Family Planning and Child Health Care: Effect of the Peruvian Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar, 1996–2000

Our study estimates the effects of exposure to a family planning program which promoted surgical contraception for the first time in Peru on women's use of birth control methods and their children's health. While a broad program, the Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar forced many indigenous women to undergo sterilization. We compare provinces affected by the program earlier with provinces affected later, before and after the policy. Overall, the results indicate that women in treated areas were more likely to use both temporary and permanent contraceptive methods and their children were less likely to die within their first year of life, partly due to longer breastfeeding. However, we observe heterogeneity by ethnicity. In treated provinces, nonindigenous children benefited from the policy regardless of their mothers’ choice of contraceptive method, while there were few positive impacts for indigenous children whose mothers underwent sterilization. This suggests that coercive or aggressively implemented family planning programs may not confer health benefits on children.     

Is Health of the Aging Improved by Conditional Cash Transfer Programs? Evidence From Mexico

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs link public transfers to human capital investment in the hopes of alleviating current poverty and reducing its intergenerational transmission. Whereas nearly all studies of their effects have focused on youth, CCT programs may also have an impact on aging adults by increasing household resources or inducing changes in allocations of time of household members, which may be of substantial interest, particularly given the rapid aging of most populations. This article contributes to this underresearched area by examining health and work impacts on the aging for the best-known and most influential of these programs, the Mexican PROGRESA/Oportunidades program. For a number of health indicators, the program appears to significantly improve health, with larger effects for recipients with a greater time receiving benefits from the program. Most of these health effects are concentrated on women.     

Patrilocal Residence and Female Labor Supply: Evidence From Kyrgyzstan

Many people live in patrilocal societies, which prescribe that women move in with their husbands’ parents, relieve their in-laws from housework, and care for them in old age. This arrangement is likely to have labor market consequences, in particular for women. We study the effect of coresidence on female labor supply in Kyrgyzstan, a strongly patrilocal setting. We account for the endogeneity of coresidence by exploiting the tradition that youngest sons usually live with their parents. In both OLS and IV estimations, the effect of coresidence on female labor supply is negative and insignificant. This finding is in contrast to previous studies, which found positive effects in less patrilocal settings. We go beyond earlier work by investigating effect channels. In Kyrgyzstan, coresiding women invest more time in elder care than women who do not coreside, and they do not receive parental support in housework.     

最低工资标准提升的劳动供给效应——基于回归间断设计的经验研究

文章依据中国健康与营养调查1997～2009年的微观数据,应用回归间断设计方法分析了最低工资标准提升对低收入群体劳动供给的影响。研究结果表明,提升最低工资标准未对男性就业和工作时间产生显著的影响,也未对女性工作时间产生显著影响,但对女性就业产生了显著的消极影响,这导致女性劳动力供给明显降低。随着相对工资的上升,男性就业、男性工作时间和女性工作时间均呈现上升趋势。因此,政府应逐渐适度地提高最低工资标准,在保证低收入群体劳动供给不受较大消极影响的同时,渐进地提高低收入群体的工资水平。     

Skill premium effects on fertility and female labor force supply

In the last twenty years the United States has seen a positive relationship between female labor supply and total fertility rates, which differs from the pattern observed over the preceding years. We construct a general equilibrium overlapping generations model capable of generating this changing relationship between fertility and female labor supply. We argue that skilled biased technological change in recent decades has increased the skill premium and has therefore decreased the relative cost of (unskilled) child care services. The positive effect of the increase in female mean wages on fertility rates, and the inducement for labor force participation provided by the reduction in the relative cost of child care services, generated the positive relationship between fertility rates and female labor force participation in the last two decades.All correspondence to Amaia Iza. This paper has benefited particularly from comments by Juan Carlos Conesa, Pedro Mira and Sara de la Rica. We also acknowledge countless conversations with María Paz Espinosa and useful comments from Jaime Alonso, Jose María Da-Rocha, Tim Kehoe, José Victor Rios-Rull, when the paper was presented at the IV Workshop of Dynamic Macroeconomics held in Vigo (Spain, July 1999) and in Universidade de Vigo (October, 2000). We also thank an anonymous referee whose comments enabled us to improve the paper considerably. Financial support from Universidad del País Vasco 9UPV 00035.321-13511/2001, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia PB097-0620, MCYT BEC2000/1394 and Instituto de la mujer (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales) MTAS 33/00 is gratefully acknowledged. Any remaining errors are the authors responsibility. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Are parents altruistic? Evidence from Mexico

