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on Minorities Research (Ethnic, LGBTQ+, Disabilities) |
| By: | Drydakis, Nick (Anglia Ruskin University) |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether signalling AI-related digital skills improves employment outcomes for women from underrepresented groups in England, defined by race, age, sexual orientation, and autism-spectrum disclosure. The study finds that underrepresented women receive fewer interview invitations and are considered for lower-paid vacancies than majority-group women. In pooled analyses, signalling AI-related digital skills increases interview invitations for underrepresented applicants, but does not eliminate their disadvantage. These findings are consistent with AI Capital and productivity-signalling frameworks, as employers appear to value AI-related capabilities while the returns to such credentials remain constrained by persistent demographic inequalities. The study therefore demonstrates that positive returns to AI-related skills and labour-market disadvantage can coexist. Its broader implication is that digital upskilling can strengthen the recruitment prospects of underrepresented women, but cannot by itself deliver parity in employment outcomes. A dual policy response is therefore required, combining wider and more equitable access to AI education and training with stronger anti-discrimination enforcement. |
| Keywords: | AI Capital, artificial intelligence, skills, discrimination, hiring, wages, sexual orientation, race, age, autism spectrum |
| JEL: | J71 J24 J31 J64 C93 J15 J16 J14 O33 M51 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18964 |
| By: | Andy Chung (Department of Economics, University of Reading); Tin Cheuk Leung (Wake Forest University); James Reade (Department of Economics, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | Digital platforms expose workers and managers to immediate, public, and persistent evaluations from external audiences, creating a form of social pressure that may shape workplace decisions. We examine whether such digital social pressure predicts subsequent opportunity allocation and worker performance, using professional football as a high-frequency empirical setting. We link player-match data from Europe’s five major leagues to post-match Twitter commentary and construct measures of negative sentiment, toxicity, and racial abuse. Comparing players with themselves over time and teammates in the same current match, we find that greater negative sentiment is associated with a lower probability of appearing in the team’s next match. Toxicity shows a similar but less stable association, while racial-abuse intensity is imprecisely estimated when the measures enter jointly. By contrast, associations with performance conditional on a subsequent appearance are small and imprecise. Overall, the findings suggest that digital social pressure is reflected more strongly in the allocation of subsequent opportunities than in worker performance, showing how public evaluations generated outside formal organizational boundaries can become part of the reputational environment surrounding internal managerial decisions. |
| Keywords: | digital social pressure, online criticism, managerial decision-making, worker performance, social media, professional football, racial abuse |
| JEL: | J24 M54 D91 Z22 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2026-10 |
| By: | Richard Blundell; Monica Costa-Dias; Graham Mazeine; Costas Meghir; Tom Waters |
| Abstract: | Work experience has been found to be a key determinant of work and wages for educated women, but it seems to play a smaller role for the less educated. For them, welfare, tax credits and family composition matter more, and increasingly so does participation in disability programmes. Here we document how labor supply, wages, health, and disability claims have evolved in the UK over the last three decades, and examine how reforms to tax credits, disability benefits and other welfare programs have changed work incentives over this period. We then introduce these features into an empirical dynamic structural model of life-cycle labor supply, human capital and disability benefit application, in which human capital combines health capital, experience accumulated in work, and education. Estimating the model on a panel of working-age women in the UK, we examine the interactions between experience capital and health capital in driving life-cycle earnings across different education groups. Our results highlight the importance of interactions in the disability benefit, welfare and tax credit systems for understanding the life cycle pattern of hours, employment, earnings, and disability claims, and for evaluating policy counterfactuals. |
| Date: | 2026–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:26/851 |
| By: | Aminjonov, Ulugbek (Trier University); Bargain, Olivier (University of Bordeaux) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how combinations of ancestral cultural norms are associated with women’s empowerment across ethnic groups worldwide. Linking DHS data to the Ethnographic Atlas, we develop a hybrid supervised–unsupervised approach combining Partial Least Squares and k-means clustering to identify five probabilistic normative regimes. Severe disempowerment is associated with an accumulation of restrictive norms, while religious norms and women’s agricultural roles distinguish higher-empowerment environments within broadly patriarchal configurations. Further up the gradient, contrasts concern hierarchical social institutions, then kinship and the loosening of patriarchal arrangements, before more gender-neutral configurations prevail at the highest empowerment levels. Norms’ salience varies with the configurations in which they are embedded, revealing strongly non-monotonic patterns. These findings are robust to adjustment for contemporary socioeconomic conditions and a range of sensitivity checks. The analysis provides a global mapping of ancestral normative environments associated with women’s agency and identifies configurations most closely related to severe intra-household inequality. |
