Economic Record最新文献

We estimate the impact of children on the gender earnings gap in Australia using an event study approach. We show that the arrival of children has a large and persistent impact on the gender earnings gap, reducing female annual earnings by 53 per cent, on average, in the first 5 years of parenthood. We attribute the gap in earnings to lower participation rates and reduced working hours among mothers, including a shift to part-time work. Although the decline in earnings for women is similar regardless of their breadwinner status prior to children, women with greater access to workplace flexibility are more likely to remain employed after having children.

We study how housing market conditions shape the housing careers of Australians. Utilising data from the Australian Census spanning from 1991 to 2021, we observe significant differences in ownership rates at age 30 across birth cohorts. Moreover, these differences widen significantly as housing affordability falls. Using synthetic cohort techniques, we evaluate the persistence of these differences. Our results reveal that while the homeownership rates of younger cohorts ‘catch up’ somewhat with those of their older counterparts, a substantial gap remains at age 50. Early access to homeownership is also linked to the ownership of larger homes by middle age. Our study underscores the long-term consequences of housing market conditions on homeownership trajectories.

Australia introduced the Service Incentive Payment (SIP) program for diabetes in 2001, which offers a trivial financial reward to general practitioners (GPs). We estimate the effect of the diabetes SIP on a wide range of healthcare utilisations of diabetes patients, with the aim of evaluating a pay-for-performance program more comprehensively than existing research. Using a large survey linked to administrative medical claims data, we compare a wide range of healthcare utilisation outcomes between areas with high SIP penetration and low SIP penetration. To uncover causal effects, we conduct a difference-in-differences analysis, which employs GPs who are ineligible for claiming a SIP reward as a control group. We find that concessional diabetes patients (who face low cost-sharing and hence tend to use more services than the socially optimal level) in high-SIP-penetration areas tend to use less healthcare compared to those in low-SIP-penetration areas. Conversely, non-concessional patients in high-SIP-penetration areas tend to use more healthcare than their counterparts in low-SIP-penetration areas. No compromise on health is observed, implying that despite the minor reward, the SIP program has improved systematic diabetes management and consequently enhanced social efficiency by nudging GPs.

Previous research argues that occupational gender pay gaps arise from greedy jobs within occupations. Greedy jobs involve working long and unpredictable hours in jobs where individuals are not easily substitutable. They engender compensating differentials resulting in an earnings-to-hours elasticity that often exceeds 1. This paper shows that greedy jobs also exist in Australia, where labour market institutions differ substantially from those in the United States. It shows that occupational gender earnings gaps are highest in occupations where greedy jobs proliferate. Wage-setting institutions engender heterogeneous effects on occupational gender earnings gaps. Relative to the United States, occupational gender earnings gaps are smaller in Australia, consistent with evidence that labour market institutions compress the earnings distribution. Within occupations, the use of collective agreements attenuates the size of occupational gender earnings gaps, while the use of individual agreements increases them. Not surprisingly, individuals employed in greedy occupations predominantly use individual agreements to negotiate pay.