Essays in applied labor economics: causal inference on gender, time allocation, and adult children fertility at the retirement threshold

Chapter one Gender differences in time allocation after retirement: a regression discontinuity approach Abstract The rise in women’s participation in the labour market has resulted in only a minor shift in the division of household labour, with (working) women predominantly bearing the responsibility for housework. This paper focuses on whether we should expect a rebalancing or a reinforcement of gender disparities in time allocation after retirement. We employ a fuzzy regression discontinuity design (RDD) to Italian data, using retirement eligibility as an exogenous instrument for retirement status, to identify the causal effect of retirement on time allocation for men and women. Our results show a strong first stage, indicating substantial compliance with retirement rules for both men and women. For men,retirement mainly reduces paid work and total work, with leisure emerging as an important margin of time reallocation. For women, by contrast, retirement is associated with a reduction in unpaid work and an increase in leisure time, pointing to a rebalancing of post-retirement time use across genders. This represents a novel and particularly intriguing finding for women, with potentially important policy implications. Chapter two rdlasso: Regression Discontinuity with High-Dimensional Data Abstract We present a command, rdlasso, which allows the inclusion of high-dimensional covariates in Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) settings. This command is based on the paper “Inference in Regression Discontinuity Designs with High-Dimensional Covariates” by Kreiss and Rothe (2023). The command automates covariate selection via Lasso-based procedures, supports both sharp and fuzzy settings and integrates seamlessly with rdrobust for bandwidth selection and inference. The implementation relies on a Python backend to perform the high-dimensional model selection, making the methodology accessible to Stata users and computationally feasible for applied researcher. Chapter three Grandparental Retirement and the Fertility Decisions of Adult Children: Evidence from Europe Abstract This paper estimates the causal effect of grandparental retirement on the fertility of their adult children in a pan-European context. To test the generalizability of this relationship across nations with different welfare systems, we employ a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD). Using panel data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), our identification strategy exploits the exogenous and discontinuous variation in the probability of retirement at statutory pension eligibility ages. Our findings confirm a strong and statistically significant first stage across all countries, indicating that eligibility substantially increases the likelihood of retirement. However, in contrast to previous single-country studies, we do not find evidence of a positive immediate fertility response following parental retirement. The short-term effects at t+1 are generally null or negative, while medium-term estimates at t+2 and t+3 reveal persistent negative fertility responses, particularly in Mediterranean and Eastern European countries. The results suggest that the negative income effect associated with retirement dominates the positive time effect generated by increased grandparental childcare availability. Additional evidence from pre-treatment periods highlights substantial forward-looking behaviour, indicating that adult children strategically adjust fertility timing in anticipation of parental retirement. Overall, the findings reveal that the demographic consequences of retirement critically depend on welfare regimes, intergenerational financial dependence, and the structure of family support systems.