Earnings and Languages in the Family: Second‐Generation Australians*

This paper uses Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia data to assess the performance of second‐generation Australians in full‐time employment in 2007. It examines the role of job mismatch and cultural and linguistic diversity at the individual and family levels. The study accounts for non‐random sample selection. The new evidence shows that: (i) over‐education and over‐skilling carry a wage penalty; (ii) there are significant but heterogeneous second‐generation effects; and (iii) language effects explain most of the disadvantage associated with non‐English‐speaking background.     

Leaving Home: What Economics Has to Say about the Living Arrangements of Young Australians

Like their counterparts elsewhere, more young Australians than ever are delaying the move to establish residential independence from their parents. This paper reviews the developing economics literature surrounding young people's decisions to continue living in their parents' homes in order to begin to assess the causes and consequences of this decision. In particular, co‐residence with parents appears to be an important form of intergenerational support for young adults. It is important to understand the extent to which young people rely on this form of support as they complete their education, enter the labour market and establish themselves as independent adults. Specific attention is paid to the ways in which Australian income support, education and housing policies may influence these patterns.     

Participation in and Completion of Vocational Education and Training for People with a Disability

Improving the educational outcomes of people with a disability is seen as key in helping improve their employment and life prospects. This article uses Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey data and multivariate estimation to examine whether people with a disability face barriers in participating in and completing a vocational education and training qualification, a highly accessible and flexible mode of education. Overall, we find that people with a disability are not disadvantaged in terms of participation, but are disadvantaged in terms of completion, especially those with more limiting conditions and those with mental health issues who have low levels of social support.     

THE STRUCTURE OF AMERICAN INCOME INEQUALITY*

Income inequality is examined using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and a consistent decomposition analysis. I only use inequality measures that satisfy the Principle of Transfers, have the property that a ceteris paribus increase in inequality within any subgroup increases overall inequality, and are independent of the scale of income and population. Decompositions are carried out by family size and by age of head for several definitions of income and income recipient. Whilst changing the time unit over which income is measured has a substantial impact on inequality, the effect of removing the between-age-group component of inequality is relatively slight.     

IMPACT OF CHILD QUALITY ON EARNINGS: THE PRODUCTIVITY-OF-SCHOOLING HYPOTHESIS

This paper investigates the relationship between average earnings, education (measured by years of schooling), and rates of return to education for major racial/ethnic groups in the United States. It considers the effect of including previously omitted "productivity-of-schooling" (also referred to here as "child quality") variables. An upward-sloping average education, rate-of-return-to-education profile exists for His-panics, blacks, and whites. Productivity-of-schooling (i.e., child quality) measures– including family size, family composition, ability, and parental inputs–significantly affect earnings and rates of return to education. The results here are consistent with Chiswick (1988). Conditions within the family play a larger role in determining the value of education for minority males than for white males, a conclusion of obvious interest to policymakers.     

Poverty Among Young Australians

In this article the incidence of poverty among the young is explained in terms of their labour force experience, educational attainment, gender, and living arrangements. The availability of the Australian Longitudinal Survey data enables the incomes of individuals to be related to many other socioeconomic variables over a number of years.
Generally the poor do not have high levels of education. About half of those classified as poor, endured a poverty spell of one year. But less than five per cent of the poor were so in each of the four survey years. Many of the poor were studying. Their low current incomes were presumably endured in the anticipation of high future earnings. The young women who were poor, many with children, were typically living in households offering them no additional financial support.     

Extramarital Affairs, Marital Satisfaction, and Divorce: Evidence from Hong Kong

This article provides the first empirical study on how the perceived changes of marital satisfaction affect marital stability using a unique data set obtained in Hong Kong. It is found that the change of marital satisfaction due to extramarital affairs clearly increases the probability of divorce, but it is not the only determinant of marital instability. In particular, the presence of dependent children in a family and good marital quality before the discovery of extramarital affairs would lower the probability of divorce. Moreover, this article generates several interesting policy implications. (JEL D1 , J1 )     

Delinquency and gender

The determinants of juvenile delinquency for males and females using the Delinquency in a Birth Cohort II Study are investigated. Ordered probit models for juvenile arrest are estimated separately for males and females. The results indicate that juvenile arrests for both males and females are more likely for non-whites and for those who leave education early. Males and females behave differently, in that males are more likely to be repeat offenders.     

