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Social Science > Demography

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 29 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure x
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Cover IMF Working Papers
The Joint Effect of Emigration and Remittances on Economic Growth and Labor Force Participation in Latin America and the Caribbean
Alina Carare
,
Alejandro Fiorito Baratas
,
Jessie Kilembe
,
Metodij Hadzi-Vaskov
, and
Wenzhang Zhang
We provide a consistent empirical framework to estimate the net joint effect of emigration and remittances on the migrants’ countries of origin key economic variables (GDP growth and labor force participation), while addressing the endogeneity concerns using novel “shift-share” instrumental variables in the spirit of Anelli and others (2023). Understanding this joint impact is crucial for the Latin America and the Caribbean region that has seen a continuous growth in remittances over the past decades, due to steady emigration, and where remittances represent the largest capital inflows for many countries now. Focusing on the past two decades (1999-2019), this study finds that on average emigration has a negative and statistically significant impact on contemporaneous economic growth and change in labor force participation in the countries of origin across LAC, while remittances partially mitigate this adverse impact—especially on economic growth—resulting in a small negative net joint effect. There are significant differences across subregions for all estimates, with the largest negative effects observed in the Caribbean. In addition, the negative impact of emigration and remittances on the change in labor participation is small, but for the youngest cohort (15-24) is twice as large as for the overall labor force participation. The results are robust to various specifications, variables, and measurements of emigration and remittances.
Keywords:
Emigration; Remittances; Labor Force Participation; Economic Growth; Latin America; emigration flow; emigration rate; remittances in Lac; estimates of emigration; remittances on the migrants' countries of origin; Migration; Income; Caribbean; Central America; South America
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Sustainable Path to Inclusive Growth in Japan: How to Tackle Income Inequality?
Purva Khera
and
Yun Gao
Market income inequality in Japan has been on a steady rise since the 1980s, and is now close to the OECD average. Gross and disposable income inequality, on the other hand, have risen much less but remain higher relative to several comparator countries. This paper employs inequality index decompositions by income source using household panel survey data from 2010-19 to identify the factors driving income inequality in Japan. Results indicate that while increase in the employment of females and the elderly in the last decade has helped lower income inequality, this has been offset by them being mostly employed in low-paid part-time nonregular jobs. Rapid aging of the population has also exacerbated income inequality over time. Moreover, while fiscal redistributive effects of social transfers are found to be a somewhat equalizing force, its impact on inequality is relatively weaker.
Keywords:
Inequality; labor market duality; wage gap; fiscal transfers; labor market dualism; household panel survey data; wage income; inequality index decomposition; Income inequality; Income; Income distribution; Aging; Capital income; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Dissecting the Decline in Average Hours Worked in Europe
Diva Astinova
,
Romain A Duval
,
Niels-Jakob H Hansen
,
Ben Park
,
Ippei Shibata
, and
Frederik G Toscani
Three years after the COVID-19 crisis, employment and total hours worked in Europe fully recovered, but average hours per worker did not. We analyze the decline in average hours worked across European countries and find that (i) it is not cyclical but predominantly structural, extending a long-term trend that predates COVID-19, (ii) it mainly reflects reduced hours within worker groups, not a compositional shift towards lower-hours jobs and workers, (iii) men—particularly those with young children—and youth drive this drop, (iv) declines in actual hours match declines in desired hours. Policy reforms could help involuntary parttimers and women with young children raise their actual hours towards desired levels, but the aggregate impact on average hours would be limited to 0.5 to 1.5 percent. Overall, there is scant evidence of slack at the intensive margin in European labor markets, and the trend fall in average hours worked seems unlikely to reverse.
Keywords:
hours worked; working hours; labor market; Europe; policy reform; worker level; scant evidence; summary statistics; full time worker; Labor markets; Women; Labor supply; Labor force participation
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Labor Force Participation in Romania
Florian Misch
and
Mr. Alexander Pitt
Labor force particiaption (LFP) in Romania is—at 66.8 percent in 2022—significantly lower than the EU average, especially among women and less educated people. With a declining working-age population, rasing LFP could yield signifcant benefits including by boosting long-term growth, mitigating the fiscal impact of an ageing society, and reducing inequality. Key policies to boost LFP include provision of affordabel high-quality childcare, and improving education standards.
Keywords:
Labor force participation; gender gap; demographics; IMF staff calculation; copyright page; rase LFP; policy implication; EU LFP level; Romania's LFP gender gap; Women; Aging; Western Europe
Cover Selected Issues Papers
The Recent Decline in United Kingdom Labor Force Participation: Causes and Potential Remedies
Gloria Li
and
Mr. Carlos Mulas-Granados
This paper studies the puzzling decline in labor force participation observed in the UK following the pandemic. Retirement and long-term sickness appear to be the main drivers, with chronic illness remaining a lingering distinctive factor vis-a-vis peer countries. While the government has recently adopted a battery of measures to increase labor force participation, more could be done to improve health outcomes and increase the participation of the long-term sick and the disabled, keep older workers in the labor force, increase female labor force participation, and improve the skills and productivity of both domestic and foreign workers that join the workforce.
