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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Lepinteur, Anthony; Clark, Andrew E.; D'Ambrosio, Conchita |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the link between job insecurity and one of the most-important decisions that individuals take: homeownership. The 1999 rise in the French Delalande tax on firms that laid off older workers produced an unexpected exogenous rise in job insecurity for younger workers. A difference-in-differences analysis of panel data from the European Community Household Panel shows that this greater job insecurity significantly reduced the probability of becoming a homeowner. This drop seems more attributable to individual preferences rather than greater capital constraints, consistent with individuals reducing their exposure to long-term financial commitments in more-uncertain environments. |
| Keywords: | homeownership; job insecurity; employment protection; difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | I38 J18 R21 |
| Date: | 2024–06–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126786 |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan; Cowell, Frank |
| Abstract: | This paper examines a behavioural explanation for the Brexit referendum result, namely the role of an individual’s inequality aversion (IA). We study whether the referendum result was an “unconsidered Leave” out of people’s low aversion to inequality. We use a representative sample of the UK population fielded in 2017, and analyse the extent to which lottery-based individual IA estimates predict their Brexit vote. We consider alternative potential drivers of IA in both income and health domains; these include risk aversion, alongside socio-economic and demographic characteristics. A greater aversion to income inequality predicts a lower probability of voting for Leave, even when controlling for risk aversion and other drivers of the Brexit vote. However, this effect is only true among men, for whom an increase in income IA by one standard deviation decreases their likelihood of voting for leaving the EU by 5 percentage points which would have reduced the probability of a leave vote, resulting in an overall remain majority in our sample. However, the effect of health inequality aversion is not significantly different from zero. |
| Keywords: | Brexit; inequality aversion; income inequality aversion; health inequality aversion; imaginary grandchild; risk aversion; locus of control |
| JEL: | H10 I18 |
| Date: | 2025–01–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126923 |
| By: | Coen van de Kraats (Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Titus Galama (University of Southern California, Center for Economic and Social Research and Department of Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Maarten Lindeboom (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Tinbergen Institute and IZA); Zichen Deng (School of Economics, University of Amsterdam; FAIR Centre) |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence that the social norm (expectation) that adults work has a substantial detrimental causal effect on the mental well-being of unemployed men in mid-life, as substantial as, e.g., the detriment of being widowed. As their peers in age retire and the social norm weakens, the mental well-being of the unemployed improves. Using data on individuals aged 50+ from 10 European countries, we identify the social norm of work effect using exogenous variation in the earliest eligibility age for old-age public pensions across countries and birth cohorts. |
| Keywords: | mental well-being, social norm of work, retirement institutions |
| JEL: | I10 I31 J60 D63 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mhe:chemon:2025-04 |
| By: | Ulrika Ahrsjš (Stockholm School of Economics); Costas Meghir (Cowles Foundation, Yale University); MŒrten Palme (Stockholm University); Marieke Schnabel (University College London) |
| Abstract: | We study the intergenerational effect of education policy on crime. We use Swedish administrative data that links outcomes across generations with crime records, and we show that the comprehensive school reform, gradually implemented between 1949 and 1962, reduced conviction rates both for the generation directly affected by the reform and for their sons. The reduction in conviction rates occurred in many types of crime. The key mediators of this reduction in child generation are an increase in education and household income and a decrease in crime among their fathers. |
| Date: | 2025–02–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2356r1 |
| By: | Shelby R. Buckman; Jose Maria Barrero; Nicholas Bloom; Steven J. Davis |
| Abstract: | Headline estimates for the extent of work from home (WFH) differ widely across U.S. surveys. The differences shrink greatly when we harmonize with respect to the WFH concept, target population, and question design. As of 2025, our preferred estimates say that WFH accounts for a quarter of paid workdays among Americans aged 20-64. The WFH rate is seven percentage points higher for workers with children under eight in the household and about two percentage points higher for women than men. Desired WFH rates exceed actual rates in every major demographic group – more so for women, workers with young children, and less educated workers. |
| JEL: | E24 J21 J22 J14 D12 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33508 |