This article "discusses aggregate-level interactions between Jewish immigration and economic growth both in the Jewish sector of Mandatory Palestine and in Israel". The reciprocal effects of population and economic growth are discussed in two sections on population as an engine of growth and was the size of the population dependent on the economy. The author concludes that "causality between population and [gross national] product runs both ways.... For the whole period 1922-1982, it is very clear that immigration pushed the rate of increase of capital stock. For the period from 1954 on, immigration responded to the growth rate of per capita income or consumption."
"This article uses the 1970, 1980, and 1990 Public Use Samples of the U.S. census to document what happened to immigrant earnings in the 1980s and to determine if pre-1980 immigrant flows reached earnings parity with natives. The relative entry wage of successive immigrant cohorts declined by 9% in the 1970s and by an additional 6% in the 1980s. Although the relative wage of immigrants grows by 10% during the first 2 decades after arrival, recent immigrants will earn 15%-20% less than natives throughout much of their working lives."
The influence of birth order and childhood family size on future achievement is discussed. Two major empirical findings are presented by the author. "First, neither birth order nor childhood family size significantly influences the level or growth rate of wages, a result that is consistent with previous research. Second, family size is both a statistically and economically significant determinant of women's employment status: women from small families work less than women from large families when they are young and more than women from large families when they are more mature." The geographical focus is on the United States.
The authors develop an empirical model of adolescent premarital childbearing in which a woman's decisions affect a sequence of outcomes: premarital pregnancy, pregnancy resolution, and the occurrence of marriage before the birth. State welfare, abortion, and family planning policies alter the costs and benefits of these outcomes. For white adolescents, welfare, abortion, and family planning policy variables have significant effects on these outcomes consistent with theoretical expectations. Black adolescents' behavior shows no association with the policy variables. The different racial results may reflect differences in sample size or important unmeasured racial differences in factors that influence fertility and marital behavior. Copyright 1995 by University of Chicago Press.
We investigate whether selective intermarriage and endogenous ethnic identification interact to hide some of the intergenerational progress achieved by the Mexican-origin population in the United States. In part, we do this by comparing an "objective" indicator of Mexican descent (based on the countries of birth of the respondent and his parents and grandparents) with the standard "subjective" measure of Mexican self-identification (based on the respondent's answer to the Hispanic origin question). For third-generation Mexican-American youth, we show that ethnic attrition is substantial and could produce significant downward bias in standard measures of attainment which rely on ethnic self-identification.
"We argue that the postwar baby boom [in the United States] caused substantial fluctuations in both the economic rewards to education and educational attainment over the last 3 decades. If substitutability between young and old workers diminishes with education, the present value of lifetime earnings for a boom cohort is depressed more for highly educated workers, reducing incentives for educational attainment. The opposite is true for pre- and postboom cohorts. The diminishing substitutability hypothesis explains the declines in both the returns to college and college completion rates in the 1970s and predicts a substantial increase in educational attainment for postboomers."
"In this paper we question the pioneering work of Todaro, which states that rural-to-urban labor migration in less developed countries (LDCs) is an individual response to a higher urban expected income. We demonstrate that rural-to-urban labor migration is perfectly rational even if urban expected income is lower than rural income. We achieve this under a set of fairly stringent conditions: an individual decision-making entity, a one-period planning horizon, and global risk aversion. We obtain the result that a small chance of reaping a high reward is sufficient to trigger rural-to-urban labor migration."
"Implications of the quantity (number) and quality (skill) of immigration on the destination economy are analyzed, including impacts on value added, wages, quasi rents, rates of return, and the skill distribution of the native labor force. Quantity-quality trade-offs are considered for both immigrant and native workers. Medium- and long-run labor-supply responses by natives to immigrant-induced changes in wage rates are shown to have second-order effects which subtantively affect the impacts of immigrants. The impact of immigration policy depends on the quality as well as quantity of immigrants, the time horizon, and the speed of factor market adjustment."
