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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Scharfbillig, Mario; Weißler, Marco (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "We provide estimates of the effect of migrant labor supply on resident employment. We exploit variation in the number of asylum seekers eligible to the suspension of a major hiring restriction implemented in a subset of German counties. Our difference-in-difference design allows us to provide evidence from a labor supply shock of migrants on local markets net of their additional spending at arrival that might mask labor market displacement effects. Despite this, we do not find a negative effect on employment growth of natives but only on other foreign residents. This also holds for unskilled employees. Therefore, our findings can be interpreted as the consequence of differential substitutability of different subgroups, where asylum seekers are substitutes to other immigrants but not natives - even when they are similarly qualified." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | J22 J61 R23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201915&r=all |
| By: | Morgan, Robson; O'Connor, Kelsey J. |
| Abstract: | Average subjective well-being decreased in Europe during the Great Recession, primarily among people with less than a college education and people younger than retirement age. However, some countries fared better than others depending on their labor market policies. More generous unemployment support, which provided income replacement or programs to assist unemployed workers find jobs, mitigated the negative effects for most of the population, although not youth. In contrast, stricter employment protection legislation exacerbated the negative effects. We present further evidence that suggests the exacerbating effects of employment protection legislation are due to greater rigidities in the labor market, which in turn affect perceived future job prospects. Our analysis is based on two-stage least squares regressions using individual subjective wellbeing data obtained from Eurobarometer surveys and variation in labor market policy across 23 European countries. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction,active labor market policy,unemployment support,employment protection legislation,Eurobarometer |
| JEL: | I31 I38 J28 J65 H53 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:372&r=all |
| By: | Bertha Rohenkohl (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | Using a new dataset combining the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society, I estimate the intergenerational income elasticity in the UK for individuals born between 1973 and 1991. Employing the traditional OLS approach as well as an alternative two-stage residual method that better controls for life-cycle effects, my results indicate that the intergenerational income elasticity is approximately 0.25. This means that around one quarter of every additional 1% of income advantage enjoyed by parents is passed on to their children. I also estimate income rank coefficients, which are a measure of positional mobility in the income distribution and these results corroborate the analysis of elasticities. These main results are largely robust to changes in the specifications of the model, sample restrictions and to the use of different measures of income. I also obtain regional estimates of mobility, and find large differences between the North and South of England |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, income dynamics, social mobility |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2019017&r=all |
| By: | Nishizaki, Sumiyo |
| Abstract: | After World War II, more than six million people returned to Japan from various parts of the former Japanese empire. Most studies of Japanese postwar repatriation have focused on the repatriation policies of the Allied powers and the Japanese government, the repatriation process between 1945 and 1956, and postwar memories of repatriates. In contrast, the economic experiences of repatriates in the postwar era have yet to be studied. This paper uses a large-scale national survey of repatriates’ postwar lives conducted by the Japanese government in 1956, focussing more specifically on approximately 110,000 civilian repatriates living in Hiroshima prefecture in 1956. The findings of this research contrast with prevailing suggestions that repatriates were totally neglected by the Japanese government and society. Instead, this research demonstrates that in Hiroshima prefecture, repatriates’ postwar job placement was facilitated by employment in agriculture, public sector employment, and the transferable skills possessed by some repatriates. The information from the 1956 government survey shows that approximately 60 per cent of repatriates fell in these categories, while the remaining 40 per cent found employment in new areas or became unemployed. Research on repatriates in other prefectures (Ibaraki, Osaka, and Kanagawa) shows a similar trend. As a result, despite the scale of the repatriation, the settlement was broadly successful. It can be argued that this type of transition helped to bring political and economic stability, which became a foundation of Japan’s postwar economic recovery. |
| JEL: | N15 N35 N45 J62 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:101172&r=all |
| By: | Monica Langella; Alan Manning |
| Abstract: | The UK has suffered from persistent spatial differences in unemployment rates for many decades. A low responsiveness of internal migration to unemployment is often argued to be an important cause of this problem. This paper uses UK census data to investigate how unemployment affects residential mobility using very small areas as potential destinations and origins and four decades of data. It finds that both in- and out-migration are affected by unemployment, although the effect on in-migration appears to be stronger - but also that there is a very high 'cost of distance' so most moves are very local. Using individual longitudinal data we show that the young and the better educated have a lower cost of distance but that sensitivity to unemployment shows much less variability across groups. |
| Keywords: | residential mobility, regional inequality, unemployment |
| JEL: | Z1 J01 R10 J21 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1639&r=all |
