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Marketization of Household Production and the EU-US Gap in Work
Abstract
Employment rates and hours worked per employee are very different in the EU and the US. This paper relates the greater time worked in the US to greater marketization in the US of traditional household production: food preparation, childcare, elderly care, cleaning houses. Since women do most household work, marketization is particularly relevant to the EU–US difference in hours worked by women. We suggest that to raise employment rates the EU should develop policies that make it easier for women to move from the household to the market and to substitute market goods and services for household production.
— Richard B. Freeman and Ronald Schettkat
... In this section, I review the literature on how retailers respond to shifts in consumer demand for convenience or shifts in technology to cater to this demand. Structural changes in demand for convenience have been brought on by urbanization, dual labor participation, and tighter work schedules, etc. (Freeman et al. 2005;Ngai and Pissarides 2008). Changes in technology to cater to demand for convenience include IT-enabled tracking of consumers, stock-keeping, delivery, etc. Continuing to focus on the cost-shifting role of retailers (Betancourt 2004), I organize the discussion by using the taxonomy of time costs just outlined and ask how retailers have changed the consumer time cost from (1) traveling to stores, (2) evaluating and locating market goods, and (3) preparing consumption goods. ...
... Marketization of home production has not only affected leisure, but also labor participation. Using a cross-sectional data set, Freeman et al. (2005) observe there is a large gap in hours worked between the United States and the European Union. For instance, in 2002 a US laborer worked on average 1305 hours a year, whereas a German worker 932 per year. ...
... Historically this difference and others like it have been linked to different labor market institutions, for example, centrally negotiated labor contracts, lay-off protection, etc. However, Freeman et al. (2005) and Van Ark et al. (2008) present the hypothesis that the difference is also caused by different levels of marketization of home production in the US versus Europe, especially in the provision of foods and childcare. Evidence from time use data shows that the correlation between market and household work is strongly negative, especially for women. ...
... Recent studies have shown that the flow of FDWs into the childcare outsourcing industry influences fertility behavior in households [Hazan and Zoabi (2015); Furtado (2016); Bar et al. (2018)]. Furthermore, these studies suggest that hiring FDWs serves as an incentive for highly educated or high-earning women to increase their number of births without sacrificing their careers by lowering child-rearing costs based on the "marketization hypothesis" [Freeman and Schettkat (2005)]. ...
... high-skilled or high-income families increase their fertility, dissenting from the traditional theoretical thoughts. Some works of literature [e.g., Hazan and Zoabi (2015); Bar et al. (2018)] suspect that this trend relies on the "marketization hypothesis" [Freeman and Schettkat (2005)]; that is, higher-income or higher-skilled mothers purchase the housekeeping or babysitting service, in which the lower-skilled immigrants often serve, to reduce their parental burden, and they enable to have more children. ...
... In particular, for households in which women have a higher education or contribute more income to the household, the fertility response is more responsive to FDW employment. This implication supports the concept of the marketization hypothesis [Freeman and Schettkat (2005); Hazan and Zoabi (2015); Bar et al. (2018)], meaning that women purchase and outsource their housework to migrant workers so that they are able to give births without sacrificing their careers. The first-stage estimation of our IV approach suggests that households with higher female income ratios are more likely to employ FDWs. ...
A potential solution to low fertility is the employment of foreign domestic workers (FDWs), who substitute child-rearing and housework duties, thus reducing child-rearing costs. Recent studies argue that the flow of low-skilled foreign workers into the childcare sector influences fertility choice. However, these studies mainly use the availability of FDWs in the local area as the causal inference and focus on Western countries, making it difficult to identify individual direct effects or generalize the findings to other countries. To bridge this research gap and examine the impacts, this study uses household data from the Hong Kong census. Employing ordinary least squares, the inverse probability weighted regression adjustment, and the instrumental variable approach, we find that households that employ live-in FDWs give birth to more children. Moreover, the heterogeneous analysis reveals that women's greater proportional contribution to household income has a positive impact on households' fertility response after employing the FDWs.
... The US belongs to the liberal regime type, in which women are generally employed and work long hours. This system can be partly explained by the high degree of marketization of household production compared with Europe (Freeman et al., 2005), which is also visible in the much smaller gender differences in housework. Owing to the high level of economic liberalization and market flexibility, income inequality is high, and the gender wage gap rather pronounced. ...
... The introduction of tax subsidies, tax deductions and vouchers for these services -as implemented by many governments (Estevez-Abe and Hobson, 2015;Windebank, 2009) -might provide an appropriate incentive to reduce women's unpaid domestic work. However, while this increased 'marketization of the domestic sphere' will increase women's employment and lower economic gender inequality, it will most likely come at the cost of increased overall earnings inequalities (Freeman et al., 2005). ...
Women still earn less than men and continue to perform the bulk of domestic activities. Several studies documented a negative individual wage–housework relation, suggesting that gender discrepancies in housework may explain the gender wage gap. Less attention has been paid to the role of the partner’s unpaid work and to the extent that intra-household inequalities relate to inequalities outside the house. The present study attempts to fill this gap in the literature. We exploit EU-SILC 2010 data for Germany and Italy and PSID 2009 data for the US. Results suggest the importance of accounting for a partner’s housework when evaluating the determinants of individual wages and the gender wage gap. Women seem not to profit from their partners’ housework; instead, women’s non-market work increases their partners’ earnings while decreasing their own earnings. This suggests the importance of reducing women’s involvement in domestic work in order to close gender wage equalities.
... These political, economic and social changes were accompanied by certain processes taking place on a global scale, including the information revolution, the growth of female participation in the labour market, the marketization of domestic production, and the increasing role of the service sector in the structure of economies. Virtually all of these phenomena had a significant impact on people's time allocation, exerting a different influence on the behaviour of men and women (Freeman and Schettkat, 2005;Lee and Wolpin, 2010;Bridgman, 2013;Ngai and Petrongolo, 2014). ...
... In numerous studies of time-use survey data Europe has been divided into countries of the north and the south, so these developed economies have been analysed, including the specificity of countries in the Mediterranean region (Burda et al., 2007). In addition comparisons relating to time allocation have been made for the populations of Europe and the (Alesina et al., 2006;Freeman and Schettkat, 2005). So far little attention has been devoted to the analysis of time allocation in CEE countries. ...
When decisions taken in the context of monetary price and monetary income are investigated, economists have naturally tended to focus their attention on the market activities of households. Consequently, a significant portion of the economic decisions that are taken in the non-market sphere have remained overlooked. Thus it has been recognised that it is necessary to take into account the production generated by households in the measurement of economic wealth. The aim of this paper is to analyse differences in the economic activity of selected Central and Eastern Europe societies. The use of traditional statistics and time-use data for this purpose made it possible to compare the conclusions that can be drawn using different sources of information. As the statistical material has been supplemented with time-use data, prior conclusions about creating the economic welfare of these societies needed to be modified. The different allocations of time in the individual societies and the different extents to which household production is substituted by market goods and services have an impact on the level of prosperity of households. The significant differences in terms of compensating for market work with household production which were observed when comparing the daily activity of unemployed men and women, turned out to be a common feature of the analysed populations.
... Folbre, 2014). However, they form a substantial part of total productive time (Freeman et al., 2005;Aguiar & Hurst, 2007;Bridgman et al., 2018). 655 Moreover, much of the increase in female hours of paid work can be attributed to reducing hours in the production of unpaid in-household services (Bar & Leukhina, 2011;Ngai & Petrongolo, 2017). ...
Because the paid hours gap closes as the service sector becomes more pronounced for high-income countries. Although gender wage inequality persists across country income groups, differences in schooling years between females and males diminish. We assemble a novel dataset, calibrate a general equilibrium, multi-sector, -gender, and -production technology model, and show that gender-specific sectoral comparative advantages explain the schooling gap decline in high-income economies even when the wage gap persists. Due to these comparative advantages, relative female-to-male hours in paid work are greater in high-income countries, providing starker incentives for female education. We additionally show that accounting for consumption subsistence is essential to explain schooling differences in low-income countries. Our results suggest that the schooling gap decline and the de-invisibilisation of female paid work observed in high-income countries are linked by structural sector movements instead of wage inequality reductions.
... High rates of personal taxation tend to make it more profi table to shift a large share of service production to the informal economy, in particular into the 'do-it-yourself ' sector. 27 Cross-country comparisons of industry-level employment also point to considerable scope for substitution of certain economic activities between the market and non-market sectors (Freeman and Schettkat, 2005;Rogerson, 2006). ...
... annexe A pour davantage d'informations), il apparaît que le temps consacré à la production domestique est plus important dans les pays d'Europe qu'aux États-Unis. Les États-Unis sont également l'un des rares pays où le temps consacré au travail rémunéré est plus important que celui consacré au travail domestique (Freeman et Schettkat, 2005). Il en va de même pour les loisirs. ...
