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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Vincenzo Scoppa; Manuela Stranges (Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza, Università della Calabria) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of culture in explaining economic outcomes at individual level analyzing how cultural values from the home country affect the decision to work of immigrants in Italy, using the National Survey of Households with Immigrants. Following the “epidemiological approach”, we relate the probability of being employed in Italy for immigrant women with the female labor force participation (LFP) in their country of origin, taken as a proxy of cultural heritage and gender role model. Controlling for a number of individual and household characteristics, we show that participation in the labor market is affected both by the culture of females’ and by their husband’s origin countries. We also show that the relationship between own decisions in the host country and home country LFP cannot be attributed to human capital quality or discrimination and it turns out to be stronger for immigrants that maintained more intense ties with their origin countries. Finally, we investigate to what extent cultural influence is driven by religious beliefs: we find that religion is a key determinant of differences in female labor decisions, but, besides religion, other cultural values exert additional influence.. |
| Keywords: | Culture, Immigration, Labor Force Participation, Epidemiological Approach, Gender, Italy |
| JEL: | Z10 Z13 J10 J15 J16 J20 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clb:wpaper:201413&r=dem |
| By: | Graziella Bertocchi; Monica Bozzano |
| Abstract: | We investigate the historical determinants of the education gender gap in Italy in the late nineteenth century, immediately following the country’s Unification. We use a comprehensive newly-assembled database including 69 provinces over twenty-year sub-samples covering the 1861-1901 period. We find robust evidence that female primary school attainment, relative to that of males, is positively associated with the medieval pattern of commerce, along the routes that connected Italian cities among themselves and with the rest of the world. The effect of medieval commerce is particularly strong at the non-compulsory upperprimary level and persists even after controlling for alternative long-term determinants reflecting the geographic, economic, political, and cultural differentiation of medieval Italy. The long-term influence of medieval commerce quickly dissipates after national compulsory primary schooling is imposed at Unification, suggesting that the channel of transmission was the larger provision of education for girls in commercial centers. |
| Keywords: | Education gender gap, medieval commerce, Italian Unification, political institutions, family types. |
| JEL: | E02 H75 I25 J16 N33 O15 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:dembwp:0007&r=dem |
| By: | Brown, David (University of Alberta, Department of Economics); Knapp, Caprice (University of Florida); Baker, Kimberly (University of Florida); Kaufmann, Meggen (University of Florida) |
| Abstract: | Objective: To analyze health disparities in pediatric HEDIS quality of care measures and to determine how imputation has an impact on these disparities. Data Sources: Five HEDIS measures are calculated based on 2012 administrative data for 145,652 children in two public insurance programs in Florida. Methods: The Bayesian Improved Surname and Geocoding (BISG) imputation method is used to impute missing race and ethnicity data for 42% of the sample (61,954 children). Models are estimated using the imputed data as well as dropping observations with missing race and ethnicity data. Principal Findings: Using BISG, we find that age, female, enrollment in Children’s Medical Services Network, and more severe illness are associated with a higher likelihood of HEDIS compliance. The effect of race and ethnicity on HEDIS compliance varies across the measures. Using the BISG imputed race and ethnicity analysis as the benchmark, dropping those individuals who do not self-report their race and ethnicity substantially alters the coefficient estimates. In particular, the race and ethnicity coefficient estimates are systematically dampened if they are positive and magnified if they are negative. Conclusions: These results provide further support for the importance of appropriately accounting for missing race and ethnicity data through advanced imputation methods. |
| Keywords: | HEDIS; disparities; Bayesian imputation; racial/ethnic differences; medicaid; children |
| JEL: | C11 I10 I18 |
| Date: | 2014–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:2014_009&r=dem |
| By: | Olga Alonso-Villar; Coral Del Rio |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:002836:283600002&r=dem |
| By: | Daniel D. Schnitzlein |
| Abstract: | Motivated by contradictory evidence on intergenerational mobility in Germany, I present a cross-country comparison of Germany and the US, reassessing the question of whether intergenerational mobility is higher in Germany than the US. I can reproduce the standard result from the literature, which states that the German intergenerational elasticity estimates are lower than those for the US. However, based on highly comparable data, even a reasonable degree of variation in the sampling rules leads to similar estimates in both countries. I find no evidence for nonlinearities along the fathers' earnings distribution. In contrast, the analysis shows that mobility is higher for the sons at the lowest quartile of the sons' earnings distribution in both countries. In Germany this result is mainly driven by a high downward mobility of sons with fathers in the upper middle part of the earnings distribution. The corresponding pattern is clearly less pronounced in the US. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, SOEP, CNEF, Germany, US |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp689&r=dem |
| By: | Jauer, Julia; Liebig, Thomas; Martin, John P.; Puhani, Patrick A. |
| Abstract: | The question of whether migration can be an equilibrating force in the labour market is an important criterion for an optimal currency area. It is of particular interest currently in the context of high and rising levels of labour market disparities, in particular within the Eurozone where there is no exchange-rate mechanism available to play this role. We shed some new light on this question by comparing pre- and post-crisis migration movements at the regional level in both Europe and the United States, and their association with asymmetric labour market shocks. We find that recent migration flows have reacted quite significantly to the EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007 and to changes in labour market conditions, particularly in Europe. Indeed, in contrast to the pre-crisis situation and the findings of previous empirical studies, there is tentative evidence that the migration response to the crisis has been considerable in Europe, in contrast to the United States where the crisis and subsequent sluggish recovery were not accompanied by greater interregional labour mobility in reaction to labour market shocks. Our estimates suggest that, if all measured population changes in Europe were due to migration for employment purposes – i.e. an upper-bound estimate – up to about a quarter of the asymmetric labour market shock would be absorbed by migration within a year. However, in the Eurozone the reaction mainly stems from migration of third-country nationals. Even within the group of Eurozone nationals, a significant part of the free mobility stems from immigrants from third countries who have taken on the nationality of their Eurozone host country. |
| Keywords: | Free mobility, migration, economic crisis, labour market adjustment, Eurozone, Europe, United States |
| JEL: | F15 F16 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2014:32&r=dem |