Research

Work in Progress:

The Effects of Health Shocks on Time Spent in Home Production (2022)
(Job Market Paper)

This paper examines the causal impact of health shocks on time spent in home production for retirees. Using Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data combined with Consumption and Activities Mail Survey (CAMS) data, I assess the impact of doctor-diagnosed conditions and subjective health measures on time spent on household chores. On the one hand, tightened budget constraints due to the monetary costs of health shocks might induce the substitution of market expenditure with home production. On the other hand, the disutility cost of health production might restrict the time spent on home production. While the impact of health shock on home production time may be theoretically ambiguous, using the difference-in-differences framework by Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021), I find that diagnosis of a psychiatric condition, the onset of depression, and decline in self-reported health significantly decrease time devoted to home production. The impact can be as high as 19% of the median time spent in home production per week.

Determinants of Gender Wealth Gap

I explore the determinants of the gender wealth gap in a sample of married and cohabiting people in Germany using the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data. It is well documented that women, on average, earn less and spend less time working in the market than men during their working life. Much less is known, however, about the gender differences in wealth. Given the gender income gap, it is natural that the gender wealth gap exists. The key question is whether the latter is simply a reflection of the former or does it go above and beyond. I find that gender differences in income cannot fully account for the gender wealth gap. Based on this finding, I then explore three possible mechanisms through which savings can differ by gender: differences in risk-taking behavior, personality traits, and time spent in home production, each of which reduced the wealth gap by around € 4000.

Children of Unilateral Divorce Law with Pablo Troncoso

We aim to study the impact of parents' divorce in childhood on labor force participation later in life and how it varies by gender. To do so, we exploit the variation across time and states in implementing the reform that made divorce easier -- unilateral divorce laws (divorce without mutual consent). We use restricted Health and Retirement Study data on people's geographical location at the time of birth and schooling to identify the effects. Most states adopted unilateral divorce laws (UDL) by the mid-1970s. The cohort most exposed to UDL as children -- the late baby boomers (LBB) (born in 1960-1965) -- are now entering their non-prime working age years. An important feature of the Health and Retirement Study data is that it has recently added the LBB cohort to its survey. This gives us a unique opportunity to understand the consequences of making divorce easier for children on their economic outcomes later in life.