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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Reijnders, Laurie S.M. (Groningen University) |
| Abstract: | Why have women surpassed men in terms of educational attainment, even though they appear to have less incentives to go to college? The aim of this paper is to set up a basic theoretical life-cycle model in order to study the potential role of gender differences in the benefit of education in explaining the college gender gap reversal. Its main contribution is to show under which conditions the model can generate a reversal in college graduation rates, and to highlight the importance of the curvature of the utility function and the presence of subsistence constraints in this respect. In particular, I show that the labour market benefit of education for women can be higher than for men even if they have the same college wage premium if the elasticity of the marginal utility of wealth is greater than unity or there are fixed costs. Initially this might be dominated by a lower marriage market return, but a decrease in the probability of marriage can induce women to overtake men in educational attainment. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:rugsom:14006-eef&r=dem |
| By: | Bargain, Olivier (University of Aix-Marseille II); Boutin, Delphine (EDHEC Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the effects of remittance receipt on child labour in an African context. We focus on Burkina Faso, a country with a high prevalence of child labour and a high rate of migration. Given the complex relationship between remittance receipt and child labour, our identification relies on different instruments capturing the employment conditions in remittance-sending countries. We first find that receiving remittances has no significant effect on child labour on average. However, when the disruptive effect from the absence of a family member is ruled out, remittances significantly reduce child labour. We provide an extensive robustness check and estimate heterogeneous effects. These show no gender difference but a significant age effect: remittances affect the labour market participation of younger children only, suggesting a progressive integration of children into work activities. |
| Keywords: | remittances, migration, child labour, Africa |
| JEL: | F24 I25 J22 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8007&r=dem |
| By: | Anne Solaz (INED); François-Charles Wolff (INED) |
| Abstract: | Despite the increasing prevalence of dual-earner couples, women still perform the bulk of domestic and parental tasks within the household. In this paper, we investigate the role of the parental model in the persistence of this gender inequality. We study the possible correlation between the domestic time of parents and their young adult co-resident children using the French time-use survey conducted in 1999-2000 in which all family members aged above 14 years old were interviewed. Estimation results show a positive relationship between child and parental housework times. Girls' participation in domestic tasks is much higher than that of boys, but a gendered effect of the intergenerational relationship is not systematically confirmed and depends on the type of domestic tasks. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idg:wpaper:206&r=dem |
| By: | Foreman-Peck, James (Cardiff Business School); Zhou, Peng (Cardiff Business School) |
| Abstract: | The present research shows how entrepreneurial culture contributes to the widely noted difference in entrepreneurial propensities between men and women. The consequences of the assumed differential importance of household and family generate testable hypotheses about the gender effects of entrepreneurial culture. The principal hypothesis is that there is a greater chance of females in ‘unentrepreneurial’ cultures being relatively entrepreneurial compared to males. Also women from different entrepreneurial cultures show greater similarity of behaviour (lower variance) than men. But proportionate gender gaps within entrepreneurial cultures are less than those between males of different cultures. These hypotheses are tested on US immigrant data from the 2000 census and are not rejected. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; Culture; Gender; Migrants |
| JEL: | D01 J15 J23 J61 J16 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2014/1&r=dem |
| By: | Mabel Andalón; Jenny Williams; Michael Grossman |
| Abstract: | Large differences in fertility between women with high and low levels of education suggest that schooling may have a direct impact on knowledge and use of contraception. We investigate this issue using information on women in Mexico. In order to identify the causal effect of schooling, we exploit temporal and geographic variation in the number of lower secondary schools built following the extension of compulsory education in Mexico from 6th to 9th grade in 1993. We show that raising females' schooling beyond 6th grade increases their knowledge of contraception during their reproductive years and increases their propensity to use contraception at sexual debut. This indicates that the impact of schooling on women's wellbeing extends beyond improved labor market outcomes and includes greater autonomy over their fertility. |
| JEL: | I10 I18 I25 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19961&r=dem |
