We analyse a model in which families may either be ‘traditional’ single-earner that care for the child at home or be ‘ modern’ double-earner households that use market child care. Family policies may favour one or the other group, like market care subsidies vs. cash-for-care. Policies are determined by probabilistic voting, where distributional impacts matter, both within and across groups. A higher share of modern households—which can be induced by changes in social norms or by changes in gender wage inequality—may have non-monotone effects, with lower net subsidies to traditional households when their share is very low or very high, and higher subsidies in some intermediate stage. This may explain the implementation of cash-for-care policies and their subsequent tightening in late stages of development, when most voters come from modern households, observed in Norway and Sweden.
{"title":"Political Economy of Redistribution between Traditional and Modern Families","authors":"V. Meier, Matthew D. Rablen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3422240","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3422240","url":null,"abstract":"We analyse a model in which families may either be ‘traditional’ single-earner that care for the child at home or be ‘ modern’ double-earner households that use market child care. Family policies may favour one or the other group, like market care subsidies vs. cash-for-care. Policies are determined by probabilistic voting, where distributional impacts matter, both within and across groups. A higher share of modern households—which can be induced by changes in social norms or by changes in gender wage inequality—may have non-monotone effects, with lower net subsidies to traditional households when their share is very low or very high, and higher subsidies in some intermediate stage. This may explain the implementation of cash-for-care policies and their subsequent tightening in late stages of development, when most voters come from modern households, observed in Norway and Sweden.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132893261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I study the long-term effects of landing a first job at a large firm versus a small one using Spanish social security data. Size could be a relevant employer attribute for inexperienced workers since large firms are associated with greater training, higher wages, and enhanced productivity. The key empirical challenge is selection into first jobs – for instance, more able people may land jobs at large firms. I address this challenge developing an instrumental-variables approach that, while keeping business-cycle conditions fixed, leverages variation in the composition of labor demand that labor-market entrants face. I find that initially matching with a larger firm substantially improves long-term outcomes such as lifetime income, and that these benefits persist through subsequent jobs. Additional results point to mechanisms related to search frictions and better skill-development at large firms. Together, these findings shed light on how heterogeneous firms persistently impact young workers' trajectories.
{"title":"Career Consequences of Firm Heterogeneity for Young Workers: First Job and Firm Size","authors":"Jaime Arellano-Bover","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3542638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3542638","url":null,"abstract":"I study the long-term effects of landing a first job at a large firm versus a small one using Spanish social security data. Size could be a relevant employer attribute for inexperienced workers since large firms are associated with greater training, higher wages, and enhanced productivity. The key empirical challenge is selection into first jobs – for instance, more able people may land jobs at large firms. I address this challenge developing an instrumental-variables approach that, while keeping business-cycle conditions fixed, leverages variation in the composition of labor demand that labor-market entrants face. I find that initially matching with a larger firm substantially improves long-term outcomes such as lifetime income, and that these benefits persist through subsequent jobs. Additional results point to mechanisms related to search frictions and better skill-development at large firms. Together, these findings shed light on how heterogeneous firms persistently impact young workers' trajectories.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"115 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114010282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Using data on articles published in the top-five economic journals in the period 1991 to 2010, we explore whether the gender composition of editorial boards is related to the publishing success of female authors and to the quality of articles that get published. Our results show that female editors reduce, rather than increase, the share of articles that are (co-)authored by females. We also find evidence that female editors benefit article quality at low levels of representation on editorial boards, but harm article quality at higher levels. Several robustness checks corroborate these findings. Our results are broadly consistent with existing evidence on the behavior of gender-mixed hiring committees and of relevance for gender equality policy.