Les chercheurs en économie s’accordent généralement pour dire qu’une mesure unique de la pauvreté, qu’elle soit relative, absolue, objective ou subjective, ne suffit pas pour saisir la réalité complexe qu’elle recouvre. À partir d’un échantillon de ménages français de l’enquête Statistiques sur les ressources et les conditions de vie (SRCV) menée par l’Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (Insee) entre 2010 et 2016, cette étude montre que le bien-être subjectif des individus est corrélé à l’entrée et à la sortie de la pauvreté en conditions de vie, mais que les individus ne semblent pas affectés par les transitions vers et hors la pauvreté monétaire à 60 % du revenu médian. Il apparaît que seul le franchissement du seuil monétaire à 80 % du revenu médian est significatif pour les individus interrogés, faisant ainsi de ce seuil une ligne subjective de pauvreté. Certains événements sociodémographiques (séparation, chômage…) semblent précipiter l’entrée dans la pauvreté à ce seuil, jugé critique par les individus, et qui représente environ 30 % de la population française.
... Lebergott (1993) documented this process of marketization with consumption expenditure data for the United States. Using harmonized cross-country time use data for recent decades, Freeman and Schettkat (2005) and Burda, Hamermesh, and Weil (2013) documented the importance of marketization of home production in understanding market hours across rich countries. ...
Many African countries are still in the early stages of structural transformation. Typically, as economies move through the structural transformation, activities once conducted within the household are outsourced to the market. This has particular implications for women’s time use. In this paper, we document that current patterns of female time use in home production in several African countries closely resemble historical time use patterns in the Untied States. We highlight two stylized facts about women’s time use in Africa. First, in North Africa, women spend very few hours in market work and female labor force participation overall is extremely low. Second, although extensive margin participation of women is high in sub-Saharan Africa, women tend to work in the market for only a few hours each week, with the rest of their work hours spent in home production. These two facts suggest two different types of constraints that could slow down the reallocation of female time from home to market as economies grow: social norms related to women’s market work, and a lack of infrastructure (e.g., household infrastructure and childcare facilities) to facilitate marketizing home production. We discuss recent empirical evidence related to each set of constraints and highlight new avenues for research.
... Lebergott (1993) documented this process of marketization with consumption expenditure data for the United States. Using harmonized cross-country time use data for recent decades, Freeman and Schettkat (2005) and Burda et al. (2013) documented the importance of marketization of home production in understanding market hours across rich countries. ...
... A large percentage of all work, most notably household work, is performed outside the market. Cross-country comparisons of industry-level employment also point to considerable scope for substitution of certain economic activities between the market and non-market sectors (Rogerson 2006;Freeman and Schettkat 2005). ...
Public policy affects the prevalence and performance of both productive and high-impact entrepreneurship. High-impact entrepreneurship prospers when knowledge is successfully generated and exploited in the economy. This process depends on complementary key actors who use their competencies in what we denote a competence bloc. Although variations in economic contexts make prescribing a general panacea impossible, a number of relevant policy areas that affect key actors can be identified. In this paper this is done in the areas of tax policy and labor market policy. It is shown that high and/or distortive taxes and heavy labor market regulations impinge on the creation and functioning of competence blocs, thereby reducing high-impact entrepreneurship.
... A large percentage of all work, most notably household work, is performed outside the market. Cross-country comparisons of industry-level employment also point to considerable scope for substitution of certain economic activities between the market and non-market sectors (Rogerson 2006;Freeman and Schettkat 2005). ...
High-growth firms (HGFs) are critical for net job creation and economic growth. We analyze HGFs using the theory of competence blocs, linking firm growth to property rights and the interaction of complementary expertise. Specifically, we discuss how the institutional framework affects the prevalence and performance of HGFs. Firm growth is viewed as resulting from the perpetual discovery and use of productive knowledge. A key element in this process is the competence bloc, a nexus of economic actors with complementary competencies that are vital in order to generate and commercialize novel ideas. The institutional framework determines the incentives for these individuals to acquire and utilize knowledge. We identify a number of institutions that foster * The authors are grateful for useful comments and suggestions from
... We will show in the next section that a simple model with activity-specific technical change common to all households, household specific changes in labor market efficiencies and intertemporal substitution of labor can replicate both the parallel rise in leisure time prior to 1985 and its subsequent divergence. In our theory the falling trend in home hours is due to the lower productivity growth for home goods relative to market goods, a process of marketization (Freeman & Schettkat, 2005). 15 Before we turn to the theory, let us discuss some potential data issues. ...
This paper develops a model that generates rising average leisure time and increasing leisure inequality along a path of balanced growth. Households derive utility from three sources: market goods, home goods and leisure. Home production and leisure are both activities that require time and capital. Households allocate time and capital to these non-market activities and supply labor. The dynamics are driven by activity-specific TFP growth and a spread in the distribution of household-specific labor market efficiencies. When the spread is set to replicate the increase in wage inequality across education groups, the model can account for the observed average time series and cross-sectional dynamics of leisure time in the U.S. over the last five decades.
... Nevertheless, core policy measures related to the neoliberal paradigm influenced economic and political governance across the world. They promoted widespread marketization (Brennan et al., 2012;Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004;Freeman & Schettkat, 2005;Salamon, 1993;van Apeldoorn & Horn, 2007) and fostered monetarist measures, free trade, deregulation, privatization, regressive taxation, austerity, and, more importantly for our argument, labour market flexibilization and welfare state retrenchment (Dum enil & L evy, 2011;Gamble, 2009;Harvey, 2005;Munck, 2005;Peck, 2010;Saad-Filho & Johnston, 2005). These measures are so widespread and accepted in mainstream politics that the term neoliberalism is employed often as a synonym for the present phase of capitalism. ...
The paper develops the concept of a rising invisible majority and explores the interconnections between the political economy context and the changing composition of European society. The concept illustrates how the transition from the Fordist to the neoliberal phase of capitalism is leading to a similar – if differently paced – transformation of the social composition across Europe. The material basis of the ‘invisibility’ manifests itself in a structural increase of unemployment, labour market precarization, and poverty. ‘Invisibility’ makes growing segments of the population less likely to participate in the institutions that regulate social life, while mainstream parties and trade unions no longer represent them adequately in the public arena. We suggest this trend will continue, and eventually concern a majority of the population, unless the neoliberal mechanisms of regulation are slowed or reversed. Enriching Polanyi’s double movement logic, we hypothesise the existence of feedback effects from this transformation of the social composition to the political economy context that could lead to countermovements. Our reasoning is systematised in an analytical framework, complemented with a historical analysis of the Italian case, and a quantitative measurement of the magnitude of this transformation across 14 European countries.
... If public childcare subsidies mainly operate by lowering the price of public childcare below the market clearing price so that public childcare is substituted for private childcare, they can be expected to have little to no effect on the aggregate use of childcare and hence employment (Gustafsson and Stafford 1992). Moreover, in some countries the availability of and access to both private and public childcare tends to be more important than its affordability in explaining labour market effects (Kreyenfeld and Hank 2000;Chevalier and Viitanen 2002;Freeman and Schettkat 2005). As with care for the elderly and frail, another mechanism that could play a role is that expenditures on childcare can simultaneously fuel the demand for caregivers at crèches and kindergartens. ...
Social investment has become a widely debated topic in the comparative welfare state literature. To date, there are, however, only a couple of systematic comparative empirical analyses that focus on the employment outcomes associated with social investment. This study contributes to the social investment literature by empirically analysing the extent to which variation in employment outcomes across 26 OECD countries over the period 1990-2010 can be explained by effort on five social investment policies using time-series cross-sectional analyses. Apart from focusing on employment rates, we additionally explore associations with qualitative aspects of the employment outcomes relying on novel indicators. The analyses account for theoretically relevant confounding variables that were omitted in existing studies, notably labour market institutions. We find robust evidence for a positive association between effort on active labour market policies and employment rates. For other policies we obtain mixed results, dependent on the employment outcome being studied. Subsequently, we explore the role of policy and institutional complementarities in the assessment of the employment effects of social investment policies. We show how social investment policies interact and how their effect is moderated by effort on other policies. Additionally, our analysis shows that the complementarity of social investment policies varies across welfare state regimes. Finally, explorative analyses suggest that there are positive synergies between more and better jobs, which could in part be attributable to effort on social investment.
... The difference in the working hour trends between Europe and the US is mitigated by the different trends for housework, i.e. unpaid work in the home, which dropped more sharply in the US. Indeed, Europeans self-produced part of the services that Americans had to buy (Davis and Henrekson 2004;Olovsson 2009, Freeman andSchettkat 2005;Burda et al. 2007;Aguiar and Hurst 2007;Rogerson 2008). However, the stereotype that European mothers cook more at home than their American counterparts -who eat out at restaurants more frequently -is not sufficient to belie the evidence that Europeans do indeed have more free time (Bonatti 2008). ...