| By: | Anna Baranowska-Rataj (Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics); Anna Matysiak (Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the discussion on the effects of the number of children on female employment in Europe. Previous research has usually either (1) compared these effects across countries assuming exogeneity of family size or (2) used methods which deal with endogeneity of family size but focused on single countries. We combine these two approaches by taking a cross-country comparative perspective and applying quasi-experimental methods. We use instrumental variable models, with multiple births as instruments, and the harmonized data from the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). We first examine the cross-country variation in the effects of family size on maternal employment across the groups of European countries with similar welfare state regimes. Next, to measure the impact of welfare state regimes in a more precise way, we implement the Index for the Conditions of Work and Family Reconciliation, i.e. a synthetic indicator that captures the impact of family policies, social norms and labour market conditions. This step gives us an opportunity to investigate whether the revealed cross-country differences in the magnitude of the effect of the family size on maternal employment can be attributed to the diversity of European institutional arrangements as well as cultural and structural conditions for combining employment and family duties. |
| Keywords: | family size effects, reconciliation of work and parenthood, female labour supply |
| JEL: | J13 J18 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isd:wpaper:64&r=dem |
| By: | Ulrik H. Nielsen (Department of Economics, Copenhagen University) |
| Abstract: | Does socioeconomic background when measured by parental educational attainment explain the heterogeneity in adults' other-regarding preferences? I test this by using data from two online experiments -- a Dictator Game and a Trust Game that were conducted with a broad sample of the Danish adult population. I match the experimental data with high-quality data from the Danish population registers about my subjects and their parents. Whereas previous studies have found socioeconomic status, including parental educational attainment, to be predictive for children's generosity, I find no such evidence among adults. This result is robust across age groups and genders. I provide two explanations for this. First, sociodemographic characteristics in general appear to be poor predictors of adults' other-regarding behavior. Second, by using Danish survey data, I find that Danish parents' educational attainment appears to be uncorrelated with how important they find it to teach their children to "think of others". More speculative explanations are also provided. |
| Keywords: | Dictator Game, Trust Game, Generosity, Other-Regarding Preferences, Parental Education, Socioeconomic Status. |
| JEL: | C91 D63 D64 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1403&r=dem |
| By: | Albrecht, James (Georgetown University); van Vuuren, Aico (VU University Amsterdam); Vroman, Susan (Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | Derek Neal (JPE 2004) used the NLSY79 to show that the observed median log wage gap between young white and young black women in 1990 underestimated the true, selection-corrected gap, i.e., the gap we would have expected to see had all of these women been employed in 1990. In this paper, we use the NLSY97 to update his analysis. The observed median log wage gap increased substantially between 1990 and 2011, as did the selection-corrected gap. These increases are explained to a considerable extent by changes in the distribution of educational attainment across young white and black women. |
| Keywords: | racial log wage gap, selection, women |
| JEL: | J15 J16 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8005&r=dem |
| By: | Karsten Wasiluk (Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of demographic change on the technology distribution of an economy and on aggregate productivity growth. In the quantitative dynamic model, firms decide on employment and the technology they use subject to an aging workforce. Firms with a higher share of elderly workers update their technology less often and prefer older technologies than firms with a younger workforce. The shorter expected worklife of elderly workers makes firms reluctant to train them for new technologies. I calibrate the model for the German economy and simulate the projected demographic change. The results indicate that labor force aging reduces the realized annual productivity growth rate by 0.28 percentage points between 2010–2025. |
| Keywords: | Demographic Change, TFP growth, Retirement Policies |
| JEL: | J11 J21 J26 O33 |
| Date: | 2014–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:knz:dpteco:1405&r=dem |
| By: | Chaudhuri, Sarbajit; Roychowdhury, Somasree |
| Abstract: | A simple three-sector general equilibrium model has been developed with both male and female labour and factor market distortions. The effects of different liberalized economic policies have been examined on the gender-based wage inequality. The analysis finds that credit market reform and tariff reform produce favourable effects on the wage inequality while the liberalized investment policy becomes counterproductive. These results have important policy implications for a small open developing economy. |
| Keywords: | Male labour, female labour, gender wage inequality, labour market distortion, credit market distortion, economic reforms, general equilibrium |
| JEL: | D50 F21 J16 J18 J21 |
| Date: | 2014–03–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:54111&r=dem |