Gender wage discrimination at quantiles

The literature provides several scalar measures of gender wage discrimination that cannot identify whether discrimination is greater among high earners or among low earners. Furthermore, two populations may exhibit the same value of the scalar measure while discrimination could be very differently distributed. We extend Oaxacas scalar measure to any quantile of the distribution of wages. Our measure allows comparisons within a population and inter-population. Using the Spanish Survey of Wage Structure we find that gender wage discrimination increases with the quantile index but as a fraction of the gender wage gap reaches a maximum at the ninth percentile.All Correspondence to Javier Gardeazabal. We would like to thank Alberto Abadie and Teo Pérez Amaral for their comments. Financial support from the Basque Government, the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales (Instituto de la Mujer) is gratefully acknowledged. Javier Gardeazabal would like to thank the Department of Economics of the University of California, Santa Cruz, for its hospitality while part of this work was carried out, and the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Cultura for financing the visit to UCSC. Responsible editor: Daniel Hamermesh.     

Meta-analysis of the impact of age structure on fertility

The paper uses a meta-analysis to comparatively evaluate the literature addressing the aggregate relationship between a populations age structure and fertility, as hypothesized by Richard Easterlin. The analysis is based on 334 estimated effects retrieved from 19 studies. The results suggest that several factors undermine the empirical support of the Easterlinian age structure/fertility link. These include the neglect of income, the use of relative cohort size to characterize the age structure, mis-specifications of the relevant age-cohorts, as well as the functional form and estimation technique. The results also suggest that the sample of published estimates possibly suffers from two types of publication bias, an under-representation of insignificant effects for small samples, and bias towards supportive effects in the earlier years followed by a bias towards negative effects as the literature matured.All correspondence to: Brigitte Waldorf. The authors appreciate the insightful comments and suggestions from two anonymous reviewers. The research also benefited from discussions with participants of the International Colloquium on Meta-analysis in Economics, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, December 2002. Finally, we would like to thank David Brown, Meagan Cahill, Angela Donelson, Calvin Farris, and Melaney Seacat from the University of Arizona for their research assistance. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Changing fertility rates in developed countries. The impact of labor market institutions

During the last two decades fertility rates have decreased and have become positively correlated with female participation rates across OECD countries. I use a panel of 23 OECD nations to study how different labor market arrangements shaped these trends. High unemployment and unstable contracts, common in Southern Europe, depress fertility, particularly of younger women. To increase lifetime income though early skill-acquisition and minimize unemployment risk, young women postpone (or abandon) childbearing. Further, both a large share of public employment, by providing employment stability, and generous maternity benefits linked to previous employment, such as those in Scandinavia, boost fertility of the 25–29 and 30–34 year old women.Financial help from a CRB grant from the University of Illinois is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank Carles Boix, Barry Chiswick, Carmel Chiswick, Evelyn Lehrer, three anonymous referees and seminar participants at ESPE 2000 (Bonn), Illinois Economic Meetings 2000 (Chicago), Simposi dAnalisi Economica 2000 (Barcelona), 2001 Winter meetings of the Econometric Society in New Orleans, ESPE 2001 (Athens), Braga (Portugal), University of Chicago, De Paul University, PAA 2002 (Atlanta) for helpful comments; Gosta Esping-Andersen for providing some data and Cristina Mora for excellent research assistance. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Assessing the effects of an early retirement program

We investigate induced retirement effects of the Norwegian early retirement program AFP and emphasize effects caused by relocations of some individuals from disability pension and unemployment to AFP. Theoretical considerations predict that AFP unambiguously induces more early retirement. Analyzing Norwegian register data 1994–96 with parametric and non-parametric methods, we demonstrate that i) economic incentives influence the retirement decision, ii) there is a significant net induced retirement effect, iii) by a conservative judgment, at least 50% of the AFP retirees would have stayed in the labor force without the scheme.All correspondence to Espen Bratberg. We are indebted to the referees for detailed remarks, which significantly improved the paper. Financial support from the Norwegian Research Council and the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs is greatly appreciated. We are grateful for valuable comments from Erik Hernæs and Astrid Grasdal, seminar participants at the Norwegian School of Management in Oslo, the Institute for International Economic Studies in Stockholm, and the University of Linz, the 2000 Conference of the European Society for Population Economics in Bonn, and the German-Norwegian Seminar on Social Insurance in Berlin, 2000. Bratberg would also like to thank the Humboldt University for its hospitality during a stay in the winter of 2003. Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt.     

