Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / William F. Blankenau / The first essay considers how the timing of government education spending influences the intergenerational persistence of income. We build a life-cycle model where human capital is accumulated in early and late childhood. Both families and the government can increase the human capital of young agents by investing in education at each stage of childhood. Ability in each dynasty follows a stochastic process. Different abilities and resultant spending histories generate a stochastic steady state distribution of income. We calibrate our model to match aggregate statistics in terms of education expenditures, income persistence and inequality. We show that increasing government spending in early childhood education is effective in lowering intergenerational earnings elasticity. An increase in government funding of early childhood education equivalent to 0.8 percent of GDP reduces income persistence by 8.4 percent. We find that this relatively large effect is due to the weakening relationship between family income and education investment. Since this link is already weak in late childhood, allocating more public resources to late childhood education does not improve the intergenerational mobility of economic status. Furthermore, focusing more on late childhood may raise intergenerational persistence by amplifying the gap in human capital developed in early childhood. The second essay considers parental time investment in early childhood as an education input and explores the impact of early education policies on labor supply and human capital. I develop a five-period overlapping generations model where human capital formation is a multi-stage process. An agent's human capital is accumulated through early and late childhood. Parents make income and time allocation decisions in response to government expenditures and parental leave policies. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy so that the generated data matches the Gini index and parental participation in education expenditures. The general equilibrium environment shows that subsidizing private education spending and adopting paid parental leave are both effective at increasing human capital. These two policies give parents incentives to increase physical and time investment, respectively. Labor supply decreases due to the introduction of paid parental leave as intended. In addition, low-wage earners are most responsive to parental leave by working less and spending more time with children. The third essay is on the motherhood wage penalty. There is substantial evidence that women with children bear a wage penalty of 5 to 10 percent due to their motherhood status. This wage gap is usually estimated by comparing the wages of working mothers to childless women after controlling for human capital and individual characteristics. This method runs into the problem of selection bias by excluding non-working women. This paper addresses the issue in two ways. First, I develop a simple model of fertility and labor participation decisions to examine the relationships among fertility, employment, and wages. The model implies that mothers face different reservation wages due to variance in preference over child care, while non-mothers face the same reservation wage. Thus, a mother with a relatively high wage may choose not to work because of her strong preference for time with children. In contrast, a childless woman who is not working must face a relatively low wage. For this reason, empirical analysis that focuses only on employed women may result in a biased estimate of the motherhood wage penalty. Second, to test the predictions of the model, I use 2004-2009 data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) and include non-working women in the two-stage Heckman selection model. The empirical results from OLS and the fixed effects model are consistent with the findings in previous studies. However, the child penalty becomes smaller and insignificant after non-working women are included. It implies that the observed wage gap in the labor market appears to overstate the child wage penalty due to the sample selection bias.

Sammanfattning Kvinnors ekonomiska förutsättningar har förbättrats enormt de senaste decennierna, men än idag råder det skillnader i lön mellan kvinnor och män. Många tror att denna skillnad beror på att kvinnor väljer att fokusera på familjelivet då de får barn. Om det faktum att kvinnor får barn faktiskt leder till dessa löneskillnader, så innebär det inte bara att män och kvinnor har olika lön, men också att kvinnor som har barn och kvinnor som inte har barn har olika lön. Detta är studiens syfte, alltså att undersöka om en kvinnas lön påverkas negativt av att hon får barn. För att kontrollera detta jämförs lönen mellan kvinnor med barn och kvinnor utan barn. Vidare så studeras även om lönen för kvinnor med barn påverkas olika mycket beroende på hur många barn hon har. Detta formuleras till två frågeställningar; ”Finns det en genomsnittlig skillnad i lön mellan kvinnor som har barn och kvinnor som inte har barn?” och ”Finns det genomsnittliga skillnader i lön beroende på hur många barn kvinnor har?”. För att kunna besvara dessa frågeställningar har olika teoretiska perspektiv använts, nämligen humankapitalteorin samt rational choice theory. Båda dessa förklarar olika tänkbara aspekter av varför en kvinnas lön skulle påverkas negativt av att hon skaffar barn. Vidare har även tidigare forskning som beskriver “The Wage Penalty of Motherhood” använts genomgående i studien, för att ge ytterligare eventuella förklaringar till att kvinnor med barn har en lägre lön. Studien använder en kvantitativ ansats med ett sekundärt datamaterial från Levnadsnivåundersökningen år 2010. Med detta datamaterial har regressionsanalyser genomförts, för att kunna studera sambanden mellan kvinnor, barn och lön. Resultatet visar, i motsats till tidigare forskning och teorier, ett positivt samband mellan att ha barn och lön, och även ett positivt samband mellan antalet barn och lön.

