Alicia Adsera

• Ph.D. Economics
• Princeton University

Taking stock of individuals’ perceived family ideals is particularly important in the current moment given unprecedented fertility declines and the diversification of households in advanced industrial societies. Study participants in urban China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Italy, Spain, and Norway were asked to evaluate vigne...

Different strands of research analyse gender occupational differences and how they relate to differential earnings, especially among parents juggling family demands. We use rich data from PIAAC across a subset of European countries and match occupational characteristics to individuals’ jobs using the O*NET database to analyse, first, whether there...

How much do citizens value democracy? How willing are they to sacrifice their liberties and voting rights for growth, equality, or other social outcomes? We design a conjoint experiment in nationally representative surveys in Brazil, France, and the United States in which respondents choose between different societies that randomly vary in their ec...

Ce chapitre porte sur les schémas de fécondité des populations immigrées dans les pays de l’OCDE et sur les imperfections des indicateurs généralement utilisés pour les décrire. Il analyse les facteurs qui expliquent les écarts de fécondité observés entre les femmes nées dans le pays et celles nées à l’étranger, ainsi que ceux qui favorisent la con...

This chapter explores the relationship between family formation and labour market outcomes among migrant women. After analysing the short- and longer-term effects on employment outcomes, it presents the factors shaping these results: from individual characteristics to institutional arrangements (parental leave, formal childcare and part-time arrang...

This chapter explores fertility patterns among migrant populations in OECD countries and the limits of the measures commonly used to describe them. It analyses the factors shaping fertility gaps between native‑ and foreign-born women, as well as those driving convergence over time. The chapter also assesses the indirect and direct contribution of m...

Le présent chapitre étudie l’évolution de la situation professionnelle des mères immigrées au moment de la fondation d’une famille. Après avoir analysé les effets à court terme et à plus long terme de la fondation d’une famille sur leur devenir professionnel, il présente les facteurs qui déterminent ces résultats, des caractéristiques individuelles...

We examine whether the requirements of analytical skills and physical strength in jobs held by immigrant women in five major European destinations (France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the UK) converge to those of jobs of native-born women in their first ten years in the destination country. To this aim, we combine data from the European Labour Force...

This paper is the introduction to the Special Issue on “Fertility and social inequalities in migrant populations.” The Special Issue contains twelve empirical papers that deal with both international migrants and internal migrants, both women and men, both older migrant populations spanning several generations as well as recent immigrant groups, su...

This paper extends the evidence on the role of English proficiency in determining labor market outcomes of immigrants by analyzing its effects for those who arrived to the US before age 19, separately by gender. To overcome the concerns of using self-reported proficiency, it employs a set of instrumental variables that exploit the variation of prof...

Refugees coming to Norway are assigned to a municipality where they start their integration process. These municipalities offer very different contexts for refugees' access to employment. Using rich register data, we study how the employment of a refugee varies by both the centrality and population size of the municipality to which he/she is assign...

We study how the education gap in unemployment has evolved by gender and age groups across 28 European countries and the United States from 2000 to 2014, using the European Union's Labour Force Surveys and the US Current Population Surveys. During and after the Great Recession, the absolute education gap in unemployment expanded in almost all count...

The study of the fertility of immigrants has received much attention in recent years, particularly in societies with fertility rates below replacement levels. However, fertility in refugee populations remains understudied. Using rich register data on all female refugees of childbearing age (15–45 years) who arrived and settled in Norway between 200...

The ability to speak the language of the destination country plays a key role in the labour market performance of immigrants. To assess the influence of language on economic assimilation, we combine large samples of the restricted version of the Canadian Census (1991–2006) with both a measure of proximity to English of the most used language in the...

Using newly available data, we re-evaluate the impact of transition from plan to market in former communist countries on objective and subjective well-being. We find clear evidence of the high social cost of early transition reforms: cohorts born around the start of transition are about 1 centimetre shorter than their older or younger peers. We pro...