Labor market effects of immigration in the United States and Europe: substitution vs. complementarity

This paper examines the impact of immigrants on the income of various groups of resident workers in the United States and Europe. Our approach features the use of a production technology incorporating education, experience, and unskilled labor as inputs. This contrasts with the assumption used in earlier studies that native-born and immigrant labor are distinct inputs into production. We find that in both United States and European production, education, unskilled labor and experience are complementary inputs. Based on these results, simulations of the impact of immigration on residents are carried out. The absolute magnitude of these effects is found to be very small.This paper was presented at the Centre for Economic Policy Research Workshop, The Economics of International Migration: Econometric Evidence, February 26 and 27, 1993, Konstanz, Germany. We benefitted from the discussion at the conference and, particularly, the comments of Anton Muscatelli. We thank three referees and the managing editor of this journal for their suggestions. We also thank Selig Sechzer for his significant contributions to the empirical analysis in this paper. Ira Gang's work was partially supported by the Rutgers University Research Council.     

Do more equal slices shrink the cake? An empirical investigation of tax-transfer reform proposals in Italy

A crucial issue in efficiency-equality evaluations of tax reforms resides in the possibility that the level as well as the distribution of welfare may change, where the household-specific measures of welfare capture the value of income as well as the value of leisure. A better-designed redistribution and income support system may not only foster equality but also improve the configuration of incentives and by this route contribute in its turn to efficiency. This paper presents an empirical analysis of the welfare effects for married couples of replacing the Italian tax system by three alternative hypothetical reforms: a flat tax, a negative income tax, and a work fare scheme. We employ a microeconometric model of household labour supply that represents partners simultaneous choices, allows for constraints in the choice of hours of work, and is sufficiently flexible to capture a large variety of supply responses. These features appear to be crucial in the evaluation of reform effects. The results suggest that there is scope for improving upon the current system under both the efficiency and the equality criterion. The benefits from the reforms, however, come from unexpected directions since the largest labour supply contribution come from poor and middle class households whereas rich households appear to be much less responsive to changes in the tax rates. The simulation results reveal that a crucial role in shaping the results is played by the relatively higher behavioural responsiveness of married women living in low and average income households.All correspondence to Ugo Colombino. We would like to thank Tom Wennemo for skilful programming assistance, Anne Skoglund for technical assistance and word processing, K.A. Breke and E. Holmøy and an anonymous referee for useful comments. Special thanks to Dino Rizzi (University of Venezia), who provided us with a program written by him for the simulation of the direct and inverse 1993 tax-transfer rules (Rizzi 1996). Part of the paper was written when Aaberge and Strøm were visiting ICER and the Department of Economics in Torino. ICER is gratefully acknowledged for providing financial support and excellent working conditions. Ugo Colombino gratefully acknowledges financial and organisational support from Statistics Norway and the Department of Economics in Oslo, and from the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research (MURST research grants 1998 and 2000). Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Transmigration in Indonesia: An evaluation of a population redistribution policy

In this article an attempt is made to evaluate Indonesia's population redistribution policy—transmigration—from 1969 onwards. In addition to population redistribution, transmigration also has socio-economic and political objectives. In spite of the fact that in monetary terms transmigration has become one of Indonesia's main development programmes and the budget per transmigration family has increased enormously since 1969, it is established that for several years the ambitious targets could not be realized. In addition, studies show that in several cases the many promises of the transmigration authorities could not be met. With respect to the objective of population redistribution, it is concluded that so far transmigration has hardly influenced Indonesia's population distribution; only in specific receiving areas have the effects of transmigration been significant. Furthermore, it is shown that there is reason to doubt the role which the agriculturally-oriented transmigration programmes can play in the regional development process. In addition, there is evidence that in some cases the schemes have also been used as an instrument to serve (implicit) political aims.This is a revised version of NIDI Working Paper No. 43, An Evaluation of Recent Indonesian Transmigration Programmes, November 1983.The author would like to thank Dr. Ir. Frans Willekens for his valuable advice and stimulating comments. Thanks are also due to Lieneke Hoeksma for editing.     