Tidigare år har det forskats mycket kring könslönegapet i Sverige, det har rapporterats om anledningar som att kvinnor är mer benägna att arbeta deltid och vara föräldralediga. Forskning indikerar att könslönegapet blir större efter kvinnor fött barn och blir större ju fler barn en kvinna har. I den här kvantitativa uppsatsen bryter vi ner lönegapet och undersöker vad föräldraskapet har för inverkan på kvinnors lön. Det vi tittar på är om det finns ett motherhood wage penalty på den svenska arbetsmarknaden, alltså om det finns en löneskillnad mellan kvinnor utan barn och mödrar. Detta undersöker vi med hjälp av frågeställningen ”Skiljer sig bruttotimlönen i Sverige mellan kvinnor som inte har några barn jämfört med kvinnor som har ett barn, två barn och tre eller fler barn?”. Vi kommer att kontrollera för variablerna utbildning, sysselsättningsgrad, antal år i samma typ av arbete och antal månader borta från förvärvsarbete. Datamaterialet kommer från Levnadsnivåundersökningen (2010) och urvalet har avgränsats till kvinnor mellan 35-55 år vilket resulterar 497 respondenter. Begreppet the motherhood wage penalty härstammar från humankapitalteorin, vilket är en av teorierna som vi kommer att utgå ifrån samt signaleringsteorin. Båda dessa teorier baseras på att mödrars löner sätts utifrån fördomar och förväntningar. Enligt humankapitalteorin sätts mödrars löner lägre då arbetsgivaren förväntar sig att hon kommer att investerar mindre på arbetsplatsen. Signaleringsteorin säger istället att arbetsgivare förväntar sig att kvinnor en dag skall komma att bli föräldrar då detta är normen för vårt samhälle. Med denna förväntning så tolkas inte moderskapet och föräldraledigheten som en signal att hon har ett minskat intresse för arbetet och bestraffas därför inte för detta i form av lägre lön. Resultatet i studien visar att mödrar i genomsnitt tjänar mer än kvinnor utan barn och att det positiva sambandet är statistiskt signifikant för mödrar med två barn. Resultatet stödjer inte humankapitalteorin, och endast till viss del signaleringsteorin, då vi utifrån denna skulle förvänta oss ett icke-samband medans resultatet indikerar ett positivt samband, åtminstone mellan att ha två barn och timlön Det väcker frågor kring tidigare forskning och om fördomar kring mödrar i Sverige nu kanske förändrats till det bättre.

Australian women’s participation in paid work has been and continues to be strongly influenced by gendered patterns of parental care. This thesis examines how children structure another dimension of economic stratification in Australia, hourly wages. Previous studies from the United States and Great Britain show women who care for children have lower wages than their childless counterparts and that this motherhood gap in pay is partly explained by mothers’ interruptions to employment and movement into part-time jobs. Outside the US and Britain fewer studies of the motherhood gap in pay have been undertaken. Compared to these two countries, Australia has lower maternal employment rates and higher rates of part-time work. These features may increase wage disparities between mothers and childless women in the Australian labour market. Australia, unlike Britain and the United States, has a history of centralised wage regulation, leading to a comparatively narrower wage distribution and a higher minimum wage. These institutional features may offer protection against downward wage mobility. This thesis investigates how motherhood influences the hourly wages of Australian women using panel data. Previous Australian research has documented static wage disparities, relying on cross-sectional data. My analysis draws on the first six waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey (2001-2006), a large, nationally representative panel survey. The thesis is comprised of three studies. First, I investigate the overall motherhood gap in pay in Australia in 2001. In aggregate, the mean wage of women with children is equal to that of childless women. After imputing a potential wage for mothers who are not employed, I show that the overall motherhood gap in pay would be considerably wider in Australia were fewer mothers to exit the labour force. This is because mothers without tertiary qualifications are less likely to be employed than mothers with a certificate, diploma or degree. Second, I use the panel design of HILDA to estimate female wage equations using fixed-effects regression. Controlling for differences in observed human capital, part-time work and unobserved heterogeneity, I find each child lowers wages by 6%. The analysis also reveals that mothers’ propensity to work part-time does not explain any of the Australian motherhood gap in pay. After incorporating detailed controls for time-varying job characteristics, I find that part-time wages are 14% higher than full-time wages. On average, the pay premium for part-time work more than offsets the pay penalty associated with one or two children. Third, I narrow my focus to Australian women experiencing a birth between 2001 and 2006, assessing whether the wage premium for part-time work extends to transitions at this point in the lifecourse. I investigate patterns of wage growth among mothers returning to employment within 3 years of a birth. My results reveal that Australian mothers who transition from full-time to part-time hours have significantly higher wage growth than mothers who remain in full-time employment. Taken together, my results suggest women’s part-time employment has a distinctive form in Australia. I find no evidence Australian mothers’ part-time employment constitutes a low-paid segment of the labour force. Isolating a causal explanation