Klaus F. Zimmermann

A new GLO Discussion Paper suggests that the overwhelming majority of the surveyed employees believe that teleworking and digital conferencing will continue after the coronacrisis.

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. 532, 2020

The COVID-19 crisis and telework: A research survey on experiences, expectations and hopes – Download PDF
by Baert, Stijn & Lippens, Louis & Moens, Eline & Sterkens, Philippe & Weytjens, Johannes

GLO Fellow Stijn Baert

Author Abstract: While a considerable number of employees across the globe are being forced to work from home due to the COVID-19 crisis, it is a guessing game as to how they are experiencing this current surge in telework. Therefore, we examined employee perceptions of telework on various life and career aspects, distinguishing between typical and extended telework during the COVID-19 crisis. To this end, we conducted a state-of-the-art web survey among Flemish employees. Notwithstanding this exceptional time of sudden, obligatory and high-intensity telework, our respondents mainly attribute positive characteristics to teleworking, such as increased efficiency and a lower risk of burnout. The results also suggest that the overwhelming majority of the surveyed employees believe that teleworking (85%) and digital conferencing (81%) are here to stay. In contrast, some fear that telework diminishes their promotion opportunities and weakens ties with their colleagues and employer.

The Journal of Population Economics welcomes submissions dealing with the demographic aspects of the Coronavirus Crisis. After fast refereeing, successful papers are published in the next available issue. An example:

Yun Qiu, Xi Chen & Wei Shi (2020): Impacts of Social and Economic Factors on the Transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China, GLO Discussion Paper, No. 494.
REVISED DRAFT NOW PUBLISHED OPEN ACCESS ONLINE: Journal of Population Economics, Issue 4, 2020.

Further publication on COVID-19 of a GLO DP:
GLO Discussion Paper No. 508, 2020
Inter-country Distancing, Globalization and the Coronavirus Pandemic – Download PDF
by Zimmermann, Klaus F. & Karabulut, Gokhan & Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin & Doker, Asli Cansin is now forthcoming in The World Economy doi:10.1111/twec.12969 PREPUBLICATION VERSION

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.

Ends;

A new paper published in the Journal of Population Economics finds that an early-life social safety net program has a sizeable impact on child health outcomes at birth.

Read more in:

Growing together: assessing equity and efficiency in a prenatal health program

Damian Clarke, Gustavo Cortés Méndez

Journal of Population Economics (2020) 33, Issue 3: 883-956
FREE READ LINK

Author Abstract: We study the acting mechanism of an early-life social safety net program and quantify its impact on child health outcomes at birth. We consider both the equity and efficiency implications of program impacts and provide a metric to compare such programs around the world. In particular, we estimate the impact of participation in Chile Crece Contigo (ChCC), Chile’s flagship early-life health and social welfare program, using a difference-in-differences style model based on variation in program intensity and administrative birth data matched to social benefits usage. We find that this targeted social program had significant effects on birth weight (approximately 10 grams) and other early-life human capital measures. These benefits are largest among the most socially vulnerable groups but shift outcomes toward the middle of the distribution of health at birth. We show that the program is efficient when compared to other successful neonatal health programs around the world and find some evidence to suggest that maternal nutrition components and increased links to the social safety net are important action mechanisms.

Access to the newly published complete Volume 33, Issue 3, July 2020.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 3:
Blau, F.D., Kahn, L.M., Brummund, P. et al., Is there still son preference in the United States?.
Journal of Population Economics 33, 709–750 (2020). READ LINK FREE.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-019-00760-7

Ends;

A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that peer depression in adolescence affects own depression in adulthood, but family can function as a buffer.

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. 531, 2020

Peers, Gender, and Long-Term Depression– Download PDF
by Giulietti, Corrado & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Zenou, Yves

GLO Fellows Corrado Giulietti & Yves Zenou

• 

• 

Author Abstract: We provide first evidence that peer depression in adolescence affects own depression in adulthood. We use data from Add Health and an identification strategy that relies on within-school and across-cohort idiosyncratic variation in the share of own-gender peers who are depressed. We find a significant peer effect for females but not for males. An increase of one standard deviation of the share of own-gender peers (schoolmates) who are depressed increases the probability of depression in adulthood by 2.6 percentage points for females (or 11.5% of mean depression). We also find that the peer effect is already present in the short term when girls are still in school and provide evidence for why it persists over time. Further analysis reveals that individuals from families with a lower socioeconomic background are more susceptible to peer influence, thereby suggesting that family can function as a buffer. Our findings underscore the importance of peer relationships in adolescence with regard to the development of long-lasting depression in women.

