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on Labour Economics |
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Issue of 2024‒07‒15
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Benjamin Hyman; Brian K. Kovak; Adam Leive |
| Abstract: | Wage insurance provides income support to displaced workers who find reemployment at a lower wage. We analyze wage insurance in the context of the U.S. Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program by merging linked employer-employee Census data to TAA petitions and leveraging a discontinuity in eligibility based on worker age. Wage insurance eligibility increases short-run employment probabilities and leads to higher long-run cumulative earnings. We find shorter non-employment durations largely drive increased long-term earnings among workers eligible for wage insurance. Our results are quantitatively consistent with a standard non-stationary partial equilibrium search model. The program is self-financing even under conservative assumptions. |
| Keywords: | social insurance; displaced workers; regression discontinuity |
| JEL: | J6 J65 J01 |
| Date: | 2024–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:98374&r= |
| By: | van Elk, Roel (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Jongen, Egbert L. W. (Leiden University); Koot, Patrick (Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment); Zulkarnain, Alice (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis) |
| Abstract: | A key measure of equality of opportunity is intergenerational mobility. Of particular interest is the extent to which children of immigrants catch up with natives. Using administrative data for the Netherlands, we find large gaps in the absolute income mobility of immigrants relative to natives (-23%), suggestive of large, persistent income gaps for future generations as well. Important drivers are differences in household composition and in personal incomes. However, we also uncover substantial heterogeneity by country of origin. Children of immigrants from China actually have higher incomes than natives, which is closely related to their educational outcomes. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, immigrants, Netherlands |
| JEL: | D31 J15 J61 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17035&r= |
| By: | Christophe André; Peter Gal; Matthias Schief |
| Abstract: | The increase in human longevity is a major achievement, which brings individual well-being and strong contributions to society, but population ageing also generates challenges. This paper documents demographic trends in OECD countries, highlighting that ageing today largely reflects past fertility, longevity, and migration developments. Policies have moderate or delayed impacts on population ageing, hence they should also focus on adapting to ongoing demographic trends. The paper quantifies ageing’s potential impacts on labour supply and GDP per capita, showing that the extension of working lives as longevity rises could mitigate, but not completely offset, the negative effects of ageing on employment. It also examines how ageing may affect productivity through various micro and macroeconomic mechanisms. Finally, it provides policy directions for addressing the ageing challenge, through supporting healthy ageing, boosting employment, job quality and labour mobility in all age groups, and promoting older workers’ productivity by further developing lifelong learning and fostering an age-friendly management culture. |
| Keywords: | Ageing, demography, economic growth, Fertility, health, labour market policy, lifelong learning, longevity, migration, productivity |
| JEL: | F22 I18 J08 J11 J13 J14 Q47 |
| Date: | 2024–06–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1807-en&r= |
| By: | Pineda-Hernández, Kevin (Université Libre de Bruxelles); Rycx, François (Free University of Brussels); Volral, Mélanie (University of Mons) |
| Abstract: | A large body of literature shows that first-generation immigrants born in developing countries experience a higher likelihood of being overeducated than natives (i.e. immigrant overeducation). However, evidence is remarkably scarce when it comes to the overeducation of second-generation immigrants. Using a matched employer-employee database for Belgium over the period 1999-2016 and generalized ordered logit regressions, we contribute to the literature with one of the first studies on the intergenerational nexus between overeducation and origin among tertiary-educated workers. We show that immigrant overeducation disappears across two generations when workers work full-time. However, immigrant overeducation is a persistent intergenerational phenomenon when workers work part-time. Our gender-interacted estimates endorse these findings for female and male immigrants. |
| Keywords: | immigrants, intergenerational studies, labour market integration, overeducation, generalized ordered logit, moderating factors |
| JEL: | I22 J15 J24 J61 J62 J71 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17027&r= |
| By: | Guirola, Luis (Banco de España); Hospido, Laura (Bank of Spain); Weber, Andrea (Central European University) |
