Males Should Mail? Gender Discrimination in Access to Childcare
Henning Hermes, Philipp Lergetporer, Fabian Mierisch, Frauke Peter, Simon Wiederhold
American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings,
May
2023
Abstract
This study investigates discrimination against women when searching and applying for childcare in a nationwide field experiment. We send emails from fictitious parents to 9,313 childcare centers in Germany inquiring about access to childcare. We randomize whether the email is sent by the child's mother or father. Our results show that women receive shorter and less positive responses than men. The probability of receiving a response does not differ by gender, highlighting the importance of going beyond response rates to detect discrimination. We provide suggestive evidence that regional differences in gender discrimination are related to gender norms.
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17.08.2022 • 19/2022
Labour mobility is part of structural change
The coal phase-out will also change the affected regions in that part of the workforce will migrate. Politicians should take this process into account in structural policy, because it cannot be completely prevented. A study published by the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) illustrates this with a historical example.
Oliver Holtemöller
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Preferred Field of Study and Academic Performance
Francesco Berlingieri, André Diegmann, Maresa Sprietsma
Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability, we provide evidence that students who are not enrolled in their preferred field of study are more likely to change their field, delay graduation and drop out of university. The estimated impact on dropout is particularly strong among students of low socio-economic status and is driven by lower academic performance and motivation.
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Firm Wage Premia, Industrial Relations, and Rent Sharing in Germany
Boris Hirsch, Steffen Müller
ILR Review,
No. 5,
2020
Abstract
The authors use three distinct methods to investigate the influence of industrial relations on firm wage premia in Germany. First, ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions for the firm effects from a two-way fixed-effects decomposition of workers’ wages reveal that average premia are larger in firms bound by collective agreements and in firms with a works council, holding constant firm performance. Next, recentered influence function (RIF) regressions show that premia are less dispersed among covered firms but more dispersed among firms with a works council. Finally, in an Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, the authors find that decreasing bargaining coverage is the only factor they consider that contributes to the marked rise in premia dispersion over time.
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Einflüsse des Lebensumfelds auf politische Einstellungen und Wahlverhalten - Eine vergleichende Analyse der Landtagswahlen 2019 in drei ostdeutschen Bundesländern
Matthias Brachert, Everhard Holtmann, Tobias Jaeck
Empirische Sozialforschung 12. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Berlin,
2020
Abstract
Die vorliegende Studie analysiert die Landtagswahlen 2019 in den Bundesländern Brandenburg, Sachsen und Thüringen und testet die These eines »doppelten Transformationsschocks« für die ostdeutschen Länder auf der Kreisstufe. Die These besagt, dass in »Schockregionen«, die bestimmte prekäre Strukturmerkmale aufweisen, die Entfremdung von der Demokratie höher und das Protestwahlverhalten stärker ausgeprägt sind als in strukturell besser aufgestellten »Gewinnerregionen«. Die Autoren weisen in einer zweistufigen Analyse nahräumliche Kontexteffekte auf politische Einstellungen und auf das Wahlverhalten nach. Generell lockern traditionelle Parteibindungen auf und Präferenzen für Protest und Themenparteien (Zuwanderung, nationale Identität, Klimawandel) werden zunehmend stabiler. Daneben gibt es im regionalen Feld eine besondere Nebenströmung, welche jene Menschen mitnimmt, die ihre politische Weltsicht und ihr Wahlverhalten auch an den Arbeits- und Lebensbedingungen des näheren Umfelds ausrichten.
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Innovation and Top Income Inequality
Philippe Aghion, Ufuk Akcigit, Antonin Bergeaud, Richard Blundell, David Hemous
Review of Economic Studies,
No. 1,
2019
Abstract
In this article, we use cross-state panel and cross-U.S. commuting-zone data to look at the relationship between innovation, top income inequality and social mobility. We find positive correlations between measures of innovation and top income inequality. We also show that the correlations between innovation and broad measures of inequality are not significant. Next, using instrumental variable analysis, we argue that these correlations at least partly reflect a causality from innovation to top income shares. Finally, we show that innovation, particularly by new entrants, is positively associated with social mobility, but less so in local areas with more intense lobbying activities.
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Urban Occupational Structures as Information Networks: The Effect on Network Density of Increasing Number of Occupations
Shade T. Shutters, José Lobo, Rachata Muneepeerakul, Deborah Strumsky, Charlotta Mellander, Matthias Brachert, Teresa Farinha, Luis M. A. Bettencourt
Plos One,
forthcoming
Abstract
Urban economies are composed of diverse activities, embodied in labor occupations, which depend on one another to produce goods and services. Yet little is known about how the nature and intensity of these interdependences change as cities increase in population size and economic complexity. Understanding the relationship between occupational interdependencies and the number of occupations defining an urban economy is relevant because interdependence within a networked system has implications for system resilience and for how easily can the structure of the network be modified. Here, we represent the interdependencies among occupations in a city as a non-spatial information network, where the strengths of interdependence between pairs of occupations determine the strengths of the links in the network. Using those quantified link strengths we calculate a single metric of interdependence–or connectedness–which is equivalent to the density of a city’s weighted occupational network. We then examine urban systems in six industrialized countries, analyzing how the density of urban occupational networks changes with network size, measured as the number of unique occupations present in an urban workforce. We find that in all six countries, density, or economic interdependence, increases superlinearly with the number of distinct occupations. Because connections among occupations represent flows of information, we provide evidence that connectivity scales superlinearly with network size in information networks.
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Firm Wage Premia, Industrial Relations, and Rent Sharing in Germany
Boris Hirsch, Steffen Müller
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 2,
2018
published in: ILR Review
Abstract
This paper investigates the influence of industrial relations on firm wage premia in Germany. OLS regressions for the firm effects from a two-way fixed effects decomposition of workers’ wages by Card, Heining, and Kline (2013) document that average premia are larger in firms bound by collective agreements and in firms with a works council, holding constant firm performance. RIF regressions show that premia are less dispersed among covered firms but more dispersed among firms with a works council. Hence, deunionisation is the only among the suspects investigated that contributes to explaining the marked rise in the premia dispersion over time.
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