Income splitting, specialization, and intra-family distribution

Abstract Income splitting for tax purposes results in more specialization of wives, but does this in turn generate more gender inequality? In my dynamic bargaining model with a divorce threatpoint, I find that who controls the couple's labour supply plays a crucial role in establishing this link. If spouses choose their labour supply non‐cooperatively, only the husband's increase – but not her own decrease – in labour supply introduces a negative term in the wife's change in welfare. If the wife does not control her own labour supply, a decrease in her own labour supply introduces an additional negative term.     

Educational Attainment and Family Background

Abstract. This paper analyses the effect of aspects of family background, such as family income and parental education, on the educational attainment of persons born from 1967 to 1972. Family income is measured at different periods of a child's life to separate long-term versus short-term effects of family income on educational choices. We find that permanent income matters to a certain degree, and that family income when the child is 0–6 years old is an important explanatory variable for educational attainment later in a child's life. We find that short-term credit constraints have only a small effect on educational attainment. Long-term factors, such as permanent family income and parental education, are much more important for educational attainment than are short-term credit constraints. Public interventions to alleviate the effects of family background should thus also be targeted at a child's early years, the shaping period for the cognitive and non-cognitive skills important later in life.     

Lessons from the recent economic crisis: the Australian household stimulus package

This paper provides an impact evaluation analysis of the 2009 Australian Household Stimulus Package, which was composed by three main cash payments: the Back to School Bonus, the Single Income Family Bonus and the Tax Bonus for Working Australians. Using panel data from the 2008 and 2009 HILDA surveys, the results show that these cash payments reduced the risk of poverty and stimulated consumption expenditure. Nonetheless, only the Back to School Bonus and the Single Income Family Bonus were really important in achieving these goals, while the Tax Bonus for Working Australians did not contribute to stimulate consumption and failed to reduce the risk of poverty. Thus, the analysis confirms the crucial role of governments to protect the most vulnerable groups avoiding a dramatic deterioration of social outcomes and favoring a fast economic recovery when interventions are timely and well-targeted.     

Lost in transition: Life satisfaction on the road to capitalism

In the 1990s transition from socialism to capitalism in Eastern Europe life satisfaction followed the collapse and recovery of GDP, but failed to recover commensurately. By 2005, with GDP averaging about 25 per cent above its early 1990s level, life satisfaction was typically back to its earlier level, but was arguably still below pre-transition values. Increased satisfaction with material living levels occurred at the expense of decreased satisfaction with work, health, and family life. In the decade of the 1990s, disparities in life satisfaction increased with those hardest hit being the less educated and persons over age 30; women and men suffered about equally.     

Self-assessed vs. statistical evidence of racial discrimination: the case of indigenous Australians

This paper provides new insights on the labour market discrimination faced by indigenous Australians one of the most disadvantaged indigenous populations in developed countries. Combining two large, nationally representative datasets, we decompose the employment gap between indigenous and non-indigenous populations as of 2014–2015, and show that differences in characteristics between the two groups account for only 43% of the employment gap for females, and 23% of the gap for males. We then demonstrate that statistical measures are positively related to discrimination reports of females and negatively related to discrimination reports of males. Our findings underscore the importance of improving transparency in employment processes for addressing the issue of disadvantage of racial minorities.     

Are women really that happy at work? Australian evidence on the ‘contented female’

This article investigates the apparent paradox of females possessing higher levels of job satisfaction compared to their male counterparts despite possessing worse employment outcomes. Postulating that the female workforce is heterogeneous by age, education and the presence of children, we create four groups; the aggregated, young and childless, young with children and the educated. The article finds statistical evidence of significant gender differences, though not uniformly so. Econometric results, however, paint a muddier picture, indicating that statistical results alone should not be used to categorically report incidences of gender differences in job satisfaction. Sample-selection bias results also evince sub-group heterogeneity and require further study. The determinants of job satisfaction vary between measures and sub-groups, though not necessarily so across gender. In sum, the article finds that the paradox does exhibit itself for the aggregated and young and childless sub-groups, but is largely absent for the young with children group. As well, there is a clear bifurcation in job satisfaction between genders for the educated sub-group. This suggests that employed females should not be viewed as a monolithic bloc in the labour force.     

