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on Labour Economics |
| By: | William J. Collins; Ariell Zimran |
| Abstract: | Whether immigrants advance in labor markets relative to natives as they gain experience is a fundamental question in the economics of immigration. For the US, it has been difficult to answer this question for the period when the immigration rate was at its historical peak, between the 1840s and 1920s. We develop new datasets of linked census records for foreign- and native-born men in 1850-80 and 1900-30. We find that for the nineteenth century cohort, there is evidence of substantial “catching up” by immigrants in terms of occupational status, but for the twentieth century cohort there is not. These changes do not reflect the shift in source countries from Northern and Western Europe to Southern and Eastern Europe. Instead, we find that natives had advantages in upgrading relative to immigrants conditional on initial occupation in both periods, but that by 1900, natives were less concentrated than previously in jobs with low upward mobility (farming) and more concentrated in jobs with lower initial status but higher upward mobility. The difference in assimilation over time is thus rooted in a sizable change in native men’s occupational distribution between 1850 and 1900. These results revise the oversimplified but influential view that historical immigrants “worked their way up” in the American labor market. |
| JEL: | J61 J62 N11 N12 N13 N14 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26414&r=all |
| By: | Amelie F. Constant |
| Abstract: | This chapter provides a state-of-the-art literature review about research that aims to explain the return, repeat, circular and onward migration of the highly-skilled migrants around the world. After it describes the status quo in the knowledge economy and the international race for talent, it presents the relevant theories and concepts of migration in the social sciences and how these theories accommodate the phenomena of return, repeat and onward migration. A special section is devoted to selection. The chapter then summarizes, evaluates, and juxtaposes existing empirical evidence related to theoretical predictions. Observables such as education, income, gender and home country as well as unobservables such as ability, social capital and negotiating skills play a strong role in influencing return, repeat and onward migration decisions. Yet, there is no consensus on the direction of the effect. The chapter discusses shortcomings and limitations along with policy lessons. It concludes by highlighting holes in the literature and the need for better data. |
| Keywords: | return, circular, onward, international labor migration, knowledge economy, high-skilled, public policy |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J18 J20 J61 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7913&r=all |
| By: | Martha J. Bailey; Tanya S. Byker; Elena Patel; Shanthi Ramnath |
| Abstract: | This paper uses IRS tax data to evaluate the short- and long-term effects of California’s 2004 Paid Family Leave Act (PFLA) on women’s careers. Our research design exploits the increased availability of paid leave for women giving birth in the third quarter of 2004 (just after PFLA was implemented). These mothers were 18 percentage points more likely to use paid leave but otherwise identical to multiple comparison groups in pre-birth demographic, marital, and work characteristics. We find little evidence that PFLA increased women’s employment, wage earnings, or attachment to employers. For new mothers, taking up PFLA reduced employment by 7 percent and lowered annual wages by 8 percent six to ten years after giving birth. Overall, PFLA tended to reduce the number of children born and, by decreasing mothers’ time at work, increase time spent with children. |
| JEL: | J08 J1 J13 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26416&r=all |
| By: | Inga Laß (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Mark Wooden (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | While it is often believed that temporary forms of employment, such as fixed-term contracts, casual work and temporary agency work, provide workers with more flexibility to balance work and private commitments, convincing empirical evidence on this issue is still scarce. This paper investigates the link between temporary employment and work‐life balance in Australia, using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey for the period 2001 to 2017. In contrast to previous studies, we compare results from pooled cross‐sectional and fixed‐effects regressions to investigate the role of time-constant unobserved worker characteristics in linking temporary employment and work-life outcomes. The results show that, after accounting for job characteristics and person-specific fixed-effects, among women only casual employment is unequivocally associated with better work-life outcomes than permanent employment. For men, we mostly find negative associations between all forms of temporary employment and work-life outcomes, but the magnitudes of these associations are much smaller and mostly insignificant in fixed-effects models. This result suggests that male temporary employees have stable unobserved traits that are connected to poorer work-life balance. |
| Keywords: | Temporary employment, casual work, HILDA Survey, work-life balance, work-family conflict, Australia, longitudinal methods |
| JEL: | J41 J82 J28 J16 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2019n11&r=all |
| By: | Giorgio Barba Navaretti; Lionel Gérard Fontagné; Gianluca Orefice; Giovanni Pica; Anna Cecilia Rosso |
