Demographic Economics http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-dem Demographic Economics 2026-07-13 Low Fertility Around the World: The Role of Social Norms https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21342&r=&r=dem This chapter examines how social norms shape fertility behavior. We first present cross-country evidence linking fertility to norms regarding family size, childcare, gender roles, parenting, and sexual behavior. We also review empirical studies showing substantial fertility spillovers within families, workplaces, and social networks. To interpret these patterns, we present a series of models to clarify the mechanisms through which norms and fertility decisions interact. We organize the theories by type of norm: norms about ideal family size, norms governing the use of market childcare, gender norms within the household, parenting norms related to educational investment and social comparison, and norms surrounding birth control. We discuss how changes in social norms over time may have contributed to fertility decline. Finally, we highlight promising directions for future research. Nakakuni, Kanato Tertilt, Michèle Yum, Minchul Fertility; Externality 2026-03 Workplace Flexibility and the Motherhood Penalty: Evidence from the Diffusion of Remote Work https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21486&r=&r=dem We study whether workplace flexibility is a key driver of the motherhood penalty. Exploiting the sharp and heterogeneous diffusion of work-from-home (WFH) contracts after COVID-19 in a difference-in-differences framework, we combine administrative data on the universe of Italian WFH contracts with matched employer--employee records, mother--father links, fertility records, and firm balance sheets. Greater exposure to flexible work substantially reduces mothers' post-childbirth earnings losses, primarily through higher weeks worked, lower part-time incidence, lower parental leave take-up, and improved career progression. IV estimates indicate that holding a WFH contract offsets about 77\% of mothers' earnings losses around childbirth. Gains are larger among younger, lower-earning, and commuting mothers, in households where the father is the dominant earner, and in occupations with steeper hours--earnings profiles, consistent with flexibility relaxing constraints where most binding. Fathers' own earnings do not respond to flexibility around childbirth, yet fathers' exposure to flexible work reduces mothers' earnings losses by a comparable magnitude, pointing to household-level time constraints as a central mechanism. Consistent with this interpretation, fertility, a joint household decision, rises for women more exposed to flexibility, as flexibility lowers the labor-market cost of the marginal child. A counterfactual exercise shows that the life-cycle widening of the gender earnings gap would have been 10.7\% smaller under current WFH diffusion and up to 29.4\% smaller if all remotable jobs had adopted flexible arrangements. Basso, Gaetano De Paola, Maria Lattanzio, Salvatore Paradisi, Matteo 2026-05 Intergenerational Inequality at Labour-Market Entry: Pre-Adult Hardship, Family Buffers, and Early-Career Risk https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2026n10&r=&r=dem This paper examines how intergenerational inequality is expressed at labour-market entry by linking pre-adult economic hardship to early-career trajectories of labour-market risk and precarious employment. Using longitudinal data from the HILDA Survey, we model hardship dynamically over ages 4–24 and relate pre-adult trajectories to labour-market risk and precarious-employment pathways over ages 25–30. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in both family disadvantage and early-adult labour-market experiences, showing that static measures of family background and adult outcomes miss important dimensions of inequality. Persistent hardship is strongly associated with persistently adverse early-career trajectories, while moving out of hardship, volatile hardship, and no hardship are linked to substantially lower probabilities of sustained disadvantage. Family resources partially moderate these associations, but the effects vary by resource type. Short-term insurance provides the clearest buffering role, reducing the likelihood of persistent and worsening disadvantage. Overall, the findings suggest that unequal family resources shape unequal capacity to absorb labour-market risk at the transition to adulthood, with family buffers operating primarily as private insurance against sustained disadvantage rather than as a mechanism supporting strategic tolerance of precarious work. Esperanza Vera-Toscano Ana Gamarra Rondinel Intergenerational inequality; labour-market risk; precarious employment; family wealth; economic hardship; HILDA Survey. 2026-06 Income and immunity: the consequences of social security administration reform for childhood infection risk https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138843&r=&r=dem We analyse the impact of a change in the administration of social security payments, occurring in utero and early infancy, on health in early childhood. We identify this impact through the gradual rollout of the so-called ‘income management’ policy in Aboriginal communities in Australia’s Northern Territory in 2007. This policy changed the delivery method of social security payments but not their value – however, implementation challenges meant that many families did not receive their payments on time. Using linked administrative data, we find that children who were exposed to the policy rollout in utero or in their first three months of life (the ‘fourth trimester’) were at higher risk of severe infection requiring hospitalisation. These children spent, on average, 4.7 more days in hospital between birth and their 8th birthday. Most of this impact is concentrated in hospitalisations for infection, which increased by 23 percent. These admissions are driven by a range of infection types: bacterial, viral and respiratory. We link our findings to the ‘immune programming hypothesis’, i.e. maternal stress and poor nutrition during key stages in immune system development can permanently weaken the child’s immune system. Our findings highlight the importance of attention to key phases in child development when designing policies that affect households’ financial resources, even temporarily. Doyle, Mary-Alice Schurer, Stefanie Guthridge, Steven infectious disease; human capital; safety net; welfare policy; prenatal; aboriginal; immunity 2026-07-01 Annuitisation and Mortality: Disentangling Selection from Behaviour https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:399&r=&r=dem We re-examine the widely documented positive correlation between annuitisation and longevity by cleanly separating selection from causal effects—an empirical distinction that the literature has acknowledged but has not been able to identify credibly. Using