Published papers

• “Dissecting Child Penalties”, with L. Wilner. accepted ILR Review, previously circulated as “Child Penalties and Financial Incentives: Exploiting Variation along the Wage Distribution” (WP 2019-17 Crest) Non-technical summary (in French).
  Abstract

  We relate mothers' children-related labor earnings losses, child penalties, to their location in the distribution of potential hourly wages. Using French administrative data and based on an event study approach, we show that the magnitude of these earnings losses decreases steeply along that distribution. This heterogeneity is the result of low-wage mothers leaving the labor market and more frequently reducing their working hours. By contrast, fathers' labor market outcomes do not vary upon the arrival of children, regardless of their location in the distribution of potential hourly wages.
  Media coverage

  Alternatives Économiques, BFMTV, Challenges, CNews, Cosmopolitan, Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, France 2, France Info, France Inter, Glamour, L'Express, L'Humanité, L'info durable, Le Figaro, Le Journal du Dimanche, Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique, Les Échos, Le Parisien, Mieux Vivre, Ouest France, Sciences Humaines.

• “A Decomposition of Labor Earnings Growth: Recovering Gaussianity?” with L. Wilner. Labour Economics, 63, 101807, 2020. Non-technical summary (in French).
  Abstract

  Recent works have concluded that labor earnings dynamics exhibit non-Gaussian and nonlinear features. We argue in this paper that this finding is mainly due to volatility in working time. Using a non-parametric approach, we find from French data that changes in labor earnings exhibit strong asymmetry and high peakedness. However, after decomposing labor earnings growth into growth in wages and working time, deviations from Gaussianity stem from changes in working time. The nonlinearity of earnings dynamics is also mostly driven by working time dynamics at the extensive margin.
  Media coverage

  BFMTV, Le Figaro.

• “Gender Equality on the Labour Market in France: A Slow Convergence Hampered by Motherhood”, with D. Meurs. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 510-511-512, 109-130, 2019.
  Abstract

  In France since the 1970s, the growth in labour force has been driven largely by that of women’s participation in the labour market and the fact that they interrupt their careers less often after motherhood. Their level of education has also risen considerably, and they have, on average, been more highly educated than men since the 1990s. But these developments did not result in reducing the gender pay gap to what might have been expected: the average hourly wage gap in the private sector has remained around 20% since the mid-1990s. In this average gap, the share explained by differences in human capital (education, experience) was cancelled out and even reversed between 1968 and 2015. The persistence of the wage gap now appears to be mainly linked to the consequences of motherhood. A child’s arrival causes mothers a loss of annual income largely due to adjustments in their working time. This penalty is higher for mothers whose wages are at the bottom of the wage distribution.
  Media coverage

  Alternatives Économiques, La Croix, Les Échos.

• “The Individual Dynamics of Wage Income in France During the Crisis”, with L. Wilner. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 494-495-496, 179-199, 2017.
  Abstract

  The uncertain nature of future income limits the ability of agents to smooth their consumption over time. Variation in this uncertainty can thus bring about variation in well-being. We study the evolutions of the uncertainty on wage income in France before and over the course of the crisis of 2008 drawing on longitudinal administrative data. Using a non‑parametric method, we estimate the magnitude and form of this uncertainty and show that they depend on past wage income. This uncertainty is broken down into wage and working time, and according to the mobility of the wage earners. During the crisis, the magnitude of this uncertainty on future wage income increases slightly, and its downward asymmetry is stronger at both ends of the wage income scale: with this uncertainty, unfavourable evolutions have a bigger impact during the crisis than in the preceding period. This is explained by a heightened probability of unfavourable individual evolutions in terms of working time for the lowest‑paid workers, and in terms of wage for the highest-paid. Mobility is more frequent during the crisis but the uncertainty associated with it is lower than over the preceding years.