{"title":"Male Gatekeepers Gender Bias in the Publishing Process?","authors":"Felix Bransch, M. Kvasnička","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3056627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3056627","url":null,"abstract":"Using data on articles published in the top-five economic journals in the period 1991 to 2010, we explore whether the gender composition of editorial boards is related to the publishing success of female authors and to the quality of articles that get published. Our results show that female editors reduce, rather than increase, the share of articles that are (co-)authored by females. We also find evidence that female editors benefit article quality at low levels of representation on editorial boards, but harm article quality at higher levels. Several robustness checks corroborate these findings. Our results are broadly consistent with existing evidence on the behavior of gender-mixed hiring committees and of relevance for gender equality policy.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"199 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121749912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Using data on the number of visitors at the store level, this paper investigates the welfare costs of traditional shopping-trips for the U.S. census blocks. The investigation is based on an economic model, where individuals living in census blocks decide on which store to shop from based on the corresponding shopping-trip costs and idiosyncratic benefits. The implications of the model suggest that the welfare gains from removing shopping-trip costs in percentage terms can be measured for each census block as the weighted average of log distance measures between shopping stores and census blocks. The corresponding results show that the welfare gains from removing shopping-trip costs is about 4% for the average census block, with a range between 0.021% and 18% across census blocks that is further connected to their demographic or socioeconomic characteristics. Certain practical policy implications follow regarding how shopping-trip costs can be reduced to achieve higher welfare gains.
{"title":"Welfare Costs of Shopping Trips","authors":"H. Yilmazkuday","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3801142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3801142","url":null,"abstract":"Using data on the number of visitors at the store level, this paper investigates the welfare costs of traditional shopping-trips for the U.S. census blocks. The investigation is based on an economic model, where individuals living in census blocks decide on which store to shop from based on the corresponding shopping-trip costs and idiosyncratic benefits. The implications of the model suggest that the welfare gains from removing shopping-trip costs in percentage terms can be measured for each census block as the weighted average of log distance measures between shopping stores and census blocks. The corresponding results show that the welfare gains from removing shopping-trip costs is about 4% for the average census block, with a range between 0.021% and 18% across census blocks that is further connected to their demographic or socioeconomic characteristics. Certain practical policy implications follow regarding how shopping-trip costs can be reduced to achieve higher welfare gains.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121435079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper investigates how inequality affects what the poor consider necessary to purchase. Using detailed information on the consumption choices of a large sample of poor households in India, we first provide evidence that inequality exposure tends to make luxuries more necessary (their income elasticity decreases). We rely on national inequality shocks that followed the 1991 economic liberalization reforms, and instrument local inequality using a shift-share strategy. We then estimate a structural model of demand where inequality exposure affects perceived needs, taking into account the supply environment. We find that (1) inequality increases the perceived need of the poor for luxuries and (2) this preference shift generates significant expenditure reallocation at the expense of calorie intakes. Counterfactual simulations show that this preference channel accounts for three fourth of the decline in calorie consumption of the poor over the period.
{"title":"Does Inequality Affect the Perception of Needs?","authors":"Eve Colson-Sihra, Clement S. Bellet","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3270814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3270814","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates how inequality affects what the poor consider necessary to purchase. Using detailed information on the consumption choices of a large sample of poor households in India, we first provide evidence that inequality exposure tends to make luxuries more necessary (their income elasticity decreases). We rely on national inequality shocks that followed the 1991 economic liberalization reforms, and instrument local inequality using a shift-share strategy. We then estimate a structural model of demand where inequality exposure affects perceived needs, taking into account the supply environment. We find that (1) inequality increases the perceived need of the poor for luxuries and (2) this preference shift generates significant expenditure reallocation at the expense of calorie intakes. Counterfactual simulations show that this preference channel accounts for three fourth of the decline in calorie consumption of the poor over the period.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129436613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
After accumulating USD 1.5 trillion, the US education sector educated 25 million Americans, or just over 15% of the workforce, that were ineligible for 1 million jobs for which it had to import labor. The Indian education sector spending 4-8 cents for every dollar the US sector spends per pupil, supplied 71% of the shortage, just over 66% of which were in computer related jobs alone, with double the median income and projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the 3-5% average for all occupations. Although the US education system is developing an overall better product, given the requirements of the US labor market, Indian workers are meeting that requirement at a lower cost. This demonstrates the lack of coordination between the education and labor sectors and the need for vertical integration between the two sectors to explore and expand horizons creating a highly skilled, agile labor pool. We explore the causes of the education-labor disconnect and open the discussion for policy recommendations.
