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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2017‒08‒06
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Adrian Chadi (Institute for Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union); Clemens Hetschko (Freie Universität Berlin, School of Business and Economics) |
| Abstract: | We study the usually assumed trade-off between income and leisure in labor supply decisions using comprehensive German panel data. We compare non-employed individuals after plant closures with employed people regarding both income and time use as well as their subjective perceptions of these two factors. We find that the gain of non-working time translates intohigher satisfaction with free time, while time spent on hobbiesincreases to a lesser extent than home production. Additionally, satisfaction with family life increases, which may be a hidden benefit of being unemployed. In contrast, satisfaction with income strongly declines when becoming jobless. Identity utility from earning a living may play the role of a hidden benefit of employment. Finally, we examine subjective assessments of income and leisure as potential predictors for job take-up. Non-employed people are particularly likely to take up a job soon when they are dissatisfied with their income. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, plant closure, leisure, work-family conflict, life satisfaction, income satisfaction, free time satisfaction, family satisfaction |
| JEL: | D01 D13 I31 J22 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iaa:dpaper:201706&r=ltv |
| By: | Marco Pagano (University of Naples "Federico II", CSEF and EIEF); Luca Picariello (Norwegian School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In talent-intensive jobs, workers’ performance reveals their quality. This enhances productivity and wages, but also increases layoff risk. If workers cannot resign from their jobs, firms can insure them via severance pay. If instead workers can resign, private insurance cannot be provided, and more risk-averse workers will choose less informative jobs. This lowers expected productivity and wages. Public unemployment insurance corrects this inefficiency, enhancing employment in talent-sensitive industries and investment in education by employees. The prediction that the generosity of unemployment insurance is positively correlated with the share of workers in talent-sensitive industries is consistent with international and U.S. evidence. |
| Keywords: | talent, learning, layoff risk, unemployment insurance |
| JEL: | D61 D62 D83 J24 J65 |
| Date: | 2017–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:480&r=ltv |
| By: | Andrew E. Clark; Sarah Flèche; Warn N. Lekfuangfu |
| Abstract: | To what extent do childhood experiences continue to affect adult wellbeing over the life course? Previous work on this link has been carried out either at one particular adult age or for some average of adulthood. We here use two British birth-cohort datasets (the 1958 NCDS and the 1970 BCS) to map out the time profile of the effect of childhood on adult outcomes, including life satisfaction. We find that the effect of many aspects of childhood do not fade away over time, but are rather remarkably stable. In both birth cohorts child non-cognitive skills are the strongest predictors of adult life satisfaction at all ages. Of these, emotional health is the strongest. Childhood cognitive performance is more important than good conduct in explaining adult life satisfaction in the earlier cohort, whereas this ranking is inverted in the more recent BCS. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction, cohort data, childhood, adult outcomes |
| JEL: | A12 D60 I31 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1493&r=ltv |
| By: | Andrés Erosa; Luisa Fuster; Gueorgui Kambourov; Richard Rogerson |
| Abstract: | We document a robust negative relationship between the log of mean annual hours in an occupation and the standard deviation of log annual hours within that occupation. We develop a unified model of occupational choice and labor supply that features heterogeneity across occupations in the return to working additional hours and show that it can match the key features of the data both qualitatively and quantitatively. We use the model to shed light on gender differences in labor market outcomes that arise because of gender asymmetries in home production responsibilities. Our model generates large gender gaps in hours of work, occupational choices, and wages. In particular, an exogenous difference in time devoted to home production of ten hours per week increases the observed gender wage gap by roughly eleven percentage points and decreases the share of females in high hours occupations by fourteen percentage points. The implied misallocation of talent across occupations has significant aggregate effects on productivity and welfare. |
| JEL: | E2 J2 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23636&r=ltv |
| By: | Giuliano, Paola |
| Abstract: | Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children and therefore persist until today. We review work on the historical origin of differences in female labor-force participation, fertility, education, marriage arrangements, competitive attitudes, domestic violence, and other forms of difference in gender norms. Most of the research illustrates that differences in cultural norms regarding gender roles emerge in response to specific historical situations, but tend to persist even after the historical conditions have changed. We also discuss the conditions under which gender norms either tend to be stable or change more quickly. |
| Keywords: | Cultural persistence; Cultural Transmission; Gender |
| JEL: | J16 N0 Z1 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12183&r=ltv |