Human Capital Investments in Children: A Comparative Analysis of the Role of Parent-Child Shared Time in Selected Countries

Parents invest in their children's human capital in several ways. We investigate the extent to which the levels and composition of parent-child time varies across countries with different welfare regimes: Finland, Germany and the United States. We test the hypothesis of parent-child time as a form of human capital investment in children using a propensity score treatment effects approach that accounts for the possible endogenous nature of time use and human capital investment. Result: There is considerable evidence of welfare regime effects on parent-child shared time. Our results provide mixed support for the hypothesis that non-care related parent-child time is human capital enriching. The strongest support is found in the case of leisure time and eating time.parent-child time, comparative research, welfare regimes, Finland, Germany, USA, treatment effects, propensity score matching

The Association Between Gendered Workplaces and the Length of Childcare Leave

Previous research indicates that mothers base the length of their childcare leave on individual opportunity costs. While workplace dynamics and peer influences may affect the duration of the leave, empirical evidence remains inconclusive. This study investigates the association between childcare leave length and workplace characteristics, as well as peer influences in the Finnish institutional context. In Finland, mothers can extend their earnings-related childcare leave with a flat-rate home care allowance until their child turns three years old. At the same time, they are entitled to subsidised day care, allowing them to choose the length of their childcare leave. Our results show that, in the gender-segregated Finnish labour market, the length of childcare leave among mothers varies based on employment sector, number of employees, peers’ leave length, and the share of women in the workplace

Human capital investments in children: A comparative analysis of the role of parent-child shared time in selected countries

Parents invest in their children's human capital in several ways. We investigate the extent to which the levels and composition of parent-child time varies across countries with different welfare regimes: Finland, Germany and the United States. We test the hypothesis of parentchild time as a form of human capital investment in children using a propensity score treatment effects approach that accounts for the possible endogenous nature of time use and human capital investment. Result: There is considerable evidence of welfare regime effects on parent-child shared time. Our results provide mixed support for the hypothesis that noncare related parent-child time is human capital enriching. The strongest support is found in the case of leisure time and eating time

Human capital investments in children: A comparative analysis of the role of parent-child shared time in selected countries

Parents invest in their children's human capital in several ways. We investigate the extent to which the levels and composition of parent-child time varies across countries with different welfare regimes: Finland, Germany and the United States. We test the hypothesis of parentchild time as a form of human capital investment in children using a propensity score treatment effects approach that accounts for the possible endogenous nature of time use and human capital investment. Result: There is considerable evidence of welfare regime effects on parent-child shared time. Our results provide mixed support for the hypothesis that non-care related parent-child time is human capital enriching. The strongest support is found in the case of leisure time and eating time.Eltern investieren in ihre Kinder auf unterschiedliche Weise. Wir untersuchen wie das Ausmaß und die Zusammensetzung von Eltern-Kind Zeiten in unterschiedlichen Ländern mit differenten Wohlfahrtsregimes variiert: Finnland, Deutschland und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Komposition: Wir testen die Hypothese der Eltern-Kind Zeiten als eine Form von Humankapitalinvestitionen in Kinder mit einem 'propensity score treatment effects'-Ansatz für die mögliche Endogenität der Zeitverwendung und Humankapitalinvestition. Resultat: Wohlfahrtsregime haben einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die von Eltern mit ihren Kindern verbrachte Zeit. Unsere Resultate unterstützen die Hypothese, dass Eltern-Kind Zeiten, die nicht als Kinderbetreuung zu charakterisieren sind, Humankapital anreichern. Die stärkste Unterstützung wurde für die Bereiche Freizeit und gemeinsam verbrachte Essenszeiten gefunden

The Association Between Gendered Workplaces and the Length of Childcare Leave

Previous research indicates that mothers base the length of their childcare leave on individual opportunity costs. While workplace dynamics and peer influences may affect the duration of the leave, empirical evidence remains inconclusive. This study investigates the association between childcare leave length and workplace characteristics, as well as peer influences in the Finnish institutional context. In Finland, mothers can extend their earnings-related childcare leave with a flat-rate home care allowance until their child turns three years old. At the same time, they are entitled to subsidised day care, allowing them to choose the length of their childcare leave. Our results show that, in the gender-segregated Finnish labour market, the length of childcare leave among mothers varies based on employment sector, number of employees, peers’ leave length, and the share of women in the workplace

