"Do Family Policies Reduce Gender Inequality? Evidence from 60 Years of Policy Experimentation", with Henrik Kleven, Camille Landais, Johanna Posch, and Josef Zweimüller, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (2024) 16(2): 110-49 (NBER WP)
Abstract:
Do family policies reduce gender inequality in the labor market? We contribute to this debate by investigating the joint impact of parental leave and childcare, using administrative data covering Austrian workers over more than half a century. We start by quasi-experimentally identifying the causal effects of all family policy reforms since the 1950s on the full dynamics of male and female earnings. We then map these causal estimates into a decomposition framework to compute counterfactual gender inequality series. Our results show that the enormous expansions of parental leave and childcare have had virtually no impact on gender convergence.
"Child Penalties across Countries: Evidence and Explanations", joint with Henrik Kleven, Camille Landais, Johanna Posch, and Josef Zweimüller, AEA Papers and Proceedings (2019) 109: 122-126. (Working Paper)
Abstract:
This paper provides evidence on child penalties in female and male earnings in different countries. The estimates are based on event studies around the birth of the first child, using the specification proposed by Kleven et al. (2018). The analysis reveals some striking similarities in the qualitative effects of children across countries, but also sharp differences in the magnitude of the effects. We discuss the potential role of family policies (parental leave and childcare provision) and gender norms in explaining the observed differences.
"Culture, Work Attitudes and Job Search: Evidence From the Swiss Language Border", joint with Beatrix Eugster, Rafael Lalive, and Josef Zweimüller, Journal of the European Economic Association (2017) 15(5): 1056-1100. (Accepted Version)
Abstract:
Unemployment varies across space and in time. Can attitudes toward work explain some of these differences? We study job search durations along the Swiss language border, sharply separating Romance language speakers from German speakers. According to surveys and voting results, the language border separates two social groups with different cultural background and attitudes toward work. Despite similar local labor markets and identical institutions, Romance language speakers search for work almost seven weeks (or 22%) longer than their German speaking neighbors. This is a quantitatively large effect, comparable to a large change in unemployment insurance generosity.
"Asymmetry of Individual and Aggregate Inflation Expectations: A Survey", joint with Nikola Mirkov, The Manchester School (2017) doi:10.1111/manc.12190
Abstract:
We conducted a simple, anonymous survey at the beginning of 2014, asking around 200 economists worldwide to report their medium‐term expectations about US inflation. A significant share of respondents revealed asymmetric inflation expectations with sizeable deviation from symmetry. We obtain an aggregate distribution that is moderately skewed to the right and show that the aggregate skewness is mostly driven by disagreement among respondents and not by asymmetry of their subjective distributions. In fact, ignoring individual asymmetry changes little in terms of mean and variance of the aggregate distribution.
"Parental Leave and Mothers' Careers: The Relative Importance of Job Protection and Cash Benefits", joint with Rafael Lalive, Analia Schlosser, and Josef Zweimüller, Review of Economic Studies (2014) 81 (1): 219-265. (WP version)
Abstract:
Job protection and cash benefits are key elements of parental leave (PL) systems. We study how these two policy instruments affect return-to-work and medium-run labor market outcomes of mothers of newborn children. Analyzing a series of major PL policy changes in Austria, we find that longer cash benefits lead to a significant delay in return-to-work, particularly so in the period that is job-protected. Prolonged parental leave absence induced by these policy changes does not appear to hurt mothers' labor market outcomes in the medium run. We build a non-stationary model of job search after child-birth to isolate the role of the two policy instruments. The model matches return-to-work and return to same employer profiles under the various factual policy configurations. Counterfactual policy simulations indicate that a system that combines cash with protection dominates other systems in generating time for care immediately after birth while maintaining mothers' medium run labor market attachment.
"The Demand for Social Insurance: Does Culture Matter?", joint with Beatrix Eugster, Rafael Lalive, and Josef Zweimüller. Economic Journal 121(556), 413-448, November 2011. (WP version)
Abstract:
Does culture shape the demand for social insurance against risks to health and work? We study this issue across language groups in Switzerland where a language border sharply separates social groups at identical actual levels of publicly provided social insurance. We find substantially stronger support for expansions of social insurance among residents of French, Italian or Romansh-speaking language border municipalities compared with their German-speaking neighbours in adjacent municipalities. Informal insurance does not vary enough to explain stark differences in social insurance but differences in ideology and segmented media markets potentially contribute to the discrepancy in demand for social insurance.
"How Do Firms Respond to Parental Leave Absences?", with Anne Brenøe, Ursa Krenk and Josef Zweimüller (Working Paper)
Abstract:
How do firms adjust their labor demand when a female employee takes temporary leave after childbirth? Using Austrian administrative data, we compare firms with and without a birth event and exploit policy reforms that significantly altered leave durations. We find that (i) firms adjust hiring, employment, and wages around leave periods, but these effects fade quickly; (ii) adjustments differ sharply by gender, reflecting strong gender segregation within firms; (iii) longer leave entitlements extend actual leave absences but have only short-term effects; and (iv) there is no impact on firm closure up to five years after birth.
"Motherhood Timing and the Child Penalty: Bounding the Returns to Delay", with Aniko Biro and Steven Dieterle (Working Paper)
Abstract:
Age at first birth has increased over time with many benefits likely to come in the labor market. We use data from Austria to bound these returns -- estimating moderate effects of delaying motherhood on earnings, employment, firm quality, and attachment to pre-birth firms in the medium run. We estimate returns on career earnings of between 1.0-2.2% per year of delay -- implying meaningful reductions in gender inequality. However, the bounds suggest only small differences in earnings trajectories post-birth. Therefore, much of the lifetime return comes from delaying the child penalty rather than changing how careers respond to children.
"Children of the Reich", with Joachim Voth and Josef Zweimüller
"Leverage and Covariance Matrix Estimation in Finite-Sample IV Regressions", with Tobias Wuergler, IEW Working Paper No. 521, December 2010.
"Working Moms, Childlessness, and Female Identity": CEPR DP, LIEPP WP