JournalTOCs

Journal of Population Economics
Journal Prestige (SJR): 1.574

Citation Impact (citeScore): 2
Number of Followers: 32

Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 1432-1475 - ISSN (Online) 0933-1433
Published by Springer-Verlag

[2468 journals]

Survival of the literati: Social status and reproduction in
Ming–Qing China
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  Abstract: Abstract This study uses the genealogical records of 36,456 men from six Chinese lineages to test one of the fundamental assumptions of the Malthusian model: Did higher living standards result in increased reproduction' An empirical investigation of China between 1350 and 1920 finds a positive relationship between social status and net reproduction. Degree and office holders, or the literati, produced more than twice as many surviving sons as non-degree holders. The analysis explores the impact of social status on both the intensive and extensive margins of fertility—namely, reduction in child mortality and better access to marriages. The high income and strong kin network of the literati greatly contributed to their reproductive success.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Conscription and educational outcomes
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  Abstract: Abstract Peacetime military service has both positive and negative effects on human capital. While it depreciates academic skills, it also enhances non-cognitive ones. The net effect of conscription is hard to identify due to issues of self-selection, endogenous timing and omitted variables bias. We exploit the compulsory service of men in the Republic of Cyprus preceding university enrolment to deal with the first two problems. After controlling for prior academic performance and other relevant controls in a selection on observables model, we find that duration of service has a positive and significant effect on men’s subsequent academic performance as measured by grade point average. Two exogenous reforms—one at the extensive margin and one at the intensive margin of military service—allow us to deal with omitted variables bias. We estimate difference-in-differences models, where female students act as a control group, and show that an increase (reduction) in the average length of army service has a positive (negative) and significant effect on men’s academic performance.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Early childhood education and care: effects after half a century and their
mechanisms
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  Abstract: Abstract The effects of early childhood education and care (ECEC) have been widely researched, but most studies focus on targeted or relatively short-term programmes. This paper investigates the long-term effects of a universal ECEC programme and underlying mechanisms. By exploiting differences in expansion rates of childcare institutions across Japan from the 1960s to the 1980s, I find a positive effect of ECEC on income at up to age 50. The overall effect is driven by a significant impact among women, who were disadvantaged at that time, while there are no adverse effects on others. Mediation analysis shows that an increase in wages leads to an increase in income, which is triggered by improved educational attainment and not an increase in labour supply. The results imply that a universal childcare system has the potential to reduce income inequality.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Health and aging before and after retirement
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  Abstract: Abstract We investigate occupation-specific aging patterns before and after retirement and test the level and rate effects of occupation predicted by the health capital model and the health deficit model. We use five waves of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and construct a frailty index for elderly men and women from 10 European countries. Occupational groups are classified according to low vs. high education, blue vs. white collar, and high vs. low physical or psychosocial job burden. Controlling for individual fixed effects, we find that, regardless of the classification used, workers from the first (low-status) group display more health deficits at any age and accumulate health deficits faster than workers from the second (high-status) group. We instrument retirement by statutory retirement ages (“normal” and “early”) and find that the health of workers in low-status occupations benefits greatly from retirement, whereas retirement effects for workers in high-status occupations are small and frequently insignificant. In support of the health deficit model, we find that the health status of individuals from low- and high-status groups diverges before and after retirement.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Hidden schooling: endogenous measurement error and bias in education and
labor market experience
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  Abstract: Abstract Since 1980, 25% of US students repeated a grade during their academic career. Despite this, few economists account for retention when measuring education and experience, causing bias when retention is correlated with other regressors of interest. Rising minimum dropout ages since 1960 have increased retention, causing positive bias in 2SLS estimates of the returns to education. Retention also causes endogenous measurement error in potential experience. In addition to distorting experience-wage profiles across countries, this endogenous measurement error causes the residual Black-White wage gap and the returns to a high school diploma to be overstated. Proxying for age instead of potential experience reduces this bias, suggesting age, not potential experience, should be a standard control variable.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Can conflict affect individuals’ preferences for income
redistribution'