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.

Ends;

A new paper published in the Journal of Population Economics provides causal evidence that children increase mothers’ life satisfaction and happiness in a large sample of women from 35 developing countries.

Read more in:

Quasi-experimental evidence for the causal link between fertility and subjective well-being

Jan Priebe

Journal of Population Economics (2020) 33, Issue 3: 839-882
FREE READ LINK

Author Abstract: This article presents causal evidence on the impact of fertility on women’s subjective well-being using quasi-experimental variation due to preferences for a mixed sibling sex composition (having at least one child of each sex). Based on a large sample of women from 35 developing countries, I find that having children increases mothers’ life satisfaction and happiness. I further establish that the positive impact of fertility on subjective well-being can be explained by related increases in mothers’ satisfaction with family life, friendship, and treatment by others.

Access to the newly published complete Volume 33, Issue 3, July 2020.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 3:
Blau, F.D., Kahn, L.M., Brummund, P. et al., Is there still son preference in the United States?.
Journal of Population Economics 33, 709–750 (2020). READ LINK FREE.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-019-00760-7

Ends;

A new paper published in the Journal of Population Economics shows that Vietnam’s two-child policy decreased the average number of living children per woman, decreased also the proportion of sons in each family and increased maternal employment.

Read more in:

Effects of Vietnam’s two-child policy on fertility, son preference, and female labor supply

Anh P. Ngo

Journal of Population Economics (2020) 33, Issue 3: 751-794
FREE READ LINK

Author Abstract: In 1988, facing a total fertility rate of over four births per woman, the Vietnamese government introduced a new policy that required parents to have no more than two children. Using data from the Vietnam Population and Housing Censuses from 1989, 1999, and 2009, I apply a differences-in-differences framework to assess the effects of this policy on family size, son preference, and maternal employment. I find that the policy decreased the probability that a woman has more than two children by 15 percentage points for younger women and by 7 percentage points for middle-aged women. The policy reduced the average number of living children by 0.2 births per woman. Low-education women and women in rural areas were more affected by the policy. The policy had no effects on mothers’ age at first birth and gender of mothers’ last birth. The reduction in fertility caused by the policy was associated with a 1.2 percentage point decrease in the proportion of sons in each family. The policy increased maternal employment by 1.3 percentage points. Instrumental variables estimates of the effects of fertility on maternal employment and child education suggest a negative relationship between the number of children and female labor supply and a trade-off between child quantity and child quality in Vietnam.

Access to the newly published complete Volume 33, Issue 3, July 2020.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 3:
Blau, F.D., Kahn, L.M., Brummund, P. et al., Is there still son preference in the United States?.
Journal of Population Economics 33, 709–750 (2020). READ LINK FREE.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-019-00760-7

Ends;

A new paper published in the Journal of Population Economics shows that the effect of birth order on educational outcomes in Mexico is negative.

Read more in:

The importance of being earliest: birth order and educational outcomes along the socioeconomic ladder in Mexico

by Lucio Esposito, Sunil Mitra Kumar, Adrián Villaseñor

Journal of Population Economics (2020) 33, Issue 3:1069–1099
PDF of the article OPEN ACCESS

Author Abstract: We study the effect of birth order on educational outcomes in Mexico using 2 million observations from the 2010 Census. We find that the effect of birth order is negative, and a variety of endogeneity and robustness checks suggest a causal interpretation of this finding. We then examine whether these effects vary across households’ economic status, and we find significant heterogeneity across absolute as well as relative standards of living, operationalized as household wealth and relative deprivation. Finally, we find that firstborns’ advantage is amplified when they are male, and in particular when other siblings are female.

Access to the newly published complete Volume 33, Issue 3, July 2020.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 3:
Blau, F.D., Kahn, L.M., Brummund, P. et al., Is there still son preference in the United States?.
Journal of Population Economics 33, 709–750 (2020). READ LINK FREE.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-019-00760-7

Ends;

The GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of April underscores the need for further research to consider the medium and long run economic impacts of COVID-19 and its impacts on human capital accumulation, early-life exposure and labor market discrimination.

