Pal Schone

• Institute for Social Research

Focusing on jobs for youth, this study analyzes the development of job postings in Norway during the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Jobs for youth are defined by the top 20 three-digit occupations for young workers, and postings for these occupations took a heavier hit than other jobs during the pandemic. We also identify...

In political and academic debates, a knowledge gap exists regarding the impact of different strands of national policies on the number of asylum arrivals. This article analyzes the effects of policy reforms on the distribution of asylum seekers among a group of major European receiving countries. More specifically, we study significant changes in t...

We investigate whether small-group instruction improves student performance in mathematics in the early grades using a large-scale RCT covering 159 Norwegian schools over four years. The students − 7–9 years old - are pulled out from their regular mathematics classes into small, homogenous groups of 4–6 students for mathematics instruction for 3 to...

Stramhet på arbeidsmarkedet måles ved forholdet mellom antall ledige stillinger som bedrifter ønsker å fylle, og antall som ikke er i jobb, men søker arbeid. Situasjonen under pandemien skiller seg fra tidligere erfaringer ved at antall permitterte skjøt kraftig i været. Siden NAVs tall for helt ledige også inkluderer helt permitterte, som har en l...

We examine how the 2004 European Union (EU) enlargement to Eastern European countries affected the employment, earnings and share of home production among workers employed in the Building and Construction industry and their wives. We use licensing requirements to divide workers into two groups who are more and less exposed to labor market competiti...

We use idiosyncratic variation in gender composition across cohorts within Norwegian lower secondary schools to analyze the impact of female peers on students’ educational choices. We find that having more female peers in lower secondary school increases the probability of choosing STEM over language subjects in upper secondary school for both girl...

Is labour mobility in the European Union a threat to the strength of unions? We argue that the combination of cheap labour, workforce heterogeneity and low unionisation among labour immigrants is a potential challenge for unions. The challenge will be severe if immigration affects natives’ unionisation. We use Norwegian administrative data in a nat...

Do skills protect against exclusion in adult ages, and how important are the skills acquired before the age of 16 years versus those acquired later on? We match the scores on numeracy and literacy skills from the 2011 PIAAC for young adults backwards to grade point average (GPA) data from compulsory school education, measured at the age of 16 years...

Sammendrag Til tross for en voksende litteratur om hvordan barn av ikke-vestlige innvandrere i Norge gjør det i arbeidslivet, sammenliknet med barn av norskfødte foreldre, finnes det begrenset med kvantitativ forskning om hvordan slike forskjeller utspiller seg helt i toppen av utdanningsfordelingen: Hvilken betydning har innvandrerbakgrunn for dem...

Regelen i norsk skole er at barn begynner på skolen det kalenderåret de fyller 6 år. Vi ser på mønsteret i utsatt og fremskutt skolestart etter kjønn og foreldrenes utdanning. Gutter født i siste kvartal av året har 2,3 prosentpoeng høyere sannsynlighet for utsatt skolestart enn jenter, mens gutter født i første kvartal av året har 2,2 prosentpoeng...

We analyse the effects of immigrant concentration on two measures of native students’ outcomes in upper secondary schools in Norway, completion and exam grades. Administrative data for full cohorts of new students 2002–2008 are employed. To take into account potential selection effects, we rely mainly on models with fixed school and educational pro...

The political consequences of economic globalization has lately been fiercely debated across Europe and the United States, including the role of labor immigration. In this paper we study the party choices of voters facing labor market competition from immigration. To identify the effect of labor market competition we introduce the national skill ce...

We analyze the impact on maternal employment of a universal school reform in Norway which lowered the school starting age from seven to six. We use a regression discontinuity approach exploiting exogenous variation in the compulsory school enrollment rule caused by the reform. Our results reveal positive short-term effects on labor supply (approxim...

Kvinner er fortsatt underrepresentert i lederposisjoner. I denne artikkelen undersøker vi om den lave andelen kvinner i lederstillinger kan tilbakeføres til forskjeller mellom kohorter eller om dette er en konsekvens av valg og muligheter gjennom livsløpet. Dersom kjønnsforskjellene i ledelse skyldes kohortforskjeller, ved at forskjellen er større...

