Are Fertility Responses to Local Unemployment Shocks Homogenous Across Social Strata? Evidence from England, 1994 to 2010

Are fertility responses to local unemployment homogenous across sub-demographic groups? This paper investigates how changes in local unemployment rates affect household fertility decisions in England while taking sub-demographic differences into account. Recognizing that labor market status is a major determinant of child rearing decision, and assuming that children are normal goods, this paper hypothesizes that an increase in male and female unemployment will have different effects on the current period fertility. Using the Labor Force Survey and Birth Statistics data from the Office for National Statistics, this study shows that female unemployment tends to increase births whereas male unemployment has the opposite effect. More importantly, reported results indicate that unemployment and fertility relation exhibits strong age group and educational attainment gradients. In addition, a persistent counter-cyclical fertility pattern has also been documented at the ceremonial county level

Working from home around the world

The pandemic triggered a large, lasting shift to work from home (WFH). To study this shift, we survey full-time workers who finished primary school in 27 countries as of mid-2021 and early 2022. Our cross-country comparisons control for age, gender, education, and industry and treat the U.S. mean as the baseline. We find, first, that WFH averages 1.5 days per week in our sample, ranging widely across countries. Second, employers plan an average of 0.7 WFH days per week after the pandemic, but workers want 1.7 days. Third, employees value the option to WFH 2-3 days per week at 5 percent of pay, on average, with higher valuations for women, people with children and those with longer commutes. Fourth, most employees were favorably surprised by their WFH productivity during the pandemic. Fifth, looking across individuals, employer plans for WFH levels after the pandemic rise strongly with WFH productivity surprises during the pandemic. Sixth, looking across countries, planned WFH levels rise with the cumulative stringency of government-mandated lockdowns during the pandemic. We draw on these results to explain the big shift to WFH and to consider some implications for workers, organization, cities, and the pace of innovation

Robots and the gender pay gap in Europe

Could robotization make the gender pay gap worse? We provide the first large-scale evidence on the impact of industrial robots on the gender pay gap using data from 20 European countries. We show that robot adoption increases both male and female earnings but also increases the gender pay gap. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we find that a ten percent increase in robotization leads to a 1.8% increase in the gender pay gap. These results are driven by countries with high initial levels of gender inequality and can be explained by the fact that men at medium- and high-skill occupations disproportionately benefit from robotization, through a productivity effect. We rule out the possibility that our results are driven by mechanical changes in the gender composition of the workforce