We use the 2001 and 2006 Canadian Census to study sex ratios at second birth among South Asian migrants, conditional on both the spacing between the first two children and the gender of the first-born. We find that South Asian women have an abnormally high share of boys after a first-born girl. Their sex ratio at birth is particularly skewed when t...

In this study, we add to the literature by investigating the role of welfare states in intra‐European migration decisions between 25 countries (2003‐2008). Distinguishing between three welfare programmes (unemployment, family and old‐age benefits) we tested whether social expenditure on each of these arrangements particularly influenced locational...

Using newly available data, we re-evaluate the impact of transition from plan to market on objective and subjective well-being. We find clear evidence of the high social cost of early transition reforms: cohorts born around the start of transition are shorter than their older or younger peers. The difference in height suggests that the first years...

Background: Immigrants and their descendants often marry a co-ethnic partner despite the abundance of native-born marriage candidates. The prevalence of co-ethnic marriages and intermarriage among migrants is influenced by their integration level and cultural background as much as individual preferences and structural factors. Objective: This paper...

This article examines how direct and indirect pronatalist policies implemented in many developed countries to promote childbearing affect fertility. More specifically, it reviews the extant empirical literature on direct subsidies, family leave, child care, publically provided health insurance, and tax policy. Before evaluating the evidence in thes...

This study builds on and extends previous research on nativity variations in adolescent health and risk behavior by addressing three questions: (1) whether and how generational status and age at migration are associated with timing of sexual onset among U.S. adolescents; (2) whether and how family instability mediates associations between nativity...

We use the confidential files of the 1991–2006 Canadian Census, combined with information from O*NET on the skill requirements of jobs, to explore whether immigrant women behave as secondary workers, remaining marginally attached to the labour market and experiencing little career progression over time. Our results show that the current labour mark...

Language proficiency is extremely important for international migrants. Better language proficiency means easier assimilation in the host country and greater returns to human capital as well as better job opportunities and job matches, among other things. In addition language skills surely influence a number of non-economic outcomes such as social...

We discuss some of the data and methodological challenges to estimating trends in family formation and union dissolution as well as fertility among immigrants, and examine the evidence collected from the main studies in the area. With regard to marriage we focus on the determinants of intermarriage, the stability of these unions, and the timing of...

As migration flows to developed countries have increased in recent decades, so have the number of countries from which migrants arrive. Thus, it is increasingly important to consider what role differences in culture and language play in migration decisions. Recent work shows that culture and language may explain migration patterns to developed coun...

This paper uses the confidential files of the Canadian Census 1991–2006 to examine the fertility of married immigrant women (the presence of infants and preschool children in the household) around the time of migration. Then it estimates a proportional hazards model of first-birth risks of migrants relative to natives from 2 years before to 5 years...

We use the confidential files of the Canadian Census 1991-2006, combined with information from O*NET on the skill requirements of jobs, to show that the labor market patterns of female immigrants do not fit the profile of secondary workers, but rather conform to the recent experience of married native women with rising participation (and wage assim...

We use a nationally representative survey of Indian households (NFHS-3) to conduct the first study that analyzes whether son preference is associated with girls bearing a larger burden of housework than boys. Housework is a non-negligible part of child labor in which around 60 % of children in our sample are engaged. The preference for male offspri...

We analysed the fertility of women who migrated to Canada before reaching age 19, using the 20 per cent sample of the Canadian censuses from 1991 to 2006. Fertility increases with age at immigration, and is particularly high for those immigrating in late adolescence. This pattern prevails regardless of the country of origin, and of whether the moth...

In this paper we examine the fertility experience of immigrants during their first years in Canada. Fertility decisions at the time of arrival may be crucial in determining immigrants' economic assimilation into the new country, as households with infants usually face large expenses and are constrained in the amount of time they can supply to the l...

This paper studies the association between children's cognitive and non - cognitive development with socioeconomic factors, and school characteristics in Catalonia. The focus of the analysis is on the relevance of the quarter of birth and the school entrance age. The data, collected in 2005, covers children attending 2nd, 4th and 6th grade in a ran...

