Three essays on labor economics
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Abstract
This dissertation consists of three chapters concerning topics in labor economics. The first chapter studies how providing public childcare for the youngest children affects mothers' child penalties, while the second chapter examines the effects of early public childcare expansion on fathers' labor supply and childcare involvement and the overall gender inequality within households. The third chapter investigates the role of intensified import competition in facilitating domestic outsourcing practices in U.S. manufacturing. In the first chapter (joint with Lisa-Marie Duletzki), we examine the effects of early public childcare provision on mothers' labor market outcomes following childbirth. Through a series of reforms beginning in 2005, the German government has substantially expanded public childcare for children under the age of three, mainly targeting West Germany. Leveraging regional variation in the timing and intensity of this expansion at the county level and using social security administrative data, we uncover several key findings. First, our estimates suggest that a 10 percentage point increase in early public childcare coverage reduces mothers' child penalty in earnings by 1.5-2.3 percentage points during the five years following childbirth. Between 2007 and 2014, mothers' child penalty in earnings decreased by around 11 percentage points, particularly in West Germany, and our estimates imply that approximately 27-41% of this decline is attributable to childcare expansion. Second, this reduction in maternal earnings penalty results from various channels, including increased working days and hours, higher daily wages, and a greater likelihood of employment in higher-paying firms and occupations. Third, the effects on earnings, wages, and mobility persist for up to seven years after childbirth and the overall effects are more pronounced for low- and mid-income mothers. In the second chapter (joint with Lisa-Marie Duletzki), we explore the impact of early public childcare provision on gender inequality within households, focusing on labor market outcomes and participation in childcare and household work. Using a couples sample identified from administrative data and household panel data, we discover that the expansion of early childcare narrows the gender gap in labor supply and involvement in childcare. The increased availability of early public childcare not only enables more mothers to return to work and earn higher wages but also leads fathers to reduce their working days by taking parental leave when their wives resume work post-childbirth. Our findings indicate that expanding public childcare for very young children has the potential to enhance gender equality in both the labor market and domestic spheres. In the third chapter, I examine the effect of intensified import competition on domestic outsourcing in U.S. manufacturing focusing on cleaning and security jobs. To exploit variation in import penetration across industries and local labor markets, I identify domestic outsourcing at the three-digit Census industry and commuting zone levels using data from the Decennial Censuses and American Community surveys. Employing the IV strategy that captures the supply-driven components of import penetration in the US in each time period (1980-1990, 1990-2000, and 2000-2010), I find that exposure to higher import competition increased domestic outsourcing of cleaning and security jobs in the US significantly in the 1980s but not afterward. This suggests that heightened import competition served as a crucial trigger for U.S. domestic outsourcing in its infancy. However, as domestic outsourcing became a more widely-known labor practice among firms, import competition was no longer a driver.
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2024