Examining the Effects of Parental Leave Expansion on Take-Up Rates and Labor Market Outcomes in Kenya
In 2007, Kenya implemented a law that increased paid maternity leave from two to three months and paid paternity leave from zero to two weeks. This paper uses a ten percent sample of the 1989, 1999, and 2009 Kenyan census to answer the question: How did the increase in parental leave affect parents’ leave take-up rates and labor force attachment rates? The paper uses an event study – with months surrounding childbirth as the independent variable. Preliminary results show that leave take-up rates increase by a month for mothers but remain at zero for fathers. The paper also finds that in 5-12 months postpartum, mothers are significantly more likely to stay in the labor force. They have higher employment rates and lower unemployment rates, although these results are not statistically significant. (JEL codes: O15, J64, I260)
Job Market Paper
Leaning In or Pushing Down: Do female leaders help other women achieve career successes in the Indian bureaucracy? (with Steven Brownstone)
A key issue in the literature around discrimination in both labor and education is whether teachers, doctors, or bosses that are female are less likely to discriminate against women. We utilize a unique dataset that follows Indian bureaucrats in the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS) through their entire service to examine whether having a female chief of secretary leads to better career outcomes for their female subordinates. Chief secretaries are the most senior civil servants in a state and serve on the promotion committees for all IAS officers in the state. We find evidence that having a female chief secretary during a female bureaucrat’s first promotion window has a negative impact on her later career success and evidence of a positive effect at a later promotion window. The negative result is contradictory to most of the concordance literature which finds either null or positive effects. Some combination of dynamic statistical discrimination, male resentment against powerful women, and institutional differences in chief secretaries’ power at different promotion windows may explain the results.
Examining the Effects of University Expansion on Labor Market and Educational Outcomes
In the mid-2000s and early 2010s, Kenya experienced a massive expansion in universities, going from 40 to 74 institutions. This paper uses a 10% sample of the 2019 Kenyan Census and the Kenyan Integrated Household Budget Surveys (KIHBS) to answer the questions: Do local university openings (in the county of residence) impact the proportion of students who are enrolled in tertiary education? and How do university openings impact the labor market outcomes (such as employment, unemployment, and labor force participation status) of those who went to university? The paper uses an event study to examine the impact of this expansion on students’ decisions to enroll in tertiary education. The paper then uses a difference-in-difference analysis to examine the impact of university attendance on labor market outcomes in each region where a university was introduced (JEL codes: O15, J64, I260)
Other Papers
Understanding the Search: A Deeper Look into the Effectiveness of Networks Versus Search-Skills Training on the Job Finding Process:
This paper uses an experiment to study the effect of networks on the job search process of university students. It does this by matching juniors and seniors at Kenyatta University with a successful alumnus from their university. A second arm of the study – inspired by the fact that many institutions in this setting do not track their alumni – trains students how to effectively and efficiently search for a job. The course teaches students how to conduct informational interviews, contact weak ties for referrals, as well as typical job search skills such as, how to write resumes and cover letters. The study examines the impact of the interventions on job search outcomes including duration of job search, quality of job match, and frequency of interview offers. The paper also studies what makes a network fruitful by examining which characteristics of a network leads to better job search outcomes.