Working mothers and sons’ preferences regarding female labor supply: direct evidence from stated preferences

We investigate the argument that men who are raised by working mothers develop a preference that is favorable toward working women and, consequently, are more likely to have working wives. We test this hypothesis using the Japanese General Social Surveys 2000–2003. We directly examine the responses to the opinion survey’s questions regarding appropriate gender roles. The estimation results indicate that men raised by full-time working mothers are less likely to support traditional gender roles. Those men are also less likely to believe in the negative impact of a mother’s working on her children’s development.      

Parental leave regulations, mothers’ labor force attachment and fathers’ childcare involvement: evidence from a natural experiment

In 2007, Germany implemented a generous parental leave regulation in order to make parenthood more attractive and more compatible with a working career, especially for mothers. We evaluate the reform using a natural experiment that compares outcomes of parents with children born shortly after and before the coming into effect of the law, and find a significant decrease in mothers’ employment probability during the 12 months after giving birth, and an increase in mothers’ employment probability after the transfer expires. The implementation of two daddy months is currently not reflected in significant changes in fathers’ time devoted to childcare.     

The impact of party affiliation of US governors on immigrants’ labor market outcomes

Do immigrants have better labor market outcomes under Democratic governors? By exploiting variations associated with close elections in a regression discontinuity (RD) design applied on gubernatorial elections in 50 states over the last two decades, we find that immigrants are more likely to be employed, work longer hours and more weeks, and have higher earnings under Democratic governors. Results are robust to a number of different specifications, controls, and samples.     

Ethnic assortative matching in marriage and family outcomes: evidence from the mass migration to the US during 1900–1930

Positive assortative matching in terms of traits such as ethnicity and race has been prevalent in marital formation. One possible explanation for this is that spouses in endogamous marriages possess complementary skills and tastes that increase marital surplus. This paper aims to estimate the effects of ethnic assortative matching on a variety of household outcomes by using the exogenous variation in immigrant flows in the USA during the period 1900–1930 to disentangle the selection effect of partners. The major finding is that the complementarities in home production from same ethnic marriage enhances investment in household public goods such as childrearing and home ownership and reduces the market labor supply of wives. The OLS estimates of the sizes of these effects appear to be substantially biased downward, indicating positive selection into intermarriage in terms of unobservable traits that increase marital surplus.     

U.S. Immigrants’ labor market adjustment: Additional Human capital investment and Earnings Growth

New Immigrant Survey-Pilot data are used to address the long-standing debate over whether immigrants to the United States assimilate economically. Using panel data and an individual fixed-effect specification, I find evidence indicating rapid economic assimilation, on the order of an average increase in earnings of 12%-13% during the 12-month survey period. Results indicate partial support for Duleep and Regets' Immigrant Human Capital Investment (IHCI) model, indicating an inverse relationship between initial earnings and earnings growth and showing some evidence of the expected interaction between skill transferability and skill level when predicting human capital investment decisions. Having more years of education, English proficiency, and lower earnings at the baseline are associated with a higher probability of enrolling informal school in the United States. Overall, findings suggest substantial economic integration within the first year after establishing permanent residency.     

Father by law: Effects of joint legal custody on nonresident fathers’ involvement with children

Family membership and household composition do not always coincide. Joint legal custody after divorce formalizes the relationship between fathers and children who live apart. Policymakers hope that explicit acknowledgment of nonresident fathers’ rights and responsibilities will increase their involvement with their children. I use prospective data from the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the association between joint legal custody and two aspects of nonresident fathers’ contributions to their children—the frequency of visits between fathers and children and child-support payments. The analysis examines approximately 160 families in which parents divorced between interviews conducted for Wave 1 (1987–1988) and Wave 2 (1992–1994) of the survey. I investigate the effects of joint legal custody holding constant physical custody or placement by restricting the analysis to children who live with their mothers most of the year. Controlling for socioeconomic status and the quality of family relationships before separation, fathers with joint legal custody see their children more frequently and have more overnight visits than do other fathers. The positive effect of joint legal custody on frequency of visits persists once unobserved differences among families are taken into account. Although fathers with joint legal custody pay more child support than those without joint legal custody, this difference lacks statistical significance when other family characteristics are taken into account. These findings support the view that joint legal custody may encourage some aspects of paternal involvement after divorce.     

Are there gender and country of origin differences in immigrant labor market outcomes across European destinations?

The 1994–2000 waves of the European Community Household Panel are used to study the earnings of immigrants as compared to native workers in 15 European countries. At the time of arrival, there is a significant negative partial effect of foreign birth on individual earnings compared to the native born in the destination of around 40%. These differences vary across origins and destinations and by gender. Immigrant earnings catch-up to those of the native born after around 18 years in the destination. Schooling matters more for earnings for women, whereas, language skills are relatively more important for men.

Colourism and African–american wealth: evidence from the nineteenth-century south

Black is not always black. Subtle distinctions in skin tone translate into significant differences in outcomes. Data on more than 15,000 households interviewed during the 1860 US federal census exhibit sharp differences in wealth holdings between white, mulatto, and black households in the urban South. We document these differences, investigate relationships between wealth and recorded household characteristics, and decompose the wealth gaps to examine the returns to racial characteristics. The analysis reveals a distinct racial hierarchy. Black wealth was only 20% of white wealth, but mulattoes held nearly 50% of whites’ wealth. This advantage is consistent with colourism, the favouritism shown to those of lighter complexion.

