post-layoff earnings losses, and fewer upward job moves. We discipline a Bewley--Huggett--Aiyagari model with directed search and aggregate productivity shocks using these empirical moments. The calibrated model reproduces the cyclical shift in earnings skewness and implies that eliminating business cycles generates a welfare gain equivalent to 4.9% of consumption on average. This gain falls to essentially zero when cyclical changes in individual labor market risk are removed. Persistent earnings losses following recessionary job loss account for most of the welfare cost. |
| Keywords: | countercyclical earnings risk, business cycles, earnings skewness, search friction, welfare costs |
| JEL: | E32 D52 J64 E21 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18962 |
| By: | Magdalena Grabowska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam)); Anna Matysiak (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam)); Anna Kurowska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam); University of Warsaw, Faculty of Political Science and International Relations) |
| Abstract: | The rapid diffusion of work-from-home (WFH) has fundamentally restructured working arrangements in Europe, yet its role as a structural driver of parental employment remains under-researched. Analyzing macro-level panel data across 15 European countries (2006–2024) alongside micro-level maternal transitions, we examine WFH's impact on employment for parents of young children. We find that national WFH prevalence is positively and significantly associated with maternal employment, while no effects are observed for fathers or non-parents. A 10-percentage point increase in national WFH share increases maternal employment rates by 0.86 percentage points the following year and raises a mother’s probability of transitioning from non-employment to work by 4.7 percentage points. However, WFH primarily facilitates part-time employment, acting as a reconciliatory bridge rather than a catalyst for full-time integration. Ultimately, while remote work enhances labor market attachment, without broader structural changes to domestic labor divisions, it risks prioritizing work-family reconciliation over full career equality. |
| Keywords: | work-from-home, maternal employment, labor market transitions, work-family reconciliation |
| JEL: | J22 J13 J16 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-36 |
| By: | Sparber, Chad (Colgate University) |
| Abstract: | H-1B status grants highly-educated foreign nationals the right to work in specialized occupations in the United States. Recent policy proposals include altering the method for allocating H-1B status, raising payments associated with entry into the country, and changing the limit on new issuances available. To help inform policy, this paper uses the universe of cap-bound H-1Bs awarded in fiscal year 2024 to examine how wages vary across different groups. Workers on F-1 student status accounted for 45% of new issuances, while another 43% went to individuals living abroad without any contemporary US immigration status. This former group earned 10% higher wages than the latter, or 6% more after accounting for observable differences between groups. Indian-born workers without current status seeking new employment at H-1B dependent firms earn the lowest wages. Policies favoring one of these groups over another -- whether intended or not -- will affect the average wage paid to H-1B recipients. |
| Keywords: | skilled immigration, H-1B, wage differentials |
| JEL: | J61 J68 J31 F22 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18940 |
| By: | Fairlie, Robert (University of California, Los Angeles); Wu, Jane (UCLA) |
| Abstract: | The impact of AI on the employment prospects of recent college graduates is hotly debated with no consensus on the magnitude of impacts nor even the timing of those potential impacts. Using CPS microdata, we provide the first estimates of the effects of AI on the unemployment of recent college graduates in June, July and August 2026. Taking an agnostic approach to defining treatment timing, we find that unemployment rates did not spike in summer 2026 relative to summer months in previous years and did not rise in a significant way relative to older college graduates or young workers without a college degree. We also find no evidence of a statistically significant increase in summer 2026 even after adding the “sidelined unemployed.†We estimate difference-in-differences and event-study interaction models using both older college graduates and young non-college graduates as comparison groups and do not find evidence of an increase in relative unemployment rates. Finally, we estimate models in which we interact 2026 unemployment with AI exposure and remote work availability by occupation and find some evidence of a positive relationship with remote work availability. |
| Keywords: | AI, technological change, unemployment, job loss, college graduates |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18945 |
| By: | Claude Diebolt; Joel Huesler |
