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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2024‒07‒22
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Lepinteur, Anthony (University of Luxembourg); Clark, Andrew E. (Paris School of Economics); D'Ambrosio, Conchita (University of Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | We here evaluate the link between job insecurity and one of the most-important decisions that individuals take: homeownership. The 1999 rise in the French Delalande tax on firms that laid off older workers produced an unexpected exogenous rise in job insecurity for younger workers. A difference-in-differences analysis of panel data from the European Community Household Panel shows that this greater job insecurity significantly reduced the probability of becoming a homeowner. This drop seems more attributable to individual preferences rather than greater capital constraints, consistent with individuals reducing their exposure to long-term financial commitments in more-uncertain environments. |
| Keywords: | homeownership, job insecurity, employment protection, difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | I38 J18 R21 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17038&r= |
| By: | Clark, Andrew E. (Paris School of Economics); Lepinteur, Anthony (University of Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | It is well-known that unemployment leaves scars after re-employment, but does this scarring effect persist even after retirement? We analyse European data on retirees from the SHARE panel, and show that the well-being of the retired continues to reflect the unemployment that they experienced over their working life. These scarring effects are somewhat smaller for older retirees, but larger for those who arguably had higher expectations regarding the labour market when they were active. Despite the substantial variation in culture and labour-market institutions over the 29 countries in our sample, there are no significant country differences. This long-run scarring for those who have left the labour market underlines that contemporaneous correlations significantly under-estimate the well-being cost of unemployment. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, retirement, scarring, CASP, SHARE |
| JEL: | J21 J63 I31 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17068&r= |
| By: | Alfonsi, Livia; Bauer, Michal; Chytilová, Julie; Miguel, Edward |
| Abstract: | We study how human capital and economic conditions causally affect the choice of religious denomination. We utilize a longitudinal dataset monitoring the religious history of more than 5, 000 Kenyans over twenty years, in tandem with a randomized experiment (deworming) that has exogenously boosted education and living standards. The main finding is that the program reduces the likelihood of membership in a Pentecostal denomination up to 20 years later when respondents are in their mid-thirties, while there is a comparable increase in membership in traditional Christian denominations. The effect is concentrated and statistically significant among a sub-group of participants who benefited most from the program in terms of increased education and income. The effects are unlikely due to increased secularization, because the program does not reduce measures of religiosity. The results help explain why the global growth of the Pentecostal movement, sometimes described a "New Reformation", is centered in low-income communities. |
| Keywords: | Economics, Applied Economics, Behavioral and Social Science, Basic Behavioral and Social Science, Quality Education, C93, O12, Z12, Development Studies, Applied economics, Development studies |
| Date: | 2024–03–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt02z5h7d0&r= |
| By: | Stillman, Sarah; Rozo, Sandra V; Tamim, Abdulrazzak; Palmer, I Bailey; Smith, Emma; Miguel, Edward |
| Abstract: | This paper presents descriptive statistics from the first wave of the Syrian Refugee Life Study (S-RLS), which began in 2020. S-RLS is a longitudinal study that tracks a representative sample of approximately 2, 500 registered Syrian refugee households in Jordan. It collects comprehensive data on sociodemographic variables, health and well-being, preferences, social capital, attitudes, and safety and crime perceptions. We use these data to document sociodemographic characteristics of Syrian refugees in Jordan and compare them to representative populations in the 2016 Jordan Labor Market Panel Survey (JLMPS). Our findings point to lags in basic service access, housing quality, and educational attainment for Syrian refugees relative to non-refugees. The impacts of the pandemic may partially explain these disparities. The data also show that most Syrian refugees have not recovered economically after Covid-19 and have larger gender disparities in income, employment, prevalence of child marriage, and gender attitudes than their non-refugee counterparts. Finally, mental health problems were common for Syrian refugees in 2020, with depression indicated among more than 45 per cent of the phone survey sample and 61 per cent of the in-person survey sample. |
| Keywords: | Economics, Banking, Finance and Investment, Applied Economics, Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services, Behavioral and Social Science, Mental Health, Basic Behavioral and Social Science, Coronaviruses, Social Determinants of Health, Good Health and Well Being, refugees, Syria, Jordan, sociodemographics, Econometrics, Banking, finance and investment, Applied economics |
| Date: | 2022–09–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt6hr6f3wx&r= |
| By: | Jaime Arellano-Bover; Nicola Bianchi; Salvatore Lattanzio; Matteo Paradisi |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the interaction between the decrease in the gender pay gap and the stagnation in the careers of younger workers, analyzing data from the United States, Italy, Canada, and the United Kingdom. We propose a model of the labor market in which a larger supply of older workers can crowd out younger workers from top-paying positions. These negative career spillovers disproportionately affect the career trajectories of younger men because they are more likely than younger women to hold higher-paying jobs at baseline. The data strongly support this cohort-driven interpretation of the shrinking gender pay gap. The whole decline in the gap originates from (i) newer worker cohorts who enter the labor market with smaller-than-average gender pay gaps and (ii) older worker cohorts who exit with higher-than-average gender pay gaps. As predicted by the model, the gender pay convergence at labor-market entry stems from younger men's larger positional losses in the wage distribution. Younger men experience the largest positional losses within higher-paying firms, in which they become less represented over time at a faster rate than younger women. Finally, we document that labor-market exit is the sole contributor to the decline in the gender pay gap after the mid-1990s, which implies no full gender pay convergence for the foreseeable future. Consistent with our framework, we find evidence that most of the remaining gender pay gap at entry depends on predetermined educational choices. |
| JEL: | J11 J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32612&r= |