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on Minorities Research (Ethnic, LGBTQ+, Disabilities) |
| By: | Jennifer Cohen; Yana Rodgers |
| Abstract: | Purpose: This paper examines the prevalence of long COVID across different demographic groups in the U.S. and the extent to which workers with impairments associated with long COVID have engaged in pandemic-related remote work. Methods: We use the U.S. Household Pulse Survey to evaluate the proportion of all adults who self-reported to (1) have had long COVID, and (2) have activity limitations due to long COVID. We also use data from the U.S. Current Population Survey to estimate linear probability regressions for the likelihood of pandemic-related remote work among workers with and without disabilities. Results: Findings indicate that women, Hispanic people, sexual and gender minorities, individuals without four-year college degrees, and people with preexisting disabilities are more likely to have long COVID and to have activity limitations from long COVID. Remote work is a reasonable arrangement for people with such activity limitations and may be an unintentional accommodation for some people who have undisclosed disabilities. However, this study shows that people with disabilities were less likely than people without disabilities to perform pandemic-related remote work. Conclusion: The data suggest this disparity persists because people with disabilities are clustered in jobs that are not amenable to remote work. Employers need to consider other accommodations, especially shorter workdays and flexible scheduling, to hire and retain employees who are struggling with the impacts of long COVID. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.03419 |
| By: | Xiaoyue Shan |
| Abstract: | Does group gender diversity benefit individuals? I examine this question with a field experiment randomizing 3, 060 students to small study groups at university entry. Assignment to mixed-gender rather than single-gender groups improves performance and well-being for both men and women: first-year grades increase by about 0.10 SD, well-being by 0.15 SD, and program dropout falls by 6 pp (24%). However, mixed-gender groups also induce more traditional attitudes toward family gender roles. Mechanism analyses suggest that gender diversity fosters collaboration and shifts gender attitudes by reinforcing gendered roles in social interaction: while women coordinate and ask questions, men compete and explain. |
| Keywords: | gender diversity, performance, well-being, gender roles |
| JEL: | C93 D91 I21 I31 J16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12565 |
| By: | Mayorga Camus, Joaquín |
| Abstract: | Disabled people and their households face greater vulnerability to poverty and deprivation due to both lower incomes and higher resource needs. Research on this topic remains limited in developing countries, where disability prevalence is higher and social protection systems are less developed. This study estimates the direct extra costs of disability for Chilean households and examines their implications for poverty and inequality measurement. Using the Standard of Living (SoL) approach with data from a nationally and regionally representative household survey, I find that households with a disabled member would require an additional 46% of their monthly disposable income to achieve the same living standards as households without disabled members. These extra costs are larger in urban areas, exhibit significant regional variations, and are particularly pronounced among households with members experiencing severe or multiple disabilities. Accounting for these extra costs reveals increased levels of poverty and inequality. These findings point to inadequacies in Chile’s current social benefit system and underscore the need for enhanced disability benefits, disability-adjusted poverty measurement, and social policies to reduce the social exclusion and economic vulnerability experienced by disabled individuals and their households. |
| Keywords: | disability costs; standard of living; poverty measurement |
| JEL: | I32 J14 |
| Date: | 2026–03–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:137088 |
| By: | Eiji Yamamura |
| Abstract: | This study explores the different subjective values held by transgender people, including their subjective well-being, self-reported health status, and career-oriented decision-making. Using an individual-level panel dataset of over 19, 000 observations, we discovered the following statistically significant findings: (1) The likelihood of transgender people being happy and healthy is lesser than that of non-transgender people by 7% and 12%, respectively. (2) The likelihood of transgender people supporting women empowerment and giving importance to changing one's behavior for a desirable spouse is 5% lesser than that of non-transgender people. Transgender individuals are also less likely than others to endorse gender-related statements, irrespective of their direction. (3) Transgender people are 12% less likely than non-transgender people to make independent decisions for their future career and 2% more likely to follow their parents' and teachers' opinions. (4) Transgender people are 5% more likely to generally distrust others than non-transgender people. Transgender people's subjective well-being and health status outcomes are consistent with those of previous studies, whereas their results for gender-related issues and decision-making do not align with the progressive view. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.09648 |
| By: | Mallory Avery (Department of Economics, Monash University); Edwin Ip (Department of Economics, University of Exeter); Andreas Leibbrandt (Department of Economics, Monash University); Joseph Vecci (Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg) |
| Abstract: | Recent technological advancements are reshaping pathways to employment by automating the interview process. Asynchronous interviews, in which job applicants submit answers to interview questions via an online platform without interacting with an interviewer, are replacing more traditional face-to-face job interviews. At the same time, AI algorithms are now widely used to assess these interview answers. In this paper, we use a field experiment to comprehensively study how these new technologies affect applicants and employers in the recruitment process. Over 3, 000 job applicants are randomized into asynchronous audio or video interviews, live online interviews, and a control group. Their job interviews are then assessed by both professional recruiters and a commercial AI recruitment tool used by most Fortune 100 companies. We find that asynchronous interviews cause an over 50% decrease in application continuation, including among the most qualified applicants, and that this decline is largest for women. A complementary vignette experiment provides evidence that this deterrence is driven by perceptions about the competitiveness and fairness of the recruitment process. In terms of assessments, we find that the AI evaluation tool scores women and underrepresented racial minorities higher than human evaluators, while the opposite is true for men, Whites and Asians. We track our applicants' subsequent labor market outcomes and find that the AI assessment tool predicts subsequent employment success substantially better than human recruiters, suggesting that AI captures soft skills and potential that humans overlook. In addition, we provide evidence that, unlike AI, human recruiters' assessments suffer from multiple cognitive biases. Our findings provide some of the first key evidence on how recent technological advances are transforming the hiring process. |