The citizens of the US, China and India have experienced a significant decline in happiness, social capital and leisure in the past few decades, as well as an epidemic of social comparisons. This deep and long-standing social crisis is puzzling when we consider the sustained economic growth of these countries. Is there a relationship between social crisis and growth? The defensive growth approach argues that they may feed each other. The erosion of environmental and social assets caused by increased market activity limits their accessibility, inducing consumers and producers to search for substitutes in the marketplace. Defensive growth is a process whereby market goods and services progressively replace declining non-market sources of well-being and compensate for the negative externalities generated by the increased marketization of society. This process is a self-reinforcing loop: the externalities generated by the expansion of market activities induce households and producers to compensate by buying more goods, further expanding market activity. Because the flip side of increasing economic affluence is rising social and environmental poverty, the impact of defensive growth on happiness is disappointing. I conclude that declining social capital has boosted GDP, working hours and the decline in happiness in the US, China and India.
... Leisure time in general has increased, particularly in European countries, since the 1960s (Aguiar and Hurst, 2007;Freeman and Schettkat, 2005). For many older workers over 50, depending on their economic circumstances, there is increasingly a potential choice between remaining economically active or retiring and exiting the labour market. ...
Drawing on the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS), this paper examines changes in the proportion of people aged over 50, active in the Irish labour market from 1998 to 2014. Results indicate that an increasing number of workers over 50 remain active, due mainly to the dramatic increase in the proportion of older females remaining in the labour force. By 2014 the 50 to 64 age group accounted for a quarter of all economically active people in the labour market between 15 and 64. Older workers are more likely to be employees and less likely to be employers or self-employed in 2014 compared to 1998. Older workers in lower-level occupations, particularly over the age of 60, are more likely to remain economically active. Level of education is strongly associated with the likelihood of older workers remaining economically active, particularly for the 50-59 age group and for females. .
... 3) Brewster (우명숙, 2006;OECD, 1994;이주희, 2005;O'Connor et al., 1999: 94-108;United Nations, 2005: 303 (황정미, 2002:122-123 (Esping-Andersen, 1990, 1999Morgan, 2005;Cohen, 1998;Freeman and Schettkat, 2005;Estévez-Abe, 2010. 집안일의 시장화 된 서비스에 대한 관심이 커지기 전에는, 여성의 가정 내 생산(home production)에 있어 시간소비가 가사 관련 기술의 발전으로 인하여 줄었다는 분석 (Goldin, 1990;Greenwood, (Esping-Andersen, 1990, 1999Morgan, 2005). ...
... In this way, the emergence of new consumer aspirations and the availability of higher quality goods and services are critical to expand labour supply by providing households with a greater incentive to work. Recent research on cross-country differences in labour participation rates also finds that if households exhibit strong preferences for home production, labour supply will be negatively impacted (Freeman and Schettkat, 2005). ...
This work was conducted for the UNIDO Industrial Development Report: https://www.unido.org/resources-publications-flagship-publications-industrial-development-report-series/industrial-development-report-2018
... In line with this view, a strand of the literature on structural change has explicitly introduced home production into analysis as a factor likely to account for part of the labor market shift towards services (e.g. Freeman and Schettkat, 2005;Ngai and Pissarides, 2008;Rogerson, 2008;Buera and Kaboski, 2012a,b;Barany and Siegel, 2018;Moro et al., 2017). As part of this literature, a number of studies have used multi-sector models to investigate the interactions between structural change, the marketization of home production and female work, and explain the evolution of gender outcomes in working hours and wages (e.g. ...
The main goal of this paper is to provide an integrated survey of the literature devoted to identifying the drivers of structural change, broadly defined as the process of reallocation of economic activity across the three broad sectors agriculture, manufacturing and services. Using the GGDC 10‐Sector Database, this paper first presents the empirical facts associated with structural change in different regions of the world – that is Europe and the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Africa – then reviews four determinants of structural change: (i) changes in income, (ii) changes in relative (sectoral) prices, (iii) changes in input–output linkages and (iv) changes in comparative advantage(s) via globalization and trade.
... With respect to use of the term marketization in its narrow sense, it bears noting that it is not in particularly wide use in disciplinary economics. Where marketization is used within the field of economics or allied fields (such as public administration) it tends to refer to the imposition or intensification of price-based competition (Greer and Doellgast 2017), reforms whereby public organizations or state owned organizations in planned economies adopt market principles and operate on the basis of them (Riggs 1961), or increasing time is spent in labor markets versus household labor (Freeman et al. 2005). In the field of public administration and social policy, critics have used the term marketization to sound alarm bells over the hazards of the "new public administration" (NPM) and its agenda of exposing public administration and public services to market principles (e.g., Ferlie 1996;Eikenberry and Kluver 2004;Hsiao 1994). ...
The world-scale expansion of markets and market relations ranks among the most transformative developments of our times. We can refer to this process by way of a generic if inelegant term – marketization. This book explores how processes of marketization have registered across East Asia’s diverse social landscape and its implications for patterns of welfare and inequality. While there has been great interest in East Asia’s economic rise, treatments of welfare and inequality in the region have been largely relegated to specialist literatures. Proceeding from a synthetic critique of political economy, this book places welfare and inequality at the center of a more encompassing comparative approach to political economy that construes countries as dynamic, globally embedded social orders defined and animated by distinctive social relational and institutional features.
... With respect to use of the term marketization in its narrow sense, it bears noting that it is not in particularly wide use in disciplinary economics. Where marketization is used within the field of economics or allied fields (such as public administration) it tends to refer to the imposition or intensification of price-based competition (Greer and Doellgast 2017), reforms whereby public organizations or state owned organizations in planned economies adopt market principles and operate on the basis of them (Riggs 1961), or increasing time is spent in labor markets versus household labor (Freeman et al. 2005). In the field of public administration and social policy, critics have used the term marketization to sound alarm bells over the hazards of the "new public administration" (NPM) and its agenda of exposing public administration and public services to market principles (e.g., Ferlie 1996;Eikenberry and Kluver 2004;Hsiao 1994). ...
The world-scale expansion of markets and market relations is among the defining features of our times. We can refer to this process by way of a generic if inelegant neologism—marketization. Among the most widely cited stylized facts regarding the last three decades of marketization are those that highlight its contribution to foreign direct investment (FDI), to accelerated economic growth, and improvements in living standards in the developing world, especially in East Asia. Yet marketizing in East Asia and in other historical contexts has been associated with other effects. These include the intensification of inequality, competitiveness, and economic insecurity, political tensions, and the generation of new opportunities and risks. Indeed, significance of marketization does not lie only with the expansion of markets. Marketization as an historical process entails the disruption, transformation, and reordering of the very foundations of social life. This chapter examines marketization in world historical perspective and focuses on marketization in contemporary East Asia as a particularly interesting instance of marketization. Observing East Asia’s socio-economic and institutional diversity, the chapter poses questions about marketization registers across countries and the determinants of welfare and inequality. The chapter concludes with a summation of major claims to be explored in the volume, followed by a synoptic over of the chapters.
... Economists and sociologists have consistently observed that women tend to work more than men. However, this is accompanied by gender differences of the balance of unpaid and paid work, whereby women perform most household labour even if they are employed (Freeman and Schettkat 2005;Kalenkoski and Pabilonia 2009;Tashiro 2009;Rizavi and Faisal 2011). A recent United Nations report on women's time indicates that despite the globally reduced gap between women and men in the labour market, women are still spending twice as much time as men at unpaid domestic tasks, such as housework, care for children or dependents, and meal preparation (UN 2010). ...
Over decades, economists and sociologists have established that women tend to work more than men if both paid and unpaid work are counted. Even with women’s increased labour force participation, men have only shown modest increases in unpaid domestic work. This study demonstrates, through time use diaries and interviews, a unique time use pattern by Pakistani Canadian immigrant women. The eight women in this study performed all or nearly all unpaid household tasks, suffered from time poverty due to cultural and family pressures, and experienced varying degrees of dis/satisfaction with their time use, becoming more aware of it through their participation in this project. This study concludes with policy implications, centring on the negative influences of the male breadwinner model on immigrant women which constructs them as a ‘burden’ on their husbands and renders these women’s unpaid work invisible.
... This pattern is closely linked to the process of structural transformation, and specifically the reallocation of labor from goods to service industries, with an expansion of the service share from 56 percent in 1968 to 75 percent in 2008. Finally, the rise in women's hours in the service sector was accompanied by a strong decline in their working hours in the household, from about 41 to 31 hours weekly, consistent with substantial marketization of home production (Freeman and Schettkat 2005). 3 Motivated by these facts, this paper studies the role of the rise in services, in turn driven by structural transformation and marketization, in the simultaneous evolution of gender outcomes in hours and wages. ...
This paper investigates the role of the rise in services in the narrowing of gender gaps in hours and wages in recent decades. We highlight the between-industry component of differential gender trends for the United States and propose a model economy with goods, services, and home production, in which women have a comparative advantage in producing services. The rise of services, driven by structural transformation and marketization of home production, raises women's relative wages and market hours. Quantitatively, the model accounts for an important share of the observed trends in women's hours and relative wages.
