Klaus F. Zimmermann

A new GLO Discussion Paper finds an increase in poverty and labor income inequality in the majority of the LAC countries due to social distancing. Most of the dispersion in the labor income loss across countries is explained by the sectoral and occupational structure of the economies, while the rest is explained by the type of lockdown policy implemented.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 682, 2020

The Distributional Consequences of Social Distancing on Poverty and Labour Income Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean – Download PDF
by Delaporte, Isaure & Escobar, Julia & Peña, Werner

GLO Fellow Isaure Delaporte

Author Abstract: This paper evaluates the distributional consequences of social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty and labor income inequality in 20 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. We gather detailed information from national laws and decrees on the strictness and the duration of the lockdown in each country and use rich harmonized household surveys from the IADB. We estimate the share of individuals that are potentially able to remain active under the first phase of the lockdown by constructing the Lockdown Working Ability (LWA) index which takes into account individuals’ ability to work from home but also whether their occupation is affected by workplace closures or mobility restrictions. We find that, on average, 1 worker out of 2 is able to work under the lockdown in the LAC region. We document considerable variation in the share of individuals able to work under the lockdown across countries and within countries across occupations, economic activities and specific population groups. Based on the LWA index, we then estimate individual’s potential labor income losses and examine changes in poverty and labor income inequality. We find an increase in poverty and labor income inequality in the majority of the LAC countries due to social distancing. At the national level, the highest increase in the headcount poverty index is 1.4 pp and the highest increase in the Gini coefficient is 2 pp. Decomposing overall labor income inequality in the LAC region, we find that social distancing has lead to a small decrease (-0.1 pp) in inequality between countries but to an increase (2 pp) in inequality within countries. Finally, we document that 63% of the dispersion in the labor income loss across countries is explained by the sectoral/occupational structure of the economies, while the rest is explained by the type of lockdown policy that was implemented.

More from the GLO Coronavirus Cluster

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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A new GLO Discussion Paper proposes that ancestral use of irrigation reduces contemporary female labor force participation and female property rights.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 681, 2020
Irrigation and Culture: Gender Roles and Women’s Rights – Download PDF
by Fredriksson, Per G. & Gupta, Satyendra Kumar

GLO Fellows Per Fredriksson and Satyendra Kumar Gupta

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Author Abstract: This paper proposes that ancestral use of irrigation reduces contemporary female labor force participation and female property rights. We test this hypothesis using an exogenous measure of irrigation and data from the Afrobarometer, cross-country data, the European Social Survey, the American Community Survey, and the India Demographic and Household Survey. Our hypothesis receives considerable empirical support. We find negative associations between ancestral irrigation and actual female labor force participation, and attitudes to such participation, in contemporary African and Indian populations, 2nd generation European immigrants, 1.5 and 2nd generation US immigrants, and in cross-country data. Moreover, ancestral irrigation is negatively associated with attitudes to female property rights in Africa and with measures of such rights across countries. Our estimates are robust to a host of control variables and alternative specifications. We propose multiple potential partial mechanisms. First, in pre-modern societies the men captured technologies complementary to irrigation, raising their relative productivity. Fertility increased. This caused lower female participation in agriculture and subsistence activities, and the women worked closer to home. Next, due to the common pool nature of irrigation water, historically irrigation has involved more frequent warfare. This raised the social status of men and restricted women’s movement. These two mechanisms have produced cultural preferences against female participation in the formal labor market. Finally, irrigation produced both autocracy and a culture of collectivism. These are both associated with weaker female property rights.

Featured image: Photo-by-Jordan-Mcqueen-on-Unsplash.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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The GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of September investigates how air quality changed during COVID-19 lockdown policies in Vietnam.    

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS, EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs downloadable for free.

GLO Discussion Paper of the Month: September

# 647 The Beneficial Impacts of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Air Pollution: Evidence from Vietnam – Download PDF
by Dang, Hai-Anh H. & Trinh, Trong-Anh

GLO Fellow Hai-Anh H. Dang

Author Abstract: Little evidence currently exists on the effects of COVID-19 on air quality in poorer countries, where most air pollution-linked deaths occur. We offer the first study that examines the pandemic’s impacts on improving air quality in Vietnam, a lower-middle income country with worsening air pollution. Employing the Regression Discontinuity Design method to analyze a rich database that we compile from satellite air pollution data and data from various other sources, we find the concentration of NO2 to decrease by 24 to 32 percent two weeks after the COVID-19 lockdown. While this finding is robust to different measures of air quality and model specifications, the positive effects of the lockdown appear to dissipate after ten weeks. We also find that mobility restrictions are a potential channel for improved air quality. Finally, our back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that two weeks after the lockdown, the economic gains from better air quality are roughly $0.6 billion US dollars.