administrative micro–data from Chile’s centralized pension quote system, we exploit monthly variation in the relative generosity of annuities versus programmed withdrawals generated by regulated PW formulas and market-based annuity pricing. These shocks serve as plausibly exogenous instruments for annuitisation in an IV bivariate probit model of post-retirement survival. Across horizons up to fifteen years, we find no statistically significant causal effect of annuitisation on survival for either men or women. The results imply that the observed longevity advantage of annuitants in Chile reflects selection rather than behavioral responses. By isolating the causal channel, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions on decumulation design by showing that moral-hazard-driven survival effects are unlikely to be a relevant policy concern in this setting Eduardo Fajnzylber María Florencia Gabrielli Ignacio Willington Manuel Willington Annuities; Longevity; Moral Hazard; Retirement Choices; Instrumental Variables 2026-06 The European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) dataset: leave duration entitlements for 21 countries from 1970 to 2024 https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138963&r=&r=dem Background: Parenting leave policies shape how caregiving and paid work can be reconciled around the time of childbirth. They have important implications for fertility, employment, and gender equality. Still, there are limited quantitative cross-country data capturing long-term policy changes that impact how long parents can temporarily be away from work to care for their children, and how leave can be shared between them. Objective: The European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) Dataset provides harmonised regulations on maternity, co-parent, paid parental, and job-protected leave across 21 European countries from 1970 to 2024. It focuses on policies that shape how long birth mothers and their co-parents can take leave. Methods: Statutory leave entitlements were compiled from national legal sources, official government publications, and secondary literature. We followed a consistent set of data collection rules to enable comparison across countries and over time. Because the dataset focuses on time away from the job, it considers only rights for employed parents. It includes 33 variables and also documents country-specific reform timelines. Contribution: The EPLP Dataset fills a gap in existing data sources by providing quantitative data across 55 years on policies that shape how long parents stay at home around birth and how leave is shared between them. In addition to leave duration and benefits, it covers recent policy instruments such as incentives for parents to share leave, and timing and flexibility of leave use. The dataset enables cross-national comparisons and the analysis of changes over time, and can be used to study the effects of policy reforms. Spitzer, Sonja Lemoine, Adele Son, Zhanxiong Reiter, Claudia Greulich, Angela Herlitz, Agneta Bartova, Alzbeta Brini', Elisa Dancikova, Zuzana Galdauskaite, Dovile Gonzalez, Libertad Hatzivarnava-Kazassill, Evi Honkaniemi, Helena Juarez, Sol P. Hart, Rannveig Kaldager Kristiansen, Ida Lykke Kurowska, Anna Pall, Katre Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara Rakar, Tatjana Rasanen, Tapio Rentzou, Konstantina Balsas, Pedro Romero Schmidt, Eva-Maria Thil, Laurene Tuda, Dora Vargha, Lili Vignoli, Daniele Wagner, Sander Wrohlich, Katharina family policy; gender equality; job-protected leave; maternity leave; paid parental leave; parental leave benefit; paternity leave 2026-05-28 Birthright Citizenship and Youth Crime https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21376&r=&r=dem This paper studies the impact of birthright citizenship on youth crime. We leverage a German reform which automatically granted birthright citizenship to eligible immigrant children born in Germany after January 1, 2000 and administrative crime data from three federal states. We find that immigrant youth who acquired citizenship at birth are substantially less likely to engage in criminal activity, with estimates indicating a 70% reduction in crime. These results are particularly relevant in light of ongoing debates in the U.S. about abolishing birthright citizenship. Our findings suggest that inclusive citizenship policies can reduce crime and its associated costs, which in turn could strengthen social cohesion. Andres, Leander Bauernschuster, Stefan Dahl, Gordon Rainer, Helmut Schüller, Simone 2026-04 Female Promotions and the Academic Pipeline: Evidence from a Natural Experiment https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21325&r=&r=dem We study how faculty promotion decisions shape women's careers and the academic pipeline, using data from 4, 000 Spanish university departments across all disciplines. We identify exogenous variation in promotions using the random assignment of evaluators to promotion committees between 2002 and 2008: applicants whose committees included a co-author or colleague were significantly more likely to qualify for promotion. We document two main findings. First, failing to obtain tenure has asymmetrically lasting consequences for women. Those who narrowly miss tenure are 57 percentage points less likely to be tenured fifteen years later, compared to 29 percentage points for men. Second, when women do obtain tenure, the effects extend well beyond their own careers: promoting a woman to Associate Professor increases female faculty by 1.5 members after 15 years, leads to six additional female PhD graduates over the following decade, and raises the number who subsequently remain in academia and reach tenured positions. Bagues, Manuel Makany, Milan Vattuone, Giulia Zinovyeva, Natalia Randomized natural experiment; Promotions 2026-03 Protection for Whom? The Political Economy of Protective Labor Laws for Women https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21284&r=&r=dem During the first half of the twentieth century, many US states enacted laws restricting women's labor market opportunities, including maximum hours restrictions, minimum wage laws, and night-shift bans. The era of so-called protective labor laws came to an end in the 1960s as a result of civil rights reforms. In this paper, we investigate the political economy behind the rise and fall of these laws. We argue that the main driver behind protective labor laws was men's desire to shield themselves from labor market competition. We spell out the mechanism through a politico-economic model in which singles and couples work in different sectors and vote on protective legislation. Restrictions are supported by single men and couples with male sole earners who compete with women for jobs. We show that the theory's predictions for when protective legislation will be introduced are well supported by US state-level evidence. Doepke, Matthias Foerster, Hanno Hannusch, Anne Tertilt, Michèle 2026-03