... 9 See Davis and Henrekson (1997, 2005a and Bertrand and Kramarz (2002). 10 See also Beaudry and Green (2005), Davis and Henrekson (2005b), Freeman and Schettkat (2005), Autor et al. (2007) and Ngai and Pissarides (2009). 11 Acemoglu (2003a) and Koeniger and Leonardi (2007) offer a different explanation to labor-capital substitution through distortions to investment by labor regulation. ...
This paper shows that different labor market policies can lead to differences in technology across sectors in a model of labor saving technologies. Labor market regulations reduce the skill premium and as a result, if technologies are labor saving, countries with more stringent labor regulation, which bind more for low skilled workers, become less technologically advanced in their high skill sectors, but more technologically advanced in their low skill sectors. We then present data on capital-output ratios, on estimated productivity levels and on patent creation, which tend to support the predictions of our model.
... In line with this view, a strand of the literature devoted to identifying the causes of structural change has explicitly introduced home production into analysis as a factor likely to explain some part of the labor market shift towards services (see e.g. Freeman and Schettkat, 2005;Ngai and Pissarides, 2008;Rogerson, 2008;Kaboski, 2012a and2012b;Barany and Siegel, 2014 29 ). In parallel, a number of papers have investigated the interaction between structural change, the marketization of home production and female work to explain the evolution of gender outcomes in working hours and wages (see e.g. ...
In this comprehensive evaluation of existing economic research, we find that in wealthy countries, where government size is measured as total taxes or total expenditure relative to gross domestic product (GDP), there is a negative correlation between government size and economic growth--where government size increases by 10 percentage points, annual growth rates decrease by 0.5 to 1 percent.
We stress that statistical correlations, even when highly significant, are not law. Some countries with high taxes enjoy above-average growth, and some countries with small governments have stagnant economies. The Scandinavian welfare states, for example, have enjoyed steady growth over the last decade despite their large governments. However, these nations compensate for high taxes by employing market-friendly policies in other areas, such as trade openness and inflation control.
Government Size and Implications for Economic Growth concludes that, in every case, economic freedom is a crucial determinant of economic growth--suggesting that government intervention in the marketplace may be the wrong approach to solving the economic crisis.
Using microdata from 17 OECD countries, this paper documents a negative cross‐country correlation between gender gaps in market hours and wages. We find that the cross‐country differences in market hours are mostly accounted for by female market hours and the size of the sector that produces close substitutes to home production. We quantify the role played by taxes and family care subsidies on the two gender gaps in a multi‐sector model with home production. Higher taxes and lower subsidies reduce the marketization of home production, leading to lower market hours. The effect is largely on women because both home production and the production of its market substitutes are female‐intensive. The larger fall in female market hours reduces relative female labour supply, contributing to a higher female to male wage ratio.
The study’s principal goal is to evaluate the
sustainability of health-financing systems in 23 OECD
countries. Health spending is expected to rise faster than
overall income between 2019 and 2030. Furthermore,
significant findings supporting this upward trend were
identified in health expenditure determinants.
Decreases in income and infant mortality rates, and
rises in average life expectancy, population over 65,
female labor force participation rate, and age-related
dependency rate, may contribute to the rising trend in
health expenditures. When these circumstances arise,
governments may face long-term health-financing
challenges. Therefore, policymakers should prioritize
initiatives targeted at reducing healthcare expenditure.
A investigação propõe-se a compreender de que forma a geração dos jovens criativos, digitais e urbanos se posiciona face à ordem de género vigente. Procura-se para o específico dos contextos de trabalho, e também para os domínios da vida social, recolher representações e práticas ilustrativas das relações de género em que os jovens participam.
A investigação envolve 26 mulheres e homens com idades compreendidas entre os 23 e os 34 anos residentes em meio urbano (Lisboa, Porto e Braga) e que exercem profissões do meio cultural e criativo.
O sector criativo é considerado, se comparado com outros sectores da economia, tolerante, igualitário e menos hierarquizado, em termos das relações de género (e outras). A revisão da bibliografia e a presente investigação mostram, todavia, como os ambientes de trabalho criativos não são imunes às desigualdades e discriminações de género contra as mulheres.
A dissertação assenta numa metodologia qualitativa, usando como instrumento a entrevista semi-directiva. A análise dos resultados sistematiza os depoimentos de acordo com uma grelha que cruza representações de género, relações de género no trabalho, relação trabalho-vida familiar e participação cívica dos jovens. Deste estudo emergem três perfis-tipo ilustrativos da geração de jovens criativos urbanos: os alheados, os instalados e os implicados.
This study summarizes evidence on various unique aspects of work time in the American labor market. Compared to workers in other rich countries, Americans: Work longer hours per week; take fewer paid vacations; are more likely to work on weekends or at nights; enjoy fewer daily hours of leisure; are more likely to feel pressured for time. Except for night/weekend work, these phenomena are concentrated among higher earners. Their workaholism spills over onto other workers and non-worker family members. The study indicates policy remedies for what appears to be an inferior labor-market equilibrium of excessive market work in the U.S.
This sixth edition of Society at a Glance, OECD's biennial overview of social indicators, updates some indicators from previous volumes and introduces several new ones. It also features a special chapter on unpaid work. It includes data on the four newest OECD members: Chile, Estonia, Israel and Slovenia. Where available, data on major emerging economies Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa are also included.
İşsizlik Türkiye’nin önemli problemlerinden biri. Gençlerde işsizliğin ulaştığı boyut ise özellikle endişe verici. Bu kitapta Türkiye’nin en büyük problemlerinden biri olan işsizlik kapsamlı bir şekilde ele alınıyor. İstihdam piyasasının dönüşümü ve işsizliğin nedenleri ortaya konuyor. Ayrıca işsizlik için çözüm önerileri sunuluyor. İstihdamı Paylaşmak: İşsizliğin Nedenleri ve Çözümü’nde aşağıdaki soruların cevaplarını bulacaksınız:
• Türkiye’de işsizlik oranı neden yüksek?
• İstihdam piyasası hangi açılardan sorunlu bir yapıya sahip?
• İşsizliği azaltmak için hangi politikaların uygulanması lazım?
• Türkiye’de çalışma saatlerinin uzun olması ile işsizlik arasında
nasıl bir bağlantı var?
• Verimliliğin giderek arttığı dünyada işsizlik oranları nasıl kontrol
altında tutuluyor?
• OECD ülkelerinde ortalama beş kişinin yaptığı işi Türkiye’de üç
veya dört kişinin yapması işsizliği nasıl etkiliyor?
• Diğer ülkelere kıyasla Türkiye’de yarı zamanlı işlerin az sayıda
olması genç işsizliğini nasıl etkiliyor?
• Kadın istihdamını artırmak için ne gibi politikaların uygulanması
gerekiyor?
• İşsizlik konusunda topluma, şirketlere ve devlete düşen görevler
neler?
• Eğitim sisteminin istihdam piyasası ve işsizlik üzerinde ne gibi
etkileri var?
• Geçmişte uygulanan sıkı para politikaları işsizliği nasıl etkiledi?
• “İş beğenmeme” olgusunun arka planında ne var?
• Küresel ısınma ve robotlaşma çağında istihdam piyasasını neler
bekliyor?
Objectives of the research. Due to student's participation which was very active during the course 2016-17 at 3rd Grade of Primary Studies, we provide several strategies and experiences carried out by the members of the group, adding references taken from other universities and pedagogical areas. The primary of the facts leads us to share selection criteria in the methodology applied known as CLIL teaching and learning methodology proposed in Primary Studies at Malaga University. In order to achieve the objective of handling Higher Education in Further Education and Promoting Reflective Independent Learning in Higher Education (PRILHE) the proposition combines them with other procedures such as participation in city-town Institutions like Art Museums or Sciences ones as well as in cultural and natural heritage sites. Those experiences should visualize didactic needs in Spanish towns and cities or abroad where the use of English could be justified. Providing new objectives and possibilities concerning internationalizing employability and entrepreneurship, either citizens or teachers/students will approach to citizenship common knowledge and to university in other term like non-traditional students or experience inequalities.
Durante los últimos años se ha producido un incremento exponencial de los movimientos migratorios. Además miles de personas se han visto obligadas a cruzar fronteras para escapar de la guerra o de distintos conflictos armados. Debido a esta situación han aparecido nuevas necesidades sociales relacionadas con estas personas en los países de destino: nutrición, vivienda y por supuesto un modo de ganarse la vida para poder comenzar de nuevo. En otras palabras, un empleo que permita a esas personas alquilar una casa, alimentar a sus familias y construir un nuevo proyecto de vida. A través de este proyecto de formación tratamos de dar respuesta a esta necesidad de empleo mediante una propuesta de alianza o partenariado entre la Universidad y diferentes organismos internacionales de acogida de refugiados como el Programa de Acogida Temporal de Refugiados de Cruz Roja Internacional. De cara a conseguir esta meta se propone la realización de un programa de formación en habilidades enfocado en la inclusión laboral y dirigido a refugiados, de manera que puedan adquirir herramientas que le ayuden a conseguir un empleo. En este entorno, la universidad y los distintos actores sociales propuestos tienen la oportunidad de posibilitar el tránsito de estas personas hacia la normalización de sus vidas mediante la consecución de un empleo. Durante la fase de diagnóstico se han detectado necesidades como la comunicación con otras personas, como adaptarse y actuar en distintas circunstancias, autoconfianza, como conocer a los otros y a sí mismo, y cómo estar preparados para encontrar un trabajo. De cara a afrontar estas necesidades el proyecto se centra en trabajar las habilidades sociales ya que son capaces de incrementar e impulsar las posibilidades de construir relaciones satisfactorias, sentirse bien con los demás y aprender a comunicarse. Todas estas habilidades resultan necesarias para alcanzar la meta de conseguir un empleo.