| Abstract: | Using data on 17 countries in Europe and North America, we compare the career trajectories of mothers and fathers and of women and men without children across cohorts, and at different points of their life cycle. There is wide variation across countries in employment and earnings gaps at age 30. At age 50, however, employment between mothers and non-mothers have closed in most countries. We also observe convergence in employment gaps between mothers and fathers by age 50, but these gaps do not fully close. Motherhood gaps in earnings also close by age 50 between mothers and non-mothers, particularly among the highly educated. But there is strong persistence in earnings gaps between mothers and fathers even among highly educated parents. The main reasons for the remaining gaps at later stages in the life-cycle are part-time work among women and fatherhood premia as fathers' earnings outperform non-fathers' over their life-cycle. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, employment, earnings, children |
| JEL: | J12 J13 J16 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17018&r= |
| By: | Horton, John J. (MIT); Johari, Ramesh (Stanford University); Kircher, Philipp (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | In a labor market model with cheap talk, employers can send messages about their willingness to pay for higher-ability workers, which job-seekers can use to direct their search and tailor their wage bid. Introducing such messages leads – under certain conditions – to an informative separating equilibrium that affects the number of applications, types of applications, and wage bids across rms. This model is used to interpret an experiment conducted in a large online labor market: employers were given the opportunity to state their relative willingness to pay for more experienced workers, and workers can easily condition their search on this information. Preferences were collected for all employers but only treated employers had their signal revealed to job-seekers. In response to revelation of the cheap talk signal, job-seekers targeted their applications to employers of the right "type, " and they tailored their wage bids, affecting who was matched to whom and at what wage. The treatment increased measures of match quality through better sorting, illustrating the power of cheap talk for talent matching. |
| Keywords: | sorting, cheap-talk, gig-economy, freelancer, field-experiment, online job search platform |
| JEL: | J64 D83 C87 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17052&r= |
| By: | Fitzenberger, Bernd (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Seidlitz, Arnim (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | "Using a semiparametric event study approach with a control group, we estimate the effect of motherhood on labor market outcomes in Germany, the child penalty. We further investigate how the 2007 parental benefits reform changed the child penalty while accounting for fertility effects. A large novel data set linking data from two administrative sources provides information on all births. Our estimation approach accounts for motherhood being a staggered treatment. The reform has small positive medium-run effects employment outcomes. It changes the selection into fertility and has certain heterogeneous effects. However, the reform did little to reduce the average child penalty." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | IAB-Open-Access-Publikation |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J08 |
| Date: | 2024–06–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202408&r= |
| By: | Fluchtmann, Jonas (OECD); Glenny, Anita Marie (Aarhus University); Harmon, Nikolaj (University of Copenhagen); Maibom, Jonas (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | Using data on applied-for jobs for the universe of Danish UI recipients, we examine variation in job search behavior both across individuals and over time during unemployment spells. We find large differences in the level of applied-for wages across individuals but over time all individuals adjust wages downward in the same way. The decline in applied-for wages over time is descriptively small but economically important in standard models of job search. We find similar results when examining variation in the non-wage characteristics of applied-for jobs and in the search methods used to find them. We discuss implications for theory. |
| Keywords: | job search dynamics |
| JEL: | J64 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17048&r= |
| By: | Anna Kurowska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Political Studies and International Relations); Agnieszka Kasperska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This study explores how various work and family-related contexts moderated the link between work-from-home (WFH) and self-perceived changes to the career prospects among employees with children after over a year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the link between WFH and the perception of changes to one’s career prospects is likely to differ depending on gender, occupation, whether the employee has worked from home before the pandemic, how much time their children spent at home due to pandemic restrictions and the cohabiting status of the parent. We conducted fixed effects multinomial regression models using a unique multi-country dataset, including representative samples of parents with dependent children from Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the US. Employees with children who had prior experience with WFH before the pandemic were more likely to report improved career prospects than those who worked solely in the office. The positive effect of WFH for newcomers to the world of remote work was less unequivocal and varied based on occupation and gender. We also find that the presence of children at home and the cohabitation status substantially moderate the link between WFH and perceived changes to one’s career prospects, with different implications based on the employee's gender. We fill the research gap by showing how fluid workers' perceptions of career prospects depend on varying professional (prior experience with WFH and occupation) and personal (increased family demands) situations. This study also indicates the need for context-sensitive career management in organisations. |