for the comparatively high wages of Australian women’s part-time employment is difficult, though two factors are likely to be important. First, Australian mothers’ participation in part-time employment rapidly increased during the 1970s and 1980s, a period when wages were largely regulated through collective agreements. Although wage determination has become more deregulated since the mid-1980s, the principle that part-time employees should receive pro rata wages does not appear to have been contested by Australian employers. This could be because demand for labour in feminised industries has remained strong. Second, decisions to remain attached to employment around childbirth could possibly be structured by the availability of part-time work. Rather than transition into a lower waged part-time job, Australian mothers may exit the labour force drawing on supports for stay-at-home mothers in the Australian family payment and taxation system. In the longer term, mothers who continue in part-time work may have fewer opportunities for upward mobility and flatter wage trajectories. As additional waves of HILDA become available, such divergences in wage trajectories will be able to be empirically investigated. This study examines female wages in a period of strong economic growth and low unemployment. Part-time employment may not be positively associated with wages in a macroeconomic context of lower demand for labour and rising unemployment. An interesting avenue for future research would be to compare how transitions into part-time work influence female wages across periods of strong and weak labour market growth.

This thesis studies the role of new firms in the labour market and uses Swedish data to analyze labour mobility in new firms, including both transitions of workers into and from new firms. In particular, it focuses on employees’ wages in new firms and post-new firm employment labour market outcomes as transitions into long-term employment and entrepreneurship.  This thesis consists of four essays. The first two essays concern labour mobility into new firms. The last two essays focus on post-new firm employment mobility. The first essay explores the role of new firms as an entry point into the labour market for individuals with little (or no) labour market experience. The findings show that the wage penalty found in previous research, which includes more heterogeneous groups of employees, decreases once the focus is solely on labour market entrants.  The second essay investigates whether there is a wage penalty for being employed at a new firm if the individual employee’s experience and status in the labour market are taken into account; this essay focuses on individuals who decide to switch jobs. The findings show that there is a wage penalty for being employed at a new firm; however, considering a random selection into new firms may underestimate the wage differentials. The third essay studies the role that new firms play for the career path of their employees. In particular, this paper analyzes whether short-term employment in new firms (employment lasting less than one year) may serve as a stepping stone toward long-term employment (at least two years of employment with the same employer) for non-employed individuals. The findings indicate that short-term employment in new firms may serve as a stepping stone toward long-term employment. The fourth paper examines the new firm effect on entrepreneurship, which the findings indicate is positive and statistically significant; this effect remains even after controlling for a worker's ability and shows that employees with both high and low levels of ability may transition to entrepreneurship. / <p>QC 20160916</p>

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2016-04-12T14:12:03Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 3485882 bytes, checksum: 532f65ae550164b6f08df5c5c9581f30 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-12T14:12:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 3485882 bytes, checksum: 532f65ae550164b6f08df5c5c9581f30 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-11-27 / This thesis consists of three essays related to demand for unhealthy products and the role of behavioral risk factors to health on school outcomes and the labor market. The first essay analyzes the demand of Brazilian families for alcoholic beverages and cigarettes, with emphasis on price and expenditure elasticities and simulations of changes in the prices of these items on the welfare. We use the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System and data from the Household Budget Survey 2008-2009 and the Smoking Supplement of the National Research by Household Sample 2008. The main results show that cigarettes and alcohol have positive expenditure elasticity of demand and substitution relationship in terms of cross-price, regardless of per capita income level and region of residence. Positive price changes in these items have low adjustment of demand, as well as the rate of required income compensation due to changes in cigarette prices is higher for richer households and regions. In turn, the second essay evaluates the role of exposure of students to behavioral risk factors to health – smoking, alcohol and overweight – in educational attainment in Brazil. We use microdata from the National Survey of School Health 2012 provided by Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and parametric and nonparametric techniques to estimate the effect of exposure to these factors in the indicator of delay in school progression of students in the 9th grade of elementary school. The main results confirm the hypothesis