New IZA DPs -- Worker Experiences
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IZA DP Alerts
May 26, 2026, 9:09:05 AMMay 26
to it...@umich.edu
New IZA Discussion Papers brought to you by IZA@LISER
Dear Italo Gutierrez,
These new IZA Discussion Papers are now available online.
DP 18504 - Autor/Chin/Salomons/Seegmiller:
What Makes New Work Different from More Work?
DP 18532 - Mahlstedt/Settele/Wohlfart:
Unemployment Narratives
DP 18537 - Hensel/Abebe/Gerard/Caria:
Mitigating the Consequences of Job Loss in Lower-Income Countries: Evidence from Ethiopia
DP 18555 - Bloom/Dahl/Rooth:
Work from Home and Disability Employment
DP 18589 - Ghorpade/Jasmin/Rahman:
Flexibility and Social Protection in the Gig Economy: Experimental Evidence on Work Location and Scheduling
DP 18593 - Biddle/Hamermesh:
The Twenty-four Hour Economy or Rolled-up Sidewalks: Trends in Work Timing and Their Causes
Please find the abstracts and download links below.
IZA DP No. 18504
David Autor, Caroline Chin, Anna Salomons, Bryan Seegmiller:
What Makes New Work Different from More Work?
Abstract:
We study the role of expertise in new work—novel occupational roles that emerge as technological and economic conditions evolve—using newly available 1940 and 1950 Census Complete Count files and confidential American Community Survey data from 2011–2023. We show that new work is systematically distinct from simply more work in existing occupations in four respects. First, it attracts workers with distinct characteristics: new work is disproportionately performed by younger and more educated workers, even within detailed occupation-industry cells. Second, new work commands wage premiums that persist beyond workers’ initial entry into new work, consistent with returns to scarce, specialized expertise rather than temporary market disequilibrium. Third, these premiums decline across vintages as expertise diffuses, with ‘newer’ new work commanding larger premiums. Fourth, the emergence of new work can be traced to regional demand shocks, suggesting that expertise formation respon ds to economic opportunities. These findings suggest that new work is a countervailing force to automation-driven job displacement not merely by creating additional employment, butby generating new domains of human expertise that command market premiums.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18504.pdf
IZA DP No. 18532
Robert Mahlstedt, Sonja Settele, Johannes Wohlfart:
Unemployment Narratives
Abstract:
We study economic narratives--causal accounts of observed events--in a high-stakes real-world context: long-term unemployment. We use open-ended questions to measure narratives about long-term unemployment in samples of Danish unemployed job seekers, firm managers, households from the general population, and experts at labor market institutions, as well as international academic experts. We document three main results. First, there is pronounced heterogeneity in narratives both within and across samples. For instance, job seekers are more likely to attribute long-term unemployment to factors outside the control of the individual and less likely to attribute it to job seekers’ own decisions than respondents in the other samples. Second, narratives strongly reflect job seekers' personal experiences during both the current and previous unemployment spells. Third, narratives shape job seekers' and firm managers' quantitative beliefs, decisions and labor market outcomes as measure d in survey and administrative data, which we demonstrate in a field experiment and correlationally. Our findings highlight the experiential origins of economic narratives and underscore the key role of narratives in belief formation and decision making.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18532.pdf
IZA DP No. 18537
Lukas Hensel, Girum Abebe, Francois Gerard, Stefano Caria:
Mitigating the Consequences of Job Loss in Lower-Income Countries: Evidence from Ethiopia
Abstract:
Job loss is an understudied risk for formal workers in lower-income countries. In these settings, lump-sum severance pay is often the only source of job-loss insurance. We quasi experimentally show that female factory workers in Ethiopia displaced by a tariff hike experience lasting declines in employment and consumption spending, and rising poverty. Experimentally, we find that additional lump-sum support induces early spending and reduces overall and manufacturing employment persistently. Disbursing an equivalent amount in tranches improves consumption smoothing and avoids adverse employment effects. Further, we document a high willingness to pay for additional insurance, alongside heterogeneous preferences over disbursement modality that shape responses to our interventions. These findings imply that increasing job-loss insurance raises welfare, although moving away from the lump-sum default can generate substantial additional gains.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18537.pdf