"This paper develops a model of the transmission of earnings, assets, and consumption from parents to descendants. The model assumes utility-maximizing parents who are concerned about the welfare of their children. The degree of intergenerational mobility is determined by the interaction of this utility-maximizing behavior with investment and consumption opportunities in different generations and with different kinds of luck. We examine a number of empirical studies for different countries. Regression to the mean in earnings in rich countries appears to be rapid. Almost all the earnings advantages or disadvantages of ancestors are wiped out in three generations." A comment by Robert J. Willis is included (pp. 40-7).
This paper is a survey of analyses of women's labor force growth in 12 industrialized countries, presented at a conference in Sussex, England in 1983. The main focus is on growth of the labor force of married women from 1960-1980; trends in fertility, wages, and family instability are discussed. In all countries, wages of women were lower than wages of men, although between 1960 and 1980 labor force rates of married women rose in most of the industrialized countries. 2 factors that are associated with this growth are declines in fertility and increases in divorce rates. The 12 countries studied are: 1) Australia, 2) Britain, 3) France, 4) Germany, 5) Israel, 6) Italy, 7) Japan, 8) Netherlands, 9) Spain, 10) Sweden, 11) US, and 12) USSR. The substitution variables (wages of women or their education) have strong positive effects on labor force participation in most cases, and in most cases the positive wage elasticities exceed the negative income elasticities by a sizable margin. A summary table estimating parameters of the P-function for each country, and their predictive performance in time series, are included. From 1960-1980 the average per country growth in participation of married women was 2.84% per year. Wages of working women, in this same period grew, on average, faster than wages of men in most countries, in part due to selectivity by education in labor force growth. While growth rates of real wages across countries have a weak relation with the differential growth rates of married women's labor force, the relation is strong when country parameters are taken into account. The dominance of the "discouraged" over the "added" workers in female labor force growth appears to be upheld internationally. On the average, total fertility rate dropped from 2.42 in 1970 to 1.85 in 1980. Both fertility declines and the growth of family instability appear to represent lagged effects of longer term developments in the labor force of women. Women's wages are lower than men's wages in all countries; wage differentials narrowed in all other countries over the past 2 decades. This narrowing was due both to women's educational attainment catching up with men's, and to a positive educational selectivity of women's labor force growth during this period. Ultimately, without labor market discrimination and with equal educational attainment, the wage gap can be eliminated only when sex differences in lifetime work experience vanish.
"This paper uses combinations of full brothers, half brothers, and fathers and sons to measure the effect of common family background on a household's income and wealth. While the data are drawn from a nineteenth-century [U.S.] population, the intraclass correlation for income ranges from .13 to .18, which is similar to that found in modern samples. Intraclass correlations for wealth are significantly higher (.18-.35) than are those for income. Intraclass correlations of half brothers compared to those for full brothers suggest that fathers play a dominant role in the transmission of the common family effect. When unobserved background is decomposed into individual and family effects, the individual effect dominates the family effect for income, while the family effect dominates the individual effect for wealth." A comment by Sherwin Rosen is included (pp. 80-2).
An analysis of the economic impact of divorce settlements in the United States is presented using data for a white cohort taken from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. "The effects of spouses' incomes on the divorce transfer are estimated and used to simulate the welfare effects of divorce on husbands, wives, and children under alternative assumptions about marriage contracts and the ability of a couple to continue coordinating resources in the aftermath of divorce. We find a positive (negative) relationship between divorce transfers and the growth of husband's (wife's) earnings during marriage. The estimated expenditure on children in the divorce state is only half the accustomed level during marriage."
"The seven-fold increase, since 1920, in the labor force participation rate of married women [in the United States] was not accompanied by a substantial increase in average work experience among employed married women. Two data sets giving life-cycle labor-force histories for cohorts of women born from the 1880s to 1910s indicate considerable (unconditional) heterogeneity in labor-force participation. Employed married women had substantial attachment to their jobs; increased participation brought in women with little prior work experience. Average work experience among cross sections of employed married women increased from 9.1 to 10.5 years over the 1930-50 period. Implications for 'wage discrimination' are discussed."