that exposure to risk factors has direct effect on delay in school progression. Furthermore, these effects are more intense for students with lower socioeconomic level. Then, the findings of this study ratify the importance of public policies that promote prevention of these risk factors among children, once the exposure to risk factors to health generates repercussions not only in health but also in the educational component of human capital. Finally, the core purpose of the last essay is to explore the heterogeneity of the repercussion of unhealthy personal behaviors, expressed by cigarette smoking, on labor productivity and wage-risk trade-off. Based on the Special Smoking Survey included in the National Survey by Household Sample 2008 and Yearbook Statistics of Job Injuries 2008, the empirical models are developed by instrumental quantile regression. The findings show that the smoking wage penalty with endogeneity control is statistically significant over the distribution of labor income, with wage losses ranging from 15.2% to 36.5%. Furthermore, smokers receive a lower risk premium than nonsmokers in economic activities with higher incidence of nonfatal occupational injuries. According to these estimates, the value of a statistical injury per year is, on median, for non-smokers approximately R$ 6,400 per injury and R$ 3,500 for smokers, with differences also in the other quantiles of the conditional wage distribution. / Esta tese é composta por três ensaios relacionados à demanda por produtos não saudáveis e ao papel de fatores comportamentais de risco à saúde nos resultados escolares e no mercado de trabalho. O primeiro ensaio analisa a demanda das famílias brasileiras por bebidas alcoólicas e cigarros, com ênfase nas elasticidades preço e dispêndio e nas simulações de mudanças nos preços destes itens sobre o bem-estar. A abordagem Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System e os dados da Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares 2008-2009 e do Suplemento de Tabagismo da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios 2008 são usados neste estudo. Pelos resultados auferidos, cigarro e bebidas alcoólicas possuem elasticidade-dispêndio positiva e relação de substitutibilidade independentemente do nível de renda domiciliar per capita e da macrorregião de residência. Choques positivos nos preços desses itens possuem um baixo ajustamento de demanda, assim como a taxa de compensação de renda requerida em função de mudanças nos preços do cigarro é maior para as famílias e regiões mais ricas. Por sua vez, o segundo ensaio objetiva avaliar o papel da exposição de alunos aos fatores de risco comportamentais à saúde – cigarro, bebida alcoólica e excesso de peso – no resultado educacional no Brasil. Para tanto, os microdados da Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde do Escolar 2012 e técnicas paramétricas e não-paramétricas são utilizados para a estimação do efeito da exposição a esses fatores sobre o indicador de atraso escolar de discentes no 9o ano do ensino fundamental. Os principais resultados da pesquisa confirmam a hipótese de que a exposição aos fatores de risco se relaciona de forma direta com o atraso escolar, sendo os efeitos mais intensos para os estudantes com pior nível socioeconômico. Esses achados ratificam a importância de políticas públicas que promovam a prevenção desses fatores de risco desde a infância, pois as consequências dessas exposições geram desdobramentos não apenas na saúde mas também no componente educacional do capital humano. Por fim, o propósito central do último ensaio é explorar a heterogeneidade da repercussão de hábitos pessoais não saudáveis, expressa pelo o uso do cigarro, sobre a produtividade do trabalho e no trade-off salário-risco. Com base na Pesquisa Especial de Tabagismo integrante da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios 2008 e no Anuário Estatístico de Acidentes do Trabalho 2008, os modelos empíricos são desenvolvidos por meio de regressores quantílicos com variáveis instrumentais. Os resultados encontrados explicitam que a penalização salarial do cigarro com controle para endogeneidade é estatisticamente significativa ao longo da distribuição dos rendimentos individuais, com perdas salariais variando de 15,2% a 36,5%. Os fumantes também recebem um menor prêmio ao risco no comparativo ao recebido pelos não-usuários do cigarro nas atividades econômicas com maior incidência de acidentes do trabalho não-fatais. Conforme essas estimativas, o valor estatístico de um acidente do trabalho por ano é, na mediana, para os não-fumantes de aproximadamente R$ 6,4 mil por acidente e R$ 3,5 mil para os fumantes, com diferenças também nesses valores nos outros quantis da distribuição condicional do salário.

Using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from EU-SILC for the Czech Republic this thesis shows that mothers suffer wage penalty, whereas fathers gain wage premium. These results are in accordance with literature abroad. This thesis also shows that parenthood has greater impact on individuals with higher education, that motherhood penalty is lower for single mothers, whereas fatherhood premium is higher for single fathers, and that there is stronger self-selection of mothers into specific jobs than in case of fathers. Model of fixed effects suggests that parenthood is connected with unobservable characteristics that have positive effect on parent's wages. Results of this thesis are in accordance with human capital theory, division of labor within the household, self-selection of mothers into more mother-friendly jobs. But results concerning lower work effort of mothers are inconclusive.