This paper studies the formation and persistence of gender identity in a sample of U.S. immigrants. We show that gender roles are acquired early in life, and once established, persist regardless of how long an individual has lived in the U.S. We use a novel approach relying on linguistic variation and document that households with individuals whose native language emphasizes gender in its grammatical structure are significantly more likely to allocate household tasks on the basis of sex and to do so more intensively. We present evidence of two mechanisms for our observed associations – that languages serve as cultural markers for origin country norms or that features of language directly influence cognition and behavior. Our findings do not appear to be driven by plausible alternatives such as selection in migration and marriage markets, as gender norms of behavior are evident even in the behavior of single person households.
In the USA the change in women's role in the economy over the last quarter-century has been likened to 'a quiet revolution'. Can we also talk of a quiet 'revolution' in Europe? The present article addresses this question by reviewing key developments in women's labour market position at EU level over the last 20 years. Full integration of women in the labour market was a focal point of European Employment Strategy, based on the understanding that it is an essential ingredient of gender equality; but it recently lost priority in favour of human rights and anti-discrimination goals. Policy responses to the financial crisis accelerated this change in priorities together with the perception that men are the real losers of the crisis. However, a stock-taking of women's integration into the labour market at EU level shows that two large obstacles stand in the way of full integration: regional imbalances and the secondary earner question. Female employment recently outperformed male employment, but fiscal consolidation policies currently hinder advancement in countries like the so-called GIPSI group, where progress is needed most. Meanwhile differences with respect to men in pension income or total earnings remain high at around forty percent. Reconciliation policy at EU level – leave design and care service provisioning in particular – had not consistently helped rebalance the gender division of labour within households. It needs recasting for a truly revolutionary change in women’s role in the economy to materialize.
Since the 1960s labour market outcomes among the world’s richest economies have changed dramatically, especially in terms of unemployment rates and time devoted to market work. This article summarizes the evidence regarding these changes and discusses some of the explanations that have been proposed for why these labour market outcomes have evolved so differently across economies.
The fraction of U.S. college graduate women entering professional programs increased substantially just after 1970, and the age at first marriage among all U.S. college graduate women began to soar around the same year. We explore the relationship between these two changes and the diffusion of the birth control pill (“the pillâ€) among young, unmarried college graduate women. Although the pill was approved in 1960 by the Food and Drug Administration and spread rapidly among married women, it did not diffuse among young, single women until the late 1960s after state law changes reduced the age of majority and extended “mature minor†decisions. We present both descriptive time series and formal econometric evidence that exploit crossâ€state and crossâ€cohort variation in pill availability to young, unmarried women, establishing the “power of the pill†in lowering the costs of longâ€duration professional education for women and raising the age at first marriage.
This paper proposes a new method for estimating family labor supply in the presence of taxes. This method accounts for continuous hours choices, measurement error, unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for work, the nonlinear form of the tax code, and fixed costs of work in one comprehensive specification. Estimated on data from the 2001 PSID, the resulting elasticities for married males are consistent with those found elsewhere in the literature but female wage elasticities are substantially smaller than those found in most of the literature. Simulations of recent tax acts predict small effects on the labor supply of married couples.
Parents around the world grapple with the common challenge of balancing work and child care. Despite common problems, the industrialized nations have developed dramatically different social and labor market policies-policies that vary widely in the level of support they provide for parents and the extent to which they encourage an equal division of labor between parents as they balance work and care. In Families That Work, Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers take a close look at the work-family policies in the United States and abroad and call for a new and expanded role for the U.S. government in order to bring this country up to the standards taken for granted in many other Western nations. In many countries in Europe and in Canada, family leave policies grant parents paid time off to care for their young children, and labor market regulations go a long way toward ensuring that work does not overwhelm family obligations. In addition, early childhood education and care programs guarantee access to high-quality care for their children. In most of these countries, policies encourage gender equality by strengthening mother's ties to employment and encouraging fathers to spend more time caregiving at home. In sharp contrast, Gornick and Meyers show how in the United States-an economy with high labor force participation among both fathers and mothers-parents are left to craft private solutions to the society-wide dilemma of "who will care for the children?" Parents-overwhelmingly mothers-must loosen their ties to the workplace to care for their children; workers are forced to negotiate with their employers, often unsuccessfully, for family leave and reduced work schedules; and parents must purchase care of dubious quality, at high prices, from consumer markets. By leaving child care solutions up to hard-pressed working parents, these private solutions exact a high price in terms of gender inequality in the workplace and at home, family stress and economic insecurity, and-not least-child well-being. Gornick and Meyers show that it is possible-based on the experiences of other countries-to enhance child well-being and to increase gender equality by promoting more extensive and egalitarian family leave, work-time, and child care policies. Families That Work demonstrates convincingly that the United States has much to learn from policies in Europe and in Canada, and that the often-repeated claim that the United States is simply "too different" to draw lessons from other countries is based largely on misperceptions about policies in other countries and about the possibility of policy expansion in the United States.
The fraction of U.S. college graduate women entering professional programs increased substantially just after 1970, and the age at first marriage among all U.S. college graduate women began to soar around the same year. We explore the relationship between these two changes and the diffusion of the birth control pill ("the pill") among young, unmarried college graduate women. Although the pill was approved in 1960 by the Food and Drug Administration and spread rapidly among married women, it did not diffuse among young, single women until the late 1960s after state law changes reduced the age of majority and extended "mature minor" decisions. We present both descriptive time series and formal econometric evidence that exploit cross-state and cross-cohort variation in pill availability to young, unmarried women, establishing the "power of the pill" in lowering the costs of long-duration professional education for women and raising the age at first marriage.
Are product market and entry regulation key sources of low employment growth in many European countries? We investigate this
question in the context of the French retail trade industry. Since 1974, approval by regional zoning boards has been required
for the creation or extension of any large retain store in France. We exploit a unique database that provides time- and region-specific
variation in boards' approval decisions. We show that stronger deterrence of entry by the boards increased retailer concentration
and slowed down employment growth in France.
In this paper we study the reasons behind the asymmetric distribution of housework within Spanish two-earner couples. Spouses' housework times are estimated jointly in a bivariate framework using data from the 1991 Work Situation and Time Use Survey. In order to understand the impact of gender-specific factors on the observed allocation of housework, we perform estimations that are in line with the Oaxaca decomposition. Our results suggest that the unequal division of domestic work between wives and husbands in our sample is mainly explained by gender-specific effects rather than by differences in their observable characteristics. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003
Economic models of household behavior typically yield the prediction that increases in schooling levels and wage rates of married women lead to increases in their labor supply and reductions in fertility. In Italy, low labor market participation rates of married women are observed together with low birth rates. Our explanation involves the Italian institutional structure, particularly as reflected in rigidities and imperfections in the labor market and characteristics of the publicly-funded child care system. These rigidities tend to simultaneously increase the costs of having children and to discourage the labor market participation of married women. We analyze a model of labor supply and fertility, using panel data. The empirical results show that the availability of child care and part time work increase both the probability of working and having a child.
Given falling birth rates, ageing baby boomers approaching retirement age as well as a pension crisis in most advanced economies, understanding the characteristics of the labour supply function of the elderly have taken on a new significance. Even in developing countries, with labour surplus economies, this is a major issue as these poor countries try to build a pension scheme with at least a minimum amount of state provision for the elderly. What motivates retired people to enter or continue in the labour force is the focus of our analysis. We use panel data from Korea which is an interesting country since it transited from developing to developed economy status within the last few decades and therefore exhibits characteristics of both underdevelopment and economic advancement. The econometric methods include probit models of: pooled data; panel data with random effects; and 2SCML, to allow for possible endogeneity bias induced by the self-declared health status of the elderly. We stress the crucial importance of pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors in determining labour supply of the elderly. Contrary to expectations, non-pecuniary factors such as health status are crucial in the decision-making process of whether to work or not to work for the elderly.
In this study we compare evidence based on time use data for three countries: Italy, Germany and Sweden. While in all these countries working mothers appear to dedicate less time to child care than non-working mothers, in Sweden the difference is smallest in absolute terms as well as statistically insignificant. In Italy maternal work is associated with the largest loss of maternal child care. To shed light on the possible reasons for this finding we consider the role of part-time job opportunities and formal or informal child care arrangements. We argue that while child care facilities increase mothers' access to employment, it is the availability of flexible working arrangements that allows them to work and still have enough time to allocate to child care.