See below links to further work of the GLO network on the corinavirus.

See also below the list of all GLO DPs of April with links to free access.

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: April

524 The Short-Term Economic Consequences of COVID-19: Exposure to Disease, Remote Work and Government Response – Download PDF
by Béland, Louis-Philippe & Brodeur, Abel & Wright, Taylor  

Author Abstract: In this ongoing project, we examine the short-term consequences of COVID- 19 on employment and wages in the United States. Guided by a pre-analysis plan, we document the impact of COVID-19 at the national-level using a simple difference and test whether states with relatively more confirmed cases/deaths were more affected. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 in- creased the unemployment rate, decreased hours of work and labor force participation and had no significant impacts on wages. The negative impacts on labor market outcomes are larger for men, younger workers, Hispanics and less-educated workers. This suggest that COVID-19 increases labor market inequalities. We also investigate whether the economic consequences of this pandemic were larger for certain occupations. We built three indexes using ACS and O*NET data: workers relatively more exposed to disease, work- ers that work with proximity to coworkers and workers who can easily work remotely. Our estimates suggest that individuals in occupations working in proximity to others are more affected while occupations able to work remotely are less affected. We also find that occupations classified as more exposed to disease are less affected, possibly due to the large number of essential workers in these occupations.

The Journal of Population Economics welcomes submissions dealing with the demographic aspects of the Coronavirus Crisis. After fast refereeing, successful papers are published in the next available issue. An example:

Yun Qiu, Xi Chen & Wei Shi (2020): Impacts of Social and Economic Factors on the Transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China, GLO Discussion Paper, No. 494.
REVISED DRAFT NOW forthcoming: Journal of Population Economics, Issue 4, 2020.
SEE FOR MORE DETAILS AND FREE ACCESS TO THE PREPUBLICATION REVISED DRAFT!

Further publication on COVID-19 of a GLO DP:

GLO Discussion Paper No. 508, 2020
Inter-country Distancing, Globalization and the Coronavirus Pandemic – Download PDF
by Zimmermann, Klaus F. & Karabulut, Gokhan & Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin & Doker, Asli Cansin is now forthcoming in The World Economy doi:10.1111/twec.12969 PREPUBLICATION VERSION

More from the GLO Coronavirus Cluster

GLO Discussion Papers of April 2020

530 Is Happiness U-shaped Everywhere? Age and Subjective Well-being in 145 Countries  – Download PDF
by Blanchflower, David G.

529 Do Swedish schools discriminate against children with disabilities?  – Download PDF
by Ahmed, Ali & Hammarstedt, Mats & Karlsson, Karl

528 Working From Home Under COVID-19: Who Is Affected? Evidence From Latin American and Caribbean Countries – Download PDF
by Delaporte, Isaure & Peña, Werner

527 The Perceived Well-being and Health Costs of Exiting Self-Employment – Download PDF
by Nikolova, Milena & Nikolaev, Boris & Popova, Olga

526 When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead but Stops Short – Download PDF
by Islam, Asad & Kwon, Sungoh & Masood, Eema & Prakash, Nishith & Sabarwal, Shwetlena & Saraswat, Deepak

525 Longer School Schedules, Childcare and the Quality of Mothers’ Employment: Evidence from School Reform in Chile – Download PDF
by Berthelon, Matias & Kruger, Diana & Lauer, Catalina & Tiberti, Luca & Zamora, Carlos

524 The Short-Term Economic Consequences of COVID-19: Exposure to Disease, Remote Work and Government Response – Download PDF
by Béland, Louis-Philippe & Brodeur, Abel & Wright, Taylor

523 Misclassification-errors-adjusted Sahm Rule for Early Identification of Economic Recession – Download PDF
by Feng, Shuaizhang & Sun, Jiandong

522 A spatial analysis of inward FDI and rural-urban wage inequality: Evidence from China – Download PDF
by Wang, Hao & Fidrmuc, Jan & Luo, Qi

521 The technological contest between China and the United States – Download PDF
by Toro Hardy, Alfredo

520 How do we think the COVID-19 crisis will affect our careers (if any remain)?  – Download PDF
by Baert, Stijn & Lippens, Louis & Moens, Eline & Sterkens, Philippe & Weytjens, Johannes

