Endogenous gender power,household labor supply and the demographic transition

We present a microeconomic model of the household in which there exists no difference in spousal preferences but childrearing is more time costly for women. Bargaining between the wife and the husband forms the basis of household decisions. Marital bargaining power is determined according to the incomes of the spouses, which in turn help to determine their reservation utility levels outside the marriage. The endogeneity of bargaining power introduces a non-cooperative element to the couples' decision-making problem because both the husbands and the wives take into account how their pre-marital education decisions affect their marital power and the share they extract from household resources in the future. The model predicts that wives invest more than is Pareto efficient in their education in order to increase their bargaining power in marriage. As a consequence, couples have fewer children and consume more when exogenous structural changes lead women to invest more in education. A corollary of the model is that empowering women directly through social reforms such as a lower gender wage gap leads to lower fertility and higher spousal consumption and leisure.     

Differences in the effects of informal family caregiving on health and life satisfaction between wives and husbands as caregivers

We analyze whether or not informal family caregiving worsens caregivers’ health and life satisfaction among Japanese married middle‐aged and elderly individuals from the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement. Unlike previous studies, we distinguish between wives and husbands as caregivers and between one's own and one's spouse's parents as care recipients. We find women's depressive state is negatively associated with caregiving for spousal parents both in our instrumental variable estimations and fixed‐effect panel analysis, and also find women's life satisfaction is negatively associated with caregiving for spousal parents in our fixed‐effect panel analysis, though only marginally so. However, as our results are marginally significant, caregiving for either own or spousal parents does not seem to matter much for caregiver's health or life satisfaction. All that can be said for certain in our paper is that men's subjective health, depressive state, and life satisfaction are generally less sensitive to informal care, for both spousal and own parents, than that of women.     

A capable wife: couple’s joint decisions on labor supply and family chores

This study investigates how spousal employment status affects personal employment decisions and the division of family chores. We apply Bresnahan and Reiss (J Econom 48(1):57–81, 1991) empirical cooperative game model to estimate household aggregate preference for a dual-earner family, extending their model to identify the individual preferences of husbands and wives by using the share of family chores as an empirical proxy for individual indirect disutilities. Using data from Taiwan, we show that an average household in the sample does not prefer a dual-earner family. The estimates of individual preferences indicate that this aversion comes mainly from the husbands. These results suggest that the gender gap in labor force participation and earnings has reduced at a faster rate than the social norm change toward the role of women in Taiwan.     

Children’s health benefits of reducing environmental tobacco smoke exposure: evidence from parents who smoke

This paper uses data from the 1991 National Maternal and Infant Health Survey to estimate propositions derived from a model of intrahousehold allocation, wherein parents engage in a consumption activity (smoking) that produces own utility, while generating environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) that harms their children’s health. We find a statistically significant negative association between sample mothers‘ assessed health of their children and the children’s daily exposures to ETS. Mothers’ average annual willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a 1-hour-per-day reduction in child ETS exposure (about a 17% decrease in daily exposure) is about $150. WTP estimates for respondent mother and child health status further suggest that smoking mothers on average value their child’s health roughly 55% higher than their own health. Helpful comments and suggestions by Scott Atkinson, Donald Kenkel, and two anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. Marcy Agee and Stefanos Nastis provided valuable research assistance. Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provided financial support through Grant#R82871601, the research has not been subjected to the Agency’s required peer and policy review and therefore does not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency     

Aggregation Biases in Estimates of the Value per Statistical Life: Evidence from Longitudinal Matched Worker-Firm Data in Taiwan

This study uses a unique longitudinally-linked employer–employee dataset to estimate the magnitude of bias in estimating the value per statistical life (VSL) that arises from the conventional use of industry-average occupational risk. This unique dataset, covering workers in Taiwan over the period 1998–2002, allows us to distinguish among potential sources of bias including omitted variables and to control for the potential endogeneity of firm-specific job risk with respect to unobserved worker and firm characteristics. We find that VSL estimates based on risk data aggregated by three-digit manufacturing SIC codes are biased downward by an order of magnitude compared with estimates using firm-specific risk that control for endogeneity.     

