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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Giovanni Bernardo; Steven N. Durlauf; Andros Kourtellos; Chih Ming Tan |
| Abstract: | Inequality of opportunity has great normative importance. This has led to a literature on measuring the part of overall inequality that is due to circumstances outside of a person’s control. We contribute to such studies by evaluating the implications of uncertainty about circumstance variables and linear versus nonlinear transmission of circumstances on inequality of opportunity estimates. Applying linear Bayesian model averaging methods and three ensemble tree-based machine learning approaches to data from 31 European Union countries, we find that ignoring model uncertainty can lead to substantial overstatement of levels of inequality of opportunity. |
| JEL: | C10 C51 D30 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34163 |
| By: | Uditi Karna; John List; Andrew Simon; Haruka Uchida |
| Abstract: | Parents are crucial to children's educational success, but the role of parental education in fostering academic excellence remains underexplored. Using longitudinal administrative data covering all North Carolina public school students, we document five facts about first generation excellence gaps. We find large excellence gaps emerge by 3rd grade across all demographics and persist through high school. Yet, socioeconomic status and school quality explain only one-third of the gaps. The overarching facts reveal that excellence gaps reflect deeper challenges rooted in parental human capital that manifest early and compound over time, rather than merely consequences of socioeconomic disadvantage or school quality differences. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:artefa:00825 |
| By: | Emma Harrington; Matthew E. Kahn |
| Abstract: | When women become mothers, they often take a step back from their careers. Could work from home (WFH) reduce this motherhood penalty, particularly in traditionally family-unfriendly careers? We leverage technological changes prior to the pandemic that increased the feasibility of WFH in some college degrees but not others. In degrees where WFH increased, motherhood gaps in employment narrowed: for every 10% increase in WFH, mothers’ employment rates increased by 0.78 per centage points (or 0.94%) relative to other women’s. This change is driven by majors linked to careers that have high returns to hours and inflexible demands on workers’ time. We microfound these results using panel data that show that women who could WFH before childbirth are less likely to exit the workforce. |
| JEL: | H2 J01 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34147 |
| By: | Yoosoon Chang; Steven N. Durlauf; Bo Hu; Joon Park |
| Abstract: | We examine how parental income and family structure during childhood and adolescence affect adult income, emphasizing the timing of these effects. Using an ordered multinomial probability model with functional covariates, we find that these familial influences are strongest in middle childhood and adolescence. We also uncover a complementary relationship in the effects of income and family structure trajectories during key developmental periods. By flexibly controlling for personal and family characteristics using nonparametric methods, our approach effectively handles high-dimensional covariates. The results advance the understanding of intergenerational income mobility and highlight the long-term importance of familial conditions for adult economic success. |
| JEL: | C10 C14 C25 C50 D10 H0 J01 J10 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34179 |
| By: | Joseph G. Altonji; John Eric Humphries; Yagmur Yuksel; Ling Zhong |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the gender gap in log earnings among full-time, college-educated workers born between 1931 and 1984. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates and other sources, we decompose the gender earnings gap across birth cohorts into three components: (i) gender differences in the relative returns to undergraduate and graduate fields, (ii) gender-specific trends in undergraduate field, graduate degree attainment, and graduate field, and (iii) a cohort-specific “residual component” that shifts the gender gap uniformly across all college graduates. We have three main findings. First, when holding the relative returns to fields constant, changes in fields of study contribute 0.128 to the decline in the gender gap. However, this decline is partially offset by cohort trends in the relative returns to specific fields that favored men over women, reducing the contribution of field-of-study changes to the decline to 0.055. Second, gender differences in the relative returns to undergraduate and graduate fields of study contribute to the earnings gap, but they play a limited role in explaining its decline over time. Third, much of the convergence in earnings between the 1931 and 1950 cohorts is due to a declining “residual component.” The residual component remains stable for cohorts born between 1951 and the late 1970s, after which it resumes its decline. |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J16 J31 J7 N32 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34133 |