| Abstract: | Trade shocks in export markets may affect the employment composition and the organization of exporting firms. In particular, the imposition of new technological standards in destination markets may force exporters to adjust the firm’s organization to comply and cope with the additional complexity of the new production process. This paper investigates the effects on firms’ organization of shocks induced by the introduction of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBTs) in exporting countries. It relies on the Specific Trade Concern (STC) data released by the WTO to identify trade-restrictive TBT measures, combined with matched employer-employee data for the population of French exporters over the period 1995-2010. It also exploits information on the list of product-destinations served by each French exporter. Controlling for tariffs and for a given state of technology in the sector of the firm, it finds that exporters respond to increased complexity associated with restrictive Technical Barriers to Trade at destination by raising the share of managers at the expense of blue collars, white collars and professionals. This paper is related to the growing literature exploring how firms organize production in hierarchies to economize on their use of knowledge. It is also related to the well beaten literature on the labour market effects of trade, but from the perspective of exports rather than imports. |
| Keywords: | skill composition, labor demand, job polarization, trade barriers |
| JEL: | F13 F16 J82 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7893&r=all |
| By: | Ran Abramitzky; Leah Platt Boustan; Elisa Jácome; Santiago Pérez |
| Abstract: | Using millions of father-son pairs spanning more than 100 years of US history, we find that children of immigrants from nearly every sending country have higher rates of upward mobility than children of the US-born. Immigrants’ advantage is similar historically and today despite dramatic shifts in sending countries and US immigration policy. In the past, this advantage can be explained by immigrants moving to areas with better prospects for their children and by “under-placement” of the first generation in the income distribution. These findings are consistent with the “American Dream” view that even poorer immigrants can improve their children’s prospects. |
| JEL: | J15 J61 J62 N30 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26408&r=all |
| By: | Föll, Tobias; Hartmann, Anna |
| JEL: | E02 E24 J51 J62 J64 O33 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc19:203558&r=all |
| By: | Jongkwan Lee; Giovanni Peri; Vasil Yasenov |
| Abstract: | We examine the labor market consequences of an extensive campaign repatriating around 400,000 Mexicans in 1929-34. To identify a causal effect, we instrument county level repatriations with the existence of a railway line to Mexico interacted with the size of the Mexican communities in 1910. Using individual linked data we find that Mexican repatriations reduced employment of native incumbent workers and resulted in their occupational downgrading. However, using a repeated cross section of county level data, we find attenuated and non-significant employment effects and amplified wage downgrading. We show that this is due to selective in- and out-migration of natives. |
| JEL: | J15 J61 N22 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26399&r=all |
| By: | Astrid Marinoni; John Voorheis |
| Abstract: | The question of who gains from high-quality entrepreneurship is crucial to understanding whether investments in incubating potentially innovative start-up firms will produce socially beneficial outcomes. We attempt to bring new evidence to this question by combining new aggregate measures of local area income inequality and income mobility with measures of entrepreneurship from Guzman and Stern (2017). Our new aggregate measures are generated by linking American Community Survey data with the universe of IRS 1040 tax returns. In both fixed effects and IV models using a Bartik-style instrument, we find that entrepreneurship increases income inequality. Further, we find that this increase in income inequality arises due to the fact that almost all of the individual gains associated with increased entrepreneurship accrue to the top 10 percent of the income distribution. While we find mixed evidence for small positive effects of entrepreneurship lower on the income distribution, we find little if any evidence that entrepreneurship increases income mobility. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, innovation, income inequality |
| JEL: | L26 D63 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:19-29&r=all |
| By: | Bauer, Thomas K.; Rulff, Christian; Tamminga, Michael M. |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the determinants of internal migration in Germany. Using data on the NUTS-3 level for different age groups and Pseudo-Poisson Maximum Likelihood (PPML) gravity models, the empirical analysis focuses on the relevant push and pull factors of internal migration over the life cycle. Labor market variables appear to be most powerful in explaining interregional migration, especially for the younger cohorts. Furthermore, internal migrants show heterogeneous migration behavior across age groups. In particular the largest group, which is also the youngest, migrates predominantly into urban areas, whereas the oldest groups chose to move to rural regions. This kind of clustering reinforces preexisting regional heterogeneity of demographic change. |
| Keywords: | internal migration,gravity model,demographic polarization |
| JEL: | R23 J11 O18 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:823&r=all |
| By: | Höckel, Lisa |
| JEL: | J13 J15 I24 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc19:203638&r=all |
| By: | David C. Ribar (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Mark Wooden (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the confidentialised unit record file from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Commonwealth Department of Social Services and is managed by the Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research. The findings and views reported in this paper are those of the authors only. The paper’s analysis data were extracted using PanelWhiz, a Stata add-on package written by John Haisken-DeNew. The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from Australian Research Council Discovery Project no. DP180103462. They thank Tessa Loriggio for valuable research assistance and Andrew Cherlin, participants at the 2019 Australian Conference of Economists, and seminar participants at Deakin University for helpful comments. |
| Keywords: | Job quality, scales, Australia, HILDA Survey |
| JEL: | J2 J3 J81 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2019n07&r=all |
| By: | Hart, Janine; Clemens, Marius |
| JEL: | J61 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc19:203659&r=all |