The effect of a wife’s retirement on her husband’s mental health

This article examines the effect of wives’ retirement on their husband’s mental health in Australia. By exploiting the exogenous variations in women’s retirement induced by the age pension qualifying ages, we find that spousal retirement status has a positive impact on the mental health of older men. This beneficial impact is found to strengthen with wives’ time spent in retirement. We show that wife’s retirement affects the constituents of her husband’s mental well-being in different ways. We also have identified four channels for the positive linkage between older women’s retirement and the mental health of their spouse.     

Gender Patterns of Eldercare in China

ABSTRACT

Using the baseline wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), collected from 2011 to 2012, this study finds that among those age 60 and above, women are 7.6 percent more likely than men to have care needs and 29.3 percent more likely than men to have unmet needs; and that most of the gender gap in unmet needs is explained by the existence and health status of a spouse. Further analysis reveals a sharp gender division in patterns of family care in China. While men are more likely to receive care from their wives, women are primarily cared for by their children. Marital status and spouse health also affect provision of care, with infirm women who have healthy husbands less likely to receive care than infirm men with healthy wives. The findings have important implications for designing gender-sensitive policies in eldercare.     

Does weight status affect academic performance? Evidence from Australian children

This article investigates the impact of children’s weight status on their academic performance using the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children. Considering the endogeneity of the weight status variable (obesity or overweight), to obtain consistent estimates of its impact, we use the body mass index of biological parents as instrumental variables. The two-stage least square estimation shows that obesity or overweight has a significant negative impact on academic performance. Furthermore, the effect of child weight status is different across grade levels. Overweight has a larger negative impact on academic performance for senior year students, especially on numeracy.     

An Investigation into the Positive Effect of an Educated Wife on Her Husband’s Earnings: The Case of Japan in the Period between 2000 and 2003

We analyze the effect of a wife??s human capital on her husband??s earnings, using individual-level data for Japan in the period 2000?C2003. We find a positive association between a wife??s education and her husband??s earnings, which can be attributed to the assortative mating effect as well as the positive effect of an educated wife on her husband??s productivity. We divide the sample into those couples with non-working wives and those with working wives, and also employ an estimation strategy proposed by Jepsen (Review of Economics of the Household 3:197?C214, 2005), attempting to control for the assortative mating effect. Our regression analysis provides suggestive evidence that educated wives increase their husbands?? productivity and earnings only when they are non-workers and have sufficient time to support their husbands.     

Consumption and the Within-household Income Distribution: Outcomes from an Australian "Natural Experiment"

Does the within-household distribution of income influence householdconsumption patterns? In one attempt to answer this question,Lundberg, Pollak and Wales (1997) exploited the ‘naturalexperiment’ of a change in family benefits in the UK.They found that the within-household income distribution didhave a significant impact on expenditure. This paper exploitsa similar natural experiment in Australia. During the 1990s,unemployment benefits for unemployed married couples changedfrom being paid almost entirely to husbands, to being paid primarilyto wives. Using household expenditure data it is found that,although the changes in the within-household income distributionwere large, the changes in expenditure patterns were small andnot in the expected direction. The data do not, therefore, providesupport for the hypothesis that women's control over householdexpenditure was increased. The paper concludes with a discussionof the possible reasons for this. (JEL J10, J12, I38)     

Food away from home expenditures and obesity among older Europeans: are there gender differences?

Older people (i.e., at least 50?years of age) are becoming one of the most important demographic groups in the world. We explore the effect of food away from home expenditures on obesity among the older population in Europe using instrumental variable methods. Several statistical tests were conducted to assess endogeneity of selected variables, the exogeneity, relevance, and validity of instruments used. Our results generally suggest that food-away-from-home expenditure has no statistically significant effect on body mass index (BMI) of older males but is negatively related to BMI of older females.     

