Search Results
Briefing
Why Are Women Leaving the Labor Force?
The female labor force participation (LFP) rate has dropped steadily since 2000, especially among single women. At the same time, the percentage of single women has grown as a share of the female population, a trend that has increased the impact of the single women's LFP rate on the aggregate women's LFP rate. An analysis of data from the Current Population Survey shows that a growing percentage of single women who are not in the labor force are going to school. Meanwhile, an increasing share of married women list retirement as the reason for no longer participating in the labor force.
Working Paper
Reversal of Gender Gaps in Child Development: Evidence from Young Children in India
This paper provides unique evidence of a reversal of gender gaps in cognitive development in early childhood. We find steep caste and gender gradients and few substantive changes once children enter school. The gender gap, however, reverses its sign for the upper caste, with girls performing better than boys at age 5 but thereafter following the general pattern in India of boys performing better.
Journal Article
Labor mismatch in the Great Recession: a review of indexes using recent U.S. data
Labor mismatch, also known as structural imbalance, can be defined as a poor match between the characteristics of unemployed workers and those required for vacant jobs. In the wake of the jobless recovery from the Great Recession, economists have sought to explain the coexistence of a high unemployment rate and increasing job openings as a mismatch phenomenon. This article reviews five studies that have contributed to the development of mismatch indexes and computes the corresponding indexes over the period May 2005?May 2012 using job vacancy data from the Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine ...
Journal Article
Job polarization leaves middle-skilled workers out in the cold
The economy has increased its demand for high-skilled (high-wage) workers, while opportunities for middle-skilled (middle-wage) jobs have declined. This ?job polarization? may require a shift in the sort of training that is encouraged for American workers.
Journal Article
A closer look at the decline in the labor force participation rate
The labor force participation rate has fallen from over 67 percent in 2000 to almost 63 percent today. Among the reasons are the downward trends in the percentages of women and young people in the labor force.
Journal Article
The effects of Extending Unemployment Insurance Benefits
Longer benefits may reduce unemployed workers? job search efforts, decreasing their likelihood of becoming reemployed.
Working Paper
Out-of-school suspensions and parental involvement in children’s education
Do parents alter their investment in their child?s human capital in response to changes in school inputs? If they do, then ignoring this effect will bias the estimates of school and parental inputs in educational production functions. This paper tries to answer this question by studying out-of-school suspensions and their effect on parental involvement in children?s education. The use of out-of- school suspensions is the novelty of this paper. Out-of-school suspensions are chosen by the teacher or the principal of the school and not by parents, but they are a consequence of student ...
Journal Article
Changes in the racial earnings gap since 1960
Income inequality between races has been a widely used indicator of economic prosperity and opportunity (or the lack thereof) within the diverse population of the U.S. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal, thus improving the quality of education and providing more job opportunities for African-Americans. Nevertheless, disparities remain.