This article examines the fertility of women who migrated as children to one of three OECD countries—Canada, the United Kingdom, and France—and how it differs from that of native-born women, by age at migration. By looking at child migrants whose fertility behavior is neither interrupted by the migration event nor confounded by selection, the autho...

Fluency in (or ease to quickly learn) the language of the destination country plays a key role in the transfer of human capital from the source country to another country and boosts the immigrant's rate of success at the destination's labor market. This suggests that the ability to learn and speak a foreign language might be an important factor in...

This paper analyzes how labor market instability since the late 1980s in Europe mediated decisions to second births. In particular, it examines which are the dimensions of economic uncertainty that affect women with different educational backgrounds. First, employing time varying measures of aggregate market conditions for women in twelve European...

This paper explores the fertility decisions of Canadian immigrants using the 20 percent sample of the Canadian Census of Population for the years 1991 through 2006. We focus on those migrating as children, to assess their process of assimilation in terms of fertility. Our analysis does not show any sharp discontinuity by age at migration as sometim...

We explored the relation between fertility and the business cycle in Latin America. First, we used aggregate data on fertility rates and economic performance for 18 countries. We then studied these same associations in the transitions to first, second, and third births with DHS individual data for ten countries. The results show that in general, ch...

Cross-country differences in both the age at first birth and fertility are substantial in Europe. This paper uses distinct fluctuations in unemployment rates across European countries during the 1980s and the 1990s combined with broad differences in their labor market arrangements to analyze the associations between fertility timing and the changin...

This paper studies the association between socioeconomic factors, school characteristics and children's cognitive and non-cognitive development in Catalonia. We find that children born later in the year, close to the December 31st cutoff date, persistently tend to have lower academic results than those born in the first two quarters. However, we do...

We explore the relation between fertility and the business cycle in Latin American countries taking advantage of the existing cross-country and within-country differences in both fertility and macroeconomic conditions. First, we use a panel of 18 nations for over 45 years to study how different labor market and economic shocks may have affected fer...

Ever since the emergence of political theory, political thinkers have debated which political institutions foster democracies, individual freedoms, and good governance. Aristotle's analysis of different types of constitutional regimes and their political effects was retaken and elaborated on by most modern philosophers. Referring to the history of...

After completing the first demographic transition, developed countries experienced a fertility boom in the post-Second World War period. However, after the 1960s fertility rates fell dramatically and now, in 2007, stand below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman in most of these countries. The entry of women into the workforce, economic de...

Western Europe, which used to think of itself as a region of emigration, has experienced substantial net immigration in the last four decades from the lesser-developed countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and in the last decade, from the former Eastern bloc countries. As a result, immigration has become an important socioeconomic and public po...

Since the transition to democracy in Spain in 1975, both total fertility and rates of church attendance of Catholics have dropped dramatically. In this study the 1985 and 1999 Spanish Fertility Surveys were used to investigate whether the significance of religion for fertility behaviour -- current family size and the spacing of births -- changed be...

This paper studies the influence of religious affiliation and frequency of church attendance in shaping preferences for family size across 13 developed countries and over five broad religious groups. The ideal number of children is higher for Conservative Protestants and Catholics, affiliations with more pronatalist teachings, than for Mainline Pro...

This special issue of the European Journal of Population focuses on possible economic consequences of low fertility in Europe. This introduction reviews the history of falling fertility in Europe and the literature that explores its causes, its potential implications, and possible policy responses. It also summarizes the evolution of thinking about...

Family size is the outcome of sequential decisions influenced both by preferences and by ongoing changes in the environment where a family lives. During the last two decades the gap between the number of children women prefer and their actual fertility has widened in Spain. The paper uses the 1985 and 1999 Spanish Fertility Surveys to study whether...

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 differen...

