Speaker: Dr Jason Sockin (IZA Berlin and Cornell University)
Hosted by: University of Liverpool Management School's Economics Group
Open to: Management School PhD students and academic staff, with no sign up needed
Date: Tuesday 16 April 2024
Time: 1-2pm
Place: Mathematical Sciences, Peach Street - MATH-G16
Abstract
Following the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned the federal right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade, hundreds of employers announced policies covering out-of-state travel for abortions and related care.
Leveraging data from Indeed and Glassdoor, we examine the causal impact such announcements had on recruitment and job satisfaction.
Based on job seekers' revealed preferences, we introduce a methodology to uncover, for each announcing firm, a comparison set of competing, non-announcing firms.
For companies that announced, difference-in-differences estimates reveal their vacancies received more interest, particularly in Democratic-leaning states and female-dominated jobs where abortion was outlawed, but satisfaction amongst existing employees fell, particularly in male-dominated jobs.
Smaller companies with less established reputations experienced the largest effects. Our results highlight the complicated trade-off employers face from engaging in sociopolitical speech, in particular how such signals of company culture can attract new workers but alienate current ones.
Speaker
Jason Sockin joined IZA as a Postdoctoral Scholar in June 2023. He obtained his PhD in economics at the University of Pennsylvania and recently worked as a labor economist for the U.S. Treasury.
Before attending graduate school, Jason worked as a junior researcher at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. During graduate school, he spent his summers as a researcher for the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Glassdoor, and Penn Wharton Budget Model.
Jason’s research centers on better understanding how the Internet and technology have fundamentally altered the ways in which workers and firms interact in today’s labor market.
His work often incorporates novel data from online labor market platforms and has focused on such topics as job amenities, firm reputation, employee bonuses, non-disclosure agreements, and college graduate quality.
His research has been published in the Journal of Political Economy, the American Economic Review, and the Journal of Labor Economics.
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