My research
For a link to my Research Statement click here.
Under review
A higher-wage/lower-wage dichotomy for household bargaining: When divorce is a credible threat
Abstract: This article conceptualizes household bargaining comparing higher-wage partners to lower-wage partners, rather than the traditional comparison of husbands to wives, to account for the significant strides towards socio-economic equality between the sexes over the past 50 years. Key results rely on a predicted higher-wage/lower-wage dichotomy, to address concerns that wages are endogenous to the household bargaining process. Furthermore, this article introduces a new distribution factor to the household bargaining literature: couples’ differences in kinship attitudes. Attitudes that are permissive towards divorce have a future effect on household bargaining dynamics, in a similar way to laws that are permissive towards divorce. That is, social attitudes can function as a substitute for laws. The data is interpreted using a collective model of household bargaining with no intertemporal commitment. For a link to this paper in DropBox click here.
Hours mismatch and quantile regression: a case study of parenthood
Abstract: This article studies labor hours mismatch surrounding the event of parenthood by employing quantile regression techniques on unique longitudinal data. Unlike traditional mean-based estimates, which suggest parenthood has a uniform and trivial effect on hours mismatch, quantile regression reveals significant heterogeneity, dependent on an individual's position in the realized hours gap distribution: underemployment, no mismatch, or overemployment. Crucially, preferred hours are studied based on individuals' position in a counterfactual realized hours distribution unconstrained by parenthood. As this article finds parenthood predominantly causes underemployment for mothers, this suggests a policy response is needed to address the motherhood penalty, given economists view inefficiencies negatively
This article extends is a chapter of my thesis, located here.
Gender attitudes, fertility stopping-rule behavior, and endogenous preferences
Abstract: Longitudinal data from an OECD country reveals how gender attitudes affect parity progression and fertility stopping rule behavior. Gender attitudes, recorded when an individual reports their fertility years as incomplete, predict future number of daughters, number of sons, proportion of sons and sex of the youngest child an individual has when their fertility years are complete. Therefore, socioeconomic research claiming the number of daughters (sons) an individual has causes them to behave consistent with progressive (traditional) gender attitude behavior present endogenous estimates; parents are not influenced by their children's sexes, but rather parents' gender attitudes affect the sex composition of their children. This article supports preference-based explanations for parental gender preference, or that parents inherently derive utility from raising children of their desired sex, rather than constraint-based explanations for parental gender preference, or that parents prefer children of a particular sex due to objectively different financial considerations. This has implications for addressing skewed sex ratios in developing countries.
This article is a chapter from my thesis, located here.
Working Papers
Locus of Control and Pro-Social Behavior (with Mark A. Andor, James Cox, Andreas Gerster, Michael Price, Stephan Sommer and Lukas Tomberg)
Abstract: We investigate how locus of control beliefs – the extent to which individuals attribute control over events in their life to themselves as opposed to outside factors – affect prosocial behavior and the private provision of public goods. We begin by developing a conceptual framework showing how locus of control beliefs serve as a weight placed on the returns from one’s own contributions (impure altruism) and others contributions (pure altruism). Using multiple data sets from Germany and the U.S., we show that individuals who relate consequences to their own behavior are more likely to contribute to climate change mitigation, to donate money and in-kind gifts to charitable causes, to share money with others, to cast a vote in parliamentary elections, and to donate blood. Our results provide comprehensive evidence that locus of control beliefs affect prosocial behavior.
An earlier version of this article was released by my co-authors as an NBER Working paper, located here. The purpose of me joining his project was to utilise the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey to demonstrate that the effect of locus of control on pro-social behaviour could not be explained by correlation between locus of control and intelligence (as proxied by three tests) or the Big 5 personality traits. I also provided further external validity to this paper’s results.
Societal implications of flexible work arrangements and environmental shocks: an allostatic load perspective (with Russell A. Matthews, Michael K. Price, Laura Razzolini and Madeline Wertschulte)
Abstract: Increasingly frequent and severe 'complex emergencies' have prompted calls for policy-orientated mechanisms for enhancing resiliency as a proactive way to prepare for disasters and individual vulnerabilities. Within the public policy space, flexible work arrangements have emerged as a prime way to proactively intervene, at a structural level, to promote resilience. The current program of research applies allostatic load theory to frame an events-based examination of flexible work arrangements as means to promote resistance and resiliency in response to two archetypical environmental shocks (i.e., commute strain, perceived infection risk). Utilizing data from three distinct longitudinal surveys, we conducted four studies employing a two-stage least squares analysis approach. The first-stage estimates the impact of environmental shocks and moderators (e.g., infection risks and flexible work arrangements) on allostatic overload (e.g., stress or SF-36). The second-stage then examines the impact of the toxic environmental shock and flexible work arrangements on tertiary outcomes of interest (e.g., job satisfaction) via their impact on endogenously determined factors (e.g., allostatic overload). In support of our structural intervention argument, flexible work arrangements moderated the impacts of shock on allostatic load. And as predicted, allostatic load negatively impacts tertiary outcomes. Furthermore, we show that flexible work arrangements have an ‘immunization’ effect even in the face of these shocks. The evidence surrounding the positive impact of flexible work arrangements on resilience in response to toxic environmental shocks has clear implications for building resilience through government policies with far-reaching social benefit. Practical contribution and broader impact findings are discussed.
A draft of this paper can be found here.