More from the GLO Coronavirus Cluster

GLO Discussion Papers submitted in September 2020

676 The role of foreign direct investment in growth: Spain, 1964-2013 – Download PDF
by Bajo-Rubio, Oscar

675 Nudging Demand for Academic Support Services: Experimental and Structural Evidence from Higher Education – Download PDF
by Pugatch, Todd & Wilson, Nicholas

674 Returns to Education in the Russian Federation: Some New Estimates – Download PDF
by Melianova, Ekaterina & Parandekar, Suhas & Patrinos, Harry Anthony & Volgin, Artëm

673 Motherhood and labor market penalty: a study on Indian labor market – Download PDF
by Sarkhel, Sukanya & Mukherjee, Anirban

672 English Skills and Early Labour Market Integration: Evidence from Humanitarian Migrants in Australia – Download PDF
by Cheng, Zhiming & Wang, Ben Zhe & Jiang, Zhou & Taksa, Lucy & Tani, Massimiliano

671 Welfare Perceptions of the Youth: A Turkish Case Study – Download PDF
by Bagis, Bilal & Yumurtaci, Aynur

670 The Labour Force Status of Transgender People and The Impact of Removing Surgical Requirements to Change Gender on ID Documents – Download PDF
by Mann, Samuel

669 Female Human Capital Mismatch: An extension for the British public sector – Download PDF
by Galanakis, Yannis

668 Educational Mismatches of Newly Hired Workers: Short and Medium-run Effects on Wages – Download PDF
by Araújo, Isabel & Carneiro, Anabela

667 An Economic Model of Health-vs-Wealth Prioritization during Covid-19: Optimal Lockdown, Network Centrality, and Segregation – Download PDF
by Pongou, Roland & Tchuente, Guy & Tondji, Jean-Baptiste

666 Does Obamacare Care? A Fuzzy Difference-in-Discontinuities Approach – Download PDF
by Galindo-Silva, Hector & Somé, Nibene Habib & Tchuente, Guy

665 Access to Finance among Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Job Creation in Africa – Download PDF
by Brixiová, Zuzana & Kangoye, Thierry & Yogo, Thierry Urbain

664 Non-Standard Employment and Wage Differences across Gender: a quantile regression approach – Download PDF
by Duman, Anil

663 The Unequal Impact of Natural Light on Crime – Download PDF
by Tealde, Emiliano

662 Labor Market Effects of a Work-first Policy for Refugees – Download PDF
by Arendt, Jacob Nielsen

661 COVID-19 labour market shocks and their inequality implications for financial wellbeing – Download PDF
by Botha, Ferdi & de New, John P. & de New, Sonja C. & Ribar, David C. & Salamanca, Nicolás

660 A strictly economic explanation of gender roles: The lasting legacy of the plough – Download PDF
by Cigno, Alessandro

659 International Trade and Labor Market Integration of Immigrants – Download PDF
by Lodefalk, Magnus & Sjöholm, Fredrik & Tang, Aili

658 Measuring Gender Attitudes Using List Experiments – Download PDF
by Asadullah, M Niaz & De Cao, Elisabetta & Khatoon, Fathema Zhura & Siddique, Zahra

657 Trade and Economic Growth: Theories and Evidence from the Southern African Development Community – Download PDF
by Farahane, Matias Jaime & Heshmati, Almas

656 The Extractive Industry’s impact on Economic Growth in SADC Countries – Download PDF
by Nhabinde, Simeão & Heshmati, Almas

655 Pay Gaps and Mobility for Lower and Upper Tier Informal Sector Employees: an investigation of the Turkish labor market – Download PDF
by Duman, Anil

654 Long Live the Vacancy – Download PDF
by Haefke, Christian & Reiter, Michael

653 Impacts of COVID-19 on Food Security: Panel Data Evidence from Nigeria – Download PDF
by Amare, Mulubrhan & Abay, Kibrom A. & Tiberti, Luca & Chamberlin, Jordan

652 Unemployment, Immigration, and Populism: Evidence from Two Quasi-Natural Experiments in the United States – Download PDF
by Chen, Shuai

651 Education-occupation mismatch and dispersion in returns to education: Evidence from India – Download PDF
by Grover, Shweta & Sharma, Ajay

650 Canadian Small Businesses’ Employees and Owners during COVID-19 – Download PDF
by Beland, Louis-Philippe & Fakorede, Oluwatobi & Mikola, Derek

649 Heterogeneous Shocks in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Panel Evidence from Italian Firms – Download PDF
by Brancati, Emanuele & Brancati, Raffaele

648 The role of innovation in industrial dynamics and productivity growth: a survey of the literature – Download PDF
by Ugur, Mehment & Vivarelli, Marco

647 The Beneficial Impacts of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Air Pollution: Evidence from Vietnam – Download PDF
by Dang, Hai-Anh H. & Trinh, Trong-Anh

646 The effect of job search requirements on welfare receipt – Download PDF
by Hérault, Nicolas & Vu, Ha & Wilkins, Roger

GLO DP Team
Senior Editors: Matloob Piracha (University of Kent) & GLO; Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and Bonn University).
Managing Editor: Magdalena Ulceluse, University of Groningen. DP@glabor.org  

DP of the Month September

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A new paper published online in the Journal of Population Economics finds that individuals whose mothers were affected by an abortion ban Romania employed in the mid-1960s had a significantly lower demand for children than those who were not.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

The inter-generational fertility effect of an abortion ban
by Federico Gutierrez

Published ONLINE: Journal of Population Economics, scheduled for 2021. Free Readlink

GLO Fellow Federico Gutierrez

Author Abstract: This study examines the extent to which banning women from having abortions affected the fertility of their children, who did not face a similar legal constraint. Using multiple censuses from Romania, I follow men and women born around the time Romania banned abortion in the mid-1960s to investigate the demand for children over their life cycle. The empirical approach combines elements of regression discontinuity design and the Heckman selection model. The results indicate that individuals whose mothers were affected by the ban had significantly lower demand for children than those who were not. One-third of the decline is explained by inherited socio-economic status.