"This article investigates the effects of welfare payments, wages, and unemployment on women's probability of interstate migration [in the United States]. It also investigates if the income attraction of locations varies with recency of labor market experience. Welfare gains increase the probability of interstate migration. Welfare effects are largest for single mothers with small children and stronger among women with no recent labor market experience. The welfare effects, albeit small, are larger than the wage effects. The wage effects are weaker among women with no recent work experience. Ethnic-specific analyses suggest differences in migration behavior among Anglos, African-Americans, and Puerto Ricans."
The option to obtain a General Education Development (GED) certificate changes the incentives facing high school students. This paper evaluates the effect of three different GED policy innovations on high school graduation rates. A six point decrease in the GED pass rate due to an increase in passing standards produced a 1.3 point decline in overall dropout rates. The introduction of a GED certification program in high schools in Oregon produced a four percent decrease in graduation rates. Introduction of GED certificates in California increased dropout rates by 3 points. The GED program induces high school students to drop out.
The rate of married women's labor force participation is lower in the Netherlands than in similar industrialized countries; however, since the end of World War II, this rate increased from 0 to almost 25%. Using estimation results obtained with a probit model on a 1979 nationwide cross section, this paper reconstructs the postwar growth of this participation rate. 3 explantions for this change are: 1) apart from the baby boom right after the war, fertility rates have been steadily declining in the Netherlands, 2) the real wages of male and especially of female workers has risen enormously since 1947, and 3) an increase in female market earnings due to increased educational attainments. The behavior of female participation rates at prime ages are interpreted in light of developments in the patterns of family formation and dissolution; between 1945 and 1971, the frequency of marriage among females increased, and during the 1970s, marriage rates declined, especially among young women. The average number of children per family has diminished drastically; from 3 in 1950, to 2.75 in 1960, 2.05 in 1971, and 1.65 in 1974. Until 1972, a woman's labor earnings were added to her husband's income, since then, a woman's labor income is taxed separately from her husband's income. This change had a powerful effect on net earnings, and hence on participation, in particular among wives of high earning husbands. Findings show that children past primary school age have an indirect effect on participation through the negative effect on the predicted market wage; having another child older than 11 reduces the predicted wage rate by .12 and reduces participation from .70 to .61. The negative effect of children on participation diminishes strongly as the children grow older. From analyzing partial prediction effects, it is learned that real wage contributes substantially to the explanation of the observed long run change, especially female real wages. Overall, Dutch women are rather sensitive to increased economic opportunities in the labor market.
"This article utilizes an exact match file between the 1978 March [U.S.] Current Population Survey and administrative records from the Social Security Administration to analyze errors in the reporting of annual income using nonparametric methodology.... Three new findings are of interest: there is higher measurement error in cross-sectional samples than in panels. The negative relationship between measurement error and earnings is driven largely by overreporting among low earners. Median response errors are not related to earnings."
This paper examines labor force participation of women in France and its evolution over time. Cross-section estimates of a logit model measure the effects on participation of wives' wages, husbands' earnings, families' unearned income, and number of children. They are found to be in accordance with theory. Applied to historical data, these estimates overpredict actual changes. A new specification of the participation model, using as endogenous variable the fraction of lifetime after leaving school spent in the labor force, shows that the effect of the main explanatory variable, education, changed over time. This model gives accurate predictions.
Over the last two generations, women in Soviet Russia reached the highest labor force participation rate in the world. As everywhere else, the process was accompanied by a sharp rise in their educational attainment and a similarly sharp decline in fertility. On the basis of data about families of Soviet emigrants during the early 1970s, it is shown that Soviet women respond to the same economic variables that create similar trends in market economies. Socialist ideology and Soviet growth strategy help on the one hand to expedite the process, but on the other amplify the contradiction between women's family and labor market roles and result in relatively low wages for women.