| Keywords: | career prospects, family, gender, work from home, remote work |
| JEL: | J12 J13 J16 J21 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2024-08&r= |
| By: | Ortega, Francesc (Queens College, CUNY); Connor, Phillip (Queens College, CUNY) |
| Abstract: | We present a novel imputation for legal immigrant status in 2023, which identifies likely DACA recipients, and provide estimates of the short-term and long-term income losses stemming from the potential elimination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Our estimates account for the youth of DACA recipients, which implies that their current earnings underestimate their potential lifetime contribution to the U.S. economy due to incomplete educational attainment and the early stage of their professional careers. We estimate that losing work authorization would lower the income of the average DACA recipient by about $5, 300 annually, adding up to $2.9 billion for the approximately 530, 000 current recipients. Cumulatively over their remaining working lives, the income loss grows to approximately $70, 000 per recipient and $38 billion in the aggregate. If the elimination of the program leads to deportation and a complete exit from the U.S. labor market, per-person income losses increase six-fold to $32, 000 annually, $430, 000 over the lifetime, and $233 billion in aggregate. The losses become substantially larger if the program's rescission also affects the earnings of spouses and other Dreamers (undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children). |
| Keywords: | migration, undocumented, DACA, legalization |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J08 J18 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17066&r= |
| By: | Aleksandr Arsenev (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Meryem Gökten (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Philipp Heimberger (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Andreas Lichtenberger (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Bernhard Schütz (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses (age-adjusted) employment rates by gender and education. We find that male female gender gaps and high-low education gaps in employment vary markedly across European Union (EU) countries and regions, with larger gaps existing in Eastern and Southern Europe than in Nordic and Continental EU countries. We estimate that closing existing education gaps in employment between high and lower education levels would raise the employment rate in the EU for the year 2022 by 10.6 percentage points, whereas closing the gender gaps between men and women would lead to an increase of 2.5 percentage points. At the same time, closing both the gender and education gaps would raise the EU employment rate from 76% to 89% of the population. Furthermore, we provide new evidence on the cyclical behaviour of employment gaps, finding that gender gaps are procyclical. While female employment rates tend to be more resilient than male employment rates during economic downturns, male employment rates tend to grow at a faster pace than female employment rates during upswings. In contrast, education gaps are more countercyclical, as employment risks are more strongly concentrated where education is low. |
| Keywords: | Full employment, unemployment, employment gaps, gender, education, EU, business cycle |
| JEL: | E24 E32 E6 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:wpaper:251&r= |
| By: | Jennifer Hunt; Carolyn Moehling |
| Abstract: | We create a dataset of 14, 000 hand-coded help-wanted advertisements placed by employment agencies in three U.S. newspapers in 1950 and 1960, a time when helpâ€"wanted advertisements were divided into male and female sections and collect information on agency ownership. We find that female-owned agencies specialized in vacancies for women, thereby expanding the access of female jobseekers to agency services, including for positions in majority-male occupations. Female-owned agencies advertised more skilled occupations to women than did male-owned agencies, leading to a 5.5% higher wage for women. On the other hand, femaleâ€"owned agencies had a greater propensity to match male jobseekers to clerical jobs, contributing to 21% lower male wages than for male-owned agencies. The results are consistent with female proprietors having had a comparative advantage in female jobseekers and clerical occupations or with client firms having trusted female proprietors only with vacancies for women and homogeneous, lower-skill occupations. However, in choosing to establish an agency and to specialize in female jobseekers, female proprietors may have sought to mitigate employer discrimination against female jobseekers; their higher propensity to advertise majority-male occupations among professional, technical and managerial advertisements for women may also reflect discrimination mitigation. |
| Keywords: | employment, discrimination, employment agencies |
| Date: | 2024–06–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2004&r= |