Settlement policies and the economic success of immigrants

Many countries use settlement policies to direct the inflow of immigrants away from immigrant dense areas. We evaluate a reform of Swedish immigration policy that featured the dispersion of refugee immigrants, but also a change in the approach to labor market integration. We focus on how immigrants fared because of the policy. The evaluation indicates that immigrants experienced substantial long run losses. The bulk of the effect stems from a common component that affected immigrants regardless of location. We interpret the common component as being related to a shift in policy focus, from labor market assimilation to income support.All correspondence to Per-Anders Edin. We thank two anonymous referees, Magnus Löfström, seminar participants at the Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU), Uppsala University, Stockholm University, the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI), and the CEPR conference on Marginal Labour Markets in Metropolitan Areas for valuable comments and Lisa Fredriksson for expert data assistance. We are also grateful to Sven Hjelmskog, Roland Jansson, Stig Kattilakoski, Christina Lindblom, Anders Nilsson, Kristina Sterne, and Lena Axelsson of the Immigration Board, and Anna Gralberg of the Ministry of Culture, who generously found time to answer our questions. This research has been partly financed through a grant from the Swedish Council for Work Life Research (RALF). Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt.     

Socio-spatial attributes of social problems: The case of crime and delinquency

This article examines three hypotheses: (1) Socio-spatial structures and processes, like segregation, succession, and specialization, help explain the emergence of social problems. (2) "Space" is embedded — implicitly or explicitly — in every sociological approach to crime or delinquency. (3) Its explicit consideration increases the explanatory power of these approaches. Different dimensions, aspects or qualities of space are distinguished in order to dispel the terminological confusion that often surrounds "space". Spatial distances or units may include costs, symbols, of power. The relevance of these aspects for different approaches or criminal sociology like anomie, disorganization, opportunity structure, and labelling are demonstrated, and the implications of these arguments for the development of sociological theories, as well as societal, political and planning practices are also considered. Most empirical examples are drawn from recent sociological research in West Germany. Such an approach to integrate urban and criminal sociology can be used to draw conclusions for urban planning as is shown in a final passage: Desegregation and functional diversification of spatial units are recommended as strategies which may diminish crime and delinquency.I would like to thank the American and German publishers and editors for the permission to publish this extended English translation. My special thanks goes to Dr. Ralph B. Taylor from The Johns Hopkins University, Center for Metropolitan Planning and Research for helpful discussions and assistance with the English version[1].     

Population aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: The effects of development on the elderly

This paper describes the demographic trends in the elderly population in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1960 to 2020 using United Nations data and projections. The largest increases in the number of elderly in the 1980 to 2000 period will occur in South Asia and Africa. Each area is expected to increase approximately 87% in the number of persons aged 60 and over. During this period, Sub-Saharan Africa's elderly population will increase 82%, and is expected to increase 93% between 2000 and 2020, surpassing the total population increase during the latter period.Following the four perspectives Treas and Logue (1986) identified that may influence development policies and programs in developing countries, the Sub-Saharan African situation was analyzed in regard to social security, pension schemes, government policy, and institutional changes in the economy, education, health, and the family. Implications are discussed.I would like to extend my appreciation to the following organizations for providing financial support, substantive assistance, and/or administrative cooperation: The Department of Sociology, Kansas State University; The Rockefeller Foundation; The School of Social Work, University of Zimbabwe; and, the Zimbabwe Association of Pension Funds. However, the author takes full responsibility for any errors or misinterpretations.     

Determinants of family migration: short moves vs. long moves

This paper examines factors underlying family migration. Based on a sample of stable Finnish families, both short- and long-distance migration is investigated. The empirical analysis carried out using multinomial logit modelling shows a strong negative association between the family life-cycle and migration. The findings indicate that migration takes place mainly due to the demands of the husbands career, resulting in the wives being tied migrants. Two-earner families are less migratory, and in that sense the husbands are tied stayers. Distance matters; several differences are noticed between short- and long-distance migrants.Financial support from the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation (project no. 4271) is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on this paper. I also wish to thank Kari Hälänen, Sari Pekkala and Hannu Tervo for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. Responsible editor: John F. Ermisch.     