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  Abstract: Abstract This study examines the effect of conflict on individuals’ preferences for income redistribution. To this end, I compare individuals’ preferences before and after a war between Israel and a Lebanese terror organization in 2006. Using information from both panel and repeated cross-sectional datasets, I find that residing in war-affected regions increases individuals’ support for income redistribution. An examination of several mechanisms that may elicit this finding reveals that conflict increases the importance of luck in individuals’ perceptions and rules out other channels such as changes in individuals’ risk preferences or beliefs. Placebo analyses using the years preceding the war and individuals’ preferences unrelated to violence (e.g., attitudes about the environment) reinforce my main findings.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Differential fertility, school enrollment, and development
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  Abstract: Abstract This paper develops a model wherein parents choose the number of children, enroll some children in school at indivisible education costs, and receive supplemental earnings from uneducated children. The model accounts for the positive relationship between enrollment ratios and parental earnings and the N-shaped relationship between fertility and parental earnings in Brazil and Indonesia. When children’s living costs are high (low) relative to education costs and children’s earnings, fertility increases (decreases) with parental earnings due to a dominant income (substitution) effect. A decline in the ratio of child earnings to parental earnings or a rise in education subsidy rates can increase enrollment ratios and decrease fertility. Under progressive income taxes and favorable education subsidies for poor families, educated parents’ fertility could be higher than that of illiterate parents’ when incomes are low. However, the relationship will be reversed partially because of the rising education subsidy.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Vaccination and risky behaviors: evidence from the hepatitis B vaccination
campaign in China
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  Abstract: Abstract Understanding the causal relationship between vaccination and individuals’ risky behavioral responses has important policy implications as it affects the ultimate effectiveness of increasing access to vaccination. This paper examines the causal effects of vaccination on risky behaviors by exploring the 1992 hepatitis B vaccination campaign in China. Our empirical strategy exploits variations in age at the campaign as well as the pretreatment infection risks across provinces. Using a large cross-section of individuals born between 1981 and 1994, we find that more exposure to the hepatitis B vaccination leads to lower alcohol use during adulthood, and such impacts are almost entirely driven by men. Individuals from more educated families and people who live in urban areas tend to react more. Improved educational attainment and dissemination of related knowledge are important contributors. Our results uncover an unexpected benefit of promoting access to vaccination.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Does asking about citizenship increase labor survey non-response'
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  Abstract: Abstract The unsuccessful attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 US Census has drawn attention to citizenship questions on other surveys. Simultaneously, researchers have noted a secular increase in Current Population Survey (CPS) non-response. We combine these topics, studying the effect of the CPS citizenship question, added in the 1994 CPS redesign, on refusals. Direct panel regressions show states with higher rates of non-citizenship have higher refusal rates. An event-study regression discontinuity shows a 20-40% increase in refusals attributable to the redesign. Moreover, a difference-in-differences research design shows states with larger non-citizen and Hispanic populations were more affected by the redesign. These results imply the question causes non-citizens and Hispanics to refuse to participate in the survey disproportionately. Given the question appears to threaten the representativeness of the survey, we recommend there be a randomized controlled trial to precisely determine the question’s effects.
  PubDate: 2023-10-01
Female breadwinning and domestic abuse: evidence from Australia
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  Abstract: Abstract We explore the relationship between heterosexual partners’ relative income and the incidence of both domestic violence and emotional abuse. Using Australian data drawn from society-wide surveys, we find women who earn more than their male partners are subject to a 33% increase in partner violence and a 20% increase in emotional abuse compared to mean levels. We show the relationship between relative spouse income and female partner abuse is best modelled by a binary variable that captures “female breadwinning.” This finding differs from those of some earlier studies that considered only serious abuse and found a continuous negative relationship between female partners’ relative income and abuse. Instead, our findings suggest a mechanism related to gender norms generating domestic violence. We find no link between relative income and abuse of male partners.
  PubDate: 2023-09-06
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00975-9
Women’s right to property and the child quantity-quality trade-off:
evidence from India
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  Abstract: Abstract We study the effects of a series of state and federal reforms that granted Indian women equal inheritance rights on the quantity and quality of children. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, we find that women who were affected by the state reforms had 0.4 more children. State reforms did not have any effect on children’s heights. To assess the impact of the federal reform, we use panel data on women and a novel treatment based on the timing of their fathers’ deaths. We find that women affected by the reform had on average 0.22 fewer children and had taller children on average. While the federal reform had no effect on the number of daughters born to this group, the number of sons born declined. Thus, we see evidence that granting property rights to women could potentially impact fertility decisions, children’s health outcomes, and gender imbalance.
