The Impact of Self‐Perceived Relative Income on Life Satisfaction: Evidence from British Panel Data

This is the first article that uses panel data to investigate the impact of individuals' self‐perceived relative income on life satisfaction. Analyses show that the self‐perceived relative income has a significant impact on life satisfaction, but the impact is asymmetric. The decline in life satisfaction is much more significant due to perceiving a lower relative income in comparison to the rise in life satisfaction because of perceiving a higher relative income. Absolute income is only significantly and positively associated with life satisfaction in the pooled ordinary least squares estimations, but the association is never significantly different from zero when individual fixed effects are controlled. Household savings have a positive but small impact on life satisfaction. Among different financial‐related shocks, people's self‐perceived relative income varies the most due to changes in household net income, total savings, and employment status.     

Prenatal Smoking Cessation and Infant Health: Evidence from Sibling Births

This article uses a large data set of sibling births to examine when mothers must quit smoking in pregnancy to deliver healthy babies. It applies sibling fixed effects models to provide robust evidence that smoking cessation in the first trimester has a negligible effect on infant health, but cessation as late as second trimester or smoking throughout pregnancy is associated with substantially lower birth weights and higher risks of delivering low birth weight babies. In particular, about two thirds of the total detrimental smoking impact on birth outcomes occurs in the second trimester. Therefore, reallocating resources on prenatal smoking cessation towards the first trimester can lead to a significant efficiency gain. This study also shows when the timing information of prenatal smoking cessation is improperly used, it will introduce a new nontrivial downward bias in estimating the causality between the conventionally used group measure “prenatal smoker” and infant health.     

Health insurance generosity and conditional coverage: Evidence from medicaid managed care in Kentucky

This article estimates the impact of the introduction of Medicaid managed care (MMC) on the formal Medicaid participation of children. We employ a quasi‐experimental approach exploiting the location‐specific timing of MMC implementation in Kentucky. Using data from the March Current Population Survey from 1995 to 2003, our findings suggest that the introduction of MMC increases the likelihood of being uninsured and decreases formal Medicaid participation. This finding is consistent with an increase in “conditional coverage,” waiting until medical care is needed to sign up or re‐enroll in Medicaid. These effects are concentrated among low‐income children and absent for high‐income children. We find no evidence of “crowd‐in,” substituting private coverage for Medicaid. These results are robust to multiple placebo tests and imply the potential for less formal participation (i.e., more conditional coverage) among the Affordable Care Act‐Medicaid expansion population (which is likely to be primarily covered under MMC) than is typically predicted.     

The Effect of Social Security Contributions on Coverage and Wages: A Gender Perspective Using a Natural Experiment from Colombia

This article investigates, from a gender and marital status perspective, the effects of pension and health care contributions on the employment and wages of workers covered by social security regulations. To do this, I use as a natural experiment a reform implemented in Colombia during the mid‐1990. In particular I employ a differences‐in‐differences estimation based on an endogenous switching‐regression model that accounts for self‐selection into coverage. My results indicate that, for females, a 10% increase in contributions reduces the relative wages of covered workers by 7.2%. On the other hand, for males, the reform increases the relative wages of covered workers by 7.1%. Among females, the effect is predominantly present in single women. Among men, divorced and widowed workers are the only group not to experience an effect on earnings. For most family groups, the social security reform has no significant effect on coverage.     

A Case of Sticky Floors: Gender Wage Differentials in Thailand

Using 2004 Household Socio‐Economic Survey data for Thailand, we explore the gender wage differentials across the entire unconditional wage distribution and find a strong sticky floor effect. Glass ceilings, although observed along with sticky floors in the raw data and pooled regressions, disappear in the counterfactual decompositions, suggesting a strong sticky floor pattern in gender wage differentials in Thailand. Whereas the evidence for most European countries points to glass ceilings, our findings for Thailand are qualitatively similar to those from other South Asian and Southeast Asian countries for which evidence exists; namely, Singapore, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.     

Gender differences in job search among young workers: A study using displaced workers in the United States

This article investigates gender differences in job search, job tenure, and wages, whether these differences vary over the early part of the life‐cycle, and whether they are associated with fertility decisions. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youths on highly attached displaced workers aged 20 to 45, we find that 20‐ to 29‐year‐old women and women older than 40 experience longer spells of displacement than comparable men, but that time to a new job is similar by gender for those between 30 and 39 years of age. The age pattern in male–female wage differences in the post‐displacement job is similar, with the largest differences occurring at ages 20 to 29 and over 40. We find no gender differences in tenure in the post‐displacement job. We interpret the differences for the younger ages to be related to fertility and we provide evidence that supports this view.     