Women are typically less likely to hold management positions than men. Despite the converging roles of men and women in several labour market outcomes, the gender management gap is persistent. In this paper, we analyse the impact of children on the gender gap in management, focussing on the within-couple gap, allowing us to control for both observe...

In 2015 Europe experienced an almost unprecedented number of asylum arrivals. The result was a revitalization of both the political and academic debates on the relationship between asylum policies and arrivals. In this article we study the core of this debate, namely the effects of asylum policy on asylum flows. We examine what recent European hist...

Sammendrag Vi finner en sterk positiv sammenheng mellom kvalifikasjoner ved avsluttet grunnskole (målt ved grunnskolepoeng) og resultater oppnådd i PIAAC, men også at det som skjer senere i utdanningssystemet betyr mye for ferdigheter i alderen 16‒24 år. Vi finner også at ferdigheter man har tilegnet seg i grunnskolen, har mer å si for om man er NE...

Sammendrag Tidligere forskning har vist at negative etterspørselssjokk som for eksempel bedriftsnedleggelser har ført til at strømmen til uførhet har økt. Disse resultatene indikerer at uføretilbøyeligheten er påvirket av lokale variasjoner i etterspørselen. I denne artikkelen benytter vi et lokalt positivt etterspørselssjokk for å se om også et po...

We examine whether immigration into the labour market of the building and construction (BaC) industry affects enrolment in vocational programmes that teach the skills required in this industry. Results suggest that a higher supply of immigrant labour is associated with lower enrolment into programmes teaching BaC skills. The strength of this relati...

We analyse the social interaction effects in sick-leave behaviour in the workplace, using high-quality Norwegian matched employer–employee data with detailed individual information on sick leaves during the 2004–2006 period. We find that social interaction effects in sick-leave behaviour in the workplace do exist, and that the effects are noticeabl...

We investigate the added worker effect in a setting where female labour supply is high and the welfare state is generous. We trace couples’ labour supply and income development following the husband’s job displacement. We find no support for the added worker effect for the full sample of households. However, the added worker effect seems to be at w...

The limited empirical evidence on sickness absence among immigrants indicates that non-Western immigrants have a higher incidence of sickness-related absence than natives. The purpose of this article is to examine whether health is a contributing factor to the immigrant-native sickness absence gap. The present article makes use of two data sources:...

This article investigates the effect of plant closure on the labour market attachment of immigrants and how these effects vary with business cycles. The research covers two periods: one of economic upturn and one of economic downturn, and uses a rich employer–employee dataset. Results show that experiencing a plant closure in a recession has more s...

We estimate the direct partial wage effects of immigrant-induced increases in labor supply, using the national skill cell approach with longitudinal records drawn from Norwegian administrative registers. The results show overall negative but heterogeneous wage effects, with larger effects on immigrant wages than on native wages and with native wage...

Røed M. and Schøne P. Displacement and immigrant workers' responsiveness to regional labour market opportunities: evidence from Norway, Regional Studies. This paper answers two main questions. First, are immigrants more mobile than natives following job displacement? The results show that immigrants are indeed more mobile than natives following job...

Exploiting the Norwegian boards of directors’ quota reform of 2003, this study evaluates the impact of increased diversity on firm performance. Applying difference-in-difference approaches to accounting data covering the period 2003–07, the paper compares the return on assets for non-finance public limited companies (PLCs) and ordinary limited comp...

We ask whether cheaper child care can spur labor supply of mothers in an economy with high female labor supply. We exploit exogenous variation in child care prices induced by a public reform. A triple difference approach is put forward. The results show that reduced child care prices led to a rise in labor supply of mothers by approximately 5 %. A...

We investigate short- and long-term impacts on labour market outcomes of experiencing a displacement for young workers. The period under study is 2000–2009. The end of the observation period is characterised by a shrinking labour market, coinciding with the start of the financial crisis. The main merit of the study is the inclusion of a wide batter...

We analyze whether the proportion of immigrant students affects the school performance of natives in secondary school, measured by dropout. To derive causal statements, we construct a time-varying school quality indicator exploiting potential random variation in the number of immigrants within the same school. The results reveal a positive and sign...