| Keywords: | women’s empowerment, ancestral norms, cultural persistence, kinship systems, machine learning, gender inequality, DHS, Ethnographic Atlas |
| JEL: | J16 O15 Z13 C38 D13 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18955 |
| By: | Matthew Collins; Eleonora Guarnieri; Helmut Rainer |
| Abstract: | Why does the quantity-quality tradeoff operate in some societies but not others? We study this question using the staggered introduction of free primary education (FPE) in sub-Saharan Africa, which lowered the cost of investing in children’s human capital. Exploiting within-ethnicity variation, we find that FPE reduces fertility and improves child survival and school enrollment, but only among ethnic groups with gender-egalitarian norms. We provide evidence that FPE strengthens women’s empowerment, predominantly among those gender-egalitarian groups. A simple conceptual framework shows that lower schooling costs create incentives to reduce fertility, while prevailing gender norms determine whether households act on those incentives. |
| Date: | 2026–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:26/850 |
| By: | Danielle Sanderson Edwards; Matthew A. Kraft |
| Abstract: | We examine whether early exposure to the teaching career has the potential to expand the size and diversity of new teacher supply. Exploiting the staggered expansion of high school education courses across Texas, we find little evidence that these courses increased new teacher supply or diversity despite course takers being substantially more diverse than the teacher workforce. High school education course takers who become teachers are similarly effective and more likely to be retained than their peers. Most course takers drop out of the teacher pipeline prior to college enrollment where racial gaps in 4-year college going serve as major barriers. Our findings suggest that early exposure without support to increase college going is unlikely to increase teacher supply or diversity. |
| JEL: | I21 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35776 |
| By: | Senik, Claudia (Paris School of Economics); Solaz, Anne (INED) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the role of age gaps and income in the mating process. We test the predictions of different theories of age heterogamy using a French exhaustive administrative database of newly formed same-sex and heterosexual couples. In both heterosexual and male same-sex couple formation, the age gap between the richer and poorer partner, as well as the likelihood of an extreme age gap, increases with the income of the richer male partner, especially when he belongs to the top income decile. By contrast, women, even when they rank high in the income distribution, are usually matched with an older partner. Women are found to mate with a younger partner in only one specific case: above age 60, when they provide at least 75% of household income or rank higher than their partner in the distribution of income within their respective age group. The marriage market thus seems to be best described by exchange theory, mitigated by a remnant of traditional norms. In a sense, the price of youth depends on the sex of the buyer. |
| Keywords: | age gap, age-hypergamy, couple formation, mating criteria, same-sex couples, marriage market |
| JEL: | J12 J16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18911 |
| By: | Serván-Mori, Edson; Zamudio-Sosa, Alejandro; Esposito, Lucio; Sandoval-Moreno, Gabriela; Jara, H. Xavier; Cavalcanti, Daniella Medeiros; Moncayo, Ana L.; Rasella, Davide; Chivardi, Carlos |
| Abstract: | Background Early motherhood remains a major public health and equity challenge in low- and middle-income countries, especially in Latin America. While poverty, education, gender norms, and barriers to sexual and reproductive health are well-established determinants, how household income translates into (or fails to translate into) delayed childbearing remains insufficiently understood—particularly in highly unequal settings marked by informality and fragmented social protection. Objective To examine the association between household income and early motherhood in Mexico, and to disentangle direct and indirect socioeconomic pathways linking income to early childbearing. Methods We conducted a population-based, multi-method analysis using harmonised municipal microdata from the 2000, 2010, and 2020 Mexican Population and Housing Censuses (n = 3.05 million women aged 12–24 years, representing 30.6 million individuals). Total household income was imputed using Quantile Random Forests trained on nationally representative income–expenditure surveys. Our analytical strategy combined: (1) machine learning models to identify key correlates and non-linear individual-level patterns of early motherhood; (2) Bayesian spatial models (INLA) to quantify subnational clustering and contextual heterogeneity; and (3) dynamic structural equation modelling to assess direct and lagged relationships among income, schooling-related indicators, union formation, and early motherhood outcomes. Results Early motherhood prevalence declined modestly from 21.46% (2000) to 19.31% (2020) and remained concentrated in socioeconomically disadvantaged households. In individual-level models, marital status, age, household structure, and dependency ratio were the dominant correlates; income ranked eighth in feature importance. Partial dependence plots indicated a non-linear inverse L-shaped association: predicted risk increased up to approximately Int$ 1, 760 (2018 PPP) per adult equivalent, then plateaued and declined slightly. Parity-specific models showed that income’s predictive relevance weakened with higher parity, with U-shaped patterns at the lowest income levels