IZA DP No. 18555
Nicholas Bloom, Gordon B. Dahl, Dan-Olof Rooth:
Work from Home and Disability Employment
Abstract:
There has been a dramatic rise in disability employment since the pandemic. At the same time, work from home (WFH) has risen four-fold. This paper asks whether the two are causally related. Controlling for compositional changes and labor market tightness, a 1 percentage point increase in WFH increases full-time employment by 1.0% for individuals with a physical disability. The postpandemic increase in working from home explains 68%-85% of the rise in full-time employment. Wage data suggests that WFH increased the supply of workers with a physical disability, likely by reducing commuting costs and enabling better control of working conditions.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18555.pdf
IZA DP No. 18589
Yashodhan Ghorpade, Alyssa Jasmin, Amanina Abdur Rahman:
Flexibility and Social Protection in the Gig Economy: Experimental Evidence on Work Location and Scheduling
Abstract:
Debates on gig work often treat flexibility and social protection as substitutes. This paper shows that gig workers value different forms of flexibility differently, and that preferences for flexibility and social protection can be complementary. Using discrete-choice experiments with digital freelancers in Malaysia, with standard workers as a benchmark, we examine preferences for work location and scheduling autonomy. Four findings emerge. First, gig workers strongly value spatial autonomy and are willing to pay to work-from-home. Second, preferences for scheduling flexibility are heterogeneous, with many, including freelancers, preferring fixed schedules. Third, willingness to pay for long-term protection in the form of retirement savings increases with both types of autonomy. Fourth, willingness to pay for unemployment insurance is linked only to work-location flexibility. Gig workers possibly associate remote work, but not flexible hours, with greater employment uncertain ty, and therefore demand stronger protection against unemployment risks. Flexibility and protection can therefore act as complements rather than substitutes in the gig economy.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18589.pdf
IZA DP No. 18593
Jeff E. Biddle, Daniel S. Hamermesh:
The Twenty-four Hour Economy or Rolled-up Sidewalks: Trends in Work Timing and Their Causes
Abstract:
We demonstrate nearly steady trends from 1973-2023 in the U.S. in the timing of when people work for pay, away from evening and night hours toward “usual” daytime hours. Much of the trend is related to increased real incomes, with rising educational attainment, the changing composition of the (declining) manufacturing industry, and the increased wage premium for undesirable work times - evenings and nights - that we document accounting for the rest. The trend exists in all major industries except retail, in which changes in technology biased work away from daytime hours. It was accelerated by the sharp increase in telework that occurred after the Covid pandemic, an increase that was especially concentrated during daytime hours. While we observe the same phenomenon in France from 1966 to 2010, we do not in the U.K. from 1974-2015, arguably because of the very sharp decline in unionization in the U.K. and the changes in retailing.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18593.pdf
These new IZA Discussion Papers are now available online.
DP 18504 - Autor/Chin/Salomons/Seegmiller:
What Makes New Work Different from More Work?
DP 18532 - Mahlstedt/Settele/Wohlfart:
Unemployment Narratives
DP 18537 - Hensel/Abebe/Gerard/Caria:
Mitigating the Consequences of Job Loss in Lower-Income Countries: Evidence from Ethiopia
DP 18555 - Bloom/Dahl/Rooth:
Work from Home and Disability Employment
DP 18589 - Ghorpade/Jasmin/Rahman:
Flexibility and Social Protection in the Gig Economy: Experimental Evidence on Work Location and Scheduling
DP 18593 - Biddle/Hamermesh:
The Twenty-four Hour Economy or Rolled-up Sidewalks: Trends in Work Timing and Their Causes
Please find the abstracts and download links below.
IZA DP No. 18504
David Autor, Caroline Chin, Anna Salomons, Bryan Seegmiller:
What Makes New Work Different from More Work?
