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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Ira N. Gang (Rutgers University) |
| Abstract: | Women who want to work often face many more hurdles than men. This is true in Tajikistan where there is a large gender gap in labour force participation. We highlight the role of two factors – international migration and education – on the labour force participation decision and its gender gap. Using probit and decomposition analysis, our investigation shows that education and migration have a significant association with the gender gap in labour force participation in Tajikistan. International emigration from Tajikistan, in which approximately 93.5% of the participants are men, reduces labour force participation by men domestically; increased female education, especially at the university and vocational level, increases female participation. Both women acquiring greater access to education and men increasing their migration abroad contribute to reducing the gender gap. |
| Keywords: | immigration |
| JEL: | F1 |
| Date: | 2014–05–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rut:rutres:201407&r=all |
| By: | Florian Heiss; Steven F. Venti; David A. Wise |
| Abstract: | We consider how age-health profiles differ by demographic characteristics such as education, race, and ethnicity. A key feature of the analysis is the joint estimation of health and mortality to correct for the effect of mortality selection on observed age-health profiles. The model also allows for heterogeneity in individual health at a point in time and the persistence of the unobserved component of health over time. The observed component of health is based on a multidimensional index based on 27 indicators of health. Most of the key results are shown by simulations that illustrate the range of issues that can be addressed using the model. Differences in health by education and racial-ethnic group at age 50 persist throughout the remainder of life. Based on observed profiles, the health of whites is about 8 percentile points greater than the health of blacks at age 50 but by age 90 the gap is only 5 percentile points. However, when corrected for mortality selection, the health of blacks is actually declining more rapidly with age than the health of whites; the true gap widens with age. We also find that much of the difference in age-health profiles by racial-ethnic group is accounted for by differences in the levels of education between race-ethnic groups--from two-thirds to 85 percent for men and about half for women. We also simulate differences in survival probabilities by level of education and health and use these probabilities to calculate the expected present discounted value (EPDV) of an immediate annuity with first payout at age 66 for persons by gender, level of education, and health decile. The range of EPDVs is over two-fold for both men and women suggesting enormous potential for adverse selection. |
| JEL: | I10 I19 J14 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20306&r=all |
| By: | Del Boca, Daniela (University of Turin); Venturini, Alessandra (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Our research analyzes the effect of changes in migration policies and the accession to the European Union of former countries of emigration, considering the crucial role played by migrants in an aging society. We focus on the demand of family-care workers by using the last five years of the Italian Labour Force Survey dataset. Our results show that especially during the last years of recession, foreign labor (mostly female) has become fundamental in the family sector, favoring the participation of Italian skilled women in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | migration, aging, women's work |
| JEL: | J6 J15 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8328&r=all |
| By: | Zsombor Cseres-Gergely (Institute of Economics, Center for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides empirical evidence on the effect of changing the retirement age on employment. Base on individual data from Hungary, a country where a number of hikes increased the retirement age between 1997 and 2009, this analysis benefits from substantial variation in pension eligibility during a relatively short time. It is based on a difference-in-difference approach and supported by independent variation in the age-based eligibility rule contributing to the causal identification of the effect. Results suggest that the effect of the changes in early retirement age is substantial, amounting to 5-7.4 percentage point increase in the 45 per cent employment rate at the retirement age for women. Changes in the normal retirement age do not seem to have such employment effect because increases in disability pension claims have counteracted them. |
| Keywords: | retirement age, older workers, employment |
| JEL: | H31 H55 J14 J26 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:bworkp:1403&r=all |
| By: | Stefano DellaVigna; John List; Ulrike Malmendier; Gautam Rao |
| Abstract: | Do men and women have different social preferences? Previous findings are contradictory. We�provide a potential explanation using evidence from a field experiment. In a door-to-door�solicitation, men and women are equally generous, but women become less generous when it�becomes easy to avoid the solicitor. Our structural estimates of the social preference parameters�suggest an explanation: women are more likely to be on the margin of giving, partly because of a�less dispersed distribution of altruism. We find similar results for the willingness to complete an�unpaid survey: women are more likely to be on the margin of participation. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:183741&r=all |
