Research

WORKING PAPERS

When Grandmothers Step In: Grandchild Care and Labor Supply Dynamics (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: In the United States, many older women reduce work when a first grandchild is born. The observed phenomenon is called "grandchild penalty." This paper examines how grandchild care provision shapes grandmothers’ labor supply. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), I find that employment falls by 13 percent and earnings by 25 percent following the birth of a first grandchild. These effects operate mainly through the channel of grandchild care provision. To disentangle whether care provision reflects intrinsic preference or a response to parental childcare needs, I exploit the introduction of California’s Paid Family Leave (CA-PFL) policy, which expanded paid leave for parents with newborns and reduces their reliance on grandparents for childcare. A difference-in-differences design shows that CA-PFL increased grandmothers’ employment by 7 percentage points and lowered their caregiving by 9 percentage points. To interpret these findings, I develop a dynamic life-cycle model that quantifies how grandmothers balance work and caregiving when facing competing incentives from family childcare needs and their own economic security. Counterfactual analysis shows that CA-PFL raises lifetime consumption by 1.4 percent, driven mainly by higher labor market earnings, followed by an increase in Social Security and pension benefits.

REFEREED PUBLICATIONS

Long-term Economic Distress and Growing Educational Inequality in Life Expectancy (with John Bound, Arline Geonimus, Timothy Waidmann, and Vicent Pancini) Epidemiology 36.3 (2025): 287-296. [journal link]

Displaced Workers and the Pandemic Recession (with Angela Guo and Pawel Krolikowski). Economics Letters (2023): 111071. [journal link]

WORK IN PROGRESS

How do Retirement Plan Mandates Affect Labor Supply: Evidence from Microdata (with Adam Bloomfield and Melanie Wallskog)

Abstract: A growing number of states have implemented “auto-IRA” policies, in which firms must either offer an employer-sponsored retirement plan (ESRP) or enroll their employees in state-facilitated Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), to increase workers' retirement savings. We evaluate the labor market implications of these policies using administrative data and the staggered implementation of these policies. For firms not already offering ESRPs beforehand, the introduction of auto-IRA policies generates substantial employment growth, consistent with workers valuing new employer-mediated benefits. This employment growth arises through the retention and hiring of higher-paid workers.

Understanding the Role of Long-term Economic Distress in the Growing Educational Gaps in U.S. Life Expectancy

(with John Bound, Arline Geronimus, Timothy Waidmann)

Synthetic Data Methods for Linked Survey-Administrative Data

(with Margaret Levenstein, Matthew Shapiro, Adam Shumway, Evan Totty, Gerardo Sanz-Maldonado)

Post-College Spatial Job Search and Gender Inequality (with Caitlin Treanor)

FEDERAL RESERVE PUBLICATIONS

Job Loss Consequences and the Pandemic Recession (with Angela Guo and Pawel Krolikowski). Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Economic Commentary (2023).

Featured in Bloomberg, Crain's Cleveland Business

Revisiting Wage Growth after the Recession (with Roberto Pinheiro). Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Economic Commentary (2020).

Using Advance Layoff Notices as a Labor Market Indicator (with Pawel Krolikowski and Kurt G. Lunsford). Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Economic Commentary (2019).

The Evolution of the Labor Share across Developed Countries (with Roberto Pinheiro). Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Economic Commentary (2018).

Wage Growth after the Great Recession (with Roberto Pinheiro). Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Economic Commentary (2017).

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