The Wage Elasticity of Informal Care Supply: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

This article focuses on the wage elasticity of informal care supply to elderly parents employing an instrumental variable approach to account for the fact that the wage rate is likely to be correlated with omitted variables. Using the 1998 wave of the 1998 ), the wage elasticity of informal care supply is estimated to be negative and larger in magnitude than found previously. The lower bound of this elasticity is estimated to be ?1.8 for males and ?3.6 for females. Additional findings suggest that this wage elasticity differs by the type of care provided to elderly parents and that it is larger in magnitude among individuals with siblings and those with independently living parents. Overall the reductions in the informal care constitute about 18% of the labor supply response for men and about 56% of the labor supply response for women, which are not compensated by monetary transfers.     

Effect of Stress on Later-Life Health: Evidence from the Vietnam War Draft

This article contributes to the literature examining how stress during the early stages of life impacts later-life health using a novel proxy for stress: risk of military induction during the Vietnam War. The article estimates that an increase in induction risk in young adulthood is associated with higher rates of obesity, endocrine disease, and hypertension later in life. These findings do not appear to be cohort effects; these associations exist only for men who did not serve in the war, not for same-aged women. These results suggest stress experienced during early adulthood can have adverse health consequences later in life.     

Cross‐Country Evidence on Labor Market Institutions and Young Adult Employment through the Financial Crisis

I develop and analyze a set of cross‐country facts regarding employment and wage setting institutions over the decade surrounding the 2008 financial crisis. Among long‐industrialized countries, young adult employment declined more than prime age employment over this time period. I show that differences in countries' wage setting institutions strongly predict variations in the magnitude of declines in young adult employment. Both unconditionally and conditional on changes in macroeconomic conditions, young adult employment declined 5 percentage points less in countries where wage setting is driven by collective bargaining arrangements than in countries with statutory wage floors. Evidence on the evolution of legislated minimum wage rates and of an asymmetry in the relationship between growth and young adult employment suggest an important role for a standard “wage rigidity” mechanism.     

The Implicit Costs of Motherhood over the Lifecycle: Cross-Cohort Evidence from Administrative Longitudinal Data

It is well known that the explicit costs of raising a child have grown over the past several decades. Less well understood are the implicit costs of having a child, and how they have changed over time. In this article, we are the first to examine the evolution of the implicit costs of motherhood over the lifecycle and across generations using high quality administrative data. We estimate that the lifetime labor market income gap between mothers and women who never have children (never-mothers) decreases from around $350,000 to $280,000 between women born in the late 1940s and late 1960s. Gaps tend to increase monotonically over the lifecycle, and decrease monotonically between cohorts. Our evidence suggests that changes in the gaps are caused by changing labor force participation rates.     

Technological Change,Job Risk,and Wage Premium: Evidence from Taiwan

The paper reports the results of analyzing the effects of technological change and job risk on wage premiums in Taiwan. Using unique individual data combined with industry‐level indices of technological change and fatality rates across industries, the empirical results show that, overall, industries characterized by a higher rate of technological change or fatality pay a higher wage. However, these positive correlations are attributed to the sorting effect in which workers with some specific features choose to find jobs in industries with rapid technological change and higher job risk. Furthermore, this paper reports a positive relationship between education and wages after controlling for individual heterogeneity, showing the existence of education premium in Taiwan.     

Surface Coal Mining and Human Health: Evidence from West Virginia

This article presents the first panel-data evidence of a human health externality from the air pollution generated by surface coal mining. In West Virginia, a standard deviation increase in a county's exposure to surface coal mining is associated with 9.85 more asthma hospitalizations per 100,000 residents in a given quarter. Interpreted causally, this suggests over $11 million in hospitalization costs over the 6-year study period. The study builds on earlier cross-sectional research by controlling for unobserved county-level heterogeneity, and by defining more accurate measures of exposure. Both methods are shown to reduce the bias associated with earlier estimates of coal mining's effect on health. Young and elderly women demonstrate the largest sensitivities to surface mining. Falsification tests reveal that neither hernias nor bone fractures demonstrate any relationship with surface mining activity.     

Income Disparity among Persons with Disabilities,Assessed by Education and Sex: Accentuated Gender Difference Found in Metro Manila,the Philippines

How do persons with disabilities (PWDs) earn a living? This paper presents an investigation of the economic activities of PWDs in the Philippines, where, among developing countries, disability‐related legislation is relatively progressive. In 2008, a field survey was conducted in cooperation with Disability People's Organizations using a tailor‐made questionnaire in Metro Manila. The explanatory variables of income of PWDs were examined using Mincer regression. The conclusions are as follows. (1) There is remarkable income disparity among PWDs, differing with education and sex. (2) After controlling for PWDs' characteristics, it was found that female PWDs are likely to earn less than male PWDs. Such a significant income gap between men and women among PWDs is remarkable in the Philippines, where gender difference in income is generally small. This finding suggests that female PWDs are doubly disadvantaged in earning income.     

