Understanding the effects of siblings on child mortality: evidence from India

Given the intrinsically sequential nature of childbirth, timing of a child’s birth has consequences not only for itself but also for its older and younger siblings. The paper argues that prior spacing and posterior spacing between consecutive siblings are thus important measures of intensity of sibling competition for limited parental resources. While the available estimates of child mortality tend to ignore the endogeneity of sibling composition, we use a correlated recursive model of prior and posterior spacing and child mortality to correct it. There is evidence that uncorrected estimates under-estimate the effects of prior and posterior spacing on child mortality.

Physical capital taxation and labor income taxation in an endogenous growth model with new generations

This paper examines the growth and welfare effects of physical capital taxation and labor income taxation. It is found that the impact of a rise in the physical capital tax rate on the balanced growth rate is crucially related to the birth rate, but a rise in the labor income tax rate definitely reduces the balanced growth rate regardless of the birth rate. It is also found that an increase in the physical capital income tax rate will harm the older but will benefit the younger, while an increase in the labor income tax rate will benefit the older but will harm the younger.

The influence of market wages and parental history on child labour and schooling in Egypt

This paper examines the influence of adult market wages and having parents who were child labourers on child labour, when this decision is jointly determined with child schooling, using data from Egypt. The empirical results suggest that low adult market wages are key determinants of child labour; a 10% increase in the illiterate male market wage decreases the probability of child labour by 22% for boys and 13% for girls. The findings also indicate the importance of social norms in the intergenerational persistence of child labour: parents who were child labourers themselves are on average 10% more likely to send their children to work. In addition, higher local regional income inequality increases the likelihood of child labour.

Sibling size and investment in children’s education: an asian instrument

This study estimates the trade-off between child quantity and quality by exploiting exogenous variation in fertility under son preferences. Under son preferences, both sibling size and fertility timing are determined depending on the first child’s gender, which is random as long as parents do not abort girls at their first childbearing. For the sample South Korean households, I find strong evidence of unobserved heterogeneity in preferences for child quantity and quality across households. The trade-off is not as strong as observed cross-sectional relationships would suggest. However, even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, a greater number of siblings have adverse effects on per-child investment in education, in particular, when fertility is high.

Avowed Happiness in Confucian Asia: Ascertaining its Distribution,Patterns, and Sources

This study reviewed three philosophical accounts of happiness, and then tested those accounts with the Asiabarometer surveys conducted in six Confucian societies during the summer of 2006. Statistical analyses of these surveys reveal that East Asians tend to experience happiness to a greater extent when they experience enjoyment together with achievement and/or satisfaction. The preponderance of such multi-dimensional conceptions in all those societies poses a direct challenge to a single dimensional account of happiness in the West. The analyses also reveal that positive assessments of interpersonal relationships matter more than the amount of knowledge or wealth in living a happy life in Confucian societies.

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Labor market institutions and demographic employment patterns

We study collective bargaining’s effect on relative employment for youth, women, and older individuals. Our model of collective wage setting predicts that unionization reduces employment more for groups with relatively elastic labor supply: youth, older individuals, and women. We test this implication using data from 17 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries over the 1960–1996 period. We find that time-varying indicators of unionization decrease the employment–population ratio of young and older individuals relative to the prime-aged, and of prime-aged women relative to prime-aged men, and unionization raises the unemployment rate of prime-aged women and, possibly, young men compared to prime-aged men.

The within-household schooling decision: a study of children in rural Andhra Pradesh

Using microdata from a field survey of children in rural Andhra Pradesh, India, we estimate econometric models which aim to identify the key explanatory factors in the decision on schooling. The approach adopted is to focus on the effects of sibling competition within the household, by paying close attention to the number, age and gender of a child's siblings, while also taking account of the characteristics of the household and community. Our findings suggest that the schooling decision depends as much on the child's characteristics and position within the household, as on the circumstances in which the child lives.

Birth order matters: the effect of family size and birth order on educational attainment

Using the British Household Panel Survey, we investigate if family size and birth order affect children’s subsequent educational attainment. Theory suggests a trade-off between child quantity and “quality” and that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of parental resources devoted to children’s education. We construct a new birth order index that effectively purges family size from birth order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family’s educational resources. We find that the shares are decreasing with birth order. Ceteris paribus, children from larger families have less education, and the family size effect does not vanish when we control for birth order. These findings are robust to numerous specification checks.

The substitutability of labor between immigrants and natives in the Canadian labor market: circa 1995

This paper examines the substitutability or complementarity between Canadian-born and immigrant workers. These are examined by estimating a set of wage equations using a generalized Leontief production function. The paper finds that, in general, there is no displacement of Canadian-born workers by immigrants. Recent immigrants affect the native-born positively, while older immigrants are neither substitute nor complement for natives. However, the effects differ across industries. Overall, the evidence that immigrants harm the opportunities of native-born workers is scant.

Natives, the foreign-born and high school equivalents: new evidence on the returns to the GED

We explore the labor market returns to the General Education Development (GED) exam for US natives and the foreign-born. We find that foreign-born men with a GED who received all of their formal schooling abroad earn significantly more than either foreign-schooled high school dropouts or graduates. In contrast, among US natives, GED recipients earn less than high school graduates but significantly more than dropouts. The returns for natives become larger over the life cycle and are not due to cohort effects. Our findings indicate that the GED may be more valuable in the labor market than some previous research suggests.

