5th CESifo Monthly Webinar on Labor Economics

The CESifo Webinars on Labor Economics were launched after the very first Area Conference of the Labor Economics Area of the CESifo Research Network was canceled due to COVID-19. In order to build and connect a network of researchers in labor economics on both sides of the Atlantic, the webinars will run on a monthly basis with different speakers for each event. 

Lectures by Basit Zafar (University of Michigan) and Uta Schoenberg (University College London)

Basit Zafar will talk on Gender Differences in Job Search and the Earnings Gap (with Patricia Cortes, Jessica Pan, Laura Pilossoph, and Ernesto Reuben).

We investigate gender differences in the job search process of college undergraduate students. In the first project, we collect rich information on job offers and acceptances from past and current business undergraduates at Boston University. We document two novel empirical facts: (1) there is a clear gender difference in the timing of job offer acceptance, with women accepting jobs substantially earlier than men, and (2) the gender earnings gap in accepted offers narrows in favor of women over the course of the job search period. Using survey data on risk preferences and beliefs about expected future earnings, we present empirical evidence that the patterns in job search can be explained by the higher levels of risk aversion displayed by women and the higher levels of overoptimism (and slower belief updating) displayed by men. We develop a job search model that incorporates these gender differences. Our counterfactual exercises show that simple policies such as eliminating "exploding offers" by allowing students to hold onto offers for an additional month, or providing them with accurate information about the labor market can reduce the gender gap significantly. In the second project, we replicate the field results in a sequential job search lab experiment. We then study how the gender differences in job search evolve in counterfactual treatments, such as allowing for recall, providing noisy feedback on ability etc.

Uta Schoenberg will talk on Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply (with Barbara Boelmann and Anna Raute).

Does the culture in which a woman grows up influence her labor market decisions once she has had a child? To what extent might the culture of her present social environment shape maternal labor supply? To address these questions, we exploit the setting of German reunification. A state socialist country, East Germany strongly encouraged mothers to participate in the labor market full-time, whereas West Germany propagated a more traditional male breadwinner-model. After reunification, these two cultures were suddenly thrown together, with consequent increased social interactions between East and West Germans through migration and commuting. A comparison of East and West German mothers on both sides of the former Inner German border within the same commuting zone shows that culture matters. Indeed, East German mothers return to work more quickly and for longer hours than West German mothers even two decades after reunification. Second, in exploiting migration across this old border, we document a strong asymmetry in the persistence of the culture in which women were raised. Whereas East German female migrants return to work earlier and work longer hours than their West German colleagues even after long exposure to the more traditional West German culture, West German migrants adjust their post-birth labor supply behavior nearly entirely to that of their East German colleagues. Finally, taking advantage of differential inflows of East German migrants across West German firms in the aftermath of reunification, we show that even a partial exposure to East German colleagues induces “native” West German mothers to accelerate their return to work after childbirth, suggesting that migration might be a catalyst for cultural change.  

General Information on the Webinar

The webinar will begin at 6pm (CET) on Thursday, 11 February 2021. Each speaker will give a 35 minute presentation and participants will then have the opportunity to pose questions.  Questions will also be encouraged during the lectures.