Review of Economics of the Household最新文献

We test the ability of SNAP eligible households to respond to a temporary change in benefit timing. We exploit the 2018–2019 US government shutdown in which all states were federally mandated to pay February SNAP benefits in January. This created a short-term windfall (two payments very close to each other) followed by a longer than normal gap during which no SNAP disbursements were received. Using a triple differences approach, we show that expenditures are lower in February (relative to other months) 2019 (relative to 2018) for SNAP recipients (relative to near-eligible households). We complement this finding by exploiting preexisting state-level differences in disbursement schedules that drove some states to temporarily alter the timing of the 2019 March and April SNAP disbursements. Diff-in-diff estimates show that SNAP eligible households in those states reduced spending. Our findings are inconsistent with the permanent income hypothesis and suggest that the timing of benefits matters for household consumption.

Adolescence is an important developmental period when teens begin spending less time with their parents and more time with friends and others outside their households as they transition into adulthood. Using the 2017–2021 American Time Use Surveys and the 2012, 2013, and 2021 Well-being Modules, we examine how the time teens spent alone and with parents, friends, and others changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, shedding light on how the social isolation of the pandemic disrupted this crucial development period. We also examine how time spent on various activities and where those activities took place changed during the pandemic, including the large shift to online schooling and reduction in overall time spent in class. We find that teens spent more time alone and had more leisure time during the pandemic than before, and boys spent less of their leisure time with friends. Boys saw large increases in time spent gaming and on social media, while girls increased time on social media and watching TV. We also find that socializing and communicating with others is associated with greater well-being for teens compared with other activities. These results together suggest that teens’ well-being was lower during the pandemic than before.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a global impact on children’s education. In Amagasaki City, Japan, elementary and junior high schools were temporarily closed for approximately three months during the pandemic. This study examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic performance in mathematics and the Japanese language among public elementary and junior high school students in Grades 1 to 8. Using data from the Amagasaki City Survey of Academic Achievement and Life Conditions from 2018 to 2021, this study compares changes in the academic performance of cohorts with and without COVID-19 experience (the COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 cohorts, respectively) 7 and 19 months after school closures using the difference-in-differences method. The findings indicate that the negative impact of the pandemic on academic performance was more pronounced for math than for the Japanese language, both at 7 months and 19 months after the closures. Math scores showed considerable decreases of 0.133 standard deviations (SDs) and 0.249 SDs at 7 and 19 months after the closures, respectively, while Japanese language scores were not significantly affected 7 months after closures but decreased by 0.113 SDs at 19 months after the closures. Furthermore, the negative effects on Japanese language scores were more significant for individuals in younger grades, whereas math scores were consistently affected across all grades. These results have important implications for policymakers and educators struggling to overcome the learning losses among children caused by the pandemic.

How does the presence of a woman’s mother-in-law impact the effectiveness of a family planning program? Using data from an experiment that randomly assigned married women to receive either individual or couple’s family planning (FP) counseling in Jordan, we document the heterogeneity of treatment effects on modern contraception take-up by mother-in-law (MIL) co-residence status. For women residing with their MIL, woman-only counseling significantly increases FP take-up by 33 percentage points (over 11% in control). The effect of couples counseling among women living with their MIL is small and not statistically different from zero. Women not living with their MIL respond both to woman-only and couples FP counseling, with an increase of 7 and 16 percentage points in FP take-up, respectively. Results controlling for covariates and inverse propensity weighted matching suggest that the difference in treatment effects is not driven by the selection of observables into differential MIL co-residence status. Non-spousal family members can have important roles in determining the effectiveness of FP interventions.

Preference for sons has been shown in various ways, but is it still up to date? I investigate how sex preference has evolved during the past 50 years using population-wide data from Finland. I find that having a first-born girl increases fertility and decreases the probability of being together with the child’s father in the 1960s to 1980s but not after the 1990s. Families with a first-born girl had 0.03 more children in the years 1960–1980. The effect decreases to an imprecise zero in the 1990s and to 0.007 fewer children in the 2000s. This shift occurs at the same time as the female and male employment rates approach each other. As the costs of raising a girl are not greater than those of raising a boy in Finland, the results suggest that the shift might be due to increased female bargaining power. Past literature has shown that females prefer girls over boys or are more neutral than males, who prefer having sons over daughters more often.