Female breadwinners and stated preferences
Abstract: Bertrand, Kamenica and Pan (2015) found there was a sharp discontinuity in the proportion of households where the female partner earned more than the male partner. They attributed this result to the gender norm that it is undesirable for female partners to earn more than male partners. This inference was challenged in follow-up papers by Zionovyeva and Tversdostup (2021) and Binder and Lam (2020), who offered differing explanations for this discontinuity. This article uses longitudinal data that records individuals’ extent of agreement with the statement ‘It is bad for a relationship for the woman to earn more than the man’. Males and females who record agreement with this statement when single go on to form partnerships less frequently characterised by female breadwinners. Thus this paper offers support to the claim that gender attitudes assist in explaining the lower earnings of female partners compared to male partners.
Papers under development
Gender-neutral household decision-making and the Pareto weight: insights from fixed-effects regression
Abstract: Gender-neutral household bargaining, where higher-wage partners are compared to lower-wage partners, rather than husbands to wives, is a significant new paradigm in household economics that accounts for the increased socio-economic agency of females whilst also being inclusive of same-sex couples. Using regression with individual fixed effects, this article studies how four bargaining factors affect the ‘Pareto weight’ of household bargaining, proxied by which partner in a household primarily makes decisions regarding finances, parenting, labour supply, and social life and leisure activities. A higher-wage/lower-wage dichotomy fits the data better than a husband/wife dichotomy, especially as time has progressed over the past twenty years..
Working paper coming soon.
Welfare payments and parents’ well-being: a natural experiment approach
Abstract: This article utilises a household panel data set to study welfare payments and parents’ well-being using the natural experiment of changing age cut-offs for welfare payment eligibility. Between 2001 and 2005, single parents were eligible for additional welfare support if their youngest child was aged younger than 16, but this changed to 8 years old in 2006. Using both differences-in-difference models and regression discontinuity design, this article quantifies the effect of reduced household income on parents’ well-being. Reduced welfare payments lead to parents scoring higher on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, and poorer outcomes on the SF-36. However, if reduced welfare income is offset by increased labor market income, parents’ well-being does not decline when they become ineligible for additional welfare payments.
Working paper coming soon.
Natural disasters and relationship stress
Abstract: During the period 2009-2023, over 10 percent of Australians experienced a weather related disaster (such as flood, bushfire or cyclone) that damaged or destroyed their home. Weather-related disasters are understood to negatively affect individuals stress levels. It is a pertinent question whether this stress manifests in the breakdown of interpersonal relationships. Regression with individual fixed effects indicates that experiencing a natural disaster causes couples to report greater dissatisfaction with how they divide childcare and household tasks, as well as individuals reporting greater dissatisfaction with partners, children, step-children and parents. For both legally married and de facto couples, time-to-event analysis indicates that natural disasters shorten the length to relationship breakdown. These results are robust to a wide variety of controls include relationship duration, the relationship status of individuals’ parents, income, education level, location, kinship attitudes, religion and religiosity, and locus of control
Working paper coming soon.
Pre-Analysis Plans
A National Disability Insurance Scheme and household inequality
My first post-PhD project will analyse how the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) affects household inequality. Launched in 2013, the NDIS is Australia’s second most expensive government program after the Age Pension, providing extensive support to individuals with significant disabilities. I plan to use the Person-Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA), which contains diverse sources of administrative data. In the instance of disabled children or severely disabled adults, these individuals will not be able to work even with significant supports. However, the supports provided by the NDIS should facilitate the employment of parents, partners and other carers of NDIS participants. I intend to exploit two natural experiment methodologies. First, I propose a staggered differences-in-differences design calculating the gap in household equivalised income between NDIS participants and non-participants over the seven year period pre-2013 with the 10 year period post-2013. Second, I propose a regression discontinuity design. Persons become eligible for the NDIS at the age of 9 and ineligible at the age of 65, however schooling usually starts at age 5 in Australia and the aged pension eligibility is for those aged over 67. By providing evidence on how the NDIS has influenced household inequality, my research could inform whether similar programs should be adopted internationally.
This article intends to utilise my significant professional experience at the Australian Bureau of Statistics with the Person-Level Integrated Data Asset and other administrative data. For a two-page Pre-Analysis plan of this research, please click here.
Civic engagement and longevity: A population-level study
In 2023 the US Surgeon-General called attention to an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation”. He released a report outlining how the physical health consequences of poor or insufficient connection include a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke, and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. Additionally, lacking social connection increases risk of premature death by more than 60%. I intend to study whether civic engagement (as indicated by volunteer work participation) leads to increased longevity, and less likelihood of dying from heart disease, stroke and dementia. I will use population-level data for Australia, including Census data linked to the Person-Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA), an Australian administrative data asset consisting of linked health records, tax returns, welfare payments, migration data and death certificates, including cause of death. My key estimating equations will be Cox proportional hazard models.
This article intends to utilise my significant professional experience at the Australian Bureau of Statistics with the Person-Level Integrated Data Asset and other administrative data. For a Pre-Analysis Plan of this research, please click here.
A National Disability Insurance Scheme and children's development outcomes
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was launched in Australia in 2013 to provide more extensive and coordinated supports to individuals who experience significant disability. The NDIS is the second most expensive government program in Australia, after the Age Pension. This study will analyse if participation in the NDIS increases the likelihood that children with a disability are on-track regarding their educational development outcomes. I hypothesise that children with a disability and in Kindergarten in 2012, before the NDIS came into effect, were behind in their development outcomes. However, when these children were had their competencies in Maths and English in 2016, 2018 and 2020, I hypothesise that these children had their development outcomes improved relative to their peers, with increasing improvement over time. My key estimating equations will be differences-in-differences models and event study design.
This article intends to utilise my significant professional experience at the Australian Bureau of Statistics with the Person-Level Integrated Data Asset and other administrative data. For a two-page Pre-Analysis plan of this research, please see click here.