IZA World of Labor

UPDATED article! Low-cost #childcare should lower child-rearing expenses and positively impact #fertility. Read more om this article: 'Fertility decisions and alternative types of childcare' by Chiara Pronzato and Stefania Ottone - both Università degli Studi di Torino - and Sharon Picco at Università degli Studi di Firenze. #FormalChildcare #fertility #grandparents Elevator pitch Increasing population age and low fertility rates, which characterize most modern societies, compromise the balance between people who can participate in the labor market and people who need care. This is a demographic and social issue that is likely to grow in importance for future generations. It is therefore crucial to understand what factors can positively influence fertility decisions. Policies related to the availability and costs of different kinds of childcare (e.g. formal care, grandparents, childminders) should be considered after an evaluation of their effects on the probability of women having children. https://lnkd.in/d_MCuuw

Policies that support parents to spend more time with their young children and promote the expansion of high-quality #FormalChildcare may have a positive impact on children's outcomes. Read more in this article by Daniela Del Boca at Università degli Studi di Torino: 'Childcare choices and child development'. #EarlyEducation #ChildOutcomes Elevator pitch The economic and psychological literatures have demonstrated that early investments (private and public) in children can significantly increase cognitive outcomes in the short and long term and contribute to success later in life. One of the most important of these inputs is maternal time. Women’s participation in the labor market has risen rapidly in most countries, implying that mothers spend less time with their children and that families rely more on external sources of childcare. This trend has raised concerns, and an intense debate in several countries has focused on the effectiveness of childcare policies. https://lnkd.in/ddfdRbEe

#grandparent #childcare helps parents to stay attached to the #labormarket but may have negative consequences on grandparents' #laborsupply. This is especially true for #grandmothers. Read more here: How does grandparent childcare affect labor supply?' by Giulio Zanella at University of Bologna (Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna). #grandparents #childcare #retirement #gender Elevator pitch Older people in developed countries are living longer and healthier lives. A prolonged and healthy mature period of life is often associated with continued and active participation in the labor market. At the same time, active grandparents can offer their working offspring a free, flexible, and reliable source of childcare. However, while grandparent-provided childcare helps young parents (especially young mothers) overcome the negative effects of child rearing on their labor market participation, it can sometimes conflict with the objective of providing additional income through employment for older workers, most notably older women. https://lnkd.in/dFskjS6Z

According to Kobil Ruziev (University of the West of England), Policies to increase formal #finance to smaller firms requires improving the functioning of government bureaucracies. Read: 'Political connectedness and formal finance in #transitioneconomies' Elevator pitch: Although small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent more than 90% of all enterprises and play an important role in employment generation, they lack access to affordable formal finance. Conventionally, market failures and information imperfections are seen as major causes of this misallocation. However, the role of social and political factors in resource allocation, including access to formal finance, has recently become more widely accepted. Firm-level evidence from post-communist economies, for example, shows that political connectedness improves access to bank credit, but is not associated with enterprise growth. Full article: https://lnkd.in/dM-EsuWK

#Corruption is a driving force of emigration, especially for #highskilled workers, but also for other workers, explains Friedrich Schneider of Johannes Kepler Universität Linz in his IZA WoL article 'Does corruption promote #emigration?' Elevator pitch: Knowing whether corruption leads to higher emigration rates—and among which groups—is important because most labor emigration is from developing to developed countries. If corruption leads highly-skilled and highly-educated workers to leave developing countries, it can result in a shortage of skilled labor and slower economic growth. In turn, this leads to higher unemployment, lowering the returns to human capital and encouraging further emigration. Corruption also shifts public spending from health and education to sectors with less transparency in spending, disadvantaging lower-skilled workers and encouraging them to emigrate. Full article: https://lnkd.in/d6CfftG

More important than defining and measuring informality is focusing on reducing its detrimental consequences, explains Elizabeth Ruppert Bulmer (The World Bank). Read her IZA WoL article 'Defining informality vs mitigating its negative effects' here: https://lnkd.in/dTqiKqc Elevator pitch: There are more informal workers than formal workers across the globe, and yet there remains confusion as to what makes workers or firms informal and how to measure the extent of it. Informal work and informal economic activities imply large efficiency and welfare losses, in terms of low productivity, low earnings, sub-standard working conditions, and lack of social insurance coverage. Rather than quibbling over definitions and measures of informality, it is crucial for policymakers to address these correlates of informality in order to mitigate the negative efficiency and welfare effects.

The IZA World of Labor #teachingtabs are a valuable resource for students and lecturers. They offer selected content aligned with chapters of a classical labor economics textbook, featuring curated articles and opinion pieces. Today's featured topic: #Migration https://lnkd.in/ezDdDtUA

More on the #DisabilityHiringGap in this IZA - Institute of Labor Economics Discussion Paper 'Productivity Signals and Disability-Related Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from a Field Experiment' by Armenak Antinyan, PhD at Thames Water, Ian Burn at University of Liverpool and @Melanie Jones at Cardiff Business School. https://lnkd.in/eUxjjThe

The IZA World of Labor #teachingtabs are a valuable resource for both students and lecturers. They offer selected content aligned with chapters of a classical labor economics textbook. Today's featured topic: #LaborMarketDiscrimination https://lnkd.in/ePf5dEtr

NEW UPDATED ARTICLE: 'The shadow economy in industrial countries' by Prof. Dr. Dominik Enste of Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft. Reducing the size of the #shadoweconomy requires reducing its attractiveness while improving official #institutions. Elevator pitch The shadow (underground) economy has a major impact on society and economy in many countries. People evade taxes and regulations by working in the shadow economy or by employing people illegally. On the one hand, this unregulated economic activity can result in reduced tax revenue and fewer public goods and services, lower tax morale and less tax compliance, higher control costs, and lower economic growth rates. But on the other hand, the shadow economy can be a powerful force fostering institutional change and boosting the overall production of goods and services in an economy. The shadow economy has implications on the political order and institutional change. https://lnkd.in/dmUKGzyB