This paper estimates mortality and fertility rates prevailing in Ireland during the 25-year period before the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1849. A technique is developed to estimate the age-specific mortality level during the Famine and the number of Famine-related deaths. The paper concludes that fertility rates were declining during the period 1821-1845 and that the effects of the Famine were especially severe on the very young and the very old. Ignoring deaths among emigrants, it is estimated that one million individuals perished as a result of the Famine. The analysis permits year-by-year reconstruction of the Irish population age structure for the period 1821-1851.
We analyze the effects of regional structures on both females’ willingness to work and the probability of being employed for those willing to work. Special permission was granted to link regional data to individual respondents in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Results of a bivariate probit model correcting for sample selection show that high regional unemployment discourages women from entering the labor market. Those who are willing to work find it easier to do so if living in regions with low regional unemployment rates, short distances to the next agglomeration, and – for mothers – a high density of childcare provision.
We estimate the economic scope of the sports industry in the United States. Drawing on a variety of data sources, we investigate the economic size of sport participation, sports viewing, and the supply and demand side of the sports market in the United States. Estimates of the size of the sports industry based on aggregate demand and aggregate supply range from 73 billion in 2005. In addition, participation in sports and the opportunity time cost of attending sporting events are important, but hard to value, components of the industry.
This paper examines the trends in the well-being of American women over the last 25 years, a time of significant changes in the relative economic status of women and in the labor market as a whole. Substantial evidence is obtained of rising gender equality in labor market outcomes and in the allocation of housework within married couple families. However, parallel to the recent evidence of the declining labor market position of lower skilled men, there has been a similar deterioration in the economic status of less educated women, especially high school dropouts, across a wide variety of dimensions.
Research on the labor-supply consequences of childbearing is complicated by the endogeneity of fertility. This study uses parental preferences for a mixed sibling-sex composition to construct instrumental variables (IV) estimates of the effect of childbearing on labor supply. IV estimates for women are significant but smaller than ordinary least-squares estimates. The IV are also smaller for more educated women and show no impact of family size on husbands' labor supply. A comparison of estimates using sibling-sex composition and twins instruments implies that the impact of a third child disappears when the child reaches age thirteen. Copyright 1998 by American Economic Association.
The 1980s tax reforms and the changing dispersion of wages offer one of the best opportunities yet to estimate labor supply effects. Nevertheless, changing sample composition, aggregate shocks, the changing composition of the tax paying population, and discontinuities in the tax system create serious identification and estimation problems. The authors develop grouping estimators that address these issues. Their results reveal positive and moderately sized wage elasticities. The authors also find negative income effects for women with children.
Does entry regulation hinder job creation? We investigate this question in the context of the French retail industry, a sector that has experienced especially low rates of job creation over the last 25 years. Using a unique database that provides time and regional variation in boards approval decisions, we show that requirement created barriers to entry in the retail sector.
This concluding chapter makes use of evidence from the earlier chapters in this volume, from other recent country case studies, and from additional data on selected country "success stories" and "failures" to sum up the empirical case against the orthodox view-that labor market rigidities explain high unemployment and that free market reforms are required for good employment performance. Some dimensions of the French, Italian, Belgian, and Austrian experiences not covered in the earlier chapters are briefly discussed. The country case study evidence suggests an alternative to the orthodox rigidity account: employment performance across affluent countries appears to be related to the ability to effectively coordinate macroeconomic and social policies with the wage bargaining system, and that this in turn seems to require both strong employer and union associations and a relatively stable and consensual political environment. In any case, it is evident that fundamentally different labor market models are compatible with low unemployment, ranging from the free market "American Model" to the much more regulated and coordinated Scandinavian systems. The policy discourse should move beyond free market orthodoxy.
Impact of Financial Incentives to Work on Individual Behaviour: An Estimation for France
by Thomas Piketty
Does making low-paid jobs more financially attractive for the jobless have a significant positive impact on employment levels in France? Various reforms introduced in France's social transfers system between 1982 and 1996 have changed the financial incentives to work for various categories of population, depending on the number of dependent children, family structure and other factors. We use individual data from the INSEE employment surveys conducted from 1982 to 1997 (involving some 150,000 observations each year) to see if the new incentives introduced by these reforms, such as the income support benefit (RMI) and first job allowance (APE), have led to adjustments in the differential employment levels of these various population groups, all other (observable) things being equal. This methodology has recently been used for the American Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Survey and in natural experiments in Canada. In principle, it enables us to make an unbiased estimate of the elasticity of labour force participation and job-seeking behaviour in relation to financial incentives.
The findings suggest that elasticity is relatively greater for women (with or without dependent children). On the other hand, the data used do not enable us to show any significant effect of financial incentives to work on men's transition from non-employment to employment.
This paper seeks to explain the greater hours worked by Americans compared to Germans in terms of forward-looking labor supply responses to differences in earnings inequality between the countries. We argue that workers choose current hours of work to gain promotions and advance in the distribution of earnings. Since US earnings are more unequally distributed than German earnings, the same extra work pays off more in the US, generating more hours worked. Supporting this inequality-hours hypothesis, we show that in both countries hours worked is positively related to earnings inequality in cross section occupational contrasts and that hours worked raises future wages and promotion prospects in longitudinal data.
Empirical evidence from developed countries consistently shows that, despite the increasing female participation in paid labor, women remain responsible for most of household duties. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which this gender-effect explains the unequal distribution of housework between working spouses in Spanish. Data come from the Work Situation and Time Use Survey carried out by the Spanish Instituto de la Mujer in 1991. We model housework allocation between spouses assuming wives' and husbands' housework times are generated by a bivariate negative binomial distribution, conditional on a set of observable characteristics, such as paid labor conditions, education or the presence of children at home. To go further the gender-effect, we carry out estimations that amount to an Oaxaca decomposition performed on the proposed bivariate specification. Our results highlight the lack of symmetry in partners' housework structures. This suggests that an important part of the division of labor between spouses is independent of the differences in their observable characteristics and that it depends on gender specific effects.
[fre] L'emploi dans les services en France et aux États-Unis : une analyse structurelle sur longue période . Alors qu'en France le nombre d'emplois est resté stable au XXème siècle, il a quadruplé aux États-Unis. Cependant, dans les deux pays, leur répartition sectorielle s'est transformée de façon similaire : diminution des emplois de l'agriculture, puis des emplois industriels, mais plus récemment en France qu'aux États-Unis, au profit ,des activités de services. . Dans ces deux pays, les services aux entreprises représentent aujourd'hui 9 % de l'emploi total. Secteur neuf, tourné surtout vers des emplois qualifiés, il a suivi la même évolution. Dans le domaine de l'éducation et la santé, la France a rattrapé, en 1 990, le niveau d'emploi américain. Toutefois, le nombre d'emploi par habitant y demeure plus élevé outre-Atlantique. . En revanche, le commerce et l'hôtellerie-restauration ne génèrent, en France, que 17 % de l'emploi total contre 24 % aux États-Unis. Cette différence peut s'expliquer, en partie seulement, par un moindre pouvoir d'achat des Français. Une étude sur séries longues montre que la rupture de croissance du nombre d'emploi dans le commerce a eu lieu dans les années 80. Aussi, plus pertinente serait une explication par le coût du travail peu qualifié qui est, depuis 1970, plus élevé en France pour atteindre aujourd'hui, une fois tout élément pris en compte, entre 120 et 140 % du coût du travail américain. Inversement, dans les services domestiques, après un déclin séculaire, les récentes orientations fiscales françaises ont permis le développement des emplois familiaux. C'est vraisemblablement dans ces secteurs, intensifs en travail peu qualifié, et plus particulièrement dans le commerce et l'hôtellerie- restauration, qu'il serait possible de créer des emplois. [eng] Employment in Services in France and the United States: A Long-Run Structural Analysis . Although the number of jobs remained stable in France in the 20th century, it quadrupled in the United States. However, the sectoral breakdown has developed along similar lines in both countries: a downturn in agricultural jobs and then industrial jobs, more recently in France than in the United States, and an increase in service activities. . Business services in both countries now account for 9% of total employment. This new sectorr comprising mainly skilled jobs, has borne the same trends. France caught up with the American education and health employment level in 1990. Nevertheless, America