| By: | Yu, Haiyue; Cao, Jin; Kang, Shulong |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the role of grandparental childcare in China’s extraordinarily high female la-bor-market participation rate. Indeed, the high female labor-market participation and low labor-income penalty for childbirth is all the more remarkable given the lack of public subsidies for child-care. Using a novel and high-quality dataset, we find that childcare provided by retired grandparents significantly reduces the duration of career breaks for young women and helps women remain in the labor force. We further show that well-educated urban women benefit most from grandparental childcare, especially in the first three years of the child’s life before there is a possibility to enter kindergarten. |
| JEL: | C24 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2019–07–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofitp:2019_014&r=all |
| By: | Malo, Miguel; Cueto, Begoña |
| Abstract: | This article analyses whether automation and offshorability risks overlap with non-standard employment. The research uses data from Spain, as this is a country with one of the highest temporary employment rates across the world since the 1990s. In general, the analysis shows that automation risks affect slightly more to those with non-standard work arrangements. However, higher educational level is crucial to be much less exposed to automation risks, irrespective of the type of contract or the working time. The offshorability risk also has a small overlap with non-standard employment, but has the opposite relationship with the educational level. The results suggest that specific training policies attending to those with lower educational levels in non-standard employment would be advisable to protect some workers against automation risks, but not against offshorability. |
| Keywords: | Automation; offshorability; temporary contracts; standard employment relationship |
| JEL: | J11 J24 J41 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95058&r=all |
| By: | Tim Obermeier |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how the progressivity of the income tax affects intra-household inequality and the marriage market. Tax progressivity increases the after-tax earnings of the lowerearning spouse and improves their bargaining position in marriage. This mechanism reduces inequality in consumption and leisure within households. In addition, tax progressivity can change who is single and who marries whom. I study these effects in an equilibrium search and matching model with intra-household bargaining, labor supply and savings. The model is calibrated to data from the Netherlands and used to study a hypothetical reform which increases progressivity by 40% relative to the current system. The reduction of intra-household inequality accounts for 24.77% of the reduction in inequality in private consumption due to the reform, and 11.43% of the reduction in inequality in utility from private and public consumption, leisure and home production. Changes in the composition of couples and singles, due to endogenous marriage and divorce, have small implications for inequality. |
| Keywords: | Tax Progressivity, Intra-Household Bargaining, Equilibrium search, Assortative matching |
| JEL: | H20 E21 J12 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2019_109&r=all |
| By: | Mario Meier; Tim Obermeier |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how firms’ screening behavior and multiple applications per job affect the optimal design of unemployment policies. We provide a model of job search and firms’ recruitment process that incorporates important features of the hiring process. In our model, firms have limited information about the productivity of each applicant and make selective interview decisions among applicants, which leads to employer screening. We estimate the model using German administrative employment records and information on job search behavior, vacancies and applications. The model matches important features of the hiring process, e.g. the observed decline in search effort, job finding rates and interview rates with increased unemployment duration. We find that allowing for employer screening is quantitatively important for the optimal design of unemployment insurance. Benefits should be paid for a longer period of time and be more generous in the beginning, but more restrictive afterwards, compared to the case where we treat the hiring and interview decisions of firms as exogenous. This is because more generous benefits lead to lower search externalities among job seekers and because benefits change the composition of the unemployment pool which alleviates screening for the long-term unemployed. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment, Optimal Unemployment Insurance, Employer Screening |
| JEL: | H20 J64 J65 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2019_110&r=all |
| By: | Elena Reboul; Isabelle Guérin; Antony Raj; G. Venkatasubramanian |
| Abstract: | The implications of income and expenses volatility in terms of financial practices have been widely documented, demonstrating the critical role of money management in the survival of vulnerable households. The gender of this, however, is a neglected dimension. Based on data collected in South India combining ethnography and Financial Diaries, with 8 households followed for 9 months and data disaggregated by sex, this paper discusses the methodological and theoretical implications of a gender analysis of income volatility, its management and its burden. In our context of study characterized by dynamic processes of financialisation, low and volatile incomes give to credit a prominent place in budget management strategies, both from the side of inflows and outflows. Economic volatility tends to blur the boundaries between expense, saving, credit and income; and these shifts in turn question the categories of recipient, (female) money manager or (male) breadwinner. While women tend to earn low incomes, they borrow a substantial part of household debts: and accounting for these practices alters sometimes drastically the vision of their role as breadwinners that could stem from their sole earnings. Besides, beyond borrowing, women are predominantly the ones who shoulder the responsibility for debt settlement, a task that requires skills, time, and the involvement in all a range of secondary activities aiming at ensuring repayment capacity and creditworthiness. The burden of economic volatility appears thereby to be gendered, strengthening women's unpaid domestic duties through this "labour of the debt''. |