The Saving Behaviour of a Two-person Household

The facts that wives are typically younger than their husbands and that women typically live longer than men imply that wives may have more incentive to save for old age than do husbands. A theoretical model of the determination of household saving and portfolio choice is introduced which takes into account differences in preferences for saving. The most important result is that the level and the composition (portfolio) of saving and the time path of consumption are dependent on the distribution of income within the household.
JEL classification: D 1; D 7     

DOES ADVERTISING MATTER? ESTIMATING THE IMPACT OF CIGARETTE ADVERTISING ON SMOKING AMONG YOUTH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The goal of this paper is to evaluate the impact of cigarette advertising on smoking among youth in developing countries. Using micro‐level data from 19 developing countries, we examine the structural relationship between smoking behavior and advertising exposure and the reduced‐form relationship between smoking and advertising bans. Instrumental variables are used to address the endogeneity of advertising exposure. Country‐specific unobserved heterogeneity is further reduced by controlling for measures of antismoking sentiment and cigarette prices. After accounting for the endogeneity of advertising, we find that the positive correlation between smoking and advertising exposure in our sample can be largely explained by the disproportionately higher propensity of smokers to observe advertising rather than a direct causal effect of advertising on smoking. (JEL I12, I18)     

The econometrics of rational partisan theory

This study develops an econometric intervention model representing the standard empirical approach to testing Alesina's (1987) Rational Partisan Theory implication that elections lead to short-term changes in output growth and unemployment., This intervention approach may be subject to two econometric difficulties., First, the cyclical nature of the autoregressive variables suggest the regression residuals may be serially correlated., Second, the election intervention variable may be endogenous to the cyclical variables., Empirical support for the model is mixed., Ordinary Least Squares estimates for both series produce a coefficient for the intervention variable which is of the predicted sign but not significant., The output growth regression results are robust to serial correlation and endogeneity concerns., For unemployment, controlling for serial correlation generates a significant coefficient, but adjusting for endogeneity does not.,     

Does agricultural cooperative membership influence off-farm work decisions of farm couples?

Membership in agricultural cooperatives may influence intra-household decisions regarding the division of household labor. However, the linkages between cooperative membership and labor allocation remain unexplored. To fill this gap, we examine the impact of cooperative membership on off-farm work decisions of couples engaged in farming, using data collected from 595 banana farmers in China. The recursive bivariate probit model and endogenous-treatment Poisson regression model are employed to address the self-selection bias inherent in cooperative membership. The results show that cooperative membership increases the probability of participating in off-farm work by 38% for husbands and 31% for wives. Having large households reduces the probability of husbands but increases that of wives working off-farm. Cooperative membership is also associated with more time spent on off-farm work and higher earnings for both husbands and wives. Our findings point to the potential of agricultural cooperatives to increase farm couples’ off-farm employment, thus increasing household income and quality of life.     

预期退休年龄的影响因素分析* ——基于CHARLS数据的实证研究

本文基于2011年CHARLS数据,利用Multinominal Logit模型分析了45岁~60岁劳动者个人特征、配偶特征以及家庭特征对他们延迟退休意愿和无休止劳动意愿的影响。本文发现,女性、具有高级职称和农业户口的劳动者更愿意延迟退休,在企业工作、具有农业户口和受教育程度偏低的人倾向于无休止劳动。对延迟退休意愿进行性别差异分析的结果表明,男性延迟退休意愿随着自身受教育程度的提高而增加,随着妻子受教育程度的提高呈现先降低后提高的“U”型趋势。女性的延迟退休意愿随着自身受教育程度的提高而下降,但并不受丈夫的影响。无论是男性还是女性,随着受教育程度的提高,他们无休止劳动的预期均下降。针对以上结论,本文提出了相应的政策建议。     

Founders versus non-founders in large companies: financial incentives and the call for regulation

This paper is intended to question some of the premises in the ever increasing calls to regulate executive pay. We focus on founders, and extend Shleifer and Vishny’s (1989, Journal of Political Economy, 94, 461–488) manager-specific investments model by explicitly modeling managerial effort and pay performance sensitivity. Tests of this model on a data set of large companies, controlling for the endogeneity of managerial compensation, indicate that founders tend to be less responsive to performance incentives and generally more entrenched. At the same time, founders’ led firms are more valuable, supporting our predictions. This suggests that for founders, regulation of compensation may not be very effective.      

