Trends in the Motherhood Wage Penalty and Fatherhood Wage Premium for Low,Middle, and High Earners

Many studies have shown that women pay a wage penalty for motherhood, whereas men earn a wage premium for fatherhood. A few recent studies have used quantile regression to explore differences in the penalties across the wage distribution. The current study builds on this research and explores trends in the parenthood penalties and premiums from 1980 to 2014 for those at the bottom, middle, and top of the wage distribution. Analyses of data from the Current Population Survey show that the motherhood wage penalty decreased, whereas the fatherhood wage premium increased. Unconditional quantile regression models reveal that low-, middle-, and high-earning women paid similar motherhood wage penalties in the 1980s. The motherhood wage penalty began to decrease in the 1990s, but more so for high-earning women than for low-earning women. By the early 2010s, the motherhood wage penalty for high-earning women was eliminated, whereas low-earning women continued to pay a penalty. The fatherhood wage premium began to increase in the late 1990s, although again, more so for high-earning men than for low-earning men. By the early 2010s, high-earning men received a much larger fatherhood wage premium than low- or middle-earning men.     

Wage Frontiers in Pre and Post-crisis Spain: Implications for Welfare and Inequality

Social Indicators Research - This paper explores the evolution of wages in Spain using a stochastic frontier approach to estimate the wage frontiers of workers in Spain as a function of their human...     

Environment and Happiness: New Evidence for Spain

This paper explores the relationship between air pollution, climate and reported subjective well-being (or happiness) in Spanish regions. The results show that, after controlling for most of the socio-economic variables affecting happiness, there are still significant regional differences in subjective well-being. Evidence also suggests that climate and air pollution variables play a significant role in explaining these regional differences in happiness. The analysis also allows us to calculate the monetary value of air quality and climate, deriving the average marginal rate of substitution between income and air quality and climate for the Spanish regions.     

Skills Heterogeneity Among Graduate Workers: Real and Apparent Overeducation in the Spanish Labor Market

This paper takes account of skills heterogeneity among workers with a higher education degree and proposes a new measure to differentiate between real and apparent overeducation based on the level of cognitive skills actually achieved by the individuals. This proposal is applied to the study of the wage effects of overeducation in the Spanish labor market using data from PIAAC. The results suggest that between a quarter and a half of the graduate workers who appear to be overeducated in the Spanish labor market could be considered as being only apparently overeducated since they show a lower level of skills than that corresponding to their educational level or, alternatively, a level of cognitive skills which is commensurate with their job. Different returns are found for each group of overeducated individuals both when compared with adequately educated peers within a similar level of education (with greater wage penalties for apparently overeducated workers) and when the comparison is done with well-matched co-workers doing a similar job (with a wage premium for real overeducation but no significant returns for apparently overeducated workers). These different returns by skill levels beyond what overeducation measures implies that the market distinguishes between education and skills and that educational attainment per se does not perfectly align with acquired skills, meaning that traditional measures of overeducation would overstate the actual level of skills mismatch in the labor market.     

Overeducation in China: Levels,Trends and Differentials

Overeducation is widespread across the countries in the world.However,not much is known about the patterns of overeducation in China.This paper examines levels,trends and patterns of overeducation in China over the last 20 years.Overeducation rate in China increased from 7.24%in 1990to 12.26%in 2000,and further to28.16%in 2010.The pace was much more rapid in the second decade than in the first decade.Overeducation is substantial across all the population subgroups.with widening differentials.Overeducation rates in the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai are much higher than elsewhere in China.China’s rapidly increasing overeducation is largely a result of the implementation of college expansion policy started in the late 1990s.     

Early Childbearing,School Attainment,and Cognitive Skills: Evidence From Madagascar

Female secondary school attendance has recently increased in sub-Saharan Africa, and so has the risk of becoming pregnant while attending school. We analyze the impact of teenage pregnancy on young women’s human capital using longitudinal data in Madagascar that capture the transition from adolescence to adulthood for a cohort aged 21–24 in 2012, first interviewed in 2004. We find that early childbearing increases the likelihood of dropping out of school and decreases the chances of completing secondary school. This pregnancy-related school dropout also has a detrimental impact on standardized test scores in math and French. We instrument early pregnancy with the young woman’s community-level access and her exposure to condoms since age 15 after controlling for pre-fertility socioeconomic conditions. Our results are robust to different specifications that address potential endogeneity of program placement and instrument validity.     

Body Size,Skills, and Income: Evidence From 150,000 Teenage Siblings

We provide new evidence on the long-run labor market penalty of teenage overweight and obesity using unique and large-scale data on 150,000 male siblings from the Swedish military enlistment. Our empirical analysis provides four important results. First, we provide the first evidence of a large adult male labor market penalty for being overweight or obese as a teenager. Second, we replicate this result using data from the United States and the United Kingdom. Third, we note a strikingly strong within-family relationship between body size and cognitive skills/noncognitive skills. Fourth, a large part of the estimated body-size penalty reflects lower skill acquisition among overweight and obese teenagers. Taken together, these results reinforce the importance of policy combating early-life obesity in order to reduce healthcare expenditures as well as poverty and inequalities later in life.     