The question we investigate empirically in this article is whether immigration makes the labour supply in the receiving country more responsive to regional differences in economic opportunities. The main merit of the paper is that we examine three stages in the regional mobility of refugees and labour immigrants: First, the settlement pattern of ne...

In this chapter, we have analysed the relationship between the proportion of women on board of directors and firm performance in Norway and Denmark. These countries are, in an international context, considered similar in many respects. However, during 2002–2007, the two countries experienced quite different developments regarding the gender diversi...

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the return to pre‐immigration education for non‐western immigrants, and explain why it is so low. Returns to one extra year of education is three times higher for ethnic Norwegians than for non‐western immigrants. Using the method ‘Over‐Required‐Under’ (ORU) education approach, we reveal that this is bec...

To what extent is labour market participation of mothers sensitive to economic incentives? We answer this question by studying the effect on labour market participation of a Norwegian family policy programme that clearly has affected the incentives to participate in the labour market of mothers with small children. From January 1999, all parents wi...

There are still fewer female than male managers in Norway's state bureaucracy. This article asks if there are organizational barriers which prevent women from entering these positions. Is there really a glass ceiling, or must one look outside the organizational environment to find an explanation? Is it rather the case that the scarcity of female ma...

Norway has among the most generous family policies in the world. The most recent is the cash-for-care reform, which was implemented in 1998. We answer two main questions in this article: What is the level of the family gap in such a generous regime and how has it developed as a consequence of the latest reform? Results suggest that the family gap i...

Since January 1999, all parents in Norway with children aged 1 to 3 years who do not attend publicly subsidized day care are eligible for “cash-for-care” (CFC). One important purpose of the reform is to enable parents to spend more time with their children. We analyze whether the CFC reform has affected marital stability, using individual register...

Preliminary version Not to be quoted without authors' permission. Abstract: This paper analyses the effect of a Norwegian reform introduced in January 1997 that tightened entrance requirements for unemployment insurance benefits (UIB), with particular focus on non-western immigrants. We identify the effect of the reforms on unemployment duration an...

It is well documented in existing research on wage differences that men receive a higher hourly rate of pay than women, and of various explanations suggested for this gender gap is that of differences related to child care. The aim of this article is to further explore the significance of children in explaining gender differences in hourly wage rat...

There is empirical evidence that suggests that both technology and new work practices are skill-biased. In this paper, we analyse whether they are also age-biased. Does the introduction of new technology and new work practices reduce the demand for older workers and increase the demand for younger workers? The cross-section estimates suggest that t...

Both politicians and parties in the labour market have in recent years stressed the importance of work-related training. Globalization, an increased international competition, is often said to be one important factor determining the need for more work-related training. The relationship between increased international competition and more training h...

Norwegian working-life legislation has strict rules against discrimination between full-time and part-time work. Partly as a consequence of this, a large proportion of Norwegian women work part-time. The purpose of this paper is to establish whether there are systematic differences between part-time and full-time workers regarding the selection pro...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse if introduction of new technologies and work practices are negatively related to the employment opportunities of immigrants. Design/methodology/approach – A representative plant-level panel survey merged with register data is used. Random effect regression Tobit models are estimated. The dependent...

The Cash-for-Care subsidy (CFC) was introduced in Norway in 1998. CFC is a child benefit for one and two year old children who do not attend a publicly subsidized day care centre more than 31 hours a week. Although its main purpose is to enable parents to spend more time with the infant, it may also have an impact on reproductive behaviour by affec...

All parents in Norway with children aged one to three, who do not attend publicly subsidised day care, are entitled to a cash-for-care (CFC) subsidy. Studies have shown that the reform has reduced mother’s labour supply. In this paper we analyse wage effects of the reform. We put forward a framework for evaluating reforms when reforms are uniformly...

This article analyses the relationship between family ownership and productivity, with special focus on the role of owner-management. The results show that family-owned firms are less productive than non-family-owned firms. This productivity gap is, however, explained by differences in management regime. Family-owned firms managed by a person hired...