How does social security affect economic growth? Evidence from cross-country data

This paper investigates how social security interacts with growth and growth determinants (savings, human capital investment, and fertility). Our empirical investigation finds that the estimated coefficient on social security is significantly negative in the fertility equation, insignificant in the saving equation, and significantly positive in the growth and education equations. By contrast, the estimated coefficient on growth is insignificant in the social security equation. The results suggest that social security may indeed be conducive to growth through tipping the trade-off between the number and quality of children toward the latter.All correspondence to Junsen Zhang. We would like to thank the editor, two anonymous referees, Jim Davies, Frank Denton, Se-Jik Kim, and Mike McAleer for helpful comments and suggestions. Any remaining omissions and errors are the authors responsibility. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Health,Quality of Homecare Services and Quality of Life: A Case of Frail Older Immigrant Adults

The theory about missing links of economic growth often lags behind the empirical estimations of such links. A consensus has emerged that ethnic fractionalization has a negative impact on growth, also when controlled for income inequality. Often, although implicitly, the assumed channel is social cohesion. We analyse the effect of fractionalization on social cohesion with a different inequality measure, namely a social measure of inequality: the Inclusion of Minorities Index. Our results indicate that it is social exclusion, which reduces social cohesion, rather than diversity as such. We conclude that future studies of social cohesion and its relation to growth may benefit from using measures of social exclusion next to ethnic diversity.     

Multidimensionl Poverty and The Role of Social Capital in Poverty Alleviation Among Ethnic Groups in Rural Vietnam: A Multilevel Analysis

This paper empirically examines the disparities over time across six dimensions of poverty (monetary, education, health, housing, basic services, and durable assets) between ethnic minority and majority households in rural Vietnam. Using the five-wave panel data of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) 2008–2016, we observe improvements in most non-monetary dimensions of poverty for both ethnic groups, while the monetary dimension shows the highest degrees of deprivation and the lowest rate of decrease during the studied period. Health is the only dimension in which ethnic minority households are not only better off than those of majority households during the studied period, but also report improvement. We further explore the role of social capital in ethnic minorities and non-minorities at household and community levels in multiple dimensions of poverty by employing multilevel models. Our study reports the significant effects social capital have at the community level on reducing poverty in the monetary, education, housing, and basic services dimensions for ethnic minorities, while social capital at the household level shows significant effects on monetary, basic services, and durable assets. These findings indicate that policy makers ought to consider the role of social capital when designing poverty alleviation strategies for the country.

     

On opulence driven poverty traps

Endogenous population growth, i.e., making the rate of population growth dependent on society's opulence, causes parametric changes to have a larger impact and can cause multiplicity of steady states in a dynamic intertemporal optimization framework. This provides a simple explanation for the possibility of differing growth paths between countries (using a standard production function) or another explanation of the poverty trap. We give two examples (opulence sensitivity and production sensitivity) that both give rise to three steady states in which poor (rich) countries will evolve over time to the low (high) income steady state. In both examples there are middle income countries that will choose the low (high) income steady state if they are impatient (patient), where patience is measured through the rate of time preference o. Foreign aid in the form of a large transfer of capital from abroad enables poor and impatient middle income countries to move to the high income steady state.We would like to thank Nico Heering, Martijn Herrmann, Theo Junius, Ngo van Long, Ad Pikkemaat, John Pitchford, Lakshmi Raut, Casper de Vries, an anonymous referee, participants of workshops at the University of Groningen and the University of Amsterdam and especially Harry van Dalen for valuable comments. The article was presented at the fifth annual conference of the European Society of Population Economics, Pisa 1991. The views expressed in the article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the World Bank.     

