How Low Skill Women Migrants, Increase the Labor Supply of High Skill Local Women: an I.V. Approach. (job market paper)
Abstract: Over the past decades the
pattern of migration has changed significantly, with the increase of women
migrants, in particular low skill women. These low skill women migrants often
end up working in the domestic service sector, a close substitute for household
work. The largest beneficiaries of from this trend as local high skill women,
who respond to a decrease cost in domestic services by hiring maids and joining
the labor force.
We start by presenting a model were the assumption that women are more
productive than men in household production is enough for the gender composition
of migration to matter. In particular, when there are more low skill women, the
price of domestic services decreases, and the labor supply of women increases,
as opposed to a situation where there are only low skill men migrants.
Furthermore, we improve on previous work by using weather shocks in rural areas
and historical patterns of migration, to determine a migration shock by skill
and gender to a given city. Next, we use this exogenous shock of migration to
instrument for local labor wages and the price of domestic services. We find
that a 10% decrease in the wage of domestic workers, increases the labor
participation of high skill women by 4%, and the total number of hours worked by
5%.
Aid and village public goods: after the tsunami (with J. Vernon Henderson and Ari Kuncoro)
Abstract: Using survey data on fishermen and fishing villages in Aceh, Indonesia from 2005 and 2007, this paper examines the effect of the December 2004 tsunami and resulting massive aid effort on local public good provision, in particular on public labor inputs, but also public capital choices. Also analyzed are the roles of and changes in local social and political institutions and participation in political and social activities. Such an examination informs not only our understanding of the impacts of aid on villages, but also our understanding of how villages allocate resources to public goods. For public labor inputs, volunteerism is lower in villages with more aid projects, but that is offset if the dominant donor mitigates agency problems by doing its own implementation. Volunteerism is lower in villages with more “democratic” activity such as elections, although that effect is mitigated in villages with higher levels of social capital pre-tsunami. Evidence suggests volunteerism is lower not because of changes in types of leaders with village elections per se, but rather due to heightened internal divisions associated with elections. Correspondingly for public capital, villages with more democratic activity combined with more aid projects tend to emphasize garnering private aid (e.g., houses) at the expense of public aid (e.g., public buildings).
Yet Another Thing for Men and Women to Argue About: How rural female migrants help urban high-skill women joining the job market and lower men's wages in Brazil. (work in progress)
Abstract: Brazilian cities still receive a large number of rural migrants, who are for the most part less educated than the average urban native. On average 5% of people living in a city came from a rural area in the last 5 years. Around half of these rural-urban migrants are women. Like the inflow of Mexican immigrants into the US, this large inflow of migrants into cities has an effect on urban wages. In fact, women's wages have decreased over the last 10 years. However men's wages have decreased even more, leading to a decrease in the gender wage gap. Can the migration of low skilled women lead explain the larger decrease in high skilled men's wages? The migration of low-skilled women can lead to an increase in the labor participation of high skilled women, who in turn compete with high skilled men for jobs, bringing down their wages. We consider an economy where two goods are produced: a consumer good and a domestic good. While we assume that only women work in the production of the domestic good, while the consumption good is produced by both men and women of different education and work experience. Unlike the typical model of labor demand and wages an exogenous increase in the supply of low skilled women, is split between the consumption and the domestic good sectors. While the increased supply of low skilled women decreases the wage of low skilled women, it also allows for the substitution of high skilled women in the production of the domestic good. With the decrease in wages of domestic workers allows more urban high skilled women to hire domestic workers and join the labor market. The increased supply of high skilled women in the consumption good sector, will lead to lower wages of workers of similar skill. More urban high skilled women will lead to lower wages for both high skilled men and women. In order to identify supply driven effects on wages and labor demand we use as instruments weather variation in rural areas and the proportion of men and women migrants living in metropolitan area in 1980. We find that from 1991 to 2000, migration of low skilled women lead to a decrease of wages of urban low skilled women, but to an increase in the labor participation of urban high skill women. Finally, we find that high skilled urban women are substitutes of high skilled urban men, which explains why high skilled urban men's wages decrease.
Corruption in the Distribution of Aid in Aceh, Indonesia after the 2004 South-East Asia Tsunami (work in progress)
Abstract:
The Evolution of Bequest Motives: Empirical Evidence
Master
thesis -
The University of Birmingham 2003/04.
supervised by Prof. Jayasri Dutta
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