still boasts a higher number of jobs per capita in these sectors. . Commerce and the hotel-restaurant business only generate 17% of total employment in France as opposed to 24% in the United States. This difference may be explained, albeit only partially, by lower French purchasing power. A study based on long series shows that the break in the growth of the number of jobs in commerce came in the 1980s. Hence a more pertinent explanation would be the cost of semi- and unskilled labour, which has been high in France since 1 970 and has now reached, once all elements are taken into account, between 120% and 140% of the American labour cost. Conversely, recent French tax changes have prompted growth in domestic services following their long-term decline. It will probably be possible to create jobs in these sectors, intensive in semi- and unskilled labour, and more particularly in commerce and the hotel-restaurant business. [ger] Die Beschâftigung im Dienstleistungssektor in Frankreich und in den Vereinigten Staaten: eine strukturelle Langzeitanalyse . Wâhrend in Frankreich die Zahl der Arbeitsplâtze im 20. Jahrhundert stabil geblieben ist, hat sie sich in den Vereinigten Staaten vervierfacht. In beiden Lândern hat sich jedoch^hre sektorenspezifische Verteilung auf âhnliche Weise verândert: Abnahme der Arbeitsplâtze zunâchst in der Landwirtschaft und danach - allerdings etwas spâter in Frankreich als in den Vereinigten Staaten - in der Industrie zugunsten der Dienstleistungen. . In beiden Lândern entfallen heute auf die den Unternehmen erbrachten Dienstleistungen 9% der Gesamtbeschâftigung. Dieser neue Sektor, der insbesondere qualifizierte Arbeitsplâtze umfaBt, hat die gleiche Entwicklung durchgemacht. Im Bereich der Ausbildung und des Gesundheitswesens hat Frankreich 1990 das amerikanische Beschâftigungsniveau eingeholt. Die Zahl der Arbeitsplâtze pro Einwohner ist jedoch jenseits des Atlantiks hôher. . Dagegen entfallen auf den Handel und das Gastgewerbe in Frankreich lediglich 17% der Gesamtbeschâftigung, wâhrend es in den Vereinigten Staaten 24% sind. Dieser Unterschied làBt sich - allerdings nur zum Teil - durch eine geringere Kaufkraft der Franzosen erklàren. Aus einer Langzeitstudie geht hervor, daf3 der Zuwachs der Anzahl der Arbeitsplâtze im Handel in den 80er Jahren ins Stocken geriet. Relevanter wâre somit eine Erklàrung anhand der Arbeitskosten fur gering Qualifizierte, die in Frankreich seit 1970 hôher sind und sich nach Berûcksichtigung sâmtlicher Kostenfaktoren heute auf 120 bis 140% der amerikanischen Arbeitskosten belaufen. Bei den hâuslichen Dienstleistungen, die im Laufe dieses Jahrhunderts einen Rùckgang verzeichneten, ermôglichten dagegen die jùngsten franzôsischen SteuermaBnahmen eine vermehrte Einstellung von Haushaltshilfen. Neue Arbeitsplâtze kônnten wahrscheinlich in diesen Sektoren, in denen zahlreiche gering Qualifizierte benôtigt werden, geschaffen werden, insbesondere im Handel und im Gastgewerbe. [spa] El empleo en los servicios en Francia y en Estados Unidos : un anàlisis estructural sobre un largo periodo. . Cuando en Francia el numéro de empleos ha sido estable a lo largo del siglo veinte, este ha cuadruplicado en Estados Unidos. En ambos pafses, sin embargo, su distribuciôn sectorial se ha modificado de igual modo : disminuciôn de los empleos en la agricultura, y de los empleos en la industria, en Estados Unidos antes que en Francia, en provecho de las actividades de servicios. . En ambos pafses, los servicios a las empresas representan en la actualidad el 9% del empleo total. Sector nuevo, orientado hacia empleos cualificados, ha tenido la misma evoluciôn. En el âmbito de la educaciôn y de la sanidad, Francia ha alcanzado en 1 990 el nivel de empleo americano. Pero, el numéro de empleo por habitante sigue siendo superior en Estados Unidos. . En cambio, el comercio y el sector hotelero solo generan en Francia un 17% del empleo total contra el 24% en Estados Unidos. Se puede explicar esta diferencia, solo en parte, por un menor poder adquisitivo de los franceses. Un estudio sobre series largas muestra que la ruptura de crecimiento del numéro del empleo en el comercio se dio en los ochenta. Una explicaciôn mâs pertinente serfa por el coste del trabajo poco cualif icado, el cual es desde 1 970 superior en Francia, hasta alcanzar en la actualidad, habiendo cuenta de todos los elementos, entre un 120 y 140% del coste del trabajo americano. A la inversa, en los servicios domésticos, después de una cafda secular, las nuevas orientaciones fiscales francesas han favorecido el desarrollo de los empleos familiares. En estos sectores, intensivos en trabajo poco cualificado, y sobre todo en el comercio y el sector hotelero, es donde serfa posible crear empleos.
In this article, we study the impact of changes of total labor costs on employment of low-wage workers in France in a period, 1990 to 1998, that saw sudden and large changes in these costs. We use longitudinal data from the French Labor Force survey (« enquête emploi ») in order to understand the consequences of real decreases and real increases of the labor cost. We examine the transition probabilities from employment to non-employment and from non-employment to employment. In particular, we compare the transition probabilities of the workers that were directly affected by the changes (“between” workers) with the transition probabilities of workers closest in the wage distribution to those directly affected (“marginal” workers). In all years with an increasing minimum cost, the “between” group (or the treated using the vocabulary of controlled experiments) comprises all workers whose costs in year t lie between the old (year t) and the new (year t+1) minimum. In all years with a decreasing minimum, the “between” group comprises all workers whose costs in year t+1 lie between the present minimum cost (year t+1) and the old (year t) minimum cost. The results can be summarized as follows. Comparing years of increasing minimum cost and decreasing minimum cost, difference-in-difference estimates imply that an increase of 1% of the cost implies roughly an increase of 1.5% in the probability of transiting from employment to non-employment for the treated workers, the resulting elasticity being −1.5. Second, results for the transitions from non-employment to employment are less clear-cut. Tax subsidies have a small and insignificant impact on entry from non-employment as well as on transitions within the wage distribution. Finally, we show that the “marginal” group constitutes a good control group. In addition, there is no obvious evidence of substitution between the “between” and “marginal” groups of workers, but there is some evidence of substitution between workers within the tax subsidy zone, with wages above those of the “marginal”, and workers outside the subsidy zone.
A 1996 change in shopping hours regulations in The Netherlands provides an opportunity to study the effects of timing constraints on total time spent in shopping, working, and other activities as well as the timing of these activities. We develop a simple structural model to make predictions about the effects of imposition and relaxation of a timing constraint on time use patterns, and utilize time diary data from 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2000 to examine time use patterns by demographic group before and after the change. In addition to a change in the timing of shopping, we find a nonnegligible increase in the total time spent shopping.
From book description:
Modern labor economics has continued to grow and develop since the first volumes of this Handbook were published. The subject matter of labor economics continues to have at its core an attempt to systematically find empirical analyses that are consistent with a systematic and parsimonious theoretical understanding of the diverse phenomenon that make up the labor market. As before, many of these analyses are provocative and controversial because they are so directly relevant to both public policy and private decision making. In many ways the modern development in the field of labor economics continues to set the standards for the best work in applied economics. This volume of the Handbook has a notable representation of authors - and topics of importance - from throughout the world.
The article attempts to develop a general theory of the allocation of time in non-work activities. It sets out a basic theoretical analysis of choice that includes the cost of time on the same footing as the cost of market goods and treats various empirical implications of the theory. These include a new approach to changes in hours of work and leisure, the full integration of so-called productive consumption into economic analysis, a new analysis of the effect of income on the quantity and quality of commodities consumed, some suggestions on the measurement of productivity, an economic analysis of queues and a few others as well. The integration of production and consumption is at odds with the tendency for economists to separate them sharply, production occurring in firms and consumption in households. It should be pointed out, however, that in recent years economists increasingly recognize that a household is truly a small factory. It combines capital goods, raw materials and labor to clean, feed, procreate and otherwise produce useful commodities.
This paper utilizes data from a Swedish household survey for 1984 (the HUS data) in combination with data on public child care fees and spaces per child by community. We argue that the subsidy rate and availability of spaces determined by the political leaders of the community is to a large extent exogenous to the household. The joint out-of-home child care and labor supply decision is analyzed by logit and ordered probit choice models. We find that the high quality public child care in Sweden encourages labor market activity of women with preschoolers even when the spouse's income is high, and that when spaces are not rationed, a lower price encourages use.
We examine the physical and mental health effects of providing care to an elderly mother on the adult child caregiver. We address the endogeneity of the selection in and out of caregiving using an instrumental variable approach, and carefully control for baseline health and work status of the adult child using fixed effects and Arellano-Bond estimation techniques. Continued caregiving over time increases depressive symptoms for married women and married men. In addition, the increase in depressive symptoms is persistent for married men. Depressive symptoms for single men and women are not affected by continued caregiving. There is a small protective effect on the likelihood (10%) of having any heart conditions among married women who continue caregiving. Robustness checks confirm that the increase in depressive symptoms and decrease in likelihood of heart conditions can be directly attributable to caregiving behavior, and not due to a direct effect of the death of the mother. The initial onset of caregiving, by contrast, has no immediate effects on physical or mental health for any subgroup of caregivers.