Circadian Rhythms,Sleep, and Cognitive Skills: Evidence From an Unsleeping Giant

This study analyzes the effects of sleep duration on cognitive skills and depression symptoms of older workers in urban China. Cognitive skills and mental health have been associated with sleep duration and are known to be strongly related to economic behavior and performance. However, causal evidence is lacking, and little is known about sleep deprivation in developing countries. We exploit the relationship between circadian rhythms and bedtime to identify the effects of sleep using sunset time as an instrument. Using the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we show that a later sunset time significantly reduces sleep duration and that sleep duration increases cognitive skills and eases depression symptoms of workers aged 45 years and older. The results are driven by employed individuals living in urban areas, who are more likely to be constrained by rigid work schedules. We find no evidence of significant effects on the self-employed, non-employed, or farmers.     

Wage Losses Due to Overqualification: The Role of Formal Degrees and Occupational Skills

Wage penalties in overqualified employment are well documented, but little is known regarding the underlying mechanisms. Drawing on new methods to measure the mismatch between jobs and qualifications, we test two explanations: formal overqualification and a mismatch of occupational skills, which have so far not been analysed. Using the National Educational Panel Study survey that is linked to German administrative data, we can objectively measure both types of mismatch. By using fixed-effects models, we confirm that overqualification is associated with a wage loss of approximately 5%, which indicates penalties when working at a lower requirement level. We find that some of this wage loss can be explained by a mismatch of skills between the current and training occupation. Further analyses show that mismatches of occupational skills explain the wage loss of formal overqualification for employees with vocational training. For academics, the two types of mismatch are unrelated. We conclude that, because of occupational boundaries and more specific occupational skills, vocationally trained people who are overqualified more often work in jobs with lower and different skill requirements. We emphasize that measuring both formal degrees and occupational skills and their mismatch allows for a deeper understanding of overqualification and wage-setting.     

Measuring Overeducation: Incidence,Correlation and Overlaps Across Indicators and Countries

The methodological debate on how to measure overeducation has been present since the introduction of the topic in the academic debate. Nevertheless, there is still no consensus on a preferred indicator. This article aims at contributing to the existing methodological debate providing systematic and cross-country evidence on the variation across overeducation measurements. Using REFLEX/HEGESCO and EULFS datasets, I provide evidence on within and across countries variation on the incidence, correlation and overlaps across the main types of objective, statistical and subjective overeducation indicators. Results suggest that worker’s self-reported indicators better cope with comparative studies, while in single-country studies objective indicators are likely to provide a more in-depth and detailed measurement. The use of statistical indicators is advised in contexts with labour markets that easily adapt to educational and employment changes, especially if these are not affected by credential inflation. However, it is advisable to use more than one indicator whenever data allows it, as different types of overeducation measurements provide different outcomes and results are likely to be complementary rather than excluding information on the overeducation phenomenon. This is especially relevant when overeducation is used as a dependent variable rather than a predictor. An initial review and discussion of the existing types of overeducation measurements and their advantages and drawbacks precedes the empirical evidence.

     

Poverty Diagnostics Using Poor Data: Strengthening the Evidence Base for Pro-Poor Policy Making in Lesotho

Increasingly national statistical agencies are being called upon to provide high quality data on a regular basis, to be used by governments for evidence-based policy development. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) give impetus to this, and bring a prerequisite for comprehensive “poverty diagnosis”. Often the data that are required are not available, or are incomplete while the concepts that are to be used may be ambiguous or require adaptation to local conditions. The poverty analysis of Lesotho in this article represents a contribution towards the emerging culture of evidence-based policy-making in developing countries in that it explores changes in key poverty-related social indicators. Techniques for dealing with poor data are discussed and an approach to developing a poverty threshold adapted to the local conditions of Lesotho is described.     

Rising Female Labor Force Participation and Gender Wage Gap: Evidence From Turkey

Social Indicators Research - This paper investigates the relation between female activity in the labor market and gender wage gaps using regional data from Turkey. Labor force participation of...     

户籍制度对大学生工资的影响--来自北京市的证据

文章利用中国人民大学中国调查与数据中心组织的“2013年首都大学生成长跟踪调查”数据,采用倾向得分匹配法探究了户籍制度对于大学生工资的影响。研究发现：大学生在就业时面临着户口与待遇的选择困境,为了获得户口,大学生在某种程度上需要牺牲与自己人力资本特征相匹配的工作和工资待遇,不得不支付“户口成本”;在同等的人力资本条件下,大学生需要牺牲21％的工资待遇才能获得一纸户口;大学生中人力资本特征越高的群体,遭受的户口成本所带来的工资损失越大。基于以上发现,文章认为应该进行户口去福利化的改革,如此才能提升劳动力市场资源配置的效率,使得人尽其才。     