{"title":"The Need for a Human Capital (Education-Labor) Sector","authors":"Toinu Reeves","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3927722","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3927722","url":null,"abstract":"After accumulating USD 1.5 trillion, the US education sector educated 25 million Americans, or just over 15% of the workforce, that were ineligible for 1 million jobs for which it had to import labor. The Indian education sector spending 4-8 cents for every dollar the US sector spends per pupil, supplied 71% of the shortage, just over 66% of which were in computer related jobs alone, with double the median income and projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the 3-5% average for all occupations. Although the US education system is developing an overall better product, given the requirements of the US labor market, Indian workers are meeting that requirement at a lower cost. This demonstrates the lack of coordination between the education and labor sectors and the need for vertical integration between the two sectors to explore and expand horizons creating a highly skilled, agile labor pool. We explore the causes of the education-labor disconnect and open the discussion for policy recommendations.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"98 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127545128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We investigate how religious beliefs affected the take up of the birth control pill and impacted women’s outcomes using the 1970 liberalization of oral contraceptives in the Netherlands. We first document a massive and immediate drop in fertility among minor women, aged 21 or younger, for whom access restrictions were most drastically lifted. We then evaluate how area level social norms – as proxied by votes for religiously opposed political parties –influenced pill adoption by examining its impact on female fertility control and human capital formation. We find that younger women who grew up in more liberal areas were much less likely to experience a birth or marriage as a minor, invested more in education, and ended up in wealthier households. Finally, we study the potential additional impact of supply side frictions stemming from the moral views of the gatekeepers to the new birth control technology. We show that a larger proportion of religiously opposed health professionals – GPs and pharmacists – around a woman at the time of liberalization cancels out the short- and long-run benefits from pill access.
{"title":"Moral Barriers to Birth Control Access: How the Pill Changed Dutch Women’s Lives – When Religion Did Not Get in the Way","authors":"O. Marie, E. Zwiers","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3924928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3924928","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate how religious beliefs affected the take up of the birth control pill and impacted women’s outcomes using the 1970 liberalization of oral contraceptives in the Netherlands. We first document a massive and immediate drop in fertility among minor women, aged 21 or younger, for whom access restrictions were most drastically lifted. We then evaluate how area level social norms – as proxied by votes for religiously opposed political parties –influenced pill adoption by examining its impact on female fertility control and human capital formation. We find that younger women who grew up in more liberal areas were much less likely to experience a birth or marriage as a minor, invested more in education, and ended up in wealthier households. Finally, we study the potential additional impact of supply side frictions stemming from the moral views of the gatekeepers to the new birth control technology. We show that a larger proportion of religiously opposed health professionals – GPs and pharmacists – around a woman at the time of liberalization cancels out the short- and long-run benefits from pill access.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126483776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The occupational structure is defined as the percentage of its workforce employed in various economic ventures. To put it in other words, articulating the number of the total working population employed in agriculture and associated activities and the number of them involved in the manufacturing and service sectors can be identified from the occupational structure of the nation. The present research paper proceeds with the objective of analyzing the growth of female labour force participation in Himachal Pradesh during 1991, 2001 and 2011. The maximum growth has been witnessed by other workers followed by female main workers, female household industry workers and female agricultural labourers. There was no noticeable growth in female cultivators and it is negative. The growth rate of female other workers is more than 50 per cent, and in comparison to female other workers the growth rate of female agricultural labourers, female household industry and female cultivators is very low. The present research also reviews the female labour force participation rate performance across rural-urban areas. The share of female labour force participation in rural areas is much higher than those in urban areas. But the relieving point is that there is a significant increase in women work participation rate over a period of time in rural and urban segments of Himachal Pradesh
{"title":"Growth of Female Labour Force Participation by Occupation in the Economy of Himachal Pradesh","authors":"Ramandeep Kaur, S. Nagaich","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3920219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3920219","url":null,"abstract":"The occupational structure is defined as the percentage of its workforce employed in various economic ventures. To put it in other words, articulating the number of the total working population employed in agriculture and associated activities and the number of them involved in the manufacturing and service sectors can be identified from the occupational structure of the nation. The present research paper proceeds with the objective of analyzing the growth of female labour force participation in Himachal Pradesh during 1991, 2001 and 2011. The maximum growth has been witnessed by other workers followed by female main workers, female household industry workers and female agricultural labourers. There was no noticeable growth in female cultivators and it is negative. The growth rate of female other workers is more than 50 per cent, and in comparison to female other workers the growth rate of female agricultural labourers, female household industry and female cultivators is very low. The present research also reviews the female labour force participation rate performance across rural-urban areas. The share of female labour force participation in rural areas is much higher than those in urban areas. But the relieving point is that there is a significant increase in women work participation rate over a period of time in rural and urban segments of Himachal Pradesh","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116691884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we assess the economic benefits of demographic changes in India by employing econometric models and robustness checks based on panel data gathered over a period of more than three decades. Our analysis highlights four key points. First, the contribution of India’s demographic dividend is estimated to be around 1.9 percentage points out of 12% average annual growth rate in per capita income during 1981–2015. Second, India’s demographic window of opportunity began in 2005, significantly improved after 2011, and will continue till 2061. Third, our empirical analysis supports the argument that the realisation of the demographic dividend is conditional on a conducive policy environment with enabling aspects such as quality education, good healthcare, decent employment opportunities, good infrastructure, and gender empowerment. Fourth, the working-age population in India contributes around one-fourth of the inequality in per capita income across states. Thus, to reap the maximum dividends from the available demographic window of opportunity, India needs to work towards enhancing the quality of education and healthcare in addition to providing good infrastructure, gender empowerment, and decent employment opportunities for the growing working-age population.
