Seminar «Marriage as Insurance: Job Protection and Job Insecurity in France»

IZA-HSE University International Labor Seminar was held on December 1, 2020.

Speaker: Andrew Clark (Paris School of Economics and IZA).

Title: Marriage as Insurance: Job Protection and Job Insecurity in France.

Job insecurity is one risk that workers face on the labour market, and individuals can choose to insure against it. We here consider marriage as insurance against labour-market risk. The 1999 rise in the French Delalande tax, paid by large private firms when laying-off workers aged 50 or over, led to exogenously higher job insecurity for the uncovered (younger workers) in the affected firms. A difference-in-differences analysis using French panel data reveals that this greater job insecurity for the under-50s increased their probability of marriage, especially to partners with greater job security, consistent with marriage providing insurance against labour-market risk. Joint work with Conchita D'Ambrosio and Anthony Lepinteur.

Discussant: Markus Gebauer (ICEF HSE).