Invited contributions

• “Telework and Productivity Three Years After the Start of the Pandemic”. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 539, 91-96, 2023.
  Abstract

  Since March 2020, the COVID‑19 pandemic has caused many companies and employees to turn to telework. The articles by Bergeaud et al. (2023) and Criscuolo et al. (2023) document the effects of telework on productivity in detail and, more broadly, its effects on the behaviour of companies and employees, both before and during the health crisis. This commentary discusses their findings in terms of the uncertain knowledge that was available on the effects of telework before the health crisis, as well as the technical and conceptual difficulties raised by estimating the consequences of telework. Finally, it examines the apparent paradox whereby, despite its positive effects on both the productive efficiency of companies and the working conditions of employees, teleworking remained rare prior to 2020.
  Media coverage

  L'Express.

Working papers

• “Traditional Views, Egalitarian Views, and the Child Penalty: Insights from Immigrant Populations in France”, with D. Meurs.
  Abstract

  This study uses French survey data on immigrants to explore whether the child penalty is driven by traditional gender attitudes. The dataset includes individual perceptions of gender inequality and women's bodily autonomy, alongside fertility histories and labor market trajectories for immigrants living in France during 2019–2020. While women holding more traditional views are less likely to participate in the labor force overall, the child penalty does not appear to be larger for this group. Interestingly, the child penalty accounts for a significantly greater share of the gender gap in labor force participation among those with more egalitarian views. Comparative analyses across immigrants’ upbringing environments and countries of origin further support a causal interpretation of the absence of a relationship between traditional gender attitudes and the child penalty.

• “The Supply of Nursing Labor in French Hospitals: Outflows, Part-Time Work and Motherhood”, previously circulated as “Do Children Explain Nurses Shortages?”, Actes des JMS 2022. in revision Non-technical summary (in French).
  Abstract

  This paper quantifies the supply of nursing labor in French hospitals over the course of hospital nurses careers, using detailed longitudinal payroll tax data matched with birth certificates and census data. Over the first ten years of a career, nursing hours supplied to hospitals decrease by over a third in average. This is mainly driven by hospital nurses no longer holding this kind of jobs, and to a lesser extent by transitions to part-time schedules within hospital nurses jobs. Hospital nurses who leave their jobs mainly turn to other jobs, usually within the healthcare sector, as opposed to non-employment. Having children frequently results in mothers transitioning to part-time schedules within hospital nurses jobs, but not in female hospital nurses turning to others jobs or leaving the workforce as a whole. Without the effect of motherhood, the prevalence of part-time work among hospital nurses would actually be much lower. Finally, hospitals offset nursing hours losses due to hospital nurses outflows, by hiring new nurses; by contrast nursing hours lost to transitions to part-time work are poorly compensated for.
  Media coverage

  20 Minutes, France Info, La Croix, Le Figaro, Les Échos, Libération, Vie publique, TV5Monde

• “Job Displacement, Families and Redistribution”, with R. Lardeux, Actes des JMS 2022.
  Abstract

  We leverage French longitudinal data issued from multiple administrative registers to investigate how job loss affects couple and family structure, spouses' labor supply and lastly all components that combine into household's disposable income. Our difference-in-difference estimates imply close to no effect of these large income and employment shocks on couple formation and dissolution, and fertility decisions. Spouses do not seem to adjust their labor supply in response to their partners' job loss. In the short run, unemployment insurance divides the magnitude of the income shock by a factor 2 to 3. By contrast, it provides very little insurance against the permanent component of the shock against which households are partially insured at best. These results hold regardless of the gender of the laid-off worker.

• “Keep Working and Spend Less? Collective Childcare and Parental Earnings in France” (latest draft). EconomiX Working Paper 2020-29. Non-technical summary (in French).
  Abstract

  I leverage the staggered expansion of subsidized childcare facilities across municipalities in response to a succession of national plans to investigate the effect of collective childcare on parents' labor outcomes and childcare choices in France between 2007 and 2015. These plans did not lead to any substantial change in parents' labor outcomes or in paid parental leave take-up. Instead, these collective childcare expansions crowded out more costly formal childcare solutions, such as childminders or at-home childcare. These crowding-out effects highlight a downside of family policy strategies that foster the coexistence of multiple childcare arrangements.
  Media coverage

  BFMTV, Espace Social Européen, Europe 1, L'Assmat, La Provence, Le Journal des Femmes, Le Figaro, Le Parisien, Les Échos, Les Pros de la Petite Enfance, Maire Info.