{"title":"Demographic Change and Economic Growth in India","authors":"N. Jain, Srinivas Goli","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3916157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3916157","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we assess the economic benefits of demographic changes in India by employing econometric models and robustness checks based on panel data gathered over a period of more than three decades. Our analysis highlights four key points. First, the contribution of India’s demographic dividend is estimated to be around 1.9 percentage points out of 12% average annual growth rate in per capita income during 1981–2015. Second, India’s demographic window of opportunity began in 2005, significantly improved after 2011, and will continue till 2061. Third, our empirical analysis supports the argument that the realisation of the demographic dividend is conditional on a conducive policy environment with enabling aspects such as quality education, good healthcare, decent employment opportunities, good infrastructure, and gender empowerment. Fourth, the working-age population in India contributes around one-fourth of the inequality in per capita income across states. Thus, to reap the maximum dividends from the available demographic window of opportunity, India needs to work towards enhancing the quality of education and healthcare in addition to providing good infrastructure, gender empowerment, and decent employment opportunities for the growing working-age population.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122101665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An empirical analysis of labor market transitions for spouses in couples is implemented. Object of study are transitions between the states of nonparticipation, unemployed search, and employment. Motivated by a model of household search, the emphasis is on spousal variables and interactions. Additionally, a proxy for the business cycle is included in the analysis, and household specific unobserved heterogeneity is accounted for. Results show that female transitions into nonparticipation (both out of unemployed search and employment) are positively affected by the husband's income (while no effect is found for transitions out of nonparticipation). Men seem to move from employment into unemployed search easier the higher is the wife's income. Since the wife having an income is in turn strongly accociated with female participation, this suggests that households with a participating wife are better able to deal with unemployment of the husband. A supplementary analysis with reservation wages and numbers of applications points in the same direction. Husbands' reservation wages are only sensitive to his own unemployment income if the wife is nonparticipating. This implies that unemployment benefits have a different role in households with the husband as a sole earner compared to dual earner households.
{"title":"Labor market transitions of members of opposite-sex couples: nonparticipation, unemployed search, and employment","authors":"Hans G. Bloemen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3920400","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3920400","url":null,"abstract":"An empirical analysis of labor market transitions for spouses in couples is implemented. Object of study are transitions between the states of nonparticipation, unemployed search, and employment. Motivated by a model of household search, the emphasis is on spousal variables and interactions. Additionally, a proxy for the business cycle is included in the analysis, and household specific unobserved heterogeneity is accounted for. Results show that female transitions into nonparticipation (both out of unemployed search and employment) are positively affected by the husband's income (while no effect is found for transitions out of nonparticipation). Men seem to move from employment into unemployed search easier the higher is the wife's income. Since the wife having an income is in turn strongly accociated with female participation, this suggests that households with a participating wife are better able to deal with unemployment of the husband. A supplementary analysis with reservation wages and numbers of applications points in the same direction. Husbands' reservation wages are only sensitive to his own unemployment income if the wife is nonparticipating. This implies that unemployment benefits have a different role in households with the husband as a sole earner compared to dual earner households.","PeriodicalId":149805,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Demographics & Economics of the Family eJournal","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128130797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}