Increase In Labor Force Participation Research Articles

Demographics, the Third Age and partial retirement: Policy proposals to accommodate the changing picture of female retirement in Canada

ABSTRACTMuch concern has been raised around the potential impact of the retirement of the large baby boom generation. This article specifically addresses the unique issues surrounding the retirement of female baby boomers. Demographic changes, including increased labor force participation, coupled with declining fertility rates, have resulted in a social transformation of the roles women play in society. Despite these changes, women still bear much of the caregiving responsibilities in the household, which can complicate retirement choices. This article examines female retirement in the Canadian context and presents three policy proposals to expand women’s retirement choices, encourage longer-term labor force participation, and thereby extend their working lives into the Third Age.

The Effect of Child's School Entry on Maternal Employment: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from South Korea

AbstractPublic school is a form of highly subsidized, universal childcare and thus an important aspect of childcare policies. We examine the impact of a child's school entry on maternal employment in South Korea where mothers have been inactive in the labour force. We utilize a natural experiment where the school‐age eligibility requirement in South Korea generates an exogenous variation in the cost of childcare and lends itself to a regression discontinuity design. Our findings suggest that for women with low levels of own or spouse's education, enrolling their children in school leads to a sizeable increase in labour force participation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Life Satisfaction of Career Women and Housewives

Profound changes in gender roles have taken place over the past several decades in the United States. Women’s roles have changed most: women are marrying later in life and at lower rates, having fewer children, and working more outside of the household. “Career women” are the new normal and housewifery has gone out of fashion. At the same time, women have become less happy. We use the US General Social Surveys from 1972 to 2014 to explore these latest trends. We find that, until recently, women were happier to be housewives or to work part-time than full-time, especially, women who are older, married, with children, in middle or upper class, and living in suburbs or smaller places. The effect size of housewifery on subjective wellbeing (SWB) is mild to moderate, at about a fourth to a third of the effect of being unemployed. Therefore, we argue that one possible reason for the decline in average happiness for women was increased labor force participation. Yet, the happiness advantage of housewifery is declining among younger cohorts and career women may become happier than housewives in the future.

The Effect of a Delayed Retirement Policy on Female Labor Supply: Evidence from the Entire Dutch Population

This paper studies the effect of a delayed retirement policy on female labor supply in the Netherlands. The policy which offers a tax credit for each year of work beyond the age of 62 was introduced in 2009. Using a Difference-in-Differences framework, this study finds that eligibility for the bonus increased labor force participation by 1.3 to 2.5 percentage points. The paper also investigates whether female labor supply is responsive to the size of the bonus at both the intensive and extensive margin. We only find evidence for a response among women with high wage potential.

A developmental perspective on the link between parents' employment and children's obesity.

Despite public concerns about the negative implications of the increased labor force participation of mothers for child development, decades of research have revealed few risks and some benefits. One potential risk-a consistently observed association between maternal employment and childhood obesity-offers a window into how some dimensions of family health may be undermined by work in an economic and policy context that is not family friendly. The purpose of this article is to identify ways that a developmental perspective can enrich the literature on how children's weight may be related to the work experiences of both mothers and fathers across diverse populations, a literature that heretofore has been dominated by economic and demographic perspectives, focused almost solely on women, and largely ignored racial/ethnic variation. After reviewing the extant literature, we put forward a conceptual model that uses ecological and developmental insights to identify the mechanisms by which parents' employment might matter to children's weight and discuss this model in the context of the contemporary landscape of family policy. (PsycINFO Database Record

RobertaPace and RobertoHam-Chande (Eds.) Demographic Dividends: Emerging Challenges and Policy Implications Springer International, 2016. 184 p. $99.99.