Nonlinearities in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility : Consequences for Cross-Country Comparisons

We show that the patterns of intergenerational earnings mobility in Denmark, Finland, and Norway, unlike those for the US and the UK, are highly nonlinear. The Nordic relationship between log earnings of sons and fathers is flat in the lower segments of the fathers’ earnings distribution – sons growing up in the poorest households have the same adult earnings prospects as sons in moderately poor households – and is increasingly positive in middle and upper segments. This convex pattern contrasts sharply with our findings for the United States and the United Kingdom, where the relationship is much closer to being linear. As a result, cross-country comparisons of intergenerational earnings elasticities may be misleading with respect to transmission mechanisms in the central parts of the earnings distribution, and uninformative in the tails of the distribution.

Marital sorting, household labour supply, and intergenerational mobility across countries

We present comparable evidence on intergenerational earnings mobility for Denmark, Finland, Norway, the UK and the US, with a focus on the role of gender and marital status. We confirm that earnings mobility in the Nordic countries is typically greater than in the US and in the UK, but find that, in contrast to all other groups, for married women mobility is approximately uniform across countries when estimates are based on women's own earnings. Defining offspring outcomes in terms of family earnings, on the other hand, leads to estimates of intergenerational mobility in the Nordic countries which exceed those for the US and the UK for both men and women, single and married. Unlike in the Nordic countries, we find that married women with children and with husbands from affluent backgrounds tend to exhibit reduced labor supply in the US and the UK. In these countries, it is the combination of assortative mating and labor supply responses which weakens the association between married women's own earnings and their parents' earnings

Experimentally Calibrated Kinetic Monte Carlo Model Reproduces Organic Solar Cell Current-Voltage Curve

Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations are a powerful tool to study the dynamics of charge carriers in organic photovoltaics. However, the key characteristic of any photovoltaic device, its current-voltage ($J$-$V$) curve under solar illumination, has proven challenging to simulate using KMC. The main challenges arise from the presence of injecting contacts and the importance of charge recombination when the internal electric field is low, i.e., close to open-circuit conditions. In this work, an experimentally calibrated KMC model is presented that can fully predict the $J$-$V$ curve of a disordered organic solar cell. It is shown that it is crucial to make experimentally justified assumptions on the injection barriers, the blend morphology, and the kinetics of the charge transfer state involved in geminate and nongeminate recombination. All of these properties are independently calibrated using charge extraction, electron microscopy, and transient absorption measurements, respectively. Clear evidence is provided that the conclusions drawn from microscopic and transient KMC modeling are indeed relevant for real operating organic solar cell devices.Comment: final version; license update

Brother Correlations in Earnings in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden Compared to the United States

The correlation in economic status among siblings is a useful ?omnibus measure? of the overall impact of family and community factors on adult economic status. In this study we compare brother correlations in long-run (permanent) earnings between the United States, on one hand, and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) on the other. Our base case results, based on very similar sample criteria and definitions for all countries, show that this correlation is above 0.40 in the United States and in the range 0.15-0.28 in the Nordic countries. Even though these results turn out to be somewhat sensitive to some assumptions that have to be made, we conclude that the family and community factors are more important determinants of long-run earnings in the United States than in the Nordic countries

American exceptionalism in a new light : a comparison of intergenerational earnings mobility in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom and the United States

We develop methods and employ similar sample restrictions to analyse differences in intergenerational earnings mobility across the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. We examine earnings mobility among pairs of fathers and sons as well as fathers and daughters using both mobility matrices and regression and correlation coefficients. Our results suggest that all countries exhibit substantial earnings persistence across generations, but with statistically significant differences across countries. Mobility is lower in the U.S. than in the U.K., where it is lower again compared to the Nordic countries. Persistence is greatest in the tails of the distributions and tends to be particularly high in the upper tails: though in the U.S. this is reversed with a particularly high likelihood that sons of the poorest fathers will remain in the lowest earnings quintile. This is a challenge to the popular notion of ’American exceptionalism’. The U.S. also differs from the Nordic countries in its very low likelihood that sons of the highest earners will show downward ’long-distance’ mobility into the lowest earnings quintile. In this, the U.K. is more similar to the U.S