This study leverages the educational reform of 1985 as a source of exogenous variation in female education, providing insights into the effect of maternal schooling on the probability of child mortality at age one or younger and age five or younger. Utilizing data from the five waves of the KDHS conducted in 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, and 2014, we employ a two-stage least-squares (2SLS) approach. Our findings indicate that women exposed to the 1985 policy change, on average, have approximately 1.87 more years of schooling compared to their counterparts. Moreover, each additional year of maternal schooling leads to a reduction in the likelihood of a child’s death at age one or younger and at age five or younger by 0.6 and 0.9 percentage points, respectively. These results remain robust across a spectrum of robustness checks. Furthermore, we explore various potential mechanisms elucidating the influence of maternal education on child mortality. These mechanisms include examining fertility behavior, the likelihood of maternal engagement in the labor force, maternal health-seeking behaviors for children, and maternal involvement in household decision-making.

The public-health challenges associated with increased body weight have long been stressed, but greater attention has lately been brought to how individuals are affected psychologically. This can be rooted in factors such as social norms and interpersonal relationships, including marriage or cohabitation. We estimate the “utility-maximizing” Body Mass Index (BMI) and calculate the implied monetary value of changes in BMI for individuals and their spouses using the compensating income variation method and data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. Random-effects models are estimated for women and men separately and windfall income is used to address the endogeneity of income. While the spousal analysis suggests that couples generally dislike having substantially different BMI levels, women most strongly dislike having a higher BMI than their spouses and men have the highest dislike when their BMI is lower than their spouses. On average women prefer to be 4.8 BMI points below their spouses while men prefer to be 2.5 BMI points above their spouses. Similarities and differences in lifestyle are explored in this context. Results also suggest that the optimal own BMI is 28.0 and 25.1 for men and women, respectively. The annual value of reaching optimal weight ranges from $13,483 for women with underweight to $26,647 for women with obesity. Men on the other hand place greater value on not being with underweight ($29,064) than being with obesity ($14,405). The results highlight important gender differences and relative effects based on spousal BMI.

As the share of U.S. adult children living with their parents increases, it is important to understand how children who “boomerang” back home impact their parents in their pre-retirement and post-retirement years. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the effects of boomerang children on their parents’ labor market expectations and choices, as well as on their wealth, health, and life satisfaction. Event study analysis suggests that boomerang children return home due to short-term instabilities, such as negative shocks to marriage, income, and employment. We find that boomerang children are associated with a small increase in their parents’ subjective probability of working after age 65, and with a temporary increase in their parents’ non-housing debt. However, in the aggregate, we find no clear evidence that boomerang children impact parents’ current or future labor market choices, overall wealth, health, or life satisfaction. (We do find some evidence of an increase in hours worked among parents in the bottom wealth decile). One possible explanation for the lack of aggregate impact is that boomerang children contribute to household expenses. We find that boomerang events are associated with an increase in financial transfers from children to parents, particularly among parents in the bottom half of the wealth distribution.

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of exposure to armed conflict on fertility in Sri Lanka. Using a difference-in-difference methodology, I find that exposure to civil war led to a reduction in female fertility in Sri Lanka, with evidence of an increased female age at marriage in high-conflict districts as a mechanism. The paper further focuses on ethnic disparities in demographic adjustments triggered by exposure to conflict. It determines if conflict altered the fertility patterns of the Sinhalese majority and the Sri Lankan Tamil minority differently. Estimates suggest that there is a differential in fertility adjustments of the two ethnic groups in response to conflict: the reduction in crude birth rate was significantly smaller for the Sri Lankan Tamils compared to the Sinhalese across various model specifications. The presence of an ethnic group-level replacement effect led to a lesser reduction in fertility for Sri Lankan Tamils. These results contribute to the literature on the impact of armed conflict and underscore the importance of studying demographic adjustments by sub-groups, specifically ethnicity in this context, as the intensity of adjustment often varies with the socio-political vulnerability of the group. Understanding these disparities is crucial as a sustained demographic differential has the potential to impact the ethnic composition of Sri Lanka and may further crystallize the ethnic divide in an already volatile political setting.

Abstract

We study how the presence of promotion competition in the labor market affects household specialization patterns. By embedding a promotion tournament model in a household setting, we show that specialization can emerge as a consequence of competitive work incentives. This specialization outcome, in which only one spouse invests heavily in his or her career, can be welfare superior to a situation in which both spouses invest equally in their careers. The reason is that household specialization reduces the intensity of competition and provides households with consumption smoothing. The specialization result is obtained in a setting where spouses are equally competitive in the labor market and there is no household production. It is also robust to several modifications of the model, such as varying the number of households, two spouses competing for promotion in the same workplace, and the inclusion of household production.