跨文化流动与健康——基于CLDS数据的实证研究

一个人的流动经历与其健康状况密切相关,这种关系不仅与迁移的地理距离有关,也与迁出地和迁入地的文化差异有关。跨文化迁移一般是通过心理压力、生活方式、收入水平和社会网络等途径对移民健康产生影响。本文选取方言、饮食和观念距离作为文化距离的代理变量,使用2014年CLDS数据分析跨文化迁移对乡城流动人口健康状况的影响及其影响机制。描述性统计分析表明乡城流动人口对于流动的文化距离具有选择性,他们大多在同一方言区和饮食圈内部进行流动,流入地和流出地的观念距离也较近。基于Probit回归结果发现方言和观念距离对乡城流动人口健康状况有显著负面影响,收入水平和社会网络在其中起着中介作用,但饮食距离对乡城流动人口健康状况的影响不显著。本文为克服可能存在的内生性问题构建了PSM模型,同时使用地形距离这一客观变量作为工具变量,这两种方法得到的结果与上述结论基本一致。使用"诊断需住院"和"身体疼痛"两个客观指标进行稳健性检验后,基本结论依然成立,具有稳健性。此外,方言和观念距离对乡城流动人口健康状况的影响存在异质性,流动持续年份、性别、流动次数、本地方言技能是导致该异质性的重要因素。     

中国城镇劳动力市场中的过度教育——测量改进与收入效应

过度教育是否会造成收入惩罚?这是国际教育匹配领域长期争论的议题。本研究聚焦中国城镇劳动力市场,使用2003—2015年中国综合社会调查(CGSS)数据分析过度教育的收入效应,最终得到以下结论:第一,通过改进教育匹配的测量方法,发现我国城镇劳动力市场过度教育的发生比例约为35%。第二,通过线性回归发现过度教育会造成收入惩罚,并且这种收入惩罚持续存在。第三,将历年高考录取率和各省专业技术人员比例作为工具变量的分析,进一步证明了过度教育的收入惩罚效应。以上结论意味着,通过宏观政策促进教育和职业匹配,对于实现更加充分的劳动力就业具有重要现实意义。     

Overeducation as Status Inconsistency: Effects on Job Satisfaction,Subjective Well-Being and the Image of Social Stratification

Social Indicators Research - In this article, we aim to study the effects of the experience of overeducation, understood as a specific form of status inconsistency, in three areas: job...     

人力资本积累、搜寻渠道与农民工工资水平——基于微观调查数据的区间回归分析

本文基于广东企业用工调查数据,利用区间回归模型,检验了农民工人力资本积累、工作搜寻渠道、社会保险等对于他们在城市劳动力市场上的工资水平的影响,结果发现：人力资本能够显著提升农民工在城市劳动力市场上的工资水平;农民工的社会关系网络及政府、市场中介的搜寻行为都无助于提升农民工的工资水平;参加社会保险农民工的工资水平要明显高于未参保农民工,而工作生活满意度的高低对农民工工资也不会产生显著影响。     

Labor Unions and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from New Data

While a growing literature demonstrates the impact of socio-political factors on citizens’ quality of life, scholars have paid comparatively little attention to the role political organizations such as labor unions play in this regard. We examine labor organization as a determinant of cross-national variation in life satisfaction across a sample of advanced industrial polities. Our findings strongly suggest that unions increase the life satisfaction of citizens, and that that this effect holds for non-union members as well. Moreover, we also find that labor organization has the strongest impact on the subjective well-being of citizens with lower incomes. We confirm these hypotheses using both individual and aggregate-level data from fourteen nations. We show these relationships to have an independent and separable impact from other economic, political, and cultural determinants. The implications for the study of life satisfaction and of labor unions as political actors in general are discussed.     

More Evidence for Trends in the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce: A Completed Cohort Approach Using Data From the General Social Survey

Many studies have demonstrated that the children of divorce are disproportionately likely to end their own marriages. In previous work, I showed that the transmission of divorce between generations weakened substantially for General Social Survey (GSS) respondents interviewed between 1973 and 1996 (Wolfinger 1999); Li and Wu (2006, 2008) contended that my finding is a methodological artifact of the GSS’s lack of marriage duration data. This article presents a completed-cohort approach to studying divorce using the GSS. The results confirm a decline in the probability of divorce transmission that cannot be explained by the right-censoring bias alleged by Li and Wu. This finding contributes to an ongoing debate about trends in the negative consequences of parental divorce, as well as demonstrating a useful approach to right-censored phenomena when event history data are not available.     

计算机使用对青年人工资率的影响:来自云南的经验证据

文章基于云南省青年调查的微观数据,利用Hierachy模型测算了计算机使用对于青年人小时工资的影响.经验研究发现,青年人在工作和生活中利用计算机确实能够有效提高劳动生产率,平均来说使得小时工资增加33%～76%;青年人利用计算机增加小时工资的效应是和本人的异质性及与使用计算机有关的异质性紧密联系的,在生活中根本不用计算机的青年,即使在工作中经常使用计算机,小时工资的增加也仅有33%左右;如果仅仅是在工作中偶尔使用计算机,则对于小时工资没有影响;在工作中使用计算机程度相同.的青年人,在生活中使用计算机程度越高,平均小时工资越高,这可能体现了善于学习和掌握新技术的个人特征对于劳动效率的影响.