G4 Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Essays on economic links between family members (2020)
Esseitä perheenjäsenten taloudellisista yhteyksistä
Seppälä, V. (2020). Essays on economic links between family members [Doctoral dissertation]. Jyväskylän yliopisto. JYU Dissertations, 311. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-8373-4
JYU authors or editors
Publication details
All authors or editors: Seppälä, Ville
eISBN: 978-951-39-8373-4
Journal or series: JYU Dissertations
eISSN: 2489-9003
Publication year: 2020
Number in series: 311
Number of pages in the book: 118
Publisher: Jyväskylän yliopisto
Place of Publication: Jyväskylä
Publication country: Finland
Publication language: English
Persistent website address: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-8373-4
Publication open access: Openly available
Publication channel open access: Open Access channel
Abstract
This thesis examines various labor market connections between family members. It consists of three empirical essays. The essays employ register panel data compiled by Statistics Finland, consisting of various demographics and labor market information on Finnish citizens. Several econometric methods are applied on the data to study the topic. The first essay studies the effect of job displacement on the earnings of the adult children and parents of the displaced individuals. A difference-in-differences estimation methodology is used to estimate a causal effect. The results indicate that in some families the parents of the displaced have increased earnings in some of the years following the displacement. The effect suggests that parents increase their labor supply to help their displaced children financially. The effect is robust especially among fathers and parents who are older or have higher income than the median. Displacement does not seem to increase the earnings of the adult children of the displaced. The second essay studies whether the spouses whose relationship begins while they work at the same workplace are more likely to stay at their workplaces than spouses whose relationship begins outside the same workplace. Coworking with spouse is found to increase the workplace retention probability. The result suggests that some aspects of coworking may be beneficial to couples. However, the effect diminishes over time. The third essay studies how one spouse’s retirement affects the other spouse’s retirement probability. A regression discontinuity method is used for causal inference. The results show that in low-earnings households, wife’s retirement at her pension eligibility age increases the husband’s retirement probability if the husband is older than the wife. This implies that the husband delays his retirement timing until wife reaches her pensions eligibility, after which the couple retires jointly. In contrast, in high-earnings households the husband’s retirement advances his younger wife’s retirement timing to occur early.
Keywords: families; family members; unemployment; retirement; income; level of income; households (organisations); decision making; household economy
Free keywords: household decision-making; family economics; labor economics; register data; income; labour market
Contributing organizations
Ministry reporting: Yes
VIRTA submission year: 2020