| By: | Ylenia Brilli; Simone Moriconi |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes how culture affects the engagement of parents in child-rearing activities, and time allocations of parents inside the family. We use data from the World Value Survey to construct a country-specific measure of the value attached to obedience as a child quality, which we associate with the actual parenting behavior and time investments of first-and second-generation migrant parents in Australia. We show that migrant parents from countries in which obedience is more valued as an important child quality, are more likely to be warm and to enact discipline in their parent-child interactions. We also show that a higher value of obedience in the country of origin is associated with a shift of parental time from general care to playing activities, and from the weekdays to the weekends. These results are robust to a large set of sensitivity analyses, which account for omitted variable bias and selection. Finally, we provide evidence that this cultural value may feature a more egalitarian allocation of parenting vs. labor supply tasks at the household level, by increasing fathers’ parental time and mothers’ labor supply at the intensive margin. We interpret this as indirect evidence that fathers may have a greater marginal utility from parenting time than mothers, on average. |
| Keywords: | culture, parental investments, parenting, labor supply |
| JEL: | D10 J13 J15 J22 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11127&r= |
| By: | L. Rachel Ngai; Claudia Olivetti; Barbara Petrongolo |
| Abstract: | Women's contribution to the economy has been markedly underestimated in predominantly agricultural societies, due to their widespread involvement in unpaid agricultural work. Combining data from the US Census and several early sources, we create a consistent measure of male and female employment and hours for the US for 1870-2019, including paid work and unpaid work in family farms and non-farm businesses. The resulting measure of hours traces a U-shape for women, with a modest decline up to mid-20th century followed by a sustained increase, and a monotonic decline for men. We propose a multisector economy with uneven productivity growth, income effects, and consumption complementarity across sectoral outputs. During early development stages, declining agriculture leads to rising services - both in the market and the home - and leisure, reducing market work for both genders. In later stages, structural transformation reallocates labor from manufacturing into services, while marketization reallocates labor from home to market services. Given gender comparative advantages, the first channel is more relevant for men, reducing male hours, while the second channel is more relevant for women, increasing female hours. Our quantitative illustration suggests that structural transformation and marketization can account for the overall decline in market hours from 1880-1950, and one quarter of the rise and decline, respectively, in female and male market hours from 1950-2019. |
| Keywords: | hours, work, gender, structural transformation |
| Date: | 2024–06–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2001&r= |
| By: | Heuermann, Daniel F. (University of Europe for Applied Sciences); Vom Berge, Philipp (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | We examine the residential segregation of workers and the unemployed in the 80 largest cities in Germany. Drawing on a large set of geo-referenced data for the period from 2000 until 2015, we are able to study the within-city distribution of unemployment in unprecedented detail. We document a strong and persistent rise in segregation between workers and the unemployed along three dimensions: spatial unevenness, centrality, and localization. First, we show that cities have become spatially less even with respect to the distribution of unemployment. Regarding centrality, we demonstrate that local unemployment rates tend to be highest in downtown areas and decrease quickly with distance from the urban core. This relationship has strengthened over time. We investigate whether a strong reurbanization trend in German cities after 2007 might explain rising unevenness and concentration of unemployment in the center, but find little affirmative evidence. Instead, the strong overall rise of segregation was characterized by a third phenomenon: a trend towards 'localization', i.e., a tendency of workers and the unemployed to sort into increasingly small-scale but internally more homogeneous residential areas. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, urban labor markets, residential segregation, spatial structure |
| JEL: | J61 R11 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17058&r= |
| By: | Carneiro, Pedro (Dept. of Economics, University College London); Salvanes, Kjell Gunnar (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Tominey, Emma (Dept. of Economics and Related Studies, University of York) |
| Abstract: | Faced with income shocks, households may be unable to smooth their consumption, because of limited insurance possibilities. Likewise, it may also be difficult to smooth investments in children. This could have large consequences for their human capital if there are sensitive periods of learning, or if investments are not perfect substitutes over time. In this paper we estimate the impact of transitory and permanent shocks to household income in different periods of childhood on the human capital of their children, using administrative records from Norway. Across outcomes, the impacts of transitory and permanent shocks are largely similar regardless of the age at which they occur, with a few exceptions (small in magnitude). The impact of transitory shocks is larger for college enrolment and obesity if these shocks occur at earlier ages. The impacts of permanent shocks on high school graduation are larger the later in childhood they occur. |