| Abstract: | This chapter synthesizes global evidence on how climate-related and disaster shocks affect human capital formation through educational attainment, learning outcomes, child health, and long-run economic mobility. Drawing on quasi-experimental and experimental evidence from low-, middle-, and high-income countries, the review documents substantial heterogeneity in impacts driven by shock type, timing, baseline poverty, and institutional capacity. Short-run disruptions to school attendance and health are well-documented, though evidence on learning losses and long-run earnings effects remains considerably thinner and warrants urgent attention. Key transmission mechanisms are mapped—including household budget constraints, child labor responses, school infrastructure damage, disease burden, and fetal and early-life programming—alongside a critical evaluation of causal identification strategies and their limitations. Policy evidence indicates that well-designed social protection programs, resilient school infrastructure, early warning systems, and education continuity planning can mitigate impacts, though rigorous evaluations remain scarce and external validity concerns persist. Five priority research gaps are identified: measuring and mitigating learning losses; understanding cumulative effects of repeated shocks; evaluating cost-effective adaptation strategies; linking childhood exposure to long-run labor outcomes; and studying behavioral adaptation to increasing climate risk. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Climate Shocks, Natural Disasters, Child Health, Education, Economic History |
| JEL: | I25 J24 N30 N50 Q54 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2026-34 |
| By: | Hiroyuki Yamada (Keio University); Atsushi Nakagomi (Chiba University); Takahiro Tabuchi (Tohoku University) |
| Abstract: | Japan has the lowest rate of generative AI use among major economies, yet little is known about how the technology has spread within the country. This study uses the sixth wave of the Japan COVID-19 and Society Internet Survey (JACSIS, N = 27, 630), which asks respondents when they first started using generative AI, to reconstruct cumulative adoption curves for Japanese municipalities from November 2022 to January 2026. Because every respondent became able to adopt at the same moment, the release of ChatGPT, the retrospective cohorts support a discrete-time hazard analysis without left truncation. Linking postal codes to municipal statistics, we document four findings. First, adoption follows the urban hierarchy: by January 2026, 50% of residents of the quintile of municipalities with the highest population density had adopted, compared with 35% in the quintile with the lowest population density, and the ratio between the two rose from 0.55 to 0.71 over the four periods, indicating relative convergence alongside a widening absolute gap. Second, most of the geographic gradient reflects who lives where rather than where they live: individual characteristics explain 64% of the population-density coefficient, and the coefficients on population density and on distance to Tokyo become statistically indistinguishable from zero once individual controls are included. Third, municipal population aging is negatively associated with adoption beyond its compositional effect, but only in the first two years of diffusion. Fourth, the job openings-to-applicants ratio in the respondent's workplace area is positively associated with work-related adoption and unrelated to purely private adoption, a pattern consistent with labor scarcity pulling generative AI into workplaces. The association is statistically significant but economically small: a one-point increase in the ratio is associated with a work-adoption probability less than one percentage point higher. Regional differences are concentrated in whether people adopt, not in how intensively adopters use the technology or whether they stop using it: one in six ever-users has lapsed, and lapsing follows age, education, and job content rather than place. The results are correlational, but they suggest that Japan's low national adoption rate is a consequence of its demographic and occupational composition rather than of a distinct rural disadvantage. |
| Keywords: | Generative AI, technology diffusion, regional inequality, population aging, labor shortage, Japan |
| JEL: | O33 R12 J11 J23 L86 |
| Date: | 2026–09–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:keo:dpaper:dp2026-020 |
| By: | Bryson, Alex (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Most of the literature estimating the gender wage gap (GWG) in the UK uses regression techniques adjusting for a range of covariates measured in adulthood, many of which are likely endogenous. In doing so, they typically find that about half the raw gap can be accounted for by gender differences in those conditioning variables. Using data for a birth cohort born in 1958 collected prospectively across ten survey sweeps, I depart from the literature in two ways. First, I condition solely on covariates measured in childhood to minimize potential biases arising from conditioning on endogenous variables. Second, I use a range of matching estimators to recover the GWG among ‘like’ men and women. I show that the raw GWG rises until cohort members enter their 40s, then falls but remains sizeable until age 63. In contrast to literature, when conditioning solely on childhood variables the covariate-adjusted GWG is similar to the raw GWG. This is the case at all ages regardless of the matching estimator I use and the set of conditioning childhood covariates. The implication is that among those born in 1958 women have lower earnings than men across the life-course which cannot be accounted for by their pre-labour market experiences. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, birth cohort, National Child Development Study, propensity score matching, entropy weighting, inverse probability weighted regression-adjustment (IPWRA) |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18960 |
