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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2020‒12‒07
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Chu, Shuai (Renmin University of China and Global Labor Organization.); Zeng, Xiangquan (Renmin University of China and Global Labor Organization.); Zimmermann, Klaus F. (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, CEPR and Global Labor Organization) |
| Abstract: | Non-cognitive abilities are supposed to affect students' educational performance, who are challenged by parental expectations and norms. Parental gender stereotypes are shown to strongly decrease student wellbeing in China. Students are strongly more depressed, feeling blue, unhappy, not enjoying life and sad with no male-female differences while parental education does not matter. |
| Keywords: | Gender identity, gender stereotypes, student wellbeing, non-cognitive abilities, mental health, subjective wellbeing |
| JEL: | I12 I26 I31 J16 O15 |
| Date: | 2020–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2020052&r=all |
| By: | Jenkins, Stephen P. |
| Abstract: | Non‐intersection of appropriately defined Generalized Lorenz (GL) curves is equivalent to a unanimous ranking of distributions of ordinal data by all Cowell and Flachaire (Economica, 2017) indices of inequality and by a new index based on GL curve areas. Comparisons of life satisfaction distributions for six countries reveal a substantial number of unanimous rankings. The GL dominance criteria are compared with other criteria including the dual‐H dominance criteria of Gravel, Magdalou, and Moyes (Economic Theory, 2020). |
| Keywords: | inequality; ordinal data; Genderalized Lorenz dominance; H dominance; Hammond transfers; life satisfaction; World Values Survey; ES/L009153/1; Wiley |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I31 |
| Date: | 2020–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:106529&r=all |
| By: | Van Rens, Thijs (University of Warwick, CAGE and IZA); Oswald, Andrew J. (University of Warwick, CAGE and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Are general lockdowns an appropriate response to the threat of Covid-19? Recent cost-benefit studies do not favour the case for them. Instead, since the virus practises a form of age discrimination (approximately 90% of coronavirus deaths are older than 65), some analysts have suggested an alternative. It is that younger citizens -- the generation worst affected by lockdowns and the one that will predominantly pay the eventual tax bill for furlough -- should be allowed to return to work to sustain the economy. Lockdown advocates argue that this would be dangerous, because older people would get infected by young workers living in the same home. We explore that claim. We find that 96% of UK workers under age 40 do not live with anyone over 65. In fact, 92% of all UK workers live in a household without anyone over 65 years old – and that holds true for white and BAME workers. Releasing young workers would thus expose only a small fraction of older citizens to intra-household transmission, although we recognize that the absolute number of people infected might eventually become considerable, and some vulnerable citizens could potentially be at risk if they live in large households. In general this paper’s results illustrate the potential value of fine-tuning the lifting of restrictions. Our findings buttress the cost-benefit case for age-based policies. |
| Keywords: | coronavirus ; labor market ; recession ; COVID-19 JEL codes: I18 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1315&r=all |
| By: | Manning, Alan |
| Abstract: | It is hard to find a negative effect on employment effect of rises in the minimum wage: the elusive employment effect. It is much easier to find an impact on wages. This paper argues the elusive employment effect is unlikely to be solved by better data, methodology or specification. The reason for the elusive employment effect is that there are reason why the link between higher minimum wages and higher labor costs are weaker than one might think and because imperfect competition is pervasive in the labor market. |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2020–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:107415&r=all |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca; Chiara Pronzato; Giuseppe Sorrenti |
| Abstract: | Employment helps reduce the risk of poverty. Through a randomized controlled trial, we evaluate the impact of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to low-income families with dependent children on household members' labor sup- ply. Recipients are required to attend labor-market-oriented mentoring courses as a condition of the transfer. One year after admission to the program, fathers assigned to the CCT program are more likely to work (+14 percent) than fathers assigned to an unconditional cash transfer program or to a pure control group. No e ect arises for mothers. Results seem to be explained by improved fam- ily networks and increased parental investments in activities that enhance labor market opportunities. |
| Keywords: | conditional cash transfers, poverty, household labor supply, mentoring courses |
| JEL: | I10 I20 J24 I31 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:605&r=all |
| By: | Marco Caliendo; Deborah A. Cobb-Clark; Cosima Obst; Arne Uhlendorff |
| Abstract: | We analyze workers’ risk preferences and training investments. Our conceptual framework differentiates between the investment risk and insurance mechanisms underpin-ning training decisions. Investment risk leads risk-averse workers to train less; they undertake more training if it insures them against future losses. We use the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) to demonstrate that risk affinity is associated with more training, implying that, on average, investment risks dominate the insurance benefits of training. Crucially, this relationship is evident only for general training; there is no relationship between risk attitudes and specific training. Thus, as expected, risk preferences matter more when skills are transferable – and workers have a vested interest in training outcomes – than when they are not. Finally, we provide evidence that the insurance benefits of training are concentrated among workers with uncertain employment relationships or limited access to public insurance schemes. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital Investment, Work-related Training, Risk Preferences |