Are parents altruistic or selfish? We contribute to the continuing debate of this question by proposing a simple test which is implemented using experimental data from the Mexican anti-poverty programme PROGRESA. Benefit eligibility is randomised. Our estimation strategy explicitly addresses potentially confounding factors and selection bias problems. We reject selfishness of parents in non-urban Mexico as PROGRESA beneficiaries spend more on child-related goods and do not increase spending on adult-related goods compared to parents in the control group. At the same time, we reject some rival theories.     

Kids or courses? Gender differences in the effects of active labor market policies

We investigate active labor market programs in Austria. We find only small effects, if any, for most of the programs. However, the programs may have unintended consequences for women. In particular for younger women, a key effect of the programs and one reason for the male–female effect differential that is observed in the literature is to reduce or postpone pregnancies and to increase their attachment to the labor force. Furthermore, the variables capturing pregnancies and times of parental leave play a key role in removing selection bias.     

A note on the changing relationship between fertility and female employment rates in developed countries

In this paper we look at a panel of OECD aggregate fertility and labor market data between 1970 and 1995 and we report some striking recent developments. Total Fertility Rates (TFR) were falling and Female Participation Rates (FPR) were increasing, conforming to a well known long-run trend. Along the cross-sectional dimension, the correlation between TFR and FPR was negative and significant during the 1970's and up to the early 1980's. This seemed consistent with secular comovements. However, by the late 1980's the correlation had become positive and equally significant. We discuss our findings within the framework of standard neoclassical models of fertility and labor supply adapted to macro data, as in Butz and Ward (1979). Received: 14 April 2000/Accepted: 29 December 2000 All correspondence to Pedro Mira. Namkee Ahn is grateful for financial support received from the Bank of Spain and from Spain's Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, grant SEC97-1249. We benefited from comments by two anonymous referees and by seminar participants at FEDEA, CEMFI and ESPE-98. All remaining errors are our own. Responsible editor: John F. Ermisch.     

The causal relationship between female labor supply and fertility in the USA: updated evidence via a time series multi-horizon approach

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the causality between female labor supply and fertility in the presence of auxiliary variables such as education, female wages, and male relative cohort size. We employ annual time series data spanning the period 1948 to 2007 for both an aggregate and an age-specific group. Our econometric specification follows closely the concepts and procedures proposed by Dufour and Renault (Econometrica 66(5):1099–1125, 1998) and Dufour et al. (J Econom 132:337–362, 2006) in that we conduct multi-horizon causality tests that allow for direct and indirect effects to take place. The sign and economic importance of our results is assessed via the estimation of impulse response functions. Our results establish bidirectional indirect causality between female labor supply and fertility and suggest interesting causal chains among the system variables. Causality effects are stronger for the age-specific group.     

Economic and demographic effects on working women in Latin America

The paper uses historical census data and the latest household surveys to investigate the evolution of female employment in Latin America, the effect of demographic factors on female labor force participation, and the reasons for the observed male-female gap in labor earnings. The findings show that, though women's labor force participation in Latin America has indeed increased despite the adverse economic conditions of the last two decades, marriage and fertility still exercise a large negative effect on women's labor supply. On average in the 15 countries studied, marriage reduces the probability that a woman would work by half, and each child by a further 3–5% These effects result in age-participation profiles that decrease with age although the econometric analysis suggests that, as women get older, they have a ceteris paribus greater probability to seek employment. In all the countries studied women are rewarded less than men and gender differences in human capital characteristics cannot account for the observed earnings differential. The paper discusses the significance of the findings for potential policies to assist women, especially in the areas of education and fertility, and also suggests the direction of further reserarch.The views expressed here are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank and its affiliated organisations.     