Keywords:
United Kingdom; labor force participation; inactivity; long-term illness; retirement; productivity; IMF Slected issues paper; health outcome; decline in United Kingdom; title page; UK system; inactivity spike; Labor markets; Aging; Labor force
Cover IMF Working Papers
What Matters for Job Finding and Separation in the Long Run? Evidence from Labor Market Dynamics in New Zealand
Guanyu Zheng
,
Gulnara Nolan
,
Christopher Ball
,
Siddharth Kothari
, and
Yosuke Kido
We use the novel anonymized Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) microdata to analyze job finding rates and job separation rates in New Zealand. We find that individual characteristics, including age, gender, ethnicity and education have a significant impact on job finding and separation rates, even after controlling for other factors. We use a decomposition approach to analyze how the effects of individual characteristics on job finding and separation rates contribute to heterogeneity in employment outcomes. Overall, we find that higher separation rates of young workers play a disproportionate role in explaining heterogeneity of employment outcomes across age groups, while differences in finding rates are somewhat more important in explaining differences by education level. Both finding and separation rate differences are important in explaining differences across ethnicities. We also find some heterogeneous response of worker groups to business cycle after controlling for other factors. The results underscore the importance of well-targeted labor market support policies.
Keywords:
Labor market dynamics; Gross worker flows; Unemployment variability; separation rate difference; separation rate; job finding; Non-employment rate; Labor markets; Unemployment rate; Labor force; Aging; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Are Low-Skill Women Being Left Behind? Labor Market Evidence from the UK
Ms. Era Dabla-Norris
,
Carlo Pizzinelli
, and
Jay Rappaport
Labor markets in the UK have been characterized by markedly widening wage inequality for lowskill (non-college) women, a trend that predates the pandemic. We examine the contribution of job polarization to this trend by estimating age, period, and cohort effects for the likelihood of employment in different occupations and the wages earned therein over 2001-2019. For recent generations of women, cohort effects indicate a higher likelihood of employment in low-paying manual jobs relative to high-paying abstract jobs. However, cohort effects also underpin falling wages for post-1980 cohorts across all occupations. We find that falling returns to labor rather than job polarization has been a key driver of rising inter-age wage inequality among low-skill females. Wage-level cohort effects underpin a nearly 10 percent fall in expected lifetime earnings for low-skill women born in 1990 relative to those born in 1970.
Keywords:
Job polarization; Occupational choice; Life-cycle; Cohorts; Intergenerational inequality; cohort effect; job polarization; wage inequality; JEL classification number; labor market evidence; Wages; Women; Employment; Labor markets; Aging
Cover IMF Working Papers
Preferences for Reforms: Endowments vs. Beliefs
Mr. Romain A Duval
,
Yi Ji
,
Mr. Chris Papageorgiou
,
Mr. Ippei Shibata
, and
Mr. Antonio Spilimbergo
Are preferences for reforms driven by individuals’ own endowments or beliefs? To address this question, we conducted a cross-country survey on people’s opinions on employment protection legislation—an area where reform has proven to be difficult and personal interests are at stake. We find that individuals’ beliefs matter more than their own endowments and personal pay-offs. A randomized information treatment confirms that beliefs explain views about reform, but beliefs can change with new information. Our results are robust to several robustness tests, including to alternative estimation techniques and samples.
Keywords:
political opinions; preferences; political economy; regulation; reform; employment protection; beliefs; ideology; endowments; surveys.; IMF working paper research Department; EPL deregulation; copyright page; individuals' belief; knowledge indicator; Labor markets; Labor force; Southern Europe; Northern Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
COVID-19 Vaccines: A Shot in Arm for the Economy
Mr. Niels-Jakob H Hansen
and
Rui Mano
We quantify the effect of vaccinations on economic activity in the United States using weekly county level data covering the period end-2020 to mid-2021. Causal effects are identified through instrumenting vaccination rates with county-level pharmacy density interacted with state-level vaccine allocations, and by including county and state-time fixed effects to control for unobserved factors. We find that vaccinations are a significant and substantial shot in the arm of the economy. Specifically, an increase of initiated vaccination rates of 1 percentage point increases weekly consumer spending by 0.6 percent and reduces weekly initial unemployment claims by 0.004 percentage points of the 2019 labor force. Vaccinations also increase workrelated mobility. Importantly, we find that the effects vary with county characteristics. Specifically, urban counties and counties with initially worse socioeconomic conditions and lower education levels exhibit larger effects of vaccinations. This way, vaccinations are also a fair shot in the arm for the economy, which highlights that equitable distribution of vaccines is important to reduce inequality. Our results are specific to the United States, but hold important lessons for the expected economic impact of vaccinations in other countries.
Keywords:
COVID-19; pandemics; vaccinations.; initiated vaccination rate; IMF working papers; vaccine allocation; effect of vaccination; vaccination rate; Unemployment; Labor force; Unemployment benefits
Cover IMF Working Papers
What are the Economic Effects of Pandemic Containment Policies? Evidence from Sweden
Mrs. Jana Bricco
,
Florian Misch
, and
Alexandra Solovyeva
This paper examines the economic effects of policies to contain Covid-19, by extracting lessons from Sweden’s experience during the ‘Great Lockdown’. Sweden’s approach was less stringent and based more on social responsibility than legal obligations compared to European peers. First, we provide an account of Sweden’s strategy and the health outcomes. Second, drawing on a range of data sources and empirical findings, our analysis of the first Covid-19 wave indicates that a less stringent strategy can soften the economic impact initially. These benefits could be eroded subsequently, due to potentially higher infection rates and a prolonged pandemic, but in Sweden’s case, the evidence remains mixed in this regard, and it is premature to judge the outcome of Sweden’s containment strategy. In addition, the economic effects of the containment strategy also depend on social behavior, demographics and structural features of the economy, such as the degree of export orientation, reliance on global supply chains, and malleability to remote working.
Keywords:
WP; Sweden; containment; containment measure; IMF staff calculation; containment strategy