Economic impacts of professional training in the informal sector : the case of the labor force training program in Cote d'Ivoire

The authors address the economic impact of the labor force training program (PAFPA) developed for the informal sector in Côte d'Ivoire. The data contain a subsample of the participants in the agricultural sector, tailoring sector, and the electronics sector, and a comparable control group of nonparticipants. The data have been analyzed using standard program evaluation tools, namely difference-in-difference estimators, in order to detect potential program impacts. The authors find positive economic impacts as a result of training received for some groups, namely women, the agricultural and electronics sectors, firms employing 1-3 individuals, and firms with 10 or more employees.

Do Children Stabilize Danish Marriages?

In this paper we study the relationship between fertility behavior and the process of marriage duration. The potential endogeneity of fertility on marriage behavior is taken into account by modeling fertility and divorce jointly. We apply the ”timing-of-event” method (Abbring & van den Berg (2003)) to identify the causal effect of births on the divorce hazard. We show that couples who are less prone to divorce are more prone to invest in children, and therefore one might (mistakenly) conclude that children tend to stabilize marriages. However, when correcting for this selectivity bias arising from the fertility decision, we conclude that children themselves do not have a positive effect on marriage durationmarriage; divorce; children

Do Children Stabilize Marriages?

In this paper we study the relationship between fertility behavior and the process of marriage duration. The potential endogeneity of fertility on marriage behavior is taken into account by modeling fertility and divorce jointly. We apply the âtiming-of-eventâ method (Abbring & van den Berg (2002)) to identify the causal effect of births on the divorce hazard. We show that couples who are less prone to divorce are more prone to invest in children, and therefore one might (mistakenly) conclude that children tend to stabilize marriages. However, when correcting for the selectivity bias arising from the fertility decision, we conclude that children themselves do not have a positive effect on marriage duration.Marriage; divorce; children

Welfare Dependency among Danish Immigrants.

In this paper, we investigate determinants of the welfare dependency among immigrants in an assimilation framework. The duration of stay is a major determinant of welfare dependency. Also, assimilation patterns vary substantially across immigrants from developed and less devel-oped countries, respectively. The late arriving immigrants are relatively more dependent on transfers, explaining part of the general increase in welfare dependency during the latest years. This is partly attributed to the large variation in qualifications across cohorts of immigrants. Fur-thermore, the business cycle effects of immigrants appear to be considerably larger than for na-tives.Welfare dependency; transfers; immigrants; assimilation; two-limit tobit

The Gender Pay Gap in Top Corporate Jobs in Denmark: Glass Ceilings, Sticky Floors or Both?

This paper analyses the gender gap in compensation for CEOs, Vice-Directors, and potential top executives in the 2000 largest Danish private companies based on a panel data set of employer-employees data covering the period 1996-2005. During the period, the overall gender gap in compensation for top executives and potential top executives decreased from 35 percent to 31 percent. However, contrary to many other studies, we do not find that the gender gap for Danish top executives disappears when controlling for observed individual and firm characteristics and unobserved individual heterogeneity. For CEOs, the raw compensation gap is 28 percent during the period while the estimated compensation gap after controlling for observed and unobserved characteristics increases to 30 percent. For executives below the CEO level, the estimated compensation gap is lower, ranging from 15 to 20 percent. Thus, we find evidence of both glass ceilings and sticky floors in Danish private firms.CEO compensation, gender gap, glass ceiling

Why Are So Few Females Promoted into CEO and Vice-President Positions? Danish Empirical Evidence 1997-2007

In most OECD countries, only very few women succeed in reaching top executive positions. In this paper, the probability of promotion into VP and CEO positions is estimated based on employer-employee data on all Danish companies observed during the period 1997-2007. After controlling for a large number of family-related variables, including take-up history of maternity and paternity leave and proxies for 'female-friendly' companies, there is still a considerable gap in the promotion probabilities for CEO positions, but not for VP positions. Thus, the results cannot confirm recent theories on 'belief flipping' or disappearance of statistical discrimination against women who succeed getting into career track positions. The results reflect that the hiring decision and the decision to enter a top position as 'number one', i.e. CEO, in the organization is very different from the decision to hire or become VP, i.e. 'number two' or lower.promotion, top executive positions, statistical discrimination

Do Women in Top Management Affect Firm Performance? A Panel Study of 2500 Danish Firms

Corporate governance literature argues that board diversity is potentially positively related to firm performance. This study examines the relationship in the case of women in top executive jobs and on boards of directors. We use data for the 2500 largest Danish firms observed during the period 1993–2001 and find that the proportion of women in top management jobs tends to have positive effects on firm performance, even after controlling for numerous characteristics of the firm and direction of causality. The results show that the positive effects of women in top management depend on the qualifications of female top managers.firm performance; female CEOs; gender diversity

Does the Gap in Family-friendly Policies Drive the Family Gap?

A segregation of the labour market into a family-friendly and a non-family friendly sector has the effect that women self-select into the sectors depending on institutional constraints, preferences for family-friendly working conditions and expected wage differences. We find that neglecting the sector dimension tends to understate the effect of birth-related interruptions in both sectors. The combined effect of a large depreciation effect and no recovery means that females in the non-family friendly sector (e.g. private sector) are punished severely after childbirth. In the family friendly sector (e.g. public sector), we find complete catch up.Fertility; family gap; career interruptions; wages; public vs. private sector

Marriage Migration: Just another case of positive assortative matching?

It is a stylized fact that marriage formation generally involves positive assortative matching (PAM) on education. We test whether this is also the case for immigrants who tend to import their spouses and potentially use education as an exchange mechanism. We find that only women match positively on education. For Turks the results robustly confirm PAM, whereas for Pakistanis there is no evidence of PAM. For men there is local support to the exchange hypothesis, since cultural assimilation or conflicts with parents, through less spouse import, increase the likelihood of marrying a highly educated spouse.assortative matching; homogamy; exchange; marriage migration; spouse import

A Tale of Two Countries: Poverty among Immigrants in Denmark and Sweden since 1984

poverty, immigrants, panel data