Working Paper

Work and family life courses among Jewish and Israeli-Palestinian Women in Israel

This research looks at young Jewish and Palestinian Israeli women to see whether leading a more advantaged family and work life is linked to their ethnicity and background. It shows that Jewish women are substantially more likely to be in better paid more stable jobs whilst their Palestinian counterparts were more likely to be at … Read more

Economic Distress and Support for Radical Right Parties – Evidence from Sweden

Authors: Sirus H. Dehdari,
Issue: 2020
Themes: ,

This is an updated version of the working paper (updated 18th June 2021)   This paper investigates whether there are any links between being made unemployed and increasing support for radical right-wing political parties. The research uses Swedish election data to show that for every layoff notice among low-skilled native-born workers, support for the country’s … Read more

The effect of unemployment on couples separating. Panel evidence for Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom

This research looks at how unemployment affects the risk of separation for heterosexual couples living together in Germany, Switzerland and the UK. The findings show a doubling of the separation rate from 2 to 4 percent after an unemployment spell. The picture was the same whether it was the man or the woman who was … Read more

European Union Extended Working Life Policies: On Pension Systems, Public Finances and Biopolitical Disciplining

Authors: Clary Krekula,
Series: Issue: 13 2020
Themes: ,

This paper takes three key European Union documents on extended working lives (EWL) and looks at them from the perspective that policies are not entirely shaped by problems: in fact, problems are often shaped, in narrative terms, around policies. It concludes that the ‘problem’ which shapes much EU policy on EWL is questionable – the … Read more

Life Course Trajectories and Wealth Accumulation in the United States: Comparing Baby Boomers and Millennials

This paper empirically assesses the widespread belief that Millennials are economically worse off than their parents’ generation, the Baby Boomers. The research used US data from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth to analyse the work and family life courses of Millennials and Baby Boomers from age 18 to 35, and then … Read more

Union dissolution and income inequality among separating women

This study looks at women’s standard of living immediately after divorce or separation. It finds that women who had a higher standard of living tend to lose more from divorce or separation. At the same time, overall income inequality among separated women increases. The researchers compared the household incomes of separated women to a hypothetical … Read more

Heterogeneous unemployment dynamics of ancestral Swedes and second-generation immigrants

This paper uses Swedish registry data for almost 450,000 people born in Sweden between 1977 and 1981 to compare the experience of unemployment over the working careers of second-generation immigrants (children born in Sweden with at least one foreign-born parent) and ancestral Swedes (individuals born in Sweden with two parents born in Sweden). It finds … Read more

Inequality of socio-emotional skills: a cross-cohort comparison

This paper shows that inequality in a crucial dimension of human capital – socio-emotional skills at age five – increased dramatically between two cohorts of British children born in 1970 and 2000. The authors used data from the British Cohort Study and the Millennium Cohort Study, which followed two cohorts of children born in 1970 … Read more

Family Background, Educational Qualifications and Meritocratic Labor Market Allocation: Evidence from Danish Siblings

This paper looks at how education and family background shapes the occupation and earnings of a generation of Danes, and concludes that education plays a powerful role in explaining why children from advantaged backgrounds have higher earnings than chil-dren from disadvantaged backgrounds. The researchers studied all children born in Denmark between 1965 and 1971 and … Read more

Can We Really Rely on Income Distribution Statistics? Some Issues in the Swedish Data

Authors: Anders Björklund,
Series: Issue: 7 2020
Themes:

The Swedish Income Distribution Statistics have shown rising gaps in disposable income since the early 1980s. Several reports have shown that capital income is an important driver behind this development. I identify several weaknesses in the measurement of capital income in these statistics. One weakness is that realised capital gains, which generally are included in … Read more