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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2023‒08‒21
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Sarah Cattan (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Christine Farquharson (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Sonya Krutikova (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Andrew McKendrick (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Almudena Sevilla (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Date: | 2023–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:23/21&r=ltv |
| By: | Santiago Garganta (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP & CONICET); María Florencia Pinto (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP); Joaquín Zentner (Inter-American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the potential impact of extended school days in reducing teenage fertility. We study the Jornada Escolar Extendida program, which doubled the school-day length from 4 to 8 hours in the Dominican Republic, and exploit the geographic and time variation induced by its gradual implementation. We find evidence that a higher exposure to JEE in the municipality, measured as the percentage of secondary students covered by the program, reduces the incidence of teenage pregnancies, and that the effect is stronger after the program has reached at least half of secondary students in the municipality. The estimates are robust to various specifications and alternative checks. These results suggest that extended school-day policies can have spillover effects regarding teenagers’ fertility choices. |
| JEL: | O1 I31 I24 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0317&r=ltv |
| By: | Sneha Lamba; Robert A. Moffitt |
| Abstract: | A significant literature has documented trend increases in pain among Americans over the last two or three decades. There is no single explanation seeming to work well for the increase. We show that, rather than resulting from a smooth upward trend, the increase was almost entirely concentrated in the 2007-2010 period, the time of the Great Recession, a result not uncovered in prior work. The disproportionate increase in pain among the less educated is also shown to have occurred primarily at the time of the Recession, with either little or no trend before or after. The Recession jump occurred only at older ages and, by cohort, primarily only at the ages when they experienced the Recession. However, the jump is difficult to explain, for while there was a temporary decline in employment during the Recession, it is unclear why there it should be followed by a permanent increase in pain. We assess a number of explanations related to family structure, the deterioration of family life, hysteresis, and biopsychosocial channels. While some factors have potential explanatory power, the rise in pain continues to be mysterious and deserves further research in light of our new findings. |
| JEL: | E32 I10 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31455&r=ltv |
| By: | Holmlund, Helena; Nybom, Martin (UCLS and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Education policy holds the promise of breaking the strong ties between family background and socio-economic position by providing publicly accessible education for children of all backgrounds. However, the education system may also perpetuate social inequalities if well-off families are able to protect their children from downward mobility by e.g., moving to neighbourhoods with high-quality schools, and by providing networks that offer opportunities to succeed. <p> A growing number of studies however show that educational interventions can have long-lasting effects on students’ outcomes, in particular for disadvantaged students, and that they can be cost-effective. For example, reducing class size, increasing general education spending, tutoring and improved teacher quality are policy levers that are shown to be successful in this regard. Shifting from selective to comprehensive school systems is also a policy that enhances equality of opportunity. While the evidence on credit constraints and their role for access to higher education is evolving but still mostly US focused and largely inconclusive, it is a key domain for shaping social mobility given the life-changing impacts that a university degree can have. |
| Keywords: | Equality of opportunity; social mobility; intergenerational mobility; education policy; economics of education; effect evaluation |
| JEL: | I24 I30 J24 |
| Date: | 2023–07–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2023_018&r=ltv |
| By: | Arnstein Aassve (Università Bocconi - Milano); Letizia Mencarini (Università Bocconi - Milano); Elena Pirani (Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Università di Firenze); Daniele Vignoli (Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Università di Firenze) |
| Abstract: | The study makes use of the 2016 Household Multipurpose Survey of Family, Social Subjects, and Life Cycle (FSS) to demonstrate that family-related behaviour is now rapidly changing in Italy. The country is often taken as a stronghold of traditionalism. We, instead, highlight recent and substantial changes in cohabitation, dissolution and non-marital fertility in the country. In doing so, we carefully assess the predictions made by the Second Demographic Transition (SDT), and show that trends in Italy are monotonically moving in the direction of the SDT. There are, though, important differences across educational groups and regions. Demographic behaviour is also changing in the South of Italy in much the same way, but not at the same speed as in the rest of the country. |
| Keywords: | Second demographic transition; Marriage; Non-marital cohabitation; Childbearing; Union dissolution. |
| Date: | 2023–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fir:econom:wp2023_04&r=ltv |
| By: | M. ANDRÉ (Insee); J.-M. GERMAIN (Insee et École Nationale des Ponts – ParisTech (ENPC)); M. SICSIC (Insee et CRED (TEPP), Université Paris II) |
| Abstract: | Who benefits from public transfers after paying taxes? This paper develops an extended approach of redistribution, allocating 100% of national income and transfers between various categories of households. We complete Piketty, Saez, Zucman (2018) with a new micro-founded methods to monetize and allocate in-kind transfers and collective public services in France. We find that 60% of households are net beneficiaries of extended redistribution. The impact of redistribution on attenuation of inequalities is two times larger than with the usual monetary approach, with a major role for health and education. An analysis over age groups highlights a “tragedy of horizons”: 90% of individuals over the age of 60 receive more than they pay, mainly via retirement pensions and health, versus less than 50% for those under the age of 60. Other types of analysis, such as family, gender, geographic area or social class, confirm the importance of the extended approach to properly assessing redistribution.Length: |
| Keywords: | Inequality, Redistribution, Distributional National Account, Health, Education |
| JEL: | E01 D63 O57 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nse:doctra:2023-07&r=ltv |