Miriam Beblo

Measuring Income Inequality in Euroland

In this paper we propose an aggregate measure of income inequality for the founding countries of the European monetary union. Applying the methodology of the Theil index we are able to derive a measure for Euroland as a whole by exploiting information from two data sets: the European Community Household Panel and the Luxembourg Income Study. The property of additive decomposability allows us to determine each countrys contribution as well as that of each demographic group to overall income inequality. In addition the impact of government transfers on this inequality measure is assessed.

How much does a year off cost? Estimating the wage effects of employment breaks and part-time periods

Discontinuities in the employment profile are supposed to cause wage cuts since they imply an interruption in the accumulation of human capital as well as a depreciation of the human capital stock built up in the past. In this paper, we estimate the return to effective experience, taking into account both the timing and the duration of non-work and part-time employment spells. Estimation results for German women suggest that deviations from full-time employment are associated with significant wage cuts owing to the depreciation of human capital. Postponing the discontinuity leads to a further fall of the wage rate. Controlling for individual heterogeneity with respect to industry sector and job position decreases the estimated depreciation rates. This we interpret as an indication for segregation in the labor market. We conclude that traditional wage estimations that do not control for depreciation underestimate the return to effective experience.

Does marriage pay more than cohabitation

Purpose - Empirical research has unambiguously shown that married men receive higher wages than unmarried, whereas a wage premium for cohabiters is not as evident yet. This paper aims to exploit the observed difference between the marital and the cohabiting wage premium in Germany to draw conclusions about the sources, typically explained by specialisation (e.g. husbands being more productive because their wives take over household chores) or selection (high earnings potentials being more attractive on the marriage market). Design/methodology/approach - The paper analyzes the cohabiting and the marital wage premium in Germany using a shifting panel design for marriages and move-ins from 1993 to 2004 in the German Socio-Economic Panel. With non-parametric matching models men who get married (treatment group I) are matched with cohabiting respectively single men (control groups) and men who move in with a partner (treatment group II) with singles. Findings - Matching reveals that higher wages are mostly due to positive selection – into marriage as well as into cohabitation. Supplementary analysis of intra-household time use suggests that specialization, if any, is part of the selection process from single to cohabitation to marriage. Originality/value - This is the first application of non-parametric matching in a comparative study of the marital and the cohabiting wage premium and thus provides new insights into their respective sources. It is also the first investigation of family-status-related wage premiums in Germany.

Does Work Time Flexibility Work? An Empirical Assessment of the Efficiency Effects for German Firms

In this paper we assess the impact of flexible work time schedules on firm efficiency using representative establishment data for Germany. Following the approach by Battese and Coelli (1995), we estimate a stochastic production frontier and the determinants of technical efficiency simultaneously. The innovation of our study is that we draw on technical efficiency instead of productivity to appraise the success of flexible working hours. The results indicate that while the use of work time schedules with moderate flexibility is positively related to technical efficiency, highly flexible work time arrangements seem to be negatively correlated with an efficient organization of the work flow. However, these efficiency losses should not be interpreted as causal effects, because highly flexible work time schedules are most likely to be introduced in struggling firms.

Der Einfluss von Arbeitsbedingungen und Haushaltskontext auf krankheitsbedingte Fehlzeiten

Zusammenfassung. In diesem Beitrag analysieren wir den Einfluss von Arbeitsbedingungen und Haushaltskontext auf krankheitsbedingte Fehlzeiten fur Frauen und Manner. Damit sollen Unzulanglichkeiten einer bisher diesen Bereich dominierenden zweigeteilten Forschungsperspektive - mit Fokus auf der Arbeitssphare fur Manner und Fokus auf dem privaten Umfeld fur Frauen - uberwunden werden. Die empirische Analyse basiert auf Daten des Sozio-okonomischen Panels. Die Ergebnisse einer Ordered-Probit-Schatzung zeigen, dass sowohl die Arbeitsbedingungen als auch der Haushaltskontext krankheitsbedingte Fehlzeiten beeinflussen, und zwar fur Frauen wie fur Manner. Geschlechterbezogene Unterschiede bestehen insbesondere in Hinblick auf die relative Bedeutung der Arbeitsbedingungen sowie auf das Zusammenleben mit Kindern uber drei Jahren. Diese Ergebnisse belegen die Uberlegenheit des von uns gewahlten umfassenderen Forschungsansatzes gegenuber der genannten zweigeteilten Forschungsperspektive.