| By: | Johannes Geyer; Peter Haan; Mia Teschner-Hofmann; Felix Weinhardt |
| Abstract: | Rising life expectancy and demographic change have increased the share of older workers, making their health and productivity central to aging societies. We study whether longer working lives translate into investments in work-related health before retirement. Exploiting a pension reform in Germany in a Regression Discontinuity Design, we show that women facing longer careers are more likely to apply for work-related rehabilitation, particularly those in poorer health or with weaker labor market attachment. Despite higher application and approval rates, this demand does not translate into higher rehabilitation completion. Together with intermediate outcomes, our findings are most consistent with capacity constraints in program delivery. |
| Keywords: | Rehabilitation, Aging Societies, Health Investments, Pension Reform |
| JEL: | H55 I12 J26 |
| Date: | 2026–09–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0110 |
| By: | Ryan Abman (San Diego State University); Leah Lakdawala (Wake Forest University); Clark Lundberg (San Diego State University and Center for Effective Global Action); Eduardo Nakasone (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) |
| Abstract: | Trade liberalization can increase schooling while reducing what children learn. We study this tension in Peru, where large unilateral tariff reductions between 2007 and 2016 generated substantial local variation in import competition. Combining household surveys with administrative records of test performance, we examine effects on children's schooling, work, learning, and later outcomes. We document a trade-off between schooling quantity and learning quality: greater exposure increased attendance but reduced relative gains in math achievement. This pattern extends from primary into secondary school, where exposed districts saw even larger participation gains, yet the relative math learning gap continued to widen as affected cohorts aged. We trace these effects to countervailing income and substitution channels. Declining protected-sector opportunities lowered the opportunity cost of schooling, while negative income shocks led more children to work while in school and shifted students from private to public schools, where teachers per student fell. In the longer run, affected cohorts were more likely to complete secondary school but shifted away from university and toward technical and professional programs, and by young adulthood were less likely to be employed and earned lower wages. Trade reforms can thus expand school access while weakening skill formation, revealing human-capital costs that enrollment metrics may miss |
| Keywords: | trade liberalization; import competition; human capital; schooling; learning; child labor; Peru |
| JEL: | F16 F13 I21 I25 J22 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:wfuewp:023632 |
| By: | Tanaka, Mari (University of Tokyo); Okudaira, Hiroko (Doshisha University); Sakka, Mariko (University of Tsukuba); Yamaguchi, Shintaro (University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | We test whether employers can shift household allocation by targeting men as fathers. Among 1, 225 male employees in four Japanese organizations, we randomized a two-hour work-life balance training and an information treatment correcting misperceptions of colleagues' support. Training increased fathers' weekend childcare by about one hour per day in young-child households and raised spouses' reported paid work; spouses' housework also fell. Training strengthened beliefs that paternity leave benefits workplace functioning but not leave intentions. Information modestly shifted perceived support but affected neither intentions nor information-seeking. Employer training can affect household allocation without changing formal rights or work arrangements. |
| Keywords: | workplace intervention, paternity leave, household time allocation, second-order beliefs, field experiment |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 M54 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18913 |
| By: | Luca Brugnara (Bank of Italy); Davide Dottori (Bank of Italy); Francesca Modena (Bank of Italy); Giulia Martina Tanzi (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the influence of peers' parents in shaping high school students' decisions to enroll in university, highlighting the joint role of their education level and occupation. Using a rich longitudinal dataset on Italian students, we track individuals from high school to university enrollment and exploit within-school and cross-cohort variation to identify peer effects. Our results show that peers' parental education positively impacts university enrollment, and more strongly so when paired with the type of occupation. These findings hold across students' and parents' gender and are more pronounced in non-academic schools and among students whose parents do not hold a university degree, suggesting that the peer effect is particularly relevant in contexts where the propensity to attend university is lower. The paper also finds that the peer effect is non-linear and strongest at intermediate levels of exposure, suggesting that a certain degree of diversity in the educational background of peers' parents may maximize the overall effect. |
| Keywords: | university students' outcomes, peer effect, family background |
| JEL: | I21 I23 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_1039_26 |