Environment, transnational labor migration, and gender: case studies from southern Yucatán, Mexico and Vermont, USA

Gender shapes the migration–environment association in both origin and destination communities. Using quantitative and qualitative data, we juxtapose these gender dimensions for a labor migrant-sending location of Mexico’s southern Yucatán with those for a labor migrant-receiving location in Vermont (USA). We illustrate how in the southern Yucatán, circular transnational migration alters pasture, maize and chili production in a peasant field–forest system. Gender norms condition the land-use decisions of migratory households to keep women out of agricultural fields, but in turn may be modified in unexpected ways. With men’s migration, more women assume aspects of land management, including in decision-making and supervision of hired farm labor. In comparison, in Vermont a largely male migrant labor force helps maintain an idealized, pastoral landscape with gender deeply embedded in how that labor is constructed and managed.     

Trends in single mothers’ living arrangements from 1970 to 1995: Correcting the Current Population Survey

I examine trends in single mothers’ living arrangements using data from the 1970–1995 Current Population Surveys. I create a consistent trend by correcting a coding problem that stemmed from the misidentification of children living in multigenerational households before 1984. Revised estimates show that the number of single mothers in each of these years was undercounted by 200,000–300,000. All of these women were subfamily heads living with their parents, and the problem occurred disproportionately among teens and black women. The uncorrected trend falsely indicates a large increase in the share of single mothers living with their parents. In reality, there was little change in the percentage of single mothers living in this arrangement over the time period. However, the data indicate a large increase in the rate of cohabitation and a comparable decline in the rate of living independently among this population.     

Public primary health care and children’s health in Brazil: evidence from siblings

The Family Health Program (Programa Saúde da Família) is an initiative of the Brazilian Ministry of Health designed to deliver free primary health care services within communities and households. The program was implemented by municipalities in different periods of time, creating variation in its availability among siblings of different ages. The empirical approach uses this variation to estimate the effect of the program on children’s health in Brazil, in an attempt to control for family and municipality unobserved factors possibly related to the program’s adoption. The results indicate that children for whom the Family Health Program was available in their municipalities during the prenatal period are healthier than children for whom the program was not available during the same period of their lives.     

Variation in job opportunities for men and women in the Swiss labor market 1962–1989

For the period of the 1960s to the late 1980s, this paper examines variation in job opportunities for men and women in the occupationally segmented and highly gender-segregated Swiss labor market. Job opportunities are defined as the volume of job openings potentially accessible to individuals with given skills and other desired characteristics. They are conceptualized within the queuing approach, taking into account the structure and cyclical fluctuations of the Swiss labor market.     

Women from migrant and refugee backgrounds’ perceptions and experiences of the continuum of maternity care in Australia: A qualitative evidence synthesis

BackgroundWomen who were born overseas represent an increasing proportion of women giving birth in the Australian healthcare system.ProblemWomen from migrant and refugee backgrounds have an increased risk of poor pregnancy and birth outcomes, including experiences of care.AimTo understand how women from migrant and refugee backgrounds perceive and experience the continuum of maternity care (pregnancy, birth, postnatal) in Australia.MethodologyWe conducted a qualitative evidence synthesis, searching MEDLINE, CIHAHL, and PsycInfo for studies published from inception to 23/05/2020. We included studies that used qualitative methods for data collection and analysis, that explored migrant/refugee women’s experiences or perceptions of maternity care in Australia. We used a thematic synthesis approach, assessed the methodological limitations of included studies, and used GRADE-CERQual to assess confidence in qualitative review findings.Results27 studies met the inclusion criteria, representing women in Australia from 42 countries. Key themes were developed into 24 findings, including access to interpreters, structural barriers to service utilisation, experiences with health workers, trust in healthcare, experiences of discrimination, preferences for care, and conflicts between traditional cultural expectations and the Australian medical system.ConclusionThis review can help policy makers and organisations who provide care to women from migrant and refugee backgrounds to improve their experiences with maternity care. It highlights factors linked to negative experiences of care as well as factors associated with more positive experiences to identify potential changes to practices and policies that would be well received by this population.     

The quality–quantity trade-off: evidence from the relaxation of China’s one-child policy

This paper uses the exogenous variation in fertility introduced by China’s family planning policies to identify the impact of child quantity on child quality. We find that the number of children has a significant negative effect on child height, which supports the quality–quantity trade-off theory. Our instrumental quantile regression approach shows that the impact varies considerably across the height distribution, particularly for boys. However, the trade-off is much weaker if quality is measured by educational attainments, suggesting that the measurement of child quality is also crucial in testing the quality–quantity trade-off theory.     

The importance of child characteristics: children’s health and mothers’ subsequent childbearing

Journal of Population Research - Existing literature rarely includes child characteristics as a predictor variable when investigating family life events. Using data from the Danish Longitudinal...     

Sibling gender composition’s effect on education: evidence from China

We use a population survey of the Chinese adult population—2010 Chinese Family Panel Studies (CFPS) modeled after the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We find that being the oldest child gives an education benefit to male and not female children who are often assigned supervisory roles for younger siblings. Most importantly, an increase in the fraction of female siblings leads to a significant increase in education of Chinese men and to a lesser extent Chinese women. This effect is concentrated among those with rural Hukou. In China, male children absorbed more education resources so that in a credit constrained family, increases in fraction of siblings who are sisters frees up resources for educating boys. This is less so for girls since their education was lower and additional resources would not be used for them.     

AIDS, “reversal” of the demographic transition and economic development: evidence from Africa

Using country- and region-level data, I investigate the effect of HIV/AIDS on fertility in Africa during 1985–2000. Results differ depending on the variation used and the estimation method. Between estimates that exploit cross-sectional variation suggest a positive significant effect of HIV/AIDS on fertility, whereas within estimates that are identified of off time-series variation show both positive and negative results depending on the HIV/AIDS variable used. These within estimates are insignificant in most of the specifications.