| Keywords: | Child human capital; insurance; income dynamics |
| JEL: | D12 J13 |
| Date: | 2024–06–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2024_010&r= |
| By: | Elena Ashtari Tafti; Mimosa Distefano; Tetyana Surovtseva |
| Abstract: | We use Italian Social Security data to study how the gender composition of a worker's professional network influences their career development. By exploiting variation within firms, occupations, and labor market entry cohorts, we find that young women starting their careers alongside a higher share of female peers experience lower wage growth, fewer promotions and increased transitions into non-employment. In contrast, male workers appear unaffected. The analysis reveals that these gender-specific effects are largely driven by structural differences in the networks of men and women. Networks predominantly composed of women appear to be less effective in the labor market. Women, who experience higher attrition and lower promotion rates, have fewer connections to employment opportunities, and their connections tend to be less valuable. When accounting for these differences, we find that connections among female peers offer a crucial safety net during adverse employment shocks. Our findings highlight the critical role of early-career peers and provide a new perspective on the barriers to career advancement for women |
| Keywords: | gender peer effects, networks, labor market entrants, career progression |
| Date: | 2024–06–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2008&r= |
| By: | Francesco Del Prato; Paolo Zacchia |
| Abstract: | We document how a reduction in labor costs led to heterogeneous effects on the total factor productivity (TFP) of manufacturing firms. Leveraging an Italian labor legislation reform and unique institutional features of the local collective bargaining system, we show that such effects vary along the TFP distribution. Relative to the counterfactual, TFP markedly declines on the left tail, which we explain via selection mechanisms; on the right, TFP mildly increases as firms are able to expand and reallocate their workforce. To guide the evaluation of welfare implications, we develop a general equilibrium model featuring firm selection and frictions in input markets. |
| Keywords: | labor costs, productivity, collective bargaining, quantile effects |
| JEL: | D22 D24 J08 O14 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp783&r= |
| By: | Magda, Iga (Warsaw School of Economics); Bieliński, Jacek (National Information Processing Institute); Feldy, Marzena (National Information Processing Institute); Knapińska, Anna (National Information Processing Institute) |
| Abstract: | The number of countries that have devoted time and attention to establishing gender equality regulations in academia is increasing. However, various studies indicate that women remain underrepresented among tenured faculty and in senior positions, and that female academic staff earn less than male ones. The reasons for these gaps, in particular those specific to academia, remain unclear. This article analyzes Polish female and male PhD graduates to measure the pay gap between them and its progression over time. The article studies the sources of the pay gap, with a special focus on parenthood. It draws on a dataset that covers the entire population of PhD holders who were awarded their degrees and were hired at any Polish university between 2014 and 2018. The study's results reveal that despite equal pay regulations, a relatively narrow (3–5%) but stable adjusted gender pay gap already exists among early-career academics who do not have children, and that the gap widens considerably when income from outside academia (6–11%) is considered. Basic incomes of mothers in academia are 18–20% lower than those of nonmothers. A substantial fatherhood wage premium (33–37%) arises when all sources of income are considered. Academia is not necessarily an equal workplace. |
| Keywords: | gender pay gap, women in academia, earnings, careers |
| JEL: | J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17063&r= |
| By: | Kaz Miyagiwa (Department of Economics, Florida International University); Yunyun Wan (Department of Humanities and Regional Studies, Akita University, Akita, Japan) |
| Abstract: | A search-theoretic model of illegal immigration is presented to examine the effect of deportation and other policy measures on unemployment, crimes and immigration flows. It is found that deporting immigrants who commit crimes lowers the unemployment rate and causes an increase in native labor force. However, if hiring immigrants is more profitable than hiring natives, deportation increases the immigrant population and the number of crimes they commit. Anti-crime policy and higher minimum wages generate similar effects. |
| Keywords: | illegal immigration, deportation, unemployment, crimes, minimum wages |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fiu:wpaper:2408&r= |
| By: | Hyunmin Park; Mrs. Swarnali A Hannan |
