EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Household Responses to Trade Shocks

Aitor Irastorza-Fadrique, Peter Levell and Matthias Parey

No 18018, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We use large-scale panel data from linked decadal censuses in England and Wales to study the responses of both individuals and their partners to rising Chinese import competition in the 2000s. We test whether partners provide insurance against lost household earnings by increasing labour supply. We find that both own and partner responses to the shock vary significantly by gender. Men in households exposed to import competition respond by increasing labour force participation at older ages, and by moving into solo self-employment. This is true both in response to their own trade exposure, and as an 'added worker effect' when their partner is exposed to the shock. By contrast, we find no such response for women, who do not increase labour supply if their male partners were initially employed in exposed industries. In general, self-employment appears to act as an employment buffer for men but not women. The impacts of import competition on partnering and family dissolution also differ according to the gender of those affected: for women below 45, but not men, exposure to the trade shock reduces the likelihood of divorce and of living with a new partner. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of investigating household responses, and the self-employment margin, to fully understand the effects of trade shocks.

Keywords: Families (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 F14 F16 F61 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP18018 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Household responses to trade shocks (2024) Downloads
Working Paper: Household responses to trade shocks (2024) Downloads
Working Paper: Household responses to trade shocks (2023) Downloads
Working Paper: Household Responses to Trade Shocks (2023) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:18018

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP18018

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-23
Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:18018