| JEL: | J24 C23 D81 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1113&r=all |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca; Noemi Oggero; Paola Profeta; Maria Cristina Rossi |
| Abstract: | Evidence from past economic crises indicates that recessions often affect men’s and women’s employment differently, with a greater impact on male-dominated sectors. The current COVID-19 crisis presents novel characteristics that have affected economic, health and social phenomena over wide swaths of the economy. Social distancing measures to combat the spread of the virus, such as working from home and school closures, have placed an additional tremendous burden on families. Using new survey data collected in April 2020 from a representative sample of Italian women, we analyse jointly the effect of COVID-19 on the working arrangements, housework and childcare of couples where both partners work. Our results show that most of the additional workload associated to COVID-19 falls on women while childcare activities are more equally shared within the couple than housework activities. According to our empirical estimates, changes to the amount of housework done by women during the emergency do not seem to depend on their partners’ working arrangements. With the exception of those continuing to work at their usual place of work, all of the women surveyed spend more time on housework than before. In contrast, the amount of time men devote to housework does depend on their partners’ working arrangements: men whose partners continue to work at their usual workplace spend more time on housework than before. The link between time devoted to childcare and working arrangements is more symmetric, with both women and men spending less time with their children if they continue to work away from home. For home schooling, too, parents who continue to go to their usual workplace after the lockdown are less likely to spend greater amounts of time with their children than before. Similar results emerge for our sample of women not working before the emergency. Finally, analysis of work-life balance satis faction shows that working women with children aged 0-5 are those who say they find balancing work and family more difficult during COVID-19. The work-life balance is especially difficult to achieve for those with partners who continue to work outside the home during the emergency. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, Work arrangements, Housework, Childcare |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J21 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:613&r=all |
| By: | Shahe Emran, M.; Ferreira, Francisco; Jiang, Yajing; Sun, Yan |
| Abstract: | This paper extends the Becker-Tomes model of intergenerational educational mobility to a rural economy characterized by farm-nonfarm occupational dualism and provides a comparative analysis of rural China and rural India. The model builds a micro-foundation for the widely used linear-in-levels estimating equation. Returns to education for parents and productivity of financial investment in children’s education determine relative mobility, as measured by the slope, while the intercept depends, among other factors, on the degree of persistence in nonfarm occupations. Unlike many existing studies based on coresident samples, our estimates of intergenerational mobility do not suffer from truncation bias. The sons in rural India faced lower educational mobility compared with the sons in rural China in the 1970s to 1990s. To understand the role of genetic inheritance, Altonji et al. (2005) biprobit sensitivity analysis is combined with the evidence on intergenerational correlation in cognitive ability in economics and behavioral genetics literature. The observed persistence can be due solely to genetic correlations in China, but not in India. Father’s nonfarm occupation was complementary to his education in determining a sons’ schooling in India, but separable in China. There is evidence of emerging complementarity for the younger cohorts in rural China. Structural change in favor of the nonfarm sector contributed to educational inequality in rural India. Evidence from supplementary data on economic mechanisms suggests that the model provides plausible explanations for the contrasting roles of occupational dualism in intergenerational educational mobility in rural India and rural China. |
| Keywords: | educational mobility; rural economy; occupational dualism; farm-nonfarm; complementarity; coresidency bias; China; India |
| JEL: | O12 J62 |
| Date: | 2020–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:107480&r=all |
| By: | Caliendo, Marco (University of Potsdam); Mahlstedt, Robert (University of Copenhagen); van den Berg, Gerard (University of Bristol); Vikström, Johan (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy) |
| Abstract: | Labor market policy tools such as training and sanctions are commonly used to help bring workers back to work. By analogy to medical treatments, the individual exposure to these tools may have side effects. We study effects on health using individual-level population registers on labor market events outcomes, drug prescriptions and sickness absence, comparing outcomes before and after exposure to training and sanctions. We find that training improves cardiovascular and mental health and lowers sickness absence. The results suggest that this is not due to improved employment prospects but rather to instantaneous features of participation such as, perhaps, the adoption of a more rigorous daily routine. Unemployment benefits sanctions cause a short-run deterioration of mental health, possibly due higher stress levels, but this tapers out quickly. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment; health; sickness; prescriptions; mental health; drugs; training; depression; cardiovascular disease; sanctions |
| JEL: | H51 I12 I18 J68 |
| Date: | 2020–11–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2020_020&r=all |