“Demographic dividend” refers to a net macro-economic boost when population age structures are weighted toward the prime working ages. Age structures with this feature are typically a transitory phenomenon during demographic transition, with the duration and magnitude of the dividend conditional on the pace of the transition (and especially the rapidity of fertility decline). This edited volume contains concise essays on various facets of the demographic dividend in seven populations: India, Latin America, Mexico, sub-Saharan Africa with global comparison, countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, New Zealand, and Italy. The populations differ widely in their stage of demographic transition, from early transition (sub-Saharan Africa) to post-transition (New Zealand and Italy). The seven chapters offer a mix of global, regional, and national perspectives. Four are national studies, and three of these (Mexico is the exception) emphasize sub-national differences according to administrative unit (India, Italy) or ethnic group (New Zealand). In a similar vein, the chapter on Latin America focuses on variation by sex, defining the “gender dividend” as the macro-economic gain from increased labor force participation by women (itself one common consequence of fertility decline). All of the chapters are data-rich, with numerous tables and figures, largely descriptive in character. The chapter on Mexico is distinctive in containing more formal modeling (of life-cycle savings, drawing on household survey data). A major theme throughout is that the size of the demographic dividend is conditional on human capital investment, specifically in education and health. This relatively common theme in contemporary discourse about the demographic dividend is given added force in this volume by the variation in stage of demographic transition: the requirements and payoffs from human capital investment vary considerably among populations at early, middle, and late stages of transition. Index.

The Rise in Divorce and Cohabitation: Is There a Link?

Over the past decades, divorce and cohabitation have increased dramatically throughout Europe. Divorce has fundamentally altered the institution of marriage from a life-long union to one that may dissolve. Cohabitation allows couples to live together without undertaking the vows of marriage, but also allows couples to avoid the potentially higher costs of divorce. Thus, divorce and cohabitation seem to be intrinsically linked. Here we theorize how the increase in divorce may be linked to the increase in cohabitation on the macro-, meso-, and micro- levels. Using focus group data from 8 countries, we explore how divorce may have changed attitudes and beliefs concerning marriage and cohabitation. We then investigate whether survey data and official statistics in 16 countries provide evidence consistent with a link. While exogenous factors have been important for the increase in cohabitation, we argue that the divorce revolution has been a catalyst for the cohabitation boom.

The EITC and the labor supply of adult dependents: direct effects and family income effects

Tax data suggest that the population of adult dependents—adults relying on the support of others for the majority of their financial needs—has more than doubled over the last decade. However, little is known about how taxes affect the labor supply decisions of this population. This paper provides an initial investigation, studying the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) expansions of the early 1990s on the labor supply of adult dependents living with their relatives. I find that dependent individuals who were not a part of the nuclear family responded to the EITC expansions, increasing labor force participation by about 5 percentage points. For adult children, I show that the absence of a net response is likely due to an unexpected consequence of the EITC: expanded family credits led to a decrease in their labor force participation.

The government wage bill and private activity

We estimate the macroeconomic effects of public wage expenditures in U.S. data by identifying shocks to public employment and public wages using sign restrictions. We find that public employment shocks are mildly expansionary at the federal level and strongly expansionary at the state and local level by crowding in private consumption and increasing labor force participation and private sector employment. Similarly, state and local government wage shocks lead to increases in consumption and output, while shocks to federal government wages induce significant contractionary effects. In a stylized DSGE model we show that the degree of complementarity between public and private goods in the consumption bundle is key for explaining the observed heterogeneity.

Labour force activity after 65: what explain recent trends in Denmark, Germany and Sweden?

In most OECD member countries labour force attachment, has increased in recent years not only in the age groups 60–64 years but also among people 65 years and older. Focus in this paper is on the trend in older workers’ labour force participation in Denmark, Germany and Sweden since 2004. Main emphasis is given to people aged 65–69 years eligible for social security retirement programs from age 65. The gender aspect is included to accommodate different trends for women and men. To explain country differences in trends, the importance of changes in retirement policies of relevance for this age group and cohort relevant changes in education and health is examined and discussed. Further, country differences in the impact from education and health is examined. Results show that the largest increase in labour force participation among people aged 65–69 years has taken place in Sweden following by Germany, while the increase in Denmark is rather small. While the increase in Germany mainly seems to be a result of policy reforms, the increase in Sweden appear to be a result of a combination of policy changes and an increasing educational level. Financial incentives seem most important in Germany and only of minor importance in Denmark, where policy changes directed towards individuals above the age of 65 appear to have been too small so far to affect retirement behaviour significantly.