| Keywords: | technological change, artificial intelligence, gender, field experiment |
| JEL: | C93 J23 J71 J78 |
| Date: | 2026–03–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exe:wpaper:2602 |
| By: | Paolo Brunori; Diego del Pozo; H. Xavier Jara; Lorena Moreno |
| Abstract: | Integrating administrative data from the civil registry, social security, and national censuses, we provide novel evidence on intergenerational income mobility and equality of opportunity among 514, 890 formal workers in Ecuador. Our results show substantial intergenerational mobility (rank-rank slope 0.22, elasticity 0.17). Formal employment substantially equalizes mobility: gender differences are minimal, and ethnic disparities are compressed, although ethnic minorities face barriers at the bottom. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational Mobility, Equality of opportunity, Labour income, Machine learning |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2026-30 |
| By: | Vittoria Dicandia |
| Abstract: | The wage gap between Black and white Americans narrowed in the 1960s-1970s but stagnated after 1980. This study argues that routine-biased technological change (RBTC) contributed to this stagnation by affecting Black and white male workers differently across the wage distribution. Using new empirical evidence on occupational patterns and wage determinants for these workers, I rationalize these patterns with a novel RBTC theoretical framework. Contrary to expectations, Black workers' employment in routine-intensive occupations increased, while white workers experienced a significant decline. Applying the Oaxaca-RIF decomposition, I show that occupational sorting amplifies wage gaps, particularly at the lower end of the wage distribution. These findings, interpreted through the novel theoretical framework, offer new insights into the mechanisms driving racial wage gaps at the close of the twentieth century. |
| Keywords: | technological change; wage differentials |
| JEL: | O33 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–03–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwq:102932 |
| By: | Gynelle Sackie-Mensah (Towson University); Luana Firmino (Ground Media); Erin K. Fletcher (Ground Media); Seth R. Gitter (Department of Economics, Towson University) |
| Abstract: | Americans hold contradictory views about transgender people, expressing support for freedom from discrimination in polls yet failing to support the passage of laws protecting those freedoms. This disconnect may be because the majority of Americans do not perceive these inequalities as having an impact. Polls show many Americans do not believe that transgender identity is a true or real identity, which is reinforced by stereotypical and exaggerated representation in media. Furthermore, a majority of Americans report not knowing a transgender person. As such, promoting and reinforcing the idea that transgender identity is real could be a necessary first step to increasing support for transgender rights in the United States. This paper tests whether an audiences’ belief that transgender identity is real can be influenced by an advocacy campaign designed to showcase authentic and joyful stories of transgender people through a randomized experiment of over 31, 000 participants. Roughly two-thirds of the participants were shown a short advocacy video with the other third serving as a control group who watched placebo videos. We show that after watching the video, the treatment group’s belief that transgender identity is real was roughly 5% higher on a 10-point scale than the control group. The measured effect of the videos was of similar magnitude, even for those who believe transgender rights had gone too far or did not know a transgender person. These results suggest that advocacy videos can increase support for transgender rights, even among those who are less likely to support those rights. |
| Keywords: | Transgender identity, Public opinion, Advocacy interventions, Randomized controlled experiment. |
| JEL: | D83 C93 J15 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tow:wpaper:2026-02 |
| By: | Sudeshna Maitra; Sudarsana Kundu |
| Abstract: | How do systemic modes of discrimination—such as a caste system, or racial bias—impact the transmission of intergenerational opportunities in a developing country? What are the mechanisms by which discriminatory norms in labour and marriage markets affect such opportunities? How could we measure such 'opportunities' over time—using nationally representative cross-sectional data—so as to derive their impact on relative poverty and class formation over time? |
| Keywords: | Poverty, Poverty measurement, Caste, Discrimination, Intergenerational Mobility, Simulation methods (Economics), India |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2026-29 |
| By: | L. Flóra Drucker (Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)); Attila Gáspár (ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the impact of a door-to-door information campaign on the outcome of Hungary’s 2022 parliamentary elections. Although newsletter circulation was not randomized, we employ three complementary identification strategies that yield consistent results: (i) settlement-level fixed-effects regressions with rich controls for concurrent campaign activity, (ii) a weather-based instrumental variable exploiting changes in local air pressure, and (iii) within-settlement comparisons using GPS data on activist routes. We find small but statistically significant positive effects on voter turnout, opposition vote share, and the share of invalid ballots in a government-backed anti-LGBTQ referendum. The latter result, in particular, suggests that the campaign succeeded in transmitting relatively sophisticated political messages even within a highly constrained media environment. Because the campaign did not reduce support for the ruling party, its effect appears to have operated primarily through mobilizing previously disengaged voters. |
| Keywords: | Information campaigns, Electoral behavior |
| JEL: | D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2519 |