Mother’s home time and the production of child quality

This paper deals with the effect of mother’s time spent out of the labor force, and presumably in the home, on the “production” of child quality, where child quality is measured by intelligence (IQ), level of schooling attained, and market earning power. The results indicate that mother’s home time is most effective in producing (male) child quality for mothers who have attained relatively high levels of schooling. The results suggest that education programs which devote equal school resources to all (male) children do not necessarily provide equal educational opportunity and that the influence of family background on economic success is indirect, operating through home investments in children.     

Signals and closure by degrees: The education effect across 15 European countries

Stratification research has extensively studied country-differences in the strength of the relationship between education and labor market outcomes. This research has mostly neglected the different mechanisms that could explain why education is rewarded. In this paper we argue that not only the strength of the relationship, but also the mechanisms explaining why education is rewarded differ between countries. National institutions affect how employers see education, what it brings to the organization, and how workers signal their potential productivity. Empirically we focus on the partial effects of qualifications on top of years of education in 15 European countries. We find that strongly vocationally oriented and differentiated schooling systems have relatively strong net effects of qualifications on occupational status, which is explained by stronger signalling by qualification levels in those countries. Furthermore, in coordinated market economies we find that vocational education leads to higher status jobs relative to liberal market economies, which is explained by higher levels of closure implemented by coordination institutions.     

Time series analysis of fertility and female labor market behavior

Cointegration methods are employed to investigate relations among total fertility, female wages, labor force participation, educational attainment, and male relative cohort size. Two long run relations among the series are found, and these are identified as a fertility and a labor supply equation. All covariates enter into these relations with significant coefficients and theoretically plausible signs. Innovation analysis shows that both fertility and female labor force participation respond to changes in relative cohort size in directions consistent with the Easterlin hypothesis. Female labor force participation responds significantly to fertility shocks, but reverse effects are insignificant.All correspondence to Robert McNown. The authors wish to thank Cristobal Ridao-Cano, Kenneth Land, Alessandro Cigno, and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Getting back into the labor market: the effects of start-up subsidies for unemployed females

Low female labor market participation is a problem many developed countries have to face. Beside activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences for flexible working hours, discrimination), this is a difficult task, and the question arises whether active labor market policies (ALMP) are an appropriate tool to help. It has been shown that the effectiveness of traditional (ALMP) programs—which focus on the integration in dependent (potentially inflexible) employment—is positive but limited. At the same time, recent evidence for Austria shows that these programs reduce fertility which might be judged unfavorable from a societal perspective. Promoting self-employment among unemployed women might therefore be a promising alternative. Starting their own business might give women more independence and flexibility to reconcile work and family and increase labor market participation. Based on long-term informative data, we find that start-up programs persistently integrate former unemployed women into the labor market, and the impact on fertility is less detrimental than for traditional ALMP programs.     

女性健康风险冲击对配偶劳动供给的影响研究

不可预期的疾病是45岁以上中老年劳动者经常面临的健康风险冲击.个体的健康风险冲击将会对配偶的劳动供给行为带来两个方面的影响,一是配偶为了照护患病个体将会减少劳动供给;二是因患病消费增加,收入减少,配偶将会增加劳动供给.本文采用中国健康和养老追踪调查2011-2018纵向调查数据实证检验这两方面的效应.本文研究发现当女性...     