Sexual Identity,Same‐Sex Relationships,and Labour Market Dynamics: New Evidence from Longitudinal Data in Australia

Using newly collected data on sexual identity from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, this study examines the relationship between sexual identity and labour market outcomes. Our findings show that gay males are: (i) less likely to be continuously employed than their heterosexual counterparts, and (ii) face an annual earnings penalty of 16–21%. There are also important differences in earnings dynamics for men who transition into (or out of) same‐sex versus opposite‐sex live‐in relationships. Individual fixed effects estimates show that opposite‐sex partnerships are associated with increased earnings for men, while same‐sex partnerships are associated with small declines in earnings that are statistically indistinguishable from zero. For women, we find evidence of an earnings premium for lesbians, driven largely by increased labour supply on the intensive margin.     

The Role of Economic Shocks on Health: Evidence from German Reunification

Sudden economic shocks impact the everyday lives of people from one day to the next. A number of studies have examined the association between economic fluctuations and health; however, no consensus on the nature of this relationship has been established. By exploiting the dramatic economic fluctuations following the German Reunification of 1990, which included a sudden change from a socialist to a capitalist system in East Germany, this study examines the association between broad negative economic shocks and health. The article finds that increases in state unemployment rates are associated with large and statistically significant declines in health outcomes. Estimates are stronger for people who became unemployed shortly after reunification, for low‐income individuals, and for East Germans, a group confronted with larger economic fluctuations. When examining potential mechanisms that could explain the observed health deteriorations, the study finds significant reductions in exercise frequency and increases in economic uncertainty and overall stress.     

Unemployment and Health Behaviors over the Business Cycle: A Longitudinal View

We examine the first-order internal effects of unemployment and nonemployment on a range of health behaviors during the most recent recession using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979. Ours is the first study to analyze the effect of own-unemployment on energy intake, energy expenditure, and the net effect (body mass index) using longitudinal records. Exploiting information enveloping the recent steep recession and prolonged recovery is valuable since recent job losers will modify their behavior little if they expect soon to be re-employed, whereas if they expect joblessness to last, they will adjust to a possibly prolonged decline in income and increase in nonwork time. We find that becoming unemployed is associated with a small increase in leisure-time exercise, a moderate decrease in smoking, and a substantial decline in total physical activity. We also find that unemployment and nonemployment are associated with a decline in purchases of fast food. Together, these results imply that both energy consumption and expenditure may decline in the United States during recessions, the net result being essentially no change in body weight. There is considerable heterogeneity in these effects across specific health behaviors, across the intensive and extensive margins, across the outcome distribution, and across gender.     

Wages and Wage Inequality in South Africa 1994–2011: Part 1 – Wage Measurement and Trends

We analyse the long‐term trends in wage inequality in South Africa, using household survey data. We show that the trends in household income inequality are largely driven by changes in wage inequality. Given the detailed nature of our series we show that measurement issues and breaks in the series need to be dealt with in order to draw robust conclusions from the data. Most standard inequality measures show that wage inequality has increased over the period. Nevertheless the choice of measure matters, because there are different trends in different parts of the distribution. It appears that the distribution below the median has become more compressed, while the top of the wage distribution has moved away from the median. The inequality in the labour market translates into even higher inequality in society given that high earners tend to live together with other high earners while low wage individuals often end up sharing their incomes with the unemployed. Furthermore there are many South Africans with access to no wage income. Given the trends analysed here it is not surprising that overall inequality in South Africa has not come down or has even increased since the end of apartheid.     

THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER EARNINGS GAPS AND DISCRIMINATION IN URBAN CHINA, 1988–95

This paper analyzes the impact of market liberalization on gender earnings differentials and discrimination against women in urban China at the beginning of the 1990s. The observed stability in the overall gender earnings gap between 1988 and 1995 is shown to result from a complex set of evolutions across enterprises, earnings distributions, and time. Our results highlight the interplay of opposing forces, with economic reforms contributing to changes in managers’ behaviors in different dimensions. On the one hand, by bringing more competition, liberalization favored a reduction in discriminating behaviors in both urban collectives and foreign‐invested enterprises; on the other hand, by relaxing institutional rules, it led to a loosening of the government's egalitarian wage‐setting policies, leaving more space for discrimination in state‐owned enterprises.     

Women doing men’s work and women doing women’s work: Female work and pay in British wartime engineering

Extreme demand pressures coupled with acute skill shortages in the run up to World War II caused British engineering companies to break down existing production processes into smaller constituent parts. This allowed the employment of persons trained over narrower ranges of skills and helped to create an exponential growth of female jobs, from 10.5% of total engineering employment in 1939 to 35.2% by 1943. Women were officially classified into those doing men’s work and those doing women’s work. Using a unique data set provided by the Engineering Employers Federation, this paper examines female work and pay from 1935 (the first year of rearmament) to 1942 (the peak of production activity) in more detail than has been previously undertaken. It features the pay and hours of piece- and time-rated women, female-male wage ratios, and an assessment of the war’s longer term impact on the female labor market.