The transmission of partner mental health to individual life satisfaction: Estimates from a longitudinal household survey

This paper investigates the relationship between partner's mental health and individual life satisfaction, using panel data and calculating the monetary valuation of mental illness. Accounting for measurement error and endogeneity of income, partners' mental health has a significant association with individual well-being. The additional income needed to compensate someone living with a partner with a mental condition is substantial (ranges between USD 33,000 and USD 50,000). Further, individuals do not show adaptation to partners' mental illness. The results have implications for policy-makers wishing to value the effects of policies that aim to impact on mental health and levels of well-being.     

Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction in Korea: When Gender Matters

Using detailed longitudinal data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) from 1998 to 2008, this paper finds significant gender differences in impacts as well as adaptation patterns to major life and labor market events in Korea. Men remain on a higher happiness level throughout marriage, while women return to their baseline happiness within only two years. Consequently, men suffer more from divorce and the death of a spouse. This marital gender happiness gap is equivalent to a (husband only) increase of annual per capita household income of approximately US$17,800. The study further finds that men suffer more from unemployment. Results are robust to the inclusion of multiple simultaneous events and the use of different estimators.     

JOB SATISFACTION OF THE HIGHLY EDUCATED: THE ROLE OF GENDER, ACADEMIC TENURE, AND EARNINGS

The determinants of job satisfaction are estimated for PhD‐level scientists in the United States across academic and nonacademic sectors. In initial estimates, female scientists report lower job satisfaction than males in academia but higher job satisfaction than males in the nonacademic sector. While academic scientists with tenure have substantially greater job satisfaction than nonacademic scientists, we show that the magnitude of this influence varies by gender. After correcting for the lower evaluation placed by females both on earnings and on tenure, female academic scientists actually match nonacademic scientists in reporting greater job satisfaction than men.     

IMPACTS OF VIOLENT CRIME ON BLACK FAMILY STRUCTURE

Violent crime contributes to depleting the supply of marriageable males in minority communities. Young black males die disproportionately due to homicides. Also, a disproportionate number of young black males are in prisons and jails. Consequently, they are withdrawn from the productive labor force and become less desirable mates and fathers. They become "marginalized." Black families, in turn, are deprived of productive male heads. This paper, using Current Population Survey data for 1985, demonstrates that a direct effect of reducing the supply of marriageable mates is to increase the proportion of black families headed by females. The impacts of homicide and incarceration far exceed those of public welfare in influencing changing black family structures.     

GENDER EARNINGS DIFFERENCES IN CHINA: BASE PAY,PERFORMANCE PAY,AND TOTAL PAY

We utilize a data set that has not been used in literature—the Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China (LHSCCC)—to provide new evidence on male‐female pay differences in China. The data set not only enables us to control for a wide range of pay‐determining characteristics but also is the first to enable an analysis of the different components of pay (e.g., base pay and performance pay) as well as for total pay. We find: (1) Women receive about three‐quarters of male pay for each of the dimensions of base pay, performance pay, and total pay, before adjusting for the effect of different pay‐determining factors; (2) Approximately two‐thirds of the gap reflect the fact that females tend to be paid less than males for the same wage‐determining characteristics (often labeled as discrimination), while about one‐third reflects the fact that males have endowments or characteristics that tend to be associated with higher pay, especially supervisory responsibilities, general labor market experience, occupational skills, education, and membership in the Communist party; (3) Marriage has a large positive effect on the earnings of women in China (and none for men), but childcare responsibilities for children under the age of 6 have a large negative effect on the earnings of women although these are offset almost completely if an elder family member is present, highlighting that childcare responsibilities disproportionately fall on women unless an elder family member is present; (4) Pay premiums for higher level skills and higher supervisory ranks are remarkably small for both males and especially females; (5) With respect to the unexplained or “discriminatory” portion of the gap, females get a huge pay penalty for simply being female, but a substantial portion of this gets offset by the higher pay premium they receive for such factors as Han ethnicity, being married, and education. This suggests that discrimination tends to occur in the form of a pay penalty for simply being female and not from lower returns to the same endowments of pay‐determining characteristics. (JEL J3, J7, M5)     

EXAMINING THE LINK BETWEEN JAPAN'S DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION OF FEMALES

Abstract.   This paper studies the role of education of females in Japan's development process. It analyses the pre-war years (1888 to 1940) as well as the five decades following the war and Japan's rise to economic power (1947 to 1990). This paper finds that Japan's pre-war growth was fuelled primarily by agricultural growth and primary education (of males in particular). The story is different in the post-war period, however. Capital accumulation, secondary and tertiary education of females, and tertiary education for males seem to provide the driving forces of growth.