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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Bismarck To No Effect: Fertility Decline And The Introduction Of Social Insurance In Prussia, Timothy W. Guinnane, Jochen Streb
Bismarck To No Effect: Fertility Decline And The Introduction Of Social Insurance In Prussia, Timothy W. Guinnane, Jochen Streb
Discussion Papers
Economists have long argued that introducing social insurance will reduce fertility. The hypothesis relies on standard models: if children are desirable in part because they provide security in case of disability or old age, then state programs that provide insurance against these events should induce couples to substitute away from children in the allocation of wealth. We test this claim using the introduction of social insurance in Germany in the 1880s and 1890s. Bismarck’s social-insurance system provided health insurance, workplace-accident insurance, and old age pensions to a majority of the working population. The German case appeals because the social insurance …
On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women’S Financial Control Impacts Labor Supply And Gender Norms, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, Natalia Rigol, Simone Schaner, Charity Troyer Moore
On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women’S Financial Control Impacts Labor Supply And Gender Norms, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, Natalia Rigol, Simone Schaner, Charity Troyer Moore
Discussion Papers
Can greater control over earned income incentivize women to work and influence gender norms? In collaboration with Indian government partners, we provided rural women with individual bank accounts and randomly varied whether their wages from a public workfare program were directly deposited into these accounts or into the male household head’s account (the status quo). Women in a random subset of villages were also trained on account use. In the short run, relative to women just offered bank accounts, those who also received direct deposit and training increased their labor supply in the public and private sectors. In the long …