519 Bottom incomes and the measurement of poverty and inequality – Download PDF
by Hlasny, Vladimir & Ceriani, Lidia & Verme, Paolo

518 Automation and Demographic Change – Download PDF
by Abeliansky, Ana Lucia & Prettner, Klaus

517 Biomarkers, disability and health care demand – Download PDF
by Davillas, Apostolos & Pudney, Stephen

516 Confronting COVID-19 Myths: Morbidity and Mortality – Download PDF
byJelnov, Pavel

515 The Semicircular Flow of the Data Economy and the Data Sharing Laffer curve – Download PDF
by de Pedraza, Pablo & Vollbracht, Ian

514 Commuting and self-employment in Western Europe – Download PDF
by Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge

513 Italian Workers at Risk During the Covid-19 Epidemic – Download PDF
by Barbieri, Teresa & Basso, Gaetano & Scicchitano, Sergio

512 Do Quarantine Experiences and Attitudes Towards COVID-19 Affect the Distribution of Psychological Outcomes in China? A Quantile Regression Analysis – Download PDF
by Lu, Haiyang & Nie, Peng & Qian, Long

511 Teaching ‘out of field’ in STEM subjects in Australia: Evidence from PISA 2015 – Download PDF
by Shah, Chandra & Richardson, Paul & Watt, Helen

510 BrExit or BritaIn: Is the UK more Attractive to Supervisors? An Analysis of Wage Premium to Supervision across the EU – Download PDF
by Biagetti, Marco & Giangreco, Antonio & Leonida, Leone & Scicchitano, Sergio

509 What makes work meaningful and why economists should care about it – Download PDF
by Nikolova, Milena & Cnossen, Femke

508 Inter-country Distancing, Globalization and the Coronavirus Pandemic – Download PDF
by Zimmermann, Klaus F. & Karabulut, Gokhan & Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin & Doker, Asli Cansin

507 The children are alright: Revisiting the impact of parental migration in the Philippines – Download PDF
by Pajaron, Marjorie & Latinazo, Cara T. & Trinidad, Enrico G.

GLO DP Managing Editor: Magdalena Ulceluse, University of Groningen. DP@glabor.org  

Ends;

A new GLO Discussion Paper provides global evidence that the U-shaped happiness-age curve is everywhere.

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. 530, 2020

Is Happiness U-shaped Everywhere? Age and Subjective Well-being in 145 Countries – Download PDF
by Blanchflower, David G.

GLO Fellow David G. Blanchflower

Author Abstract: A large empirical literature has debated the U-shaped happiness-age curve. This paper re-examines the relationship between various measures of well-being and age in one hundred and forty-five countries, including one hundred and nine developing countries, controlling for education, marital and labor force status, among others on samples of individuals under the age of seventy. The curve is forcefully confirmed with an age minimum, or nadir, in midlife around age fifty, employing separate analyses for developing and advanced countries as well as for the continent of Africa as robustness checks. While panel data are largely unavailable for this issue, and the finding using such data largely confirms the cross-section results, the paper discusses insights on why cohort effects do not drive the findings. I find the minima has risen over time in Europe and the United States. The happiness curve seems to be everywhere.

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.

Ends;

A new GLO Discussion Paper provides evidence that Swedish schools discriminated against children with certain disabilities, and that discrimination is most prevalent in private schools.

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. 529, 2020

Do Swedish schools discriminate against children with disabilities? – Download PDF
by Ahmed, Ali & Hammarstedt, Mats & Karlsson, Karl

GLO Fellow Mats Hammarstedt

Author Abstract: We present results from a field experiment in which fictitious parents to children with certain types of disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), make inquires to Swedish schools about admission for their children to the compulsory preschool class. Our results reveal that Swedish schools discriminated against children with these disabilities and that discrimination is most prevalent in private schools. Private schools discriminated against boys with ADHD and T1DM and against girls with ADHD. Furthermore, public schools discriminated against girls with ADHD. One potential effect of our results is that children with disabilities are referred to less attractive schools than children with no such medical conditions. These results may have implications for the possibilities for individuals with ADHD and T1DM to succeed in the labor market in the long run.

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.

Ends;