| By: | Caliendo, Marco (University of Potsdam); Lee, Wang-Sheng (Deakin University); Mahlstedt, Robert (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on re-examining the gender wage gap and the potential role that reservation wages play. Based on two waves of rich data from the IZA Evaluation Dataset Survey we examine the importance of gender differences in reservation wages to explain the gender gap in realized wages for a sample of newly unemployed individuals actively searching for a full-time job in Germany. The dataset includes measures for education, socio-demographics, labor market history, psychological factors and job search characteristics allowing us to perform a decomposition analysis including these potentially influential factors. Our results suggest that the gender wage gap disappears once we control for reservation wages. We also find a close correspondence between the two gaps for certain subgroups. For example, those with low labor market experience show no gender gap in reservation wages and also no corresponding gap in observed wages. In an attempt to better understand how the initial gender gap in reservation wages arises, we also decompose the gender gap in reservation wages and draw some preliminary conclusions on the nature of the unobservable traits that reservation wages might be capturing. |
| Keywords: | wages, gender gap, reservation wages, discrimination |
| JEL: | J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8305&r=all |
| By: | Anna Baranowska-Rataj (Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics, Sociology Department, Umea University); Monika Mynarska (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyñski University in Warsaw, Institute of Psychology); Daniele Vignoli (University of Florence, Department of Statistics “G. Parenti”) |
| Abstract: | The aim of the paper is to provide insights into how religion influences the family formation process. In particular, we analyze the impact of a neighborhood context religiosity on an individual decision to enter cohabitation. We use the data on two European societies where secularization and individualization have not yet reached momentum: Italy and Poland. We combine the empirical evidence from both qualitative and quantitative research. The qualitative research provides an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms through which the neighborhood may affect the individual decisions on union formation. By means of quantitative multilevel analyses we test how strong these mechanisms are in the general population. The qualitative analysis identified several mechanisms related, among others, to a lack of social recognition for cohabiting couples and to ostracism in the neighborhood. The quantitative outcomes confirmed that individuals living in social environment where people are very religious tend to make life choices consistent with the norms and beliefs supported by the dominating religion, even if they are not very religious themselves. Importantly, after controlling for territorial characteristics, the role of neighborhood-specific religiosity weakened in the magnitude in Poland and lost its statistical power in Italy. This may indicate that the impact of religion on observed union formation behaviors is indirect: It does seem to influence observed family behaviors through the social pressure to get married and traditions, rather than through the force of Catholic dogmas. |
| Keywords: | cohabitation, union formation, religiosity, social pressure |
| JEL: | J12 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isd:wpaper:71&r=all |
| By: | Baert, Stijn (Ghent University); Verhaest, Dieter (K.U.Leuven) |
| Abstract: | This study aims at estimating the stigma effect of unemployment and overeducation within one framework. To this end, we conduct a field experiment in the Belgian labour market. We send out trios of fictitious male job applications to real vacancies. These applications differ only by the labour market history of the candidates. By monitoring the subsequent reactions from the employer side, we find evidence for a larger stigma effect of unemployment than overeducation. The stigma effect of overeducation is found to occur for permanent contract jobs but not temporary ones. |
| Keywords: | unemployment signalling, overeducation signalling, transitions in youth |
| JEL: | J24 J60 C93 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8312&r=all |
| By: | Mountford, Andrew (Royal Holloway, University of London); Rapoport, Hillel (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | According to recent UN projections more than 50 percent of the growth in world population over the next half century will be due to population growth in Africa. Given this, any policy that influences African demography will have a significant impact on the world distribution of income. In this paper we discuss the potential for migration policies to affect fertility and education decisions, and hence, population growth in Africa. We present the results from different scenarios for more or less restrictive/selective migration policies and derive their implications for the evolution of world inequality. |
| Keywords: | global inequality, migration, fertility, Africa |
| JEL: | O40 F11 F43 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8329&r=all |
| By: | Bryan, Mark L. (University of Essex); Sevilla, Almudena (Queen Mary, University of London) |
| Abstract: | Using previously unexploited data on time scheduling in the employment and household contexts, we investigate the effect of flexible working on couples' coordination of their daily work time schedules in the UK. We consider three distinct dimensions of flexible working: flexibility of daily start and finish times (flexitime), flexibility of work times over the year (annualised hours), and generalised control of working hours. We find that in couples with flexitime there is greater spouse synchronization in daily working times by nearly one hour. The effect is driven by couples with dependent children. However, we find the effect in couples with children of any age (under 16), suggesting it does not stem from the childcare requirements of young children. Robustness checks indicate that flexitime is not endogenous, suggesting that an expansion of flexitime would increase couples' work time coordination. There is less evidence that broader control over working hours increases daily synchronous working time and no evidence that annualised hours increase synchronous time on a daily basis. The weaker relationships with daily synchronous time for these two flexibility measures are consistent with their broader scope (control over amount of hours as well as timing) and longer time span. |
| Keywords: | flexible work, time synchronization, time coordination |
| JEL: | J12 J22 J32 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8304&r=all |