Transitions from Temporary to Permanent Work in Canada: Who Makes the Transition and Why?

The focus of this paper is on a microeconomic analysis of the annual transition rate from temporary to permanent work of individual workers in Canada for the period 1999–2004. Given that a large proportion of temporary employment is involuntary, an understanding of the factors associated with the transition to permanent work may inform public policy. Factors associated with the transition, namely, human capital, household structures and labour market segmentation are analyzed using data from the Statistics Canada’s Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for the period 1999–2004, limited to paid workers aged 20–64 years, excluding students. Among the key factors associated with the transitions are younger age and low unemployment rates. The analysis adds to the Canadian and international literature on transitions from temporary to permanent work.

Measuring Youth Development: A Nonparametric Cross-Country ‘Youth Welfare Index’

This paper develops an empirical methodology for the construction of a synthetic multi-dimensional cross-country comparison of the performance of governments around the world in improving the livelihood of their younger population. The devised ‘Youth Welfare Index’ is based on the nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology and allows for cross-country benchmarking and comparison over time. The value added of the youth index is to produce country-specific rankings and trace performance evolution with respect to indicators solely centered on youth, unlike other development indicators like the Human Development Index (HDI) which bundles many social and development indicators.

Who benefits from paid family leave? Impact of expansions in Canadian paid family leave on maternal employment and transfer income

This paper estimates the impact of a recent expansion in Canadian paid family leave from 25 to 50 weeks on maternal employment and transfer income. It finds the expansion coincided with increases in transfers to mothers of children age zero to one relative to mothers of children age three to four, and with decreases in returns to work in the year after birth. These changes were concentrated among economically advantaged groups of women, defined by marital status, education, and non-wage income. Despite these changes, there was no evidence of a decrease in returns to work or relative employment for mothers of children age one.

Depressive Symptoms Among Native and Immigrant Adolescents in Norway: The Role of Gender and Urbanization

The study investigates depressive symptoms among 3,431 adolescents aged 13–15 years. The sample comprises both native Norwegian and immigrant adolescents living in Norway. The main finding of the study is that the level of depressive symptoms is significantly higher among the immigrant adolescents than their Norwegian counterparts. When analysed separately for boys and girls, the difference is still significant for boys. Generally depressive symptoms are significantly higher among girls than among boys. Depressive symptoms, especially in boys, may also be related to the degree of urbanization of the area they live in. In cities, there is a significant difference between native Norwegian and immigrant boys, with immigrant boys having a higher level of depressive symptoms than native Norwegians. The implications for future research about immigrant adolescents and their psychosocial adjustment are discussed.

The changing nature of wage inequality

The paper reviews recent developments in the literature on wage inequality with a particular focus on why inequality growth has been particularly concentrated in the top end of the wage distribution over the last 15 years. Several possible institutional and demand-side explanations are discussed for the secular growth in wage inequality in the United States and other advanced industrialized countries.

Major league baseball career length in the 20th century

The sport of baseball has used statistics to enhance understanding for fans for over a century, yet there is limited data on player careers. This study fills that void by examining the careers of baseball players over the last century. Between 1902 and 1993, 5,989 position players started their careers and played 33,272 person years of major league baseball. A rookie position player can expect to play 5.6 years; one in five position players will have only a single-year career, and at every point of a player’s career, the chance of exiting is at least 11%. Position players who start younger and begin their careers in more recent decades all have longer and more stable careers; nevertheless, baseball careers are not compressed versions of normal careers, but are substantially skewed toward early exit.

Enclaves, language, and the location choice of migrants

Empirical studies in the migration literature have shown that enclaves (networks) negatively affect the language proficiency of migrants. Most of these studies do not address the choice of location as a function of language skills. Using data on Mexican migration to the US, we show that migrants choose smaller networks as their English language proficiency improves.

Large,But Adaptable? A Successful Population Policy and Its Long Term Effects

A restrictive population policy led to almost doubling the number of newborns from one year to another in Romania in the 1960s. Twenty years later, this large generation (of women) enters a marriage market with few eligible older mates, in a society where marriage is a must. In this article, I analyze this social experiment within the broader frame of the marriage squeeze/two sex models. Using various data from censuses and surveys, I argue that the marriage market is flexible even when is confronted with disproportionately large cohorts. If the social pressure toward marriage is strong, the marriage rates do not necessarily fall, but the mating age patterns change.

Temporary Employment and Social Inequality in Canada: Exploring Intersections of Gender, Race and Immigration Status

Using data from the 2002–2004 waves of Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, this article investigates the consequences of different types of temporary employment—fixed-term or contract, casual, agency and seasonal employment—for differently situated workers in Canada. Attention to intersecting social locations of gender, race and immigrant status helps capture the complex implications of temporary work for inequality. In particular, it highlights the salience of gender relations in shaping workers’ experience of insecurity in different types of temporary employment.

Are young cohorts of women delaying first birth in Mexico?

In the last decades, female permanent sterilisation became the most used method of contraception in Mexico. During this time, the demand for pills, condoms and other short-term contraceptives fell consistently. The shift in the demand for contraceptives raises concerns among demographers that the timing of children may remain unchanged regardless of observed reductions in period fertility rates. This paper assesses such ideas in the context of the timing of a first child using duration models as the main analysis tool. Findings suggest that young cohorts of women are effectively delaying first birth relative to the experience of older generations.