  PubDate: 2023-08-29
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00970-0
Friends in the village:do they matter for women’s involvement in
household decisions'
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  Abstract: Abstract It is often assumed that social connections are good for female empowerment in developing countries. However, growing evidence suggests that empowered women may face backlash from their spouse. In this paper, we analyze how the number of friends that wives have in their village affects the wives’ involvement in household decisions about their own health and their children’s health. To do so, we use data from 700 couples in 30 villages in rural Tanzania. We estimate the effect of the number of friends on the wife’s involvement in household decisions using a multinomial logit regression combined with a control function that deals with potential endogeneity bias. We find that wives with more friends are less likely to make decisions jointly with their husband, and are more likely to report that their husband makes decisions without their involvement. We further explore whether the effects depend on the “type” of friends, as defined by their gender and whether they are shared with the husband.
  PubDate: 2023-08-18
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00973-x
Mothers and fathers: education, co-residence, and child health
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  Abstract: Abstract This paper evaluates the causal effects of mother’s and father’s education on child-health outcomes in Zimbabwe, exploiting the exogenous variation generated by the 1980 education reform. We use four waves of Demographic and Health Surveys for Zimbabwe and estimate a simultaneous-equation model to take into account possible selection into co-residence between parents and children, endogeneity biases, and parental education sorting. Our results suggest that father’s education affects the health outcomes of under-5 children and matters more than that of the mother. These results continue to hold in a number of robustness checks. Moreover, while there is selection into co-residence with the child, this does not affect the causal effect of education on child health. Last, parental educational sorting is also shown to be important. Our findings suggest that not taking the education of both parents into account simultaneously may yield misleading conclusions.
  PubDate: 2023-08-09
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00966-w
Explaining third birth patterns in India: causal effects of sibling sex
composition
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  Abstract: Abstract This paper analyzes the implications of son preference on birth spacing intervals in India. Sibling sex composition provides a credible source of exogenous variation in the Indian context for births on or before 1990, as sex screening became widespread only after the 1990 economic reforms. I use the sibling sex composition of the first two children to capture its impact on the third birth interval. My analysis shows that, on average, families with two sons face an 8% lower hazard of a third birth relative to families with two daughters. Moreover, I find three channels of heterogeneity: religion, mother’s age, and state of residence. Respondents from diverse religious groups respond differently to the sibling composition of the first two births regarding their likelihood of riskier births for the third interval. Moreover, older mothers with at least one son are less likely to have a shorter third birth interval than younger cohorts of mothers. Finally, the respondent’s state of residence also drives some heterogeneity, with mothers from non-southern states less likely to have a riskier third birth interval once they have had at least one son among the first two births.
  PubDate: 2023-08-04
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00968-8
Social isolation, health dynamics, and mortality: evidence across 21
European countries
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  Abstract: Abstract We provide a comprehensive picture of the health effects of social isolation using longitudinal data from 21 European countries. First, using Cox regressions, we find a significant, strong, and robust association between our social isolation index and mortality. The association is much stronger in Eastern European countries. While all of our pooled countries estimates ranged between a 20 and 30% increase in the mortality hazard for the socially isolated that number jumps to 45% for Eastern European countries. We then estimate linear regressions to study the dynamic “value-added” effects of social isolation on health and other mediator outcomes. We find that social isolation at baseline leads to worsening health in subsequent waves along all of the dimensions observed. Up to 13% of the effect of baseline social isolation on mortality can be attributed to the combined one-wave-ahead impact of social isolation on increased frailty, reduced cognitive function, and increased smoking.
