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Veranstaltungsreihe: IAB-Colloquium (en)

The discussion series “Labour Market and Occupational Research (IAB-Colloquium zur Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung)” is a forum where primarily external researchers present the results of their work and discuss these with experts from IAB. Practitioners from the political, administrative and business fields are naturally also welcome.

The ESDE 2018 review finds that labour market developments and social indicators remain favourable. Yet, major challenges lie ahead. geing will require much higher productivity growth in the future. t the same time, rapid restructuring, robotisation and digitalisation are fuelling productivity. They may, however, come at the cost of job losses, especially in manufacturing. Job displacements will affect mainly low-skilled and routine workers. On the other hand, investing in skills and qualifications can turn digitalisation into a net job creator by promoting innovation, boosting physical investment and accelerating productivity growth. However, in terms of skills the EU keeps lagging behind its sian competitors. Social background strongly affects overall educational outcomes as well as performance on the labour market.

Digitalisation and platform work are rising in the growing services’ sector and are changing the face of labour. While platform work currently makes only a small share of the EU's labour force, it is increasing fast and could bring about more atypical forms of work in the future, with lower attachment to public social security schemes. This development may challenge the EU's social security schemes. Higher government funding of the EU's social insurances may become inevitable.

We evaluate the short- and long-term effects for women of access to legal, subsidized abortion, by exploiting the Spanish legalization of abortion in 1985. We find robust evidence that the legalization led to an immediate decrease in the number of births, more pronounced for women aged 21 and younger. This effect was driven by provinces with a higher supply of abortion services. We also find that the affected cohorts of women were more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to marry young, less likely to divorce in the long-term, and reported higher life satisfaction as adults. We do not find significant effects on long-term labor market participation, employment, or earnings.We evaluate the short- and long-term effects for women of access to legal, subsidized abortion, by exploiting the Spanish legalization of abortion in 1985. We find robust evidence that the legalization led to an immediate decrease in the number of births, more pronounced for women aged 21 and younger. This effect was driven by provinces with a higher supply of abortion services. We also find that the affected cohorts of women were more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to marry young, less likely to divorce in the long-term, and reported higher life satisfaction as adults. We do not find significant effects on long-term labor market participation, employment, or earnings.

This paper provides a clear and transparent setting to study the effect of additional pension benefits on women’s retirement decision. Using administrative pension insurance records from Germany, I examine the impact of a pension subsidy program to low pay workers, implemented in 1992. The subsidies have a kinked relationship with the recipients’ average pension contribution, which led to sharply different slope of benefits for similar women to the left and to the right of the kink point. Using a regression kink design, I find that 100 euros additional monthly pension benefits induce female recipients to claim pension earlier by about 10 months. back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests the ratio of behavioral cost to mechanical cost of this subsidy program is 0.3, which is smaller than other anti-poverty programs such as extending unemployment benefits and progressive taxation. I find that the phasing out of this subsidy program can account for one third of the increase in women’s age of claiming pension
over the past decade.