This paper investigates the reasons for the growth in the female labor force in the US during the 20th century. Female labor force participation rates increased by 50% from 1950 to 1970. Real wages have played a significant but hardly exclusive role both in the long term growth in female employment and in the more accelerated growth after 1950. At the beginning of this century, fewer than 1 woman in 5 was a member of the labor force; by 1981 more than 6 in 10 were. Increases in female participation were slightly larger among younger women during the 1970s; for the next 20 years the age shape tilted toward older women. For US women 25-34 years old, labor force participation rates have been rising by more than 2 percentage points per year. Closely intertwined with decisions regarding women's work are those involving marriage and family formation. 2 demographic factors that would play a part in subsequent developments are: nuclearization of the US family and urbanization. Time-series trends in education are observed because schooling affects female labor supply independently of any influence through wages; increased years of schooling across birth cohorts shows that an increase of 1.33 years of schooling increased labor participation by 6.9 percentage points during the pre-World War II era. The swing in marriage rates also affects timing, especially for younger women. Based on disaggregated time series data across the period 1950-1981, mean values at single years of age of labor supply, education, work experience, weekly wages, and fertility are determined. Profiles indicate that female labor supply varies considerably not only across cohorts but also over life cycles within birth cohorts. Results show that: 1) relative female wages defined over the work force were lower in 1980 than in 1950, 2) children, especially when young, reduce labor supply, 3) large negative elasticities are linked to female wages, and 4) with all fertility induced effects included, real wage growth explaines 58% of the postwar increase in female labor supply. Therefore, real wages do explain a considerable part of the postwar increases in female labor supply.
PIP
This paper reviews statistical data on Japan's female labor force participation and household behavior, and estimates income and wage elasticities from female labor supply equations. Labor force participation rates reveal that: 1) 1/4 of working women work part time, 2) the unemployment rate for women has been consistently lower that for men, 3) female wage rates have improved substantially relative to male wage rates from 1960 to 1975, 4) the educational attainment of the female labor force has increased remarkably, while the proportion of female workers having only an elementary level education declined from 60% to 43%, 5) the fertility rate of Japanese women has declined greatly during the postwar period (from 133 to 71 in 3 decades), and 6) there is a mild tendency to later marriage, and an increased tendency to divorce. A review of the data on female labor supply and household behavior shows that: an analysis of aggregate data is misleading since it includes heterogeneous groups of the self employed, unpaid family workers, and paid employees, whose behaviors are quite different, and 2) historical developments do not seem to conform with the logical sequence of events anticipated by human capital theory. Absolute values of wage elasticity are consistently smaller than income elasticity, both for time series and cross sectional analyses. The relative smallness of wage elasticity to income elasticity is confirmed for the cross sectional data, and may be the consequence of labor supply decisions that are not really responsive to female wage rates. The underestimation of cross sectional analysis has been common among previous studies; analysis is unable to avoid this problem because shifts over time are indicative of structural changes in the behavior of Japanese wives.
"Analyzing the location choices of the post-1964 U.S. immigrants results in three main findings: (1) these immigrants are more geographically concentrated than natives of the same age and ethnicity and reside in cities with large ethnic populations; (2) education plays a key role in location choice, reducing geographic concentration and the likelihood of being in cities with a high concentration of fellow countrymen and increasing the probability of changing locations after arrival in the United States; (3) internal migration within the United States occurs more frequently among immigrants than natives and facilitates the process of assimilation for the more educated individuals."
"This paper designs a multiarmed bandit (MAB) sequential model for the analysis of the migration-job search process. The implications either are compatible with well-known migration behavior or, when novel, are also plausible. For example, regions with large wage variability attract migrants, and regions with large nonpecuniary returns increase both in migration and out migration. A major advantage of this approach is the relative ease with which martingale estimators can be derived from the martingale structure of the model. These martingale methods are exemplified for the return migration phenomenon."
Strike outcomes in the 1880s had a 'winner-take-all' character. Successful strikes ended with a discrete wage gain; failed strikes ended with a return to work at the prestrike wage. The authors present a theoretical interpretation of these outcomes based on a war-of-attrition model. They fit an empirical model specifying the capitulation times of the two parties and the size of the wage gain in the event of a strike success. The results show a systematic relation between the determinants of strike success and the determinants of the wage gain for a successful strike. Copyright 1995 by University of Chicago Press.
