Essays on Family Economics

Abstract

In this thesis, I employ empirical methods to address research questions related to marriage and family behavior. In Chapter 1 of this thesis, titled "Location Choice, Labor Market Conditions, and Marital Sorting Among Immigrants", I focus on the impact of labor market integration policies on immigrants' marriage and location patterns. First, I use German data to explore correlations between immigrants' labor market outcomes, marital choices, and spatial distribution. Next, I employ a structural model with location, marriage, location, and labor supply choices. Model simulation demonstrates that labor market integration policies that increase immigrants' wages also decrease immigrants' spatial concentration, increase the share of immigrant men marrying natives, but decrease the share of immigrant women marrying natives. The welfare and income analysis indicates that neglecting adjustments in location and marriage choices leads to overestimating the decrease in immigrant-native income inequality and underestimating welfare gains. In Chapter 2, titled "Parenting Style and Children's Skill Development" joint with Katherina Thomas, we investigate the influence of parenting style on cognitive and non-cognitive skill development during middle childhood and adolescence. Using Australian panel data, the study estimates the effects of various dimensions of parenting style on skill development. The findings reveal that parental hostility, such as a lack of praise and displays of anger during punishments, and inconsistency in enforcing rules, have negative impacts on non-cognitive skills. Explaining rules to children has a smaller negative effect, while parental warmth exhibits a small positive effect. However, the impact of parenting style on cognitive skill development is limited. The results suggest that addressing hostility in parenting skill training could significantly enhance non-cognitive skills. In Chapter 3, titled "Across-District Marriage Migration in India" joint with Prasanthi Ramakrishnan, we examine the consequences of long-distance marriage migration, which is common in India due to regional skew in the sex ratio. In particular, we focus on how migration outside the district for marriage contributes to within-household inequality in India. First, with logistic regression, we find that women are more likely to migrate for marriage to regions with imbalanced sex ratios and rural households with at least primarily educated household heads. Analyzing the within-household bargaining power of local and migrant women through a static marriage market model, we uncover a negative correlation between men's marriage surplus and the probability of marrying a woman from another district. This suggests that migrating women may possess higher bargaining power and gain advantages by moving away from their home district. To further examine the relationship between marriage migration and women's bargaining power, we propose a theoretical collective household model.

Date of Award	26 Jul 2023
Original language	English
Supervisor	Joan Llull Cabrer (Director)