In this article we analyse the specificity and generality of firm-financed training in Norway. Compared to most other OECD countries Norway has a compressed wage structure. According to non-competitive theories of training we should expect to find much firm-sponsored training in such an economy, and furthermore we should expect to find relatively m...

Cross-sectional results show that training increases wages by 5 per cent. This return is on a par with the return to 1 year of education. Considering that the average duration of training is very short, this result is strange and needs further examination. After leaving out the importance of measurement error, we control for accumulated stock of fi...

From 1999, all parents in Norway with children aged one to three, who did not attend publicly subsidised daycare, became eligible for a cash-for-care (CFC) subsidy. One effect of the CFC-subsidy was to increase in the relative price of external child care. This article analyses whether the CFC-subsidy has led to a reduction in the labour supply of...

This article analysis the impact of training on wages using combined survey-register material. The objective is threefold: to combine survey and register information to estimate individual return from training on wages; to estimate the impact from both individual and firm level training on individual wages; and to confront the results with control...

The main focus in this article is to analyse whether female led firms differ from male led firms with respect to family friendly policies and the degree of inclusiveness. Representative firm level data are utilised. The simple descriptive analyses reveal that firms led by women are more family friendly, measured by the share of firms offering child...

We analyse whether high product market competition reduce problems caused by preference- based discrimination against women and immigrants. We use firm-level data to analyse the relationship between the sex and immigrant composition at the firm and firm profitability. The results show that among firms that hire and employ relatively more women, pro...

Using panel data for Norwegian counties, municipalities and occupations, we study how the level of active labour market programmes (LMP) affect the matching technology between vacancies and unemployed workers. While analyses of the Beveridge curve imply no improvement of the matching technology following the expansion of LMP, direct analyses of the...

This paper analyses the impact of reduced childcare costs on mothers' labour supply. We exploit potential exogenous variation in childcare prices induced by a public childcare price reform in 2006. The reform set a maximum level on what municipalities could charge for a fulltime slot. The reform led to a large reduction in childcare prices. The mai...

To what extent is the labour supply of non-western female immigrants sensitive to economic incentives? We answer this question by studying the effect on labour supply of a Norwegian family policy programme that has undoubtedly affected the incentives to participate in the labour market of females in general. From January 1999, all parents with one...

The Cash-for-Care subsidy (CFC) was introduced in Norway in 1998. CFC is a child benefit for one and two year old children who do not attend a publicly subsidized day care centre more than 31 hours a week. Although its main purpose is to enable parents to spend more time with the infant, it may also have an impact on reproductive behaviour by affec...

This paper exploits exogenous variation in child care prices induced by a public reform. The reform set a maximum level on what municipalities could charge for a full-time slot. We ask whether cheaper child care can spur labor supply of mothers in an economy were female labor supply is already high. We develop a triple difference approach suitable...

In this paper we ask the following question: Do immigrant plant inflow lead to native outflows? This is a question that traditionally have been analysed on a more aggregated regional level. We argue that this question is highly relevant to analyse at the plant, because this is the unit where decisions regarding staying or leaving are taken. The OLS...

We analyse social interaction effects in sickness behaviour at the workplace using high quality Norwegian matched employer-employee data 2001 – 2007 with detailed individual information on sickness absence. We establish that social interaction effects in sickness absence at the workplace do exist, and the effects are noticeable in size. The strong...

This paper analyses the effect of a Norwegian reform introduced in January 1997 that tightened entrance requirements for unemployment insurance benefits (UIB). We identify the effect of the reforms on unemployment duration and the incentive to get a job by exploiting the quasi-experimental features of the reform. Results show that the reform has en...

The general questions asked in this paper are if the educational choices of pupils and theemployer investments in training are affected by short term changes in labour supply, measured by immigration. In the last decades Norway has experienced a large increase in the immigration of labour, this is especially pronounced in recent years. A relatively...

Non-western female immigrants are characterised by having very low labour force participation. In this paper we are especially concerned with factors on the supply side of the labour market and we ask to what extent the labour supply of this group is sensitive to economic incentives. We answer the question of economic responsiveness by evaluating l...