Access to the recently published Volume 33, Issue 4, October 2020.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 4:
Yun Qiu, Xi Chen & Wei Shi, Impacts of social and economic factors on the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China
Journal of Population Economics 33, 1127–1172 (2020). OPEN ACCESS
Over 27K journal downloads & over 80 Google Scholar cites as of October 18, 2020.

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A new paper published online in the Journal of Population Economics studies adolescent girls’ attitudes towards intimate partner violence and child marriage using data from rural Bangladesh. It further investigates how numerous variables relate to preferences for egalitarian gender norms in rural Bangladesh.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

Measuring gender attitudes using list experiments
by M. Niaz Asadullah, Elisabetta De Cao, Fathema Zhura Khatoon, and Zahra Siddique

Published ONLINE: Journal of Population Economics, scheduled for issue 2/2021. Free Readlink – Download PDF
GLO Discussion Paper No. 658, 2020

GLO Fellows M. Niaz Asadullah & Zahra Siddique

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Author Abstract: We elicit adolescent girls’ attitudes towards intimate partner violence and child marriage using purposefully collected data from rural Bangladesh. Alongside direct survey questions, we conduct list experiments to elicit true preferences for intimate partner violence and marriage before age 18. Responses to direct survey questions suggest that very few adolescent girls in the study accept the practises of intimate partner violence and child marriage (5% and 2%). However, our list experiments reveal significantly higher support for both intimate partner violence and child marriage (at 30% and 24%). We further investigate how numerous variables relate to preferences for egalitarian gender norms in rural Bangladesh.

Access to the newly published complete Volume 33, Issue 4, October 2020.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 4:
Yun Qiu, Xi Chen & Wei Shi, Impacts of social and economic factors on the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China
Journal of Population Economics 33, 1127–1172 (2020). OPEN ACCESS
Over 27K journal downloads & over 80 Google Scholar cites as of October 18, 2020.

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A new GLO Discussion Paper investigates the 2008 policy change in Sweden’s immigration policy. The new non-selective labor-migration policy lowered labor migrants’ mean income by opening the door to unskilled labor.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 680, 2020
The Effects of the 2008 Labour-Migration Reform in Sweden: An Analysis of Income – Download PDF
by Irastorza, Nahikari & Emilsson, Henrik

GLO Fellow Nahikari Irastorza

Author Abstract: In 2008, Sweden changed its labor-migration policy in order to facilitate more labor migration from countries outside the EU. The unique design of the new law meant abandoning most state ambitions to shape labor migration. Under the new regulation, there are no labor-market tests or any consideration of the level of human capital. Instead, policy-makers trusted employers to select workers. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach and apply a series of OLS regressions on register data to assess the effects of the policy change on non-EU labor migrants’ labor-market outcomes, as measured by income. The effects of the policy change are substantial. Non-EU labor migration increased and its composition changed after the reform, resulting in a significant decrease in mean incomes. The regression analysis shows that, despite the favorable economic cycle during the post-reform period, moving to Sweden as a third-country labor migrant following the 2008 labor-migration reform had a negative effect on the migrants’ annual income. However, this effect became marginal after controlling for occupational level. We conclude that changes in their occupational composition were the main drivers of the income drop for non-EU labor migrants. In sum, the new non-selective labor-migration policy lowered labor migrants’ mean income by opening the door to unskilled labor.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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Third webinar in the GLO Virtual Young Scholar (GLO-VirtYS) Program, Cohort 2019-20

All the presentation in this series are based on the projects that GLO-VirtYS program scholars completed as part of their program participation. Videos of the event are available below.

October 15^th Program

Sydney (10pm), Beijing (8pm), Istanbul (3pm), Berlin (2pm), London (1pm), Cape Town (2pm), Washington DC (8am), Santiago de Chile (8am)

1. Zhiling Wang, Assistant Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam and GLO Fellow
   Do International Study Programmes Pay off for Native Students? VIDEO
   (GLO VirtYS program advisor Professor Francesco Pastore)
2. Ömer Tuğsal Doruk, Assistant Professor at Adana Alparslan Türkeş Science and Technology University and GLO Fellow
   School to Work Transition and Macroeconomic Conditions in the Turkish Economy VIDEO
   (GLO VirtYS program advisor Professor Francesco Pastore)

Chaired by GLO VirtYS Program Director Olena Nizalova.
Full video of the event.
For more information about both speakers and their paper abstracts.

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Featured image: Photo-by-The-Coherent-Team-on-Unsplash

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