  PubDate: 2023-07-28
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00956-y
Mandatory retirement savings in the presence of an informal labor market
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  Abstract: Abstract This paper shows how mandating workers to save more for retirement can lead them to work informally and save less. Consider a worker who is more productive in the formal sector but works informally to avoid mandatory retirement contributions. Lowering the contribution rate (the share of wages mandated to be saved) will paradoxically increase her retirement savings. The reason for this is that working informally acts as borrowing against mandatory savings. The implicit cost of such borrowing, and hence the opportunity cost of working informally, rises as the contribution rate drops. This creates a substitution effect favoring formal work, driving the worker towards the formal sector. As her formal income increases, the base for her mandatory contributions rises, expanding her retirement savings. Therefore, the optimal contribution rate is no greater than the highest contribution rate under which the worker prefers to work exclusively in the formal sector.
  PubDate: 2023-07-27
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00967-9
Changes in international immigration and internal native mobility after
COVID-19 in the USA
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  Abstract: Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic produced a significant decline in international immigration to the USA between 2020 and 2021. This paper documents the timing, characteristics, and heterogeneity of the change in immigration across states and economic sectors. Additionally, we describe the trends in internal native mobility in the USA prior to and after the pandemic, investigating whether natives responded to the decrease in immigration by relocating either geographically or across sectors. Despite the substantial drop in international migration, we do not observe any significant changes in native internal mobility. Employing a panel regression and a shift-share IV, we study the effect of foreign immigration, the emergence of remote-work, and changes in labor demand on cross-state native mobility. Our results indicate that the decline in immigration following COVID-19 and the differential availability of remote-work opportunities across sectors and states did not drive changes in natives’ cross- state or cross-sector mobility.
  PubDate: 2023-07-27
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00972-y
Marriage and divorce: the role of unemployment insurance
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  Abstract: Abstract This paper examines how changes in household-level risk sharing affect the marriage market. We use as our laboratory a German unemployment insurance (UI) reform that tightened means-testing based on the partner’s income. The reduced generosity of UI increased the demand for household-level risk sharing, which lowered the attractiveness of individuals exposed to unemployment risk. Because unemployment risk correlates with non-German nationality, our main finding is that the UI reform led to a decrease in intermarriage. The 2004 expansion of the European Union had a comparable effect on intermarriage for the affected nationalities. Both reforms increased marital stability, which is consistent with better selection by couples.
  PubDate: 2023-07-17
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00961-1
The US COVID-19 baby bust and rebound
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  Abstract: Abstract We document the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on births in the USA. First, using Vital Statistics birth data on the universe of US births, we show that the US pandemic initially was associated with a “baby bust” period, from August 2020 through February 2021. During these 7 months, there were nearly 100,000 fewer births than predicted based on pre-existing birth trends and seasonality. Many of these missing births would have been conceived after the pandemic began in March of 2020, consistent with a behavioral fertility response to pandemic conditions. Other missing births would have been conceived before the onset of the pandemic. Some of these are attributable to reduced immigration of pregnant women and some to altered pregnancy outcomes for women who were pregnant during the early months of the pandemic. We further document a COVID birth rebound between March and September 2021, amounting to about 30,000 more births than predicted. Second, we document variation across US states in the size of the baby bust and rebound and investigate how that variation statistically relates to contextual factors. The bust was larger in states with larger increases in the unemployment rate, a larger reduction in household spending, and more COVID cases. The rebound was larger in states that experienced larger improvements in the labor market and household spending, consistent with a positive effect of economic conditions on birth rates, and smaller in places that had mask mandates, consistent with a dampening role of social anxiety about the ongoing pandemic.
  PubDate: 2023-07-14
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00965-x
Maternity benefits and marital stability after birth: evidence from the
Soviet Baltic republics
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  Abstract: Abstract Can a policy intervention in the stressful first year after a birth affect marital stability' We examine this question using a large expansion in maternity benefits in 1982 in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The program provided partially paid leave until the child’s first birthday and included a small cash payment at birth. We use individual-level panel data and compare the Baltics with similar East European countries using a difference-in-differences framework. Maternity benefits decrease divorce within the first year after birth. This decrease persists for at least a decade, indicating that couples avoided divorce altogether rather than simply delaying it. While mothers extended their leave by several months, they returned to full-time work afterwards, consistent with egalitarian gender norms in the labor market.
  PubDate: 2023-07-05
  DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00958-w