The leisure gap between working parents

Women, especially working mothers, have less leisure time on average than men. This is a well-known fact confirmed by nearly every survey on individual time use64. In the German Time Budget Survey of 1991/92 the overall “leisure gap” between the sexes amounts to more than 20 minutes on an average day (Statistisches Bundesamt 1995). When it comes to working adults the gender-specific difference increases to over half an hour for those employed full-time. The greatest leisure gap, however, can be observed in households where both husband and wife hold full-time employment and where there are small children to be cared for. For these couples male partners dispose of one hour more per day than their spouses. Expressed more dramatically, this translates to over nine 40-hours “leisure weeks” per year (two and a half more months of vacation) for fathers with working wives.

The Life-Cycle Hypothesis Revisited: Evidence on Housing Consumption after Retirement

According to the life-cycle theory of consumption and saving, foreseeable retirement events should not reduce consumption. Whereas some consumption expenditures may fall when goods are self-produced (given higher leisure after retirement), this argument applies especially to housing consumption which can hardly be substituted by home production. We test this hypothesis using micro data for Germany (SOEP) and find that income reductions when entering retirement have a negative effect on housing expenditures for tenants. For some econometric specifications, this effect is significantly stronger than the one of income changes at other times. While this result suggests that the strict consumption-smoothing hypothesis is violated for the subgroup of non-home owners (60% in Germany), the effect is quantitatively small, which explains the ambiguity of previous findings.

Does Marriage Pay More than Cohabitation?: Selection and Specialization Effects on Male Wages in Germany

Empirical research has unambiguously shown that married men receive higher wages than unmarried, whereas a wage premium for cohabiters is not as evident yet. Our paper exploits the observed difference between the marital and the cohabiting wage premium in Germany and thus provides new insights into their respective sources, typically explained by specialization (husbands being more productive because their wives take over household chores) or selection (high earnings potentials being more attractive on the marriage market). We analyze the cohabiting and the marital wage premium in Germany using a shifting panel design for marriages and move-ins from 1993 to 2004 in the German Socio-Economic Panel. With non-parametric matching models we match men who get married (treatment group I) with cohabiting or single men (control groups) and men who move in with a partner (treatment group II) with singles. Matching reveals that higher wages are mostly due to positive selection - into marriage as well as into cohabitation. Supplementary analysis of intra-household time use suggests that specialization, if any, is part of the selection process from single to cohabitation to marriage.

Why Do Women Favor Same-Gender Competition? Evidence from a Choice Experiment

This paper addresses the behavioral puzzle of women’s preference for competition when competitors are also women. Using a framed field experiment with 883 non-standard subjects, we show that none of the determinants of competitive behavior in general, including ability, self-confidence and risk aversion, provide a satisfying explanation for women’s substantive gender-related selection into competition. Nonetheless, women who are overconfident, i.e. over-estimate own abilities in performing a task, enter competition regardless of the gender-mix. Hence, the gender-pairing phenomenon is driven by women who correctly estimate or under-estimate own ability. We concluded that this is due to stereotypes about women’s underperformance compared to men.

Bisherige Befunde und eigene Analysen der Teilhaberealität

Im Folgenden werden die wichtigsten Befunde aus der in Kapitel 3 gesichteten Literatur sowie die robusten und stabilen Befunde aus den eigenen Auswertungen in Kapitel 4 zusammenfassend eingeordnet. Im Ubergang zum abschliesenden Kapitel 6 bereiten erste Schlussfolgerungen die familienpolitischen Empfehlungen vor.