The trade-off between parents' time with their own kids and market work, and its dependence on out-of-home day care is analyzed in a simultaneous equation framework. Economic incentives primarily work through decisions about market work, while the direct effects on time with children are weak. The results suggest that a change in the mother's working hours has less influence on the parents' time with their children than a change in the father's working hours. This would imply that a policy working to increase the time with people's own children should primarily influence the father's work hours. We also find that parents prefer joint activities with their children, and that out-of-home child care is not chosen as a substitute for own time with children. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003
Germany's more compressed wage structure is widely viewed as the main cause of the German-US difference in employment and unemployment, but part of the compression is due to Germany having a narrower distribution of skills than the US. Even adjusted for skills, however, we find that Germany has a more compressed wage distribution than the US. But relatively little of the US-German employment difference can be attributed to the compressed wage distribution. We find that jobless Germans have nearly the same skills as employed Germans and look more like average Americans than like low skilled Americans, which runs counter to the wage compression hypothesis. Given these patterns, the pay and employment experience of low skilled Americans is a poor counterfactual for assessing how reductions in pay might affect jobless Germans. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.
This paper examines the determinants of female labour force participation in OECD countries, including a number of policy instruments such as the tax treatment of second earners (relative to single individuals), childcare subsidies, child benefits, paid maternity and parental leaves, and tax incentives to sharing market work between spouses. The econometric analysis uses a panel data set covering 17 OECD countries over the period 1985-1999, and distinguishes between part-time and full-time female participation rates. It shows a positive impact on female participation of a more neutral tax treatment of second earners (relative to single individuals), stronger tax incentives to share market work between spouses, childcare subsidies, and paid maternity and parental leaves Unlike childcare subsidies, child benefits reduce female participation due to an income effect and their lump-sum character. Finally, female education, the general labour market conditions, and cultural attitudes ...
Participation des femmes au marché du travail : tendances passées et principaux déterminants dans les pays de l’OCDE
Cet article examine les déterminants de la participation des femmes au marché du travail dans les pays de l’OCDE, incluant un certain nombre d’instruments de politique économique tels que le traitement fiscal du deuxième revenu du foyer (par rapport à la taxation d’un individu célibataire), les subsides aux dépenses de garde d’enfants, les allocations familiales, les congés de maternité et parentaux rémunérés, ainsi que les incitants fiscaux à partager le travail rémunéré entre époux. L’analyse économétrique utilise une base de données de panel couvrant 17 pays de l’OCDE sur la période 1985-1999, et distingue entre taux de participation féminine à temps partiel et à temps complet. Elle révèle que la participation féminine est stimulée par un traitement fiscal plus neutre du deuxième revenu du foyer, de plus grands incitants fiscaux à partager le travail rémunéré entre époux, les subsides aux dépenses de garde d’enfants, et par les congés de maternité et parentaux ...
Greater job creation in the US than in Germany has often been related to greater wage dispersion coupled with less regulated labour and product markets in the US. Based on the Comparative German American Structural Database and the International Adult Literacy Survey we find that employment of skilled to unskilled labour is unrelated to differences in skill premium but that changes in relative employment are related to changes in relative wages raising the possibility of some substitution behavior. Still, the differing dispersion of wages is not a major contributor to differences in employment rates. The jobs problem in Germany is one of a general lack in demand for labor.
The majority of children in the U.S. and many other high-income nations are now cared for many hours per week by people who are neither their parents nor their school teachers. The role of such preschool and out of school care is potentially two-fold: First, child care makes it feasible for parents to be employed. Second, early intervention programs and after school programs aim to enhance child development, particularly among disadvantaged children. Corresponding to this distinction, the literature has two branches. The first focuses on the market for child care and analyzes factors affecting the supply, demand, and quality of care. The second focuses on child outcomes and asks whether certain types of programs can ameliorate the effects of early disadvantage. The primary goal of this review is to bring the two literatures together in order to suggest ways that both may be enhanced. Accordingly, we provide an overview of the number of children being cared for in different sorts of arrangements; describe theory and evidence about the nature of the private child care market; and discuss theory and evidence about government intervention in the market for child care. Our summary suggests that additional research is necessary to highlight the ways that government programs and market provided child care interact with each other.
The career and family outcomes of college graduate women suggest that the twentieth century contained five distinct cohorts.' Each cohort made choices concerning career and family subject to different constraints. The first cohort, graduating college from the beginning of the twentieth century to the close of World War I, had either family or career.' The second, graduating college from around 1920 to the end of World War II, had job then family.' The third cohort the college graduate mothers of the baby boom' graduated college from around 1946 to the mid-1960s and had family then job.' The fourth cohort graduated college from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. Using the NLS Young Women I demonstrate that 13 to 18 percent achieved career then family' by age 40. The objective of the fifth cohort, graduating from around 1980 to 1990, has been career and family,' and 21 to 28 percent (using the NLS Youth) have realized that goal by age 40. I trace the demographic and labor force experiences of these five cohorts of college graduates and discuss why career and family' outcomes changed over time.
Process benefit scores indicates that time with own children is preferred before all other activities, closely followed by market work. The trade-off between parents’ time with their own kids and market work, and its dependence on out-of-home day-care is analyzed in a simultaneous equation framework. Our empirical results suggest that parents’ decisions about market work and time with children are strongly interdependent. Economic incentives work primarily through decisions about market work, while the direct effects on time with kids are weak. The results suggest that a change in the mother’s work hours influences less the parents’ time with their children than a change in the father’s work hours does. This would imply that a policy working to increase the time with own children should primarily influence the father’s work hours. We also find that parents prefer joint activities with children, and that out-of-home child-care is not chosen as a substitute for own time with kids.
Americans now work 50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians. This was not the case in the early 1970s, when the Western Europeans worked more than Americans. This article examines the role of taxes in accounting for the differences in labor supply across time and across countries; in particular, the effective marginal tax rate on labor income. The population of countries considered is the G-7 countries, which are major advanced industrial countries. The surprising finding is that this marginal tax rate accounts for the predominance of differences at points in time and the large change in relative labor supply over time.
We take U.S. and Israeli household data on expenditures of time and goods, generate an exhaustive set of commodities that households produce/consume using them, and calculate their relative goods intensities. Leisure activities are uniformly relatively time intensive, health, travel and lodging relatively goods intensive. We demonstrate how education and age alter the goods intensity of household production. The results of this accounting can be used as guides to: understanding how goods and income taxation interact to affect welfare; expanding notions of the determinants of international flows of goods; generating models of business cycles and endogenous growth to include interactions of goods and time consumption; and obtaining better measures of the distribution of well being. Copyright 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
This paper provides a micro-econometric evaluation of the effects of child care rationing on the household expenditures on child care and on the female participation decision, in Italy. A sample of households is used with at least one pre-school child, selected from the Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW); this is complemented with ISTAT statistics on nursery and crèche access rates. It is found that both child care rationing and the availability of alternative forms of non-market child care (relatives etc.) affect in various ways the household decisions over child care expenditure and labour supply. Copyright Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000.
This paper shows how internationally and intertemporally consistent information on sickness absence can be constructed from Labour Force Surveys, and describes some important features of data that we have generated using the Luxembourg Employment Study. We also analyse sickness absence rates by age, gender and other socio-economic characteristics of workers. These relationships prove to be similar across countries with widely differing mean rates of absence. In this dataset, workers with longer tenure tend to have higher absence rates even when age is controlled for. Absence is also positively correlated with higher usual hours of work. Copyright 2002 Royal Economic Society
This study analyzes the effect of child care costs on the labor supply of mothers with preschool children in Germany using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (2002). Child care costs are estimated on the basis of a sample selection model. A structural household utility model, which is embedded in a detailed tax-benefit model, is used for labor supply estimation. In contrast to a previous German study, I find significant effects of child care costs on mother’s labor supply. Compared to other countries such as the US, Canada or the UK, the effects are rather small, which can be explained by the fact that child care costs are already heavily subsidized in Germany.
Standard economic models suggest that adverse demand shocks will lead to bigger employment losses if institutional factors prevent real wages from declining. Some analysts have argued that this insight explains the dichotomy between the United States, where real wages of less-skilled workers fell over the 1980s and aggregate employment expanded vigorously, and Europe, where real wages of less-skilled workers were constant and employment was stagnant. We find little support for this hypothesis when we compare recent changes in wages and employment rates for different age and education groups in the United States, Canada, and France.
Two key facts about European unemployment must be explained: the rise in unemployment since the 1960s, and the heterogeneity of individual country experiences. While adverse shocks can potentially explain much of the rise in unemployment, there is insufficient heterogeneity in these shocks to explain cross-country differences. Alternatively, while explanations focusing on labour market institutions explain current heterogeneity well, many of these institutions pre-date the rise in unemployment. Based on a panel of institutions and shocks for 20 OECD nations since 1960 we find that the interaction between shocks and institutions is crucial to explaining both stylised facts.
Women work much more in the US than in Germany and most other EU economies. We find that the US-German employment gap is not strongly related to cross-country differences in the level of pay or social benefits. The difference in employment is due to the different marketization of activities between the two economies: German women work as many hours as US women when we consider time spent in household production as well as in market production. For instance, German women spend more time preparing meals while US women use take-out and restaurants more intensely. The organization of some social activities, such as schooling, and the dispersion of skills, as well as pay differences, affect the degree of marketization.