| Abstract: | St. Lucia has enviably high female labor force participation rate and strikingly low participation gap vis-à-vis male. The latter is lower than OECD average and way below world average. Women are also more educated than men. Yet, using a micro dataset of St. Lucia Labor Force Survey over the period 2016-2021, our analysis points towards disproportionate effects of childcare on female participation and unemployment and a substantial gender gap in labor income for workers without higher education. Moreover, the income gap is not explained by observable worker characteristics. While the paper does not explore causal links, this unique feature of high female participation and, yet, considerable gender gaps in other dimensions could be due to the social, historical, and political structure that resulted in a matrifocal but not a matriarchal system. At the same time, the small gender gaps for workers with higher education across participation, unemployment, and labor income seem to suggest that women can overcome some barriers through education. Our results bring to the fore two crucial aspects related to gender studies: (i) While macroeconomic indicators like female labor participation rate are important tools, they are not always sufficient to capture progress in gender equality; and (ii) econometric analysis needs to be complemented with a more holistic understanding of the history and social context shaping deeply rooted gender traits. |
| Keywords: | Gender Gap; Labor Supply; Labor Force Participation; Unemployment; Wage; Female; Education |
| Date: | 2024–06–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2024/117&r= |
| By: | Matías Ciaschi (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP & CONICET); Johanna Fajardo-Gonzalez (The World Bank); Mariana Viollaz (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP & IZA) |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the adjustment in time allocation to school support activities by mothers and fathers during the pandemic across 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries, exploring the repercussions on labor market outcomes and children’s learning losses. Our analysis reveals that mothers experienced a disproportionate increase in time dedicated to children’s educational support compared to fathers, particularly when mothers could work from home. The results suggest that these effects were more pronounced in countries with stringent school closure measures and limited access to in-person instruction. Even as mobility restrictions eased and schools reopened, the additional responsibilities taken on by mothers remained above pre-pandemic levels. Mothers also significantly increased the time spent on non-educational childcare, though to a lesser extent than educational support. We also show evidence indicating a decline in maternal labor force participation and a rise in flexible labor arrangements as mothers allocated more hours to child-related duties. Our study also provides descriptive evidence that children’s learning losses were less severe in countries where the gender disparity in pandemicrelated school support was greater. |
| JEL: | I1 J13 J21 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0332&r= |
| By: | Roberto Bonilla; Francis Kiraly; Miguel Ángel Malo; Fernando Pinto Hernández |
| Abstract: | We present an equilibrium model of inter-linked frictional labour and marriage markets. In the marital market, men and women are involved in random sequential search for a partner. Men are seen as breadwinners in the family, and therefore in the labour market unemployed men carry out a constrained sequential search for jobs. We establish that when divorce (initiated by women) is an option, in an equilibrium with male marriage premium married men have a higher reservation wage than single men. This result holds with both exogenous and endogenous wage distributions, where the latter scenario implies firms discriminate by marital status. Ironically, at birth men are better off because divorce is possible: the wage posting mechanism allows them to extract the utility loss from a potential future divorce in the form of higher reservation wages, and thus better wage offer distributions. We successfully test our results using German data. |
| Keywords: | frictional labour markets, frictional marriage markets, reservation wages |
| JEL: | D83 J12 J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11123&r= |
| By: | Maryna Tverdostup (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw) |
| Abstract: | Over the past few decades, immigration has become the primary factor contributing to population growth in the European Union (EU) due to rapid population ageing and declining fertility rates. However, the traditional migration source countries – namely, the EU countries in Central and East Europe (EU-CEE) and the EU neighbourhood countries – have limited potential to supply much-needed labour to Western Europe due to own their grim population prospects. Immigration from non-EU, non-European Free Trade Association (EFTA) or non-EU candidate countries as of 2015 (i.e. Georgia, Moldova, Turkey and Ukraine) appears to be the only factor that can prevent population decline in the long run, as third-country nationals are, on average, younger than natives or immigrants from the EU neighbourhood. However, current evidence suggests that higher immigration has only a limited capacity to stabilise population decline and offset labour shortages in the EU countries most affected by negative demographic trends, as they receive fewer immigrants relative to other EU countries. Moreover, the labour market integration of immigrants from non-traditional source countries, including Middle Eastern and African countries, has proved challenging for both legal and infrastructural reasons. This has resulted in an immense pool of untapped talent and skills, which will require the appropriate policy steps to be fully identified and effectively employed in the labour market. These policies, like the ones proposed in this report, will become increasingly important as the EU moves steadily towards new immigration source regions. |