生育率最优路径、劳动力供给转型与经济增长

通过内生化劳动力和人力资本,以Q-Q理论为基础,根据生育率在劳动力供给和人力资本积累中的联动关系以及劳动力供给转型规律,利用动态最优控制原理,解释了殖民解放以来发展中国家先上升后下降的人口再生产过程及经济效应。结果表明:生育率的最优路径呈倒U型;整个路径存在两个鞍点均衡,只有当人力资本积累跨越某个门槛值时,第一个鞍点均衡才能过渡到另一个鞍点均衡;均衡的产出水平与劳动力折旧率成正比,与人力资本折旧率成反比。     

Labor force status life tables for the United States, 1972

As an ordinary life table follows a closed group from birth to the death of its last member, a labor force status life table follows a closed group through life and through the statuses “in the labor force” and “not in the labor force.” Using data from the January 1972 and January 1973 Current Population Surveys, two types of labor force status life tables were calculated for the United States, 1972. One type was a conventional working life table (for males) which started with an ordinary life table and partitioned the life table population into labor force statuses using age-specific proportions in the labor force. The other type was an increment-decrement table, prepared for both males and females, which was calculated so as to be consistent with the rates of labor force accession and separation implied by the data. Increment-decrement labor force status life tables are generally preferable to conventional working life tables. They reflect the implications of a clearly specified set of behavioral rates, provide detailed measures of the flows between labor force statuses, do not introduce seriously biasing approximations into the calculation of summary measures of labor force experience, and can be applied to female data as easily as male data. In practice, incrementdecrement labor force status life tables can be calculated from current and retrospective data generated by a single labor force survey. The increment-decrement labor force status life tables for the United States, 1972 reflected the extent to which the labor force participation of males exceeded that of females, but indicated that, on the average, half a woman’s lifetime between the ages of 16 and 65 was spent in the labor force. There were marked differences in the proportions, by age, of males and females in the labor force, with the male pattern rising to a single, flat peak and the female pattern being bimodal. Nonetheless, the two sexes shared similar age patterns in the proportions changing, or not changing, their labor force status.     

Ability drain: size,impact, and comparison with brain drain under alternative immigration policies

Ability drain’s (AD) impact seems economically significant, with 30% of US Nobel laureates since 1906 being immigrants, and immigrants or their children founding 40% of Fortune 500 companies. Nonetheless, while brain drain (BD) and gain (BG) have been studied extensively, AD has not. I examine migration’s impact on ability (a), education (h), and productive human capital or “skill” s =s(a,?h), for source country residents and migrants under (a) the points system (PS) which accounts for h and (b) the “vetting” system (VS) which accounts for s (e.g., US H-1B program). The findings are as follows: (i) Migration reduces (raises) residents’ (migrants’) average ability, with an ambiguous (positive) impact on average education and skill, and net skill drain, SD, likelier than net BD; (ii) these effects increase with ability’s inequality or variance, are greater under VS than PS, and hurt source countries; (iii) the model and two empirical studies suggest average AD?≥?BD for educated US immigrants, with real income about twice the home country income; and (iv) SD holds for any BD and for a very small AD (7.4% of our estimate). Policy implications are provided.     

An analysis of variations in U. S. fertility and female labor force participation trends

This study is based on time series data from 1947–1977 on fertility and female labor force participation, and examines (a) the effects of male relative income and female earnings on the level and timing of fertility and female labor force participation, and (b) the relative importance of variations in relative income and female wage rates in explaining the fluctuations in both fertility and female labor supply. The results suggest that relative income exerts a significant positive effect on fertility and a negative effect on female work effort. However, female wage rates appear to be the dominant factor in explaining variations in fertility and female labor force participation over the past two decades, with increases in female earnings leading to both depressed fertility and increased labor force participation of women.     

Labor Supply Prospects in 16 Developed Countries, 2000–2050

Over the past 20 years, policy attention has been focused upon the implications of below‐replacement fertility for the aging of populations. This article argues that another potential consequence, a decline in the absolute size of the labor force, may prove to be an equally compelling issue because of its impact on rates of economic growth. Because the United States will experience both increasing labor productivity and an increase in its labor supply, the growth orientation of the global economy is likely to persist. In this circumstance, given relatively comparable changes in the productivity of labor across countries, countries that face major declines in their labor supply will fare less well than countries that are able to maintain their labor supply at least constant. The article examines the labor supply prospects of 16 developed countries for the period 2000–2050, drawing attention to the ways in which countries may be able to influence the future levels of their labor supply.