Household fertility responses following communism: Transition in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

In central Europe fertility fell during transition from centrally planned to market oriented economies. Families reevaluated fertility plans facing new wages, reduced child-care subsidies, and economic uncertainty. Using micro-data from 1984 and 1993 in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, this paper relates fertility changes following Communism to wages, pricesand risks. Earnings have little impact on fertility timing during transition, though age, job uncertainty, and children conceived during Communism do. In the Czech Republic, changed fertility demand parameters account for much of thefall in fertility. In Slovakia a sizable proportion results from predictable responses to changed incentives.I would like to thank my Czech collaborators Pavel Mahonn, Petr Mateju, and Jiri Vecernk for enabling this empirical work to proceed; T. Paul Schultz, and Jenny Hunt and seminar participants at Yale University, the NEUDC, and the Population Association of America annual meetings and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. I am also indebted to the Mellon Foundation Area Studies Grant program for financial support allowing field work on this topic. I am wholly responsible for all errors. Responsible editor: T. Paul Schultz.     

Social Capital and Community Heterogeneity

Recent findings indicate that more pronounced community heterogeneity is associated with lower levels of social capital. These studies, however, concentrate on specific aspects in which people differ (such as income inequality or ethnic diversity). In the present paper, we introduce the number of parties in the local party system as a more encompassing measure of community heterogeneity. This builds on the argument that the number of relevant socio-economic cleavages in the population (i.e. heterogeneity) determines the level of party system fragmentation. Using data on 307 Flemish municipalities, we find that municipalities with a more heterogeneous population indeed have lower levels of social capital. Hence, our study endorses—and generalizes—previous results linking community heterogeneity to lower levels of social capital.

Immigrant and native responses to welfare reform

We investigate the effect of welfare reform in the US on the employment and hours of work of low-educated foreign-born and native-born women. For foreign-born women, we investigate whether the effect of welfare reform differed by year of immigration. We also examine whether the immigrant provisions of welfare reform had a chilling effect on those who remained eligible for benefits. Results suggest that welfare reform induced low-educated women to increase their labor market attachment; reform had larger effects on the least educated native-born women and among foreign-born, larger effects on more recent arrivals. The chilling hypothesis is not supported.All correspondence to Robert Kaestner. The authors thank Lynn Karoly, Christoph Schmidt, seminar participants at the University of Illinois and New School University, and several anonymous referees for comments on a previous draft of this paper. Robert Kaestner is grateful to the Luce Foundation for partial support for this research. Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt.     

Utilitarian tradeoff between population growth and income growth

Utilitarian social welfare functions were devised for a world with a fixed population. With endogenous population, Edgeworth conjectured that the Benthamite principle of maximizing total utility (classical utilitarianism) would lead to a larger population size and a lower standard of living than the Millian principle of maximizing per capita utility (average utilitarianism). One objection to the Benthamite criterion was that its application to a world with finite resources often implied large population size in conjunction with an embarrassingly low average standard of living. In a static environment with altruistic parents, this may not be warranted. In a growth situation, this criticism is even less likely to be supported. This paper extends the comparison of classical and average utilitarianism from a static to a dynamic and endogenously growing economy. Using a stylised endogenous growth framework, it confirms that the Benthamite population growth rate exceeds the Millian growth rate. In terms of the rate of growth of per capita income, the reverse is true. Having the standard of living often increasing under the Benthamite criterion, our results thereby depart significantly from the repugnant conclusion levelled against classical utilitarianism.We would like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions.     

Convergence and determinants of non-employment durations in Eastern and Western Germany

Since monetary union between eastern and western Germany in 1990, non-employment spells have been shorter in the east, and there has been no convergence. Analysis of the German Socio-Economic Panel for 1990–2000 indicates that there is some convergence in the determinants of durations, owing to increasing age differentials for eastern men, and an increasing influence of children for eastern women. The latter has contributed to the decline in female employment. Skill affects non-employment duration less than it affects employment duration, and the gender gap in eastern non-employment duration cannot be characterized as a skills gap.I am very grateful to Ann Huff Stevens, Rachel Friedberg, Daniel Parent and Chris Sims for helpful discussions. I also thank participants in seminars at Boston College, Bristol, Essex, London School of Economics, University College London, and Warwick for comments on an earlier version. I am indebted to Yunning Xu for research assistance, and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies for financial support. I am also affiliated with the following institutes: NBER, CEPR, IZA, William Davidson, DIW, CIREQ and CIRANO. Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt