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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Laroche, Patrice (Université de Lorraine); Bryson, Alex (University College London); Joshi, Heather (UCL); Wilkinson, David (UCL) |
| Abstract: | Ours is the first meta-analysis synthesizing results from econometric studies carried out in the UK to assess the size of the gender wage gap (GWG). Drawing on 90 primary studies published between 1974 and 2024 we assess trends in the gap and identify the substantive and methodological factors that explain variance in results across studies. Expressed relative to men’s earnings, the raw GWG averages 25 log points but falls to 13 log points when adjusting for covariates. There has been convergence in the mean wages of men and women at a rate of about 0.3 percentage points per annum, most of which reflects change in the characteristics of workers and their treatment in the labour market rather than differences over time in study characteristics. There is substantial heterogeneity in the size of the GWG by year of observation, worker type and research design, although differences in the size of adjusted GWG by study design are not as large as most economists might imagine. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, meta-analysis, UK |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18484 |
| By: | Martyna Kobus; Marek Kapera; Esfandiar Maasoumi |
| Keywords: | gender gaps; well-being; multivariate distribution; decomposition |
| JEL: | D30 I31 C02 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cxu:wpaper:51 |
| By: | Congdon Fors, Heather (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Isaksson, Ann-Sofie (The Institute for Futures Studies); Lindskog, Annika (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Sepahvand, Mohammad (Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Abstract This paper examines whether and how Islamist violence affects educational content in secondary schools in Burkina Faso. We combine geocoded conflict-event data with nationwide school census data containing detailed information on teachers’ subject-specific teaching hours and mobility across schools. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we estimate the dynamic effects of violence on school availability and instructional time. We find no change in total hours of core subjects following local conflict, but evidence of increased Arabic instruction. We also document effects on teacher retention. Following local episodes of Islamist violence, teachers become more likely to move to schools in other municipalities, with the strongest mobility responses observed among those teaching French and mathematics. These findings suggest that violent extremism can reshape educational content even without formal curriculum reform, through changes in school availability, the allocation of instructional time, and the composition of the teaching workforce. |
| Keywords: | Conflict; violence; education; schooling; Sub-Saharan Africa; Sahel; Burkina Faso |
| JEL: | D74 I20 I25 O12 O55 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0862 |
| By: | Portes, Jonathan (King's College London); Springford, John (Centre for European Reform) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the causal impact of Brexit on migrant employment in the United Kingdom using a synthetic difference-in-differences (SDID) framework. We construct a counterfactual trajectory for the UK based on a weighted combination of comparable European economies and compare post-referendum outcomes to this benchmark. Rather than analysing migration flows, which are subject to substantial revision and comparability issues, we focus on employment stocks of foreign-born workers using administrative payroll data. We find that Brexit led to a large compositional shift in migrant labour supply and a modest change in its overall size. Employment of EU-origin workers declined substantially relative to the counterfactual following the 2016 referendum and the subsequent end of free movement. However, this decline was more than offset by a sharp increase in employment among non-EU workers after the introduction of the post-Brexit immigration system in 2021. By 2024, total foreign-born employment is about 0.6% higher than in the absence of Brexit. Brexit did not reduce migrant labour supply as widely expected, but instead reconfigured its composition, and highlight the interaction between migration policy and labour demand. |
| Keywords: | immigration, employment, UK, Brexit, synthetic differences in differences |
| JEL: | J61 J21 F22 J23 C23 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18478 |
| By: | Doepke, Matthias (London School of Economics and Political Science); Klasing, Mariko (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | Children and their parents resemble each other in terms of economic preferences such as patience and risk tolerance. What drives the intergenerational correlation in preferences? We build a model of preference formation that combines genetic transmission, state influence through childcare institutions, and altruistic parental socialization, where parents seek to endow children with preferences conducive to success. To assess the importance of these channels, we exploit German reunification as a natural experiment that simultaneously removed state indoctrination and transformed economic incentives. For risk tolerance-a trait with arguably high returns during a rapid transition to a market economy-parent-child correlations decline by more than a third among East German families after reunification, consistent with parents actively instilling new values in their children to prepare them for capitalism. For trust and patience, correlations rise as the state withdraws and socialization in the family looms larger. These contrasting patterns suggest that parents do not just aim to reproduce their own preferences but adapt their socialization effort to the world their children will face. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational preference transmission, cultural transmission, German reunification, risk tolerance, family economics |
| JEL: | D10 I20 J13 Z10 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18481 |
| By: | Berlinski, Samuel (Inter-American Development Bank); Giannola, Michele (University of Naples Federico II, CSEF and the Institute for Fiscal Studies); Toppeta, Alessandro (SOFI, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | We study the relative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and interaction of family- and school -based learning interventions using a randomized controlled trial in Colombia that assigns children to a parental engagement program, a teacher professional development program, both, or a control group. Both interventions are grounded in a child-centered learning approach that emphasizes active engagement and the progression from informal to formal mathematical understanding. Each intervention independently generates sizable and statistically similar gains in early numeracy (0.17σ and 0.20σ). Combining them produces no additional learning gains, suggesting that the two interventions act as substitutes over the time horizon and skill domain we study. When benefits accruing to future cohorts are taken into account, the teacher development program becomes at least as cost-effective as, and potentially more cost-effective than, the parental engagement intervention. Our results suggest that, in this setting, strategically concentrating resources on a single binding constraint – either at home or in school – maximizes the short-run learning gains per dollar spent. |
| Keywords: | numeracy, childhood development, teacher development, parental engagement, randomized control trial, Colombia |
| JEL: | I21 I25 O15 J13 C93 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18485 |
| By: | Blundell, Richard; Britton, Jack; Dias, Monica Costa; French, Eric; Zou, Weijian |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we estimate the impact of health on employment for individuals close to retirement age. Estimating the model separately by race and gender, we find that racial differences in employment can be partly explained by the worse health of minorities as well as the larger impact of health on employment for minorities. |
| Keywords: | race; gender; health; employment |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2026–06–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:137779 |
| By: | Autor, David (MIT); Chin, Caroline (MIT); Salomons, Anna (Tilburg University and Utrecht University); Seegmiller, Bryan (Northwestern University) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of expertise in new work—novel occupational roles that emerge as technological and economic conditions evolve—using newly available 1940 and 1950 Census Complete Count files and confidential American Community Survey data from 2011–2023. We show that new work is systematically distinct from simply more work in existing occupations in four respects. First, it attracts workers with distinct characteristics: new work is disproportionately performed by younger and more educated workers, even within detailed occupation-industry cells. Second, new work commands wage premiums that persist beyond workers’ initial entry into new work, consistent with returns to scarce, specialized expertise rather than temporary market disequilibrium. Third, these premiums decline across vintages as expertise diffuses, with ‘newer’ new work commanding larger premiums. Fourth, the emergence of new work can be traced to regional demand shocks, suggesting that expertise formation responds to economic opportunities. These findings suggest that new work is a countervailing force to automation-driven job displacement not merely by creating additional employment, butby generating new domains of human expertise that command market premiums. |
| Keywords: | new work, technological change, occupations, tasks |
| JEL: | E24 J11 J23 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18504 |