| Keywords: | gender; debt; volatility; division of labor; India |
| JEL: | D14 J16 O16 |
| Date: | 2019–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/290603&r=all |
| By: | Meng, Xin; Xue, Sen |
| Abstract: | Over the past two decades, more than 160 million Chinese rural workers have migrated to cities to work. They are separated from their familiar rural networks to work in an unfamiliar, and often hostile environment. Many of them thus face significant mental health challenges. This paper is the first to investigate the extent to which migrant social networks in host cities can mitigate these adverse mental health effects. Using a unique longitudinal survey data of Rural-to-Urban Migration in China (RUMiC), we find that network size matters significantly for migrant workers. Our preferred IV estimates suggest that one standard deviation increase in migrant city networks, on average, reduces the measure of mental health problem by 0.47 to 0.66 of a standard deviation. Similar effects are found among less educated, those working longer hours, and those without access to social insurance. The main channel of the network effect is through boosting confidence and reducing anxiety of migrants. |
| Keywords: | Mental Health,Social Networks,Migration,China |
| JEL: | I12 I15 J61 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:370&r=all |
| By: | Kohler, Wilhelm; Wrona, Jens |
| Abstract: | We revisit Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg's (2008) famous result, that under certain conditions offshoring of low-skilled labor tasks raises the domestic wage for low-skilled workers. Our re-examination features a less benign environment where Rybczynski-type reallocation of factors to absorb offshoring-induced job displacement is ruled out. We allow for simultaneous offshoring of both skilled and unskilled labor, and we derive new results on the role of factor-bias in offshoring, identifying conditions under which offshoring has a "lifiting-all-boats" effect benefitting all workers. Extending our analysis to a frictional labor market with equilibrium unemployment due to costly matching, we demonstrate that under these same conditions offshoring is also associated with rising employment. |
| Keywords: | Offshoring,Trade in Tasks,Wages,Unemployment,Search and Matching |
| JEL: | F11 F16 J64 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:320&r=all |
| By: | Lamia Kandil (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques); Hélène Périvier (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to explain why the division of domestic labor within couples differs according to their marital status. We analyze the evolution of the gender division of labor in France using time-use surveys (1985, 1999 and 2009). In 1985 and in 1998, married women were performing a larger share of domestic labor than cohabiting women. In 1985 this gap is explained by differences in the observed characteristics of married and cohabiting couples, whereas by the late 1990s cohabiting couples were opting for an organization that was less unequal than that of married couples, all else being equal. In 2009, the average share of domestic labor performed by women was about the same whether they were cohabiting or married (72% and 73.5%), but it was significantly lower for women in civil union, which was introduced in 1999 (65.1%). The self-selection process of couples regarding their gender ideology might explain this result: the civil partnership attracts more egalitarian couples. |
| Keywords: | Domestic labor; Marital status; Gender; Time use survey; Matching method |
| JEL: | D13 J12 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1c08lmfkfv8e7rnka5ll9vumdr&r=all |
| By: | Marcén, Miriam; Morales, Marina |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine whether culture plays a role in the gender division of household labor. To explore this issue, we use data on early-arrival first and second generation immigrants living in the United States. Since all these individuals have grown up under the same laws, institutions, and economic conditions, then the differences between them in the gender division of housework may be due to cultural differences. We find that the higher the culture of gender equality in the country of ancestry, the greater the equality in the division of housework. This is maintained when we consider both housework and childcare as household labor. Our work is extended by examining how culture operates and is transmitted. We study whether culture may influence by and with whom housework activities are performed and the timing of the day when this happens, which can help us to understand how culture operates in the family life of couples. Results indicate that the more culture of gender equality is associated with greater probability that individuals report performing housework when they are with their partner in the evening, which may improve family live by making housework a non-individual task. The cultural impact is also observed in the case of working days, but it is not so clear during public holidays, which can be explained by the fact that those individuals originating from less egalitarian countries work longer work hours than those from egalitarian countries. |
| Keywords: | Culture,immigrants,housework,childcare |
| JEL: | D13 J13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:373&r=all |
| By: | Yavuz Arslan; Ahmet Degerli; Gazi Kabaş |
| Abstract: | Many countries provide unemployment insurance (UI) to reduce individuals' income risk and to moderate fluctuations in the economy. However, to the extent that these policies are successful, they would be expected to reduce precautionary savings and hence bank deposits--households' main saving instrument. In this paper, we study this reduced incentive to save and uncover a novel distortionary mechanism through which UI policies affect the economy. In particular, we show that, when UI benefits become more generous, bank deposits fall. Since deposits are the main stable funding source for banks, this fall in deposits squeezes bank commercial lending, which in turn reduces corporate investment. |
| Keywords: | unemployment insurance, precautionary savings, bank deposits |
| JEL: | D14 G21 J65 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:795&r=all |