The labor-force participation of married women in the Soviet Union: a household cross-section analysis

Approximately 80% of women in the Soviet Union ages 15-54 years are employed outside the home. To identify the impact of demographic and economic variables on the high rate of labor force participation among Soviet women, data from an income survey of 1016 2-parent families of emigrants to Israel were analyzed. It was hypothesized that differences in participation rates among Soviet women correspond to differences in other sources of family income, wage rates and market conditions, level of education, and family household conditions, with response to changes in economic variables mediated by the role played by persuasion and social pressure in encouraging women to participate. Overall, 89.3% of the women in the sample were labor force participants. Nonparticipants were, as expected, from families with higher levels of other income. The personal qualifications of nonworking wives were considerably lower than those of working wives, with nonworking wives averaging 9.4 years of schooling compared with 13.2 years for working wives. Offered wages for working wives averaged 69 kopecks/hour in contrast to 40-50 kopecks/hour for nonworking women. A maximum-likelihood functional estimation of participation rates whoed significant coefficients for family income (negative), expected wages and education (positive), and residence in a large city (positive). The coefficients for residence in a medium-sized city, existence of a private plot, presence of nonworking men in the household, occupational status of the husband, and total number of children were insignificant. The supply of hours of work was backward-bending. The results suggest that Soviet women reach the decision to participate in the labor force through consideration of the same factors as their counterparts in nonsocialist countries. The analysis further indicates that, at present levels of fertility and exogenous conditions, the participation rate in the Soviet Union will not decrease. However, policies designed to raise the fertility level, including better facilities for children and more support for women who leave the labor force to raise young children, could ease labor force participation among soviet women.     

Demand competition and investment heterogeneity in industries based on systemic technologies: evidence from the US long-distance telecommunications services industry, 1984–1996

Industries based on systemic technologies are often characterized by a dynamically evolving market structure. The market structure that provides the context for firms’ investment choices itself evolves due to the feedback effect of firms’ investments. In such cases, analyses of investment-performance relationship, purporting to explain sustainable competitive advantages, should ideally account for the endogeneity of the determinants of market structure—technology, demand, and policy—and firms’ investment choices. This paper focuses on the endogeneity of the demand-side determinants of market structure and firms’ demand-side investments under the assumed conditions of constant technology and policy environment. In doing so it contradicts the extant depiction of the evolution of industrial market structure in the above context as primarily caused by the evolution of underlying technological system in response to firms’ endogenous technological investments that generate sustainable competitive advantage for the dominant firms. A dynamic evolutionary model of demand competition captures the competition in the downstream market for basic industry product and its complements in an industry based on systemic technology during its post-interoperability stage. A natural experiment drawn from the US Long-distance telecommunications services industry during 1984–1996 allows testing the hypotheses drawn from the above model in a panel data setting.     

Why Can’t I keep my Surname? The Fairness and Welfare of the Japanese Legal System

This study examines the welfare and fairness implications of Japan’s current policy on marriage surnames versus the proposed revised family law, which would enable husbands and wives to retain their premarital surnames. The study compares welfare in these two legal states, with a married couple’s welfare dependent on marriage-surname choice. It reviews the external preferences of anti-revisionists by the fairness criteria of impersonality or extended sympathy. Utilizing web-based survey data, the study conducts nonparametric rank analysis and parametric analysis of willingness to pay (WTP) for surname retention and legal support. Moreover, it conducts a structural equation analysis via a multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) model, incorporating surname attachment and fairness as latent variables. The study shows that the revised law can increase welfare and that external disutility of the legal revision is invalid on fairness grounds.