| Keywords: | demographic trends, labour shortages, migration, refugees, integration policies |
| JEL: | J11 J15 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:pnotes:pn:78&r= |
| By: | Korpela, Heikki |
| Abstract: | I examine the long-established scheme of furloughs in Finland, using detailed data on unemployment spells from 1999 to 2021. Furloughs allow employers in financial difficulty to suspend wages and work while retaining the job contract. They con-stituted the majority of new UI spells during the economic crises in 2009 and 2020. Most furloughs end quickly with a return to regular work, and they are only weakly associated with later permanent dismissals or firm survival. Despite widespread use in crisis years, more than half of the cumulative furlough benefits over the two decades were collected by only a few percent of the population. This group was furloughed five times or more over the observed period, often by the same employer. The patterns suggest that furloughs have a dual role: as a short-term safety net in recessions for most employers and as a regular business practice in normal times in a few industries. |
| Keywords: | temporary unemployment, furloughs, recall, Labour markets and education, J23, J33, J63, J68, fi=Sosiaaliturva|sv=Social trygghet|en=Social security|, fi=Työmarkkinat|sv=Arbetsmarknad|en=Labour markets|, |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:167&r= |
| By: | Muñoz, Ercio A. (Inter-American Development Bank); Saavedra, Melanie (Universidad de Chile); Sansone, Dario (University of Exeter) |
| Abstract: | This paper reports socio-economic and health outcomes for intersex people in Mexico using data collected between 2021 and 2022. This is the first study relying on a large nationally representative survey including information on sex variations to document substantial negative outcomes for intersex individuals. Around 1.6% of individuals aged 15-64 are intersex. There are significant disparities in mental, physical, and sexual health when comparing intersex individuals to the general population, including higher rates of bullying, stigmatization, harassment, and violence throughout the life cycle, as well as higher rates of suicidal intention. Additionally, intersex individuals have lower education levels and face substantial barriers in the workplace and healthcare environments. |
| Keywords: | intersex, stigma, suicide, Mexico, LGBTQ+ |
| JEL: | I14 J15 J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17067&r= |
| By: | Lucie Coufalová (Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Department of Economics, Brno, Czech Republic); Fanny H. Dellinger (WIFO, Vienna, Austria); Peter Huber (WIFO, Vienna, Austria); Štěpán Mikula (Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Department of Economics, Brno, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impacts of three major unexpected border regime changes that occurred during the course of 20th century on population growth along the Austrian-Czech border. Using historical municipal-level census data reaching back to 1880, we find no effects of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1919) but strong and oppositely signed effects of the drawing (1948) and the fall (1989) of the Iron Curtain in both countries. Our findings indicate that border regimes affect population growth via economic as well as non-economic mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | Population growth, border regions, economic geography |
| JEL: | N94 R12 R23 J11 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mub:wpaper:2024-03&r= |
| By: | Chan, Kenddrick; West, Devorah; Teo, Marie; Brown, Harriet; Westgarth, Tom; Smith, Thomas |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2024–05–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123705&r= |
| By: | Franziska Heinicke; Wladislaw Mill; Henrik Orzen |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses bargaining with a nuclear option. Players with access to such an option have the power to cause enormous damage to their negotiation partners. Figurative nuclear options are available in many important real-world settings and, being the ultimate threat, are often seen as effective in putting maximal pressure on the other party and as possibly efficiency- improving. On the other hand, since going nuclear is typically also very costly to the nuclear-option holder herself, the credibility of a nuclear threat may be questionable. We report the results from unstructured one-shot bargaining experiments and examine to what extent a nuclear option increases bargaining power, makes agreements more likely, and affects efficiency. We find that nuclear-option holders do not generally benefit while the other party is worse off compared to a baseline setting, particularly when the other party is intrinsically—i.e., save for the nuclear threat itself—in a strong position. Furthermore, the nuclear option increases the number of negotiations that end in agreements that are not efficiency-improving. Thus, the presence of a nuclear option in our bargaining setting is overall detrimental. |
| Keywords: | Nuclear option; Power asymmetry; Bargaining; Experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D91 D01 C78 J52 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2024_559&r= |