for second and ≥third births. Municipal analyses revealed persistent spatial clustering after adjustment for key predictors, and residual “place” effects consistent with unmeasured contextual constraints shaping early motherhood. In dynamic models, the direct income–early motherhood path was not statistically significant. Overall patterns were consistent with predominantly indirect linkages operating through schooling- and union-related indicators and reinforcing disadvantage dynamics at the municipal level. Conclusions In Mexico, early motherhood remains strongly shaped by intersecting social and territorial inequalities. Income gradients are modest and appear to operate mainly through schooling lag and union-formation pathways rather than as an isolated driver. Equity-oriented strategies are likely to be most effective when they integrate school retention, prevention of early unions, and youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services, prioritising municipalities with persistently elevated risk. |
| Keywords: | early motherhood;household income;reproductive health inequities;social protection fragmentation;social determinents;Mexico |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–12–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:139082 |
| By: | Sparber, Chad (Colgate University) |
| Abstract: | H-1B status grants highly-educated foreign nationals the right to work in specialized occupations in the United States. Recent policy proposals include altering the method for allocating H-1B status, raising payments associated with entry into the country, and changing the limit on new issuances available. To help inform policy, this paper uses the universe of cap-bound H-1Bs awarded in fiscal year 2024 to examine how wages vary across different groups. Workers on F-1 student status accounted for 45% of new issuances, while another 43% went to individuals living abroad without any contemporary US immigration status. This former group earned 10% higher wages than the latter, or 6% more after accounting for observable differences between groups. Indian-born workers without current status seeking new employment at H-1B dependent firms earn the lowest wages. Policies favoring one of these groups over another -- whether intended or not -- will affect the average wage paid to H-1B recipients. |
| Keywords: | skilled immigration, H-1B, wage differentials |
| JEL: | J61 J68 J31 F22 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18940 |
| By: | Joanna Jadwiga Fröhlich |
| Abstract: | Locus of control is a fruitful concept for analysing how individuals perceive and evaluate their migration histories, yet it remains underused in migration research. It offers a way to address central questions of agency and discrimination in migration processes without relying on ‘critical’ reductions such as ethnicisation or migrantisation, which pose well-known challenges for (trans)national research methodologies. In this article, data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) migration samples are combined with qualitative interviews with a subgroup of survey respondents (n=37). This mixed methods approach links statistical locus of control measures with narrative accounts in order to develop a typology of perceived agency in migration processes. The results indicate systematic variation in how migration is evaluated: individuals with a generally high internal locus of control tend to view their migration – despite chance, obstacles and setbacks – as something largely within their own control (types: ‘(Life) Artists’ and ‘Controlled Migrants’). In contrast, migrants with a more external locus of control describe both their migration and their living conditions as uncontrollable or determined by others (type: ‘The Passives’), often seeing their achievements as lying beyond their own influence or as hindered by external forces. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative evidence, this article further demonstrates that experiences of discrimination are reported differently depending on locus of control. It concludes by discussing how these findings contribute theoretically and methodologically to the understanding of discrimination and related phenomena such as the (de-)migranticization, integration paradox and mobility capital. |
| Keywords: | migration, mixed methods, social positions, integration paradox, mobility capital |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1239 |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Neurotechnologies are rapidly expanding across clinical, research, and consumer domains, creating unprecedented opportunities for improving medical care, overcoming disabilities, and transforming everyday life. Their operation depends on neurodata, a diverse set of signals and information derived from processing, which can be generated across complex digital, clinical, and business environments and may be highly sensitive for the individuals concerned. A growing number of policy frameworks address the data governance aspects of neurotechnology globally. While indispensable, their overlap also makes compliance challenging, triggers concerns of uneven oversight and hindrance to innovation, while potentially overlooking high-risk uses. To inform coherent and proportionate approaches to neurodata governance, this paper analyses the current policy landscape and company practices, mapping how such data are collected, transformed, and used throughout the data lifecycle. The findings highlight the importance of a responsive, human-centric, and evidence-based policy approach that is adaptable to technological developments and aligned with innovation, growth, and public benefit. |
| Keywords: | agile regulation, data governance, emerging technologies, medical device regulation, neurodata governance, neurotechnology, privacy |
| JEL: | I18 K24 O33 O38 K29 |
| Date: | 2026–10–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaac:195-en |