Tiago Freire

How The 1978 Foreign Domestic Workers Law Increased The Labor Supply Of Singaporean Women

In 1978, Singapore became the first country to introduce legislation allowing foreign domestic workers to work in the country under special visas. Although Singapore is often cited in the literature as a success story, no studies have quantified the impact of this legislation. In this paper, we use data derived from the Singapore Yearbook of Manpower Statistics between 1974 and 1985 to determine the influence of the 1978 legislation on the labor supply of Singaporean women. We find that the labor supply of women affected by this policy increased by between 3.1% and 6.2%.In 1978, Singapore was the first country to introduce legislation allowing foreign domestic workers (e.g. maids) to work in the country with special visas. Singapore, with its liberal wage policy (no minimum wage), is also the best quasi-natural experiment in determining how a reduction in the cost of domestic work increases the supply of highly skilled female workers. Though Singapore is often cited in the literature as a success story, there are no studies that try to quantify the impact of this legislation. In this paper, we use data from the census conducted between 1957 and 1990, and Singapores Yearbook of Manpower Statistics between 1974 and 1985, to evaluate the impact of the 1978 legislation in terms of increasing the labour supply of Singaporean women. We compare the female labour supply before and after 1978, for young and older women, high and low-skilled women, and Singaporean-Malay versus Singaporean-Chinese women. We find that the labour supply of women affected by this policy increased by between 2.7% and 12.7%, consistent with previous findings.

WAGE SUBSIDIES AND THE LABOR SUPPLY OF OLDER PEOPLE: EVIDENCE FROM SINGAPORE'S WORKFARE INCOME SUPPLEMENT SCHEME

An increasing body of literature considers population aging and labor markets, focusing on the dynamics of older workers’ labor market participation. Singapore introduced the Workfare Income Supplement Scheme in 2007, targeting low-income, older workers. Previous studies show that labor force participation drops significantly after the age of 45. We examine whether a wage subsidy program can increase the labor supply of these older workers. Using Hong Kong as a control group in a difference-in-difference-in-difference approach, we find that this program increased labor force participation for women aged 60 to 64 by 3.1 to 5.5 percentage points.

Rural-Urban Migration and the Skill Wage Premium in Brazil: 1980-2000

We use a production function approach to determine the impact of increased labour supply of different skill level on the skill wage premium. In particular, we use data the Brazilian Population Census for 1980 to 2000, for which we have consistent data on cities, to estimate the elasticity of substitution between high and low-skill workers. Unlike the international migration literature, we can estimate the response of out migration from rural areas in response to exogenous shocks, such as rainfall shocks and changes in transportation costs, and use the predicted value from these shocks to construct our instrumental variable. We nd an elasticity of substitution between high and low-skill workers of 0.56, much lower than what has been found in the international migration literature. Our simulations show that migration between 1991 and 2000 had only a small impact of the skill wage gap, a 1.1% decrease in the wage gap between high and low-skill workers in Brazil, explaining only 5% of the changes in relative wages between high and low-skill workers seen in the data during this time period. Though this impact is small is it is 2.5 times larger than what we would have found using the elasticity of substitution between high and low-skill of developed countries.

City of God Redux: Inequality, Migration, and Violent Crime in Brazil between 1980 and 2000

There is a long-held belief that inequality is a major determinant of violent crime, particularly homicides. Some previous studies suggest that these results hold in the short term only. This could result from measurement error in income inequality. This study addresses the issue of measurement error in inequality by using the relationship between migration and inequality. Using rainfall shocks and changes in transport costs as exogenous sources of out-migration from rural areas in Brazil between 1980 and 2000, the study shows how migration from rural areas affects income inequality in urban areas. It finds that not only is there a negative and statistically significant relationship between inequality and crime in Brazil, and that the effects are much larger than previously thought, but also that this relationship holds in the long term.