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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2019‒07‒29
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca; Enrica Maria Martino; Elena Claudia Meroni; Daniela Piazzalunga |
| Abstract: | A rich strand of the economic literature has studied the impact of different forms of early childcare on children cognitive and non-cognitive development in the short and medium run, and on a number of educational, labor market, and life outcomes in the long run. These studies agree in assessing the importance of the first years of life on future outcomes, and identify early childhood interventions as a powerful policy instrument to boost child development. Furthermore, most research agrees in identifying stronger beneficial effects among children from disadvantaged backgrounds, making a case for the role of childcare policies in reducing inequality. Instead, heterogeneity of results across gender is less clear-cut. Yet, it is important to understand how childcare arrangements differently affect boys and girls, to figure out how to boost cognitive and non-cognitive development of young children and how to reduce gender gaps later in life. Our paper offers a comprehensive review of the literature on early childcare impacts, shedding light on the heterogeneous effects across genders, considering the role of institutional background, type of the intervention, and age of the child. We also present some empirical results on the Italian case which indicates that gender differences in the outcomes is lower among children who attended an impact toddler center, while it is higher and more often statistically significant for those who received informal care. This result confirms the positive and equalizing role of early public childcare. |
| Keywords: | Childcare, Child development, Cognitive skills, Non-cognitive skills, Gender differences |
| JEL: | J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fbk:wpaper:2019-04&r=all |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca; Enrica Maria Martino; Elena Claudia Meroni; Daniela Piazzalunga |
| Abstract: | A rich strand of the economic literature has been studying the impact of different forms of early childcare on children cognitive and non-cognitive development in the short and medium run, and on a number of educational, labor market, and life outcomes in the long run. These studies agree in assessing the importance of the first years of life on future outcomes, and identify early childhood interventions as a powerful policy instrument to boost child development. Furthermore, most research agrees in identifying stronger beneficial effects among children from disadvantaged backgrounds, making a case for the role of childcare policies in reducing inequality. Instead, heterogeneity of results across gender is less clear-cut. Yet, it is important to understand how childcare arrangements differently affect boys and girls, to figure out how to boost cognitive and non-cognitive development of young children and how to reduce gender gaps later in life. Our paper offers a comprehensive review of the literature on early childcare impacts, shedding light on the heterogeneous effects across genders, considering the role of institutional background, type of the intervention, and age of the child. We also present some empirical results on the Italian case which indicates that gender differences in the outcomes is lower among children who attended an impact toddler center, while it is higher and more often statistically significant for those who received informal care. This result confirms the positive and equalizing role of early public childcare. |
| Keywords: | childcare, child development, cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, gender differences |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wchild:70&r=all |
| By: | Andrew Shephard (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania); Modibo Sidibe (Department of Economics, Duke University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how policies, aimed at increasing the supply of education in the economy, affect the matching between workers and firms, and the wages of various skill groups. We build an equilibrium model where workers endogenously invest in education, while firms direct their technology toward skill intensive production activities. Search frictions induce mismatch on both extensive (unemployment) and intensive (over-education) margins, with ensuing wage consequences. We estimate the model using NLSY and O*NET data, and propose an ex-ante evaluation of prominent educational policies. We find that higher education cost subsidies boost college attainment, produce substantial welfare gains in general equilibrium, but increase wage inequality. These changes are associated with a substantial upward shift in the distribution of job complexity, which leads to worse allocations for high-school graduates who end up under-educated in less productive firms, while highly-educated workers match with more productive firms and experience less over-education during their careers. |
| Keywords: | Human capital, education policy, wage inequality, job search, technology choice, equilibrium |
| JEL: | I22 I24 J6 J21 J23 J24 J31 J64 |
| Date: | 2019–07–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:19-013&r=all |
| By: | Abigail McKnight |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the theoretical literature and empirical evidence on the relationship between poverty, inequality and economic growth. It finds evidence that economic inequality is good for growth as well as new convincing evidence that inequality is bad for growth. Variation in data quality, methodologies, the range of countries included in different studies makes it difficult to compare the evidence. A recent hypothesis that the relationship between inequality and growth might be non-linear, with very low and very high levels of inequality being harmful to growth but a range in between where the relationship is not clearly defined might provide a means to unify some of the conflicting findings. |
| Keywords: | Poverty, inequality, growth |
| JEL: | I32 D31 O47 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sticas:/216&r=all |
| By: | Clark, Andrew E. (Paris School of Economics); Lepinteur, Anthony (University of Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | We here use the employment-history data from the British Cohort Study to calculate an individual's total experience of unemployment from the time they left school up to age 30. We show that this experience is negatively correlated with the life satisfaction that the individual reports at age 30, so that past unemployment scars. We also identify the childhood circumstances and family background that predict this adult unemployment experience. Educational achievement and good behaviour at age 16 both reduce adult unemployment experience, and emotional health at age 16 is a particularly strong predictor of unemployment experience for women. Both boys and girls reproduce on average their parents' unemployment, so that adult unemployment experience is transmitted between generations. We uncover evidence of a social-norm effect: children from less-advantaged backgrounds both experience more adult unemployment but are less affected by it in well-being. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, life satisfaction, habituation |
| JEL: | J21 J63 I31 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12430&r=all |
| By: | Coral del Río; Olga Alonso-Villar |
| Abstract: | Using the 2010-2014 5-year sample of the American Community Survey, this paper investigates the roles that sexual orientation, gender, and race/ethnicity play in explaining occupational achievements and earnings. By combining the approach of Del Río and Alonso-Villar (2015) with the counterfactual method of DiNardo et al. (1996) and Gradín (2013), the authors offer a framework that allows for the simultaneous comparison of all sexual orientation–gender–race/ethnicity groups whereas controlling for characteristics. The analysis suggests that occupations matter in explaining earnings differences among groups. The sexual orientation wage premium of lesbians is quite small for blacks and much higher for Hispanics and Asians than for whites. The high magnitude of the gender wage gap in an intersectional framework is also displayed. For men, departing from the white heterosexual model involves a substantial punishment; the racial penalty is larger for heterosexuals whereas the sexual orientation penalty is greater for whites. |
| Keywords: | Sexual orientation; gender; race; occupational segregation; wage penalty |
| JEL: | D63 I31 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vig:wpaper:1901&r=all |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O. (university of warwick; warwick); Fernandes, Ana (bern university); Weichselbaumer, Doris (university of linz) |
| Abstract: | Due to conventional gender norms, women are more likely to be in charge of childcare than men. From an employer’s perspective, in their fertile age they are also at “risk” of pregnancy. Both factors potentially affect hiring practices of firms. We conduct a largescale correspondence test in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, sending out approx. 9,000 job applications, varying job candidate’s personal characteristics such as marital status and age of children. We find evidence that, for part-time jobs, married women with older kids, who likely finished their childbearing cycle and have more projectable childcare chores than women with very young kids, are at a significant advantage vis-à-vis other groups of women. At the same time, married, but childless applicants, who have a higher likelihood to become pregnant, are at a disadvantage compared to single, but childless applicants to part-time jobs. Such effects are not present for full-time jobs, presumably, because by applying to these in contrast to part-time jobs, women signal that they have arranged for external childcare. |
| Keywords: | fertility, discrimination, experimental economics |
| JEL: | C93 J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2019002&r=all |