Since the onset of democracy in 1975, both total fertility and Mass attendance rates in Spain have dropped dramatically. I use the 1985 and 1999 Spanish Fertility Surveys to study whether the significance of religion in fertility behavior - both in family size and in the spacing of births - has changed. While in the 1985 SFS family size was similar...

During the last two decades fertility rates have decreased and have become positively correlated with female participation rates across OECD countries. I use a panel of 23 OECD nations to study how different labor market arrangements shaped these trends. High unemployment and unstable contracts, common in Southern Europe, depress fertility, particu...

Differences in age at first birth and fertility rates are substantial across Europe. The paper uses the European Community Household Panel to study the relation between the cross-country variation in unemployment and labor market institutional arrangements in 13 European Union countries and the timing of births in a sample of over 50,000 women duri...

How well any government functions hinges on how good citizens are at making their politicians accountable for their actions. Political control of public officials depends on two factors. First, free and regular elections allow citizens to discipline politicians--the credible threat of losing office in the next period compels policy makers to respon...

During the last two decades total fertility rates in Europe have plummeted, particularly in Southern Europe. I use the 1994-2000 waves of the European Community Household panel for 13 European countries to study how varying institutional and economic indicators across countries account for differences in the timing of the first three births. Female...

To account for the strong and positive correlation found between trade openness and the size of the public sector, scholars have developed theoretical explanations in which politics have remained conspicuously absent in two ways. First, why some economies are more open than others has been (implicitly) attributed to parameters exogenous to the poli...

This paper explores, both formally and empirically, the political accountability mechanisms that lie behind the varying levels of public corruption and of effective governance taking place across nations. The first section develops a principal-agent model in which good governance is a function of the extent to which citizens can hold political offi...

(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) En este trabajo se analizan, tanto formal como empíricamente, los mecanismos de rendición de cuentas políticas que subyacen a los variables niveles de corrupción pública y de gestión gubernamental eficaz que se registran en los países. En la primera parte se desarrolla un modelo de mandante-agente en el que...

In the last 15 years, two equilibria have arisen in the advanced world. On the one hand, wage dispersion has widened in those countries where unemployment has remained low (with cyclical variations). On the other hand, wherever income inequality has remained unchanged, unemployment has shot upwards. To account for these distinct patterns, we develo...

Under factor mobility, firms locate where local attributes enhance their productivity, but, in equilibrium, those gains are offset by higher local input prices. I study the variation in local input costs to identify production amenities across sectors in two ways. I estimate, first, hedonic rent and wage equations from individual households and wor...

If firms and workers are free to move within a country, they will choose to locate in areas where local attributes enhance their productivity. In equilibrium, however, differences in local productivity should be offset by higher local prices. In this paper, I estimates both local sectoral cost functions in the panel of US states for 1969-1992 and a...

In the last fifteen years two equilibria have arisen in the advaced world. On the one hand, wage dispersion has widened in those countries where unemployment has remained low (with cyclical variation). On the other hand, wherever income inequality has remained unchaged, unemployment has shot upwards. To account for there distinct patterns, a combin...

An extensive literature discusses the existence of a virtuous circle of expectations that might lead communities to Pareto-superior states among multiple potential equilibria. It is generally accepted that such multiplicity stems fundamentally from the presence of positive agglomeration externalities. We examine a two-sector model in this class and...

The ability of markets to accommodate women's labor force transitions in connection to childbirth and to ease the trade-offs between work and childcare varies significantly within Europe. I use the 1994-2000 waves of the European Community Household panel to estimate both a logit and a multinomial logit model of the transitions in/out of the labor...

Abstract will be provided by author.

We explore the fertility decisions of Canadian immigrants using the 20% sample of the Canadian Census of Population for the years 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2006. Using women 16 to 45 years of age, we study the relevance of age at migration and family composition on fertility. We find a nonlinear relationship between age of migration and immigrant fertil...

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of the funding organization(s) or of CEPR, which takes no institutional policy positions. This conference is supported by the project TEmporary Migration, integration and the role of POlicies (TEMPO), funded by the NORFACE research programme on Migration in Europe -Social, E...