ANALISIS AKUMULASI MODAL MANUSIA DENGAN TINGKAT PARTISIPASI ANGKATAN KERJA DAN TINGKAT PARTISIPASI SEKOLAH UNTUK PENINGKATAN DAYA SAING DAERAH (Studi Kasus Di Propinsi Jawa Timur)

Based on structure of employment status in Province of East Jawa City Area 2005, labor force participation rate in each city area is from 48.70 percent to 53.98 percent, highest in Surabaya City and lowest in Probolinggo City.School participation rate status never/not yet attended shool at most found in Probolinggo City about 11.28 percent and smallest amount in Surabaya City about 3.33 percent. Status attending school at most found in Malang City about 25.98 percent and smallest amount in Probolinggo City about 16.99 percent and status anttending school anymore at most in Mojekerto City about 78.99 percent and smallest amount in Malang City about 70.14 percent.Based on this condition, it is needed policy for increasing labor force participation rate and school participation rate with: (1) determine of special skill is needed, (2) determine of special training to increase skill and (3) determine of institution for special training support. Education will increase the opportunity to get a job or to make a new business and society who possess quality in human capital stock.

Women are Key for Future Growth: Evidence from Canada

How important are female workers for economic growth? This paper presents empirical evidence that an increase in female labor force participation is positively associated with labor productivity growth. Using panel data for 10 Canadian provinces over 1990-2015, we found that a 1 percentage point increase in the labor force participation among women with high educational attainment would raise Canada's overall labor productivity growth by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage point a year. This suggests that if the current gap of 7 percentage points between male and female labor force participation with high educational attainment were eliminated, the level of real GDP could be about 4 percent higher today. The government has appropriately stepped up its efforts to improve gender equality, as part of its growth strategy. In particular, the government's plan to expand access to affordable child care is a positive step. However, we argue that to maximize the policy outcome given a budget constraint, provision of subsidized child care-including publicly funded child care spaces-should be better targeted to working parents.

Women Are Key for Future Growth: Evidence from Canada

How important are female workers for economic growth? This paper presents empirical evidence that an increase in female labor force participation is positively associated with labor productivity growth. Using panel data for 10 Canadian provinces over 1990–2015, we found that a 1 percentage point increase in the labor force participation among women with high educational attainment would raise Canada’s overall labor productivity growth by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage point a year. This suggests that if the current gap of 7 percentage points between male and female labor force participation with high educational attainment were eliminated, the level of real GDP could be about 4 percent higher today. The government has appropriately stepped up its efforts to improve gender equality, as part of its growth strategy. In particular, the government’s plan to expand access to affordable child care is a positive step. However, we argue that to maximize the policy outcome given a budget constraint, provision of subsidized child care—including publicly funded child care spaces—should be better targeted to working parents.

Impact evaluation of different types of transportation projects using meta-analysis

Abstract Local, regional and national government agencies have demonstrated increasing interest in the positive relationship between transportation infrastructure investment and economic growth. Investments in transportation are considered to have high economic returns, take advantage of underutilized resources, and support the day-to-day operations of businesses, including improved access to the work force and allowing increased labor force participation. While these assertions concerning transportation investment are positive, they are also generic in nature. There is no specificity with respect to geographical scale and type of transportation projects that can or do aid in the improvement of the economy. The paper aims to address this lack of detail. Using meta-analysis (MA), a framework is developed to effectively select and measure performance metrics for specific types or groups of transportation projects and evaluate their impact on the system features of the larger transportation systems.

Application of latent growth modeling to identify different working life trajectories: the case of the Spanish WORKss cohort.

Objective The aim of this study was to describe the application of latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to identify different working life trajectories (WLT) using employed working time by year as a repeated measure. Methods Trajectories are estimated using LCGA, which considers all individuals within a trajectory to be homogeneous. The methodology was applied to a subsample of the Spanish WORKing life Social Security (WORKss) cohort, limited to persons born 1956-1965 (N=247 475). The number of days worked per year is used as a repeated measure across 32 time points (1981-2013). Results According to the model-fit results and further guided by expert knowledge, a four WTL model was selected as the optimal approach: WLT1 or "high labor force participation" (N=99 591; 40.2%); WLT2 or "decreased labor force participation" (N= 22 846; 9.2%); WLT3 or "increased labor force participation" (N=59 213; 23.9%); and WLT4 or "low labor force participation" (N=65 827; 26.6%). WLT1 consisted mainly of men with more years of work experience (>19 years) while WLT4 was mainly composed by women with <9 years. The other two trajectories had opposite trends and no sex differences. The occupational category variable had little influence in the trajectories. Conclusions Longitudinal data that are regularly collected by administrative systems can benefit from LCGA approaches to identify different trajectory patterns that may be associated with an outcome of interest. In occupational epidemiology, this study represents a step forward by using this modeling approach to identify different WLT.

The Impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on Household Finances

Expansions to the federal and state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) over the last two decades have made the EITC one of the largest cash transfer programs in the United States. Using a simulated instrument strategy, we analyze how policy-induced changes to the generosity of the EITC have impacted household savings and unsecured debt holdings. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) wealth topical modules, we explore two potential mechanisms accounting for the relationship between EITC generosity and household finances: changes in the household budget set associated with expansions to the EITC and changes in labor supply due to the incentives in the benefit structure. Results suggest that a $1,000 policy-induced increase in the average household EITC leads to a 4 percentage point increase in the likelihood of holding credit card debt and a 6 percentage point increase in the likelihood of having any savings. Results are concentrated among single mothers on the phase-in portion of the EITC schedule, and are correlated with increases in labor force participation, suggesting that one of the mechanisms through which the EITC increases savings and credit card debt is through its positive impact on labor force participation and income.

Lighting Up the Last Mile: The Benefits and Costs of Extending Electricity to the Rural Poor

Approximately one billion people live without access to electricity. However, there has been no study that rigorously estimates both the realized benefits and costs of electricity provision. In this paper, we document substantial short-run welfare gains from electricity expansion in the Philippines. We first project the expansion of the electricity grid under a least-cost first principle. Using this projected expansion as an instrument, we estimate large impacts of electricity infrastructure on household income and expenditures. We then use data on costs of electrifying individual villages to show that in a majority of cases, the physical cost of expanding electricity infrastructure is recovered after only a single year of realized expenditure gains. Finally, we find that electricity does not increase employment, suggesting that increased labor force participation is not the relevant mechanism. Rather, increases in agricultural income appear to account for a meaningful share of the income gains from electrification. These findings suggest that the benefits to rural electrification may be significantly high, even in the very short run.

The Effects of DACAmentation: The Impact of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on Unauthorized Immigrants

As the largest immigration policy in 25 years, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) made deportation relief and work authorization available to 1.7 million unauthorized immigrants. This paper looks at how DACA affects DACA-eligible immigrants' labor market outcomes. I use a difference-in-differences design for unauthorized immigrants near the criteria cutoffs for DACA eligibility. I find DACA increases the likelihood of working by increasing labor force participation and decreasing the unemployment rate for DACA-eligible immigrants. I also find DACA increases the income of unauthorized immigrants in the bottom of the income distribution. I find little evidence that DACA affects the likelihood of attending school. Using these estimates, DACA moved 50,000 to 75,000 unauthorized immigrants into employment. If the effects of Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) are similar to DACA, then DAPA could potentially move over 250,000 unauthorized immigrants into employment.

‘Fit to play’: Labour market behaviour in a cohort of public-sector antiretroviral treatment patients

ABSTRACTGiven the rapid scale-up of antiretroviral treatment (ART), it is necessary to explore the impact of ART on labour force participation, employment and labour productivity. This article investigates labour market outcomes in a prospective cohort of public-sector ART clients in the Free State province of South Africa. Empirical results suggest that labour force participation increased markedly as the proportion of those too ill to work declined, becoming indistinguishable from participation rates in the general population. Unemployment rates, however, remain above those reported for the general population. ART and its health-related benefits therefore translate into increases in labour force participation, but not employment. Employment status at HIV diagnosis strongly predicts absorption in the labour force. Public-sector ART clients should be referred to vocational rehabilitation and occupational therapy programmes, and to welfare-to-work programmes, and the unskilled to adult education and training and further education and training programmes.

Broadband in the Labor Market

The author investigates how high-speed home Internet use has affected labor supply. Using an instrumental variables strategy that exploits cross-state variation in supply-side constraints to residential broadband Internet access, she finds that exogenously determined high-speed Internet use leads to a 4.1 percentage point increase in labor force participation for married women. No corresponding effect is found for single women or men. Among married women, the largest increases in participation are found among college-educated women with children. Supplemental analyses suggest that Internet use for telework and saving time in home production explains the increase in participation. The results suggest that home Internet facilitates work-family balance.