The unequal effect of pollution exposure on labour supply across gender - Economics Seminar

Event Date: 9 November 2022

Speaker: Dr. Hector Gutierrez Rufrancos, Lecturer in Economics, University of Stirling

Time: 4-5:15pm

Location: Please contact Rachel Hill (r.hill@strath.ac.uk) for Zoom details

Abstract: "This paper studies the effects of air pollution on labour supply by merging information on hours worked by millions of people living in Mexico City with detailed pollution data over the period 2005 to 2010. When pollution exceeds particular thresholds Mexico City activates the ''Environmental Contingency Program'' tiers to a Pre-contingency or a more severe Contingency level. We exploit these thresholds and adopt a regression discontinuity design to document a reduction in the hours worked when a (pre)contingency is called. We then study how daily working hours evolve around a (pre)contingency and shows how labour supply responds before and after its activation. Further, we supplement this evidence with information on pollution from measurement stations across the city. We link this data with a labour force survey that is representative survey at city level and explore the effects of exposure of pollution at PM2.5. We find evidence that contemporaneous pollution exposure at moderate levels reduce labour supply, whilst there are dramatic reductions at high levels of pollution with heterogeneous effects by formality status. Moreover, pollution seems to decrease working hours even in non-emergency times with differential effects by gender. There is an unequal gendered labour response when exposed to pollution and this effect is heterogeneous across employment type. Where most female and make formal workers are able to reduce their hours of work, informal female workers may have no escape options. Female informal workers have the highest increase in minutes of work during the peak pollution days. We inspect lags pollution exposure to corroborate our findings with respect to a delayed response to the exposure event."

Published: 8 November 2022