Abstract:
We study the role of expertise in new work—novel occupational roles that emerge as technological and economic conditions evolve—using newly available 1940 and 1950 Census Complete Count files and confidential American Community Survey data from 2011–2023. We show that new work is systematically distinct from simply more work in existing occupations in four respects. First, it attracts workers with distinct characteristics: new work is disproportionately performed by younger and more educated workers, even within detailed occupation-industry cells. Second, new work commands wage premiums that persist beyond workers’ initial entry into new work, consistent with returns to scarce, specialized expertise rather than temporary market disequilibrium. Third, these premiums decline across vintages as expertise diffuses, with ‘newer’ new work commanding larger premiums. Fourth, the emergence of new work can be traced to regional demand shocks, suggesting that expertise formation respon ds to economic opportunities. These findings suggest that new work is a countervailing force to automation-driven job displacement not merely by creating additional employment, butby generating new domains of human expertise that command market premiums.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18504.pdf
IZA DP No. 18532
Robert Mahlstedt, Sonja Settele, Johannes Wohlfart:
Unemployment Narratives
Abstract:
We study economic narratives--causal accounts of observed events--in a high-stakes real-world context: long-term unemployment. We use open-ended questions to measure narratives about long-term unemployment in samples of Danish unemployed job seekers, firm managers, households from the general population, and experts at labor market institutions, as well as international academic experts. We document three main results. First, there is pronounced heterogeneity in narratives both within and across samples. For instance, job seekers are more likely to attribute long-term unemployment to factors outside the control of the individual and less likely to attribute it to job seekers’ own decisions than respondents in the other samples. Second, narratives strongly reflect job seekers' personal experiences during both the current and previous unemployment spells. Third, narratives shape job seekers' and firm managers' quantitative beliefs, decisions and labor market outcomes as measure d in survey and administrative data, which we demonstrate in a field experiment and correlationally. Our findings highlight the experiential origins of economic narratives and underscore the key role of narratives in belief formation and decision making.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18532.pdf
IZA DP No. 18537
Lukas Hensel, Girum Abebe, Francois Gerard, Stefano Caria:
Mitigating the Consequences of Job Loss in Lower-Income Countries: Evidence from Ethiopia
Abstract:
Job loss is an understudied risk for formal workers in lower-income countries. In these settings, lump-sum severance pay is often the only source of job-loss insurance. We quasi experimentally show that female factory workers in Ethiopia displaced by a tariff hike experience lasting declines in employment and consumption spending, and rising poverty. Experimentally, we find that additional lump-sum support induces early spending and reduces overall and manufacturing employment persistently. Disbursing an equivalent amount in tranches improves consumption smoothing and avoids adverse employment effects. Further, we document a high willingness to pay for additional insurance, alongside heterogeneous preferences over disbursement modality that shape responses to our interventions. These findings imply that increasing job-loss insurance raises welfare, although moving away from the lump-sum default can generate substantial additional gains.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18537.pdf
IZA DP No. 18555
Nicholas Bloom, Gordon B. Dahl, Dan-Olof Rooth:
Work from Home and Disability Employment
Abstract:
There has been a dramatic rise in disability employment since the pandemic. At the same time, work from home (WFH) has risen four-fold. This paper asks whether the two are causally related. Controlling for compositional changes and labor market tightness, a 1 percentage point increase in WFH increases full-time employment by 1.0% for individuals with a physical disability. The postpandemic increase in working from home explains 68%-85% of the rise in full-time employment. Wage data suggests that WFH increased the supply of workers with a physical disability, likely by reducing commuting costs and enabling better control of working conditions.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18555.pdf
IZA DP No. 18589
Yashodhan Ghorpade, Alyssa Jasmin, Amanina Abdur Rahman:
Flexibility and Social Protection in the Gig Economy: Experimental Evidence on Work Location and Scheduling
Abstract:
Debates on gig work often treat flexibility and social protection as substitutes. This paper shows that gig workers value different forms of flexibility differently, and that preferences for flexibility and social protection can be complementary. Using discrete-choice experiments with digital freelancers in Malaysia, with standard workers as a benchmark, we examine preferences for work location and scheduling autonomy. Four findings emerge. First, gig workers strongly value spatial autonomy and are willing to pay to work-from-home. Second, preferences for scheduling flexibility are heterogeneous, with many, including freelancers, preferring fixed schedules. Third, willingness to pay for long-term protection in the form of retirement savings increases with both types of autonomy. Fourth, willingness to pay for unemployment insurance is linked only to work-location flexibility. Gig workers possibly associate remote work, but not flexible hours, with greater employment uncertain ty, and therefore demand stronger protection against unemployment risks. Flexibility and protection can therefore act as complements rather than substitutes in the gig economy.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18589.pdf
IZA DP No. 18593
Jeff E. Biddle, Daniel S. Hamermesh:
The Twenty-four Hour Economy or Rolled-up Sidewalks: Trends in Work Timing and Their Causes
Abstract:
We demonstrate nearly steady trends from 1973-2023 in the U.S. in the timing of when people work for pay, away from evening and night hours toward “usual” daytime hours. Much of the trend is related to increased real incomes, with rising educational attainment, the changing composition of the (declining) manufacturing industry, and the increased wage premium for undesirable work times - evenings and nights - that we document accounting for the rest. The trend exists in all major industries except retail, in which changes in technology biased work away from daytime hours. It was accelerated by the sharp increase in telework that occurred after the Covid pandemic, an increase that was especially concentrated during daytime hours. While we observe the same phenomenon in France from 1966 to 2010, we do not in the U.K. from 1974-2015, arguably because of the very sharp decline in unionization in the U.K. and the changes in retailing.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18593.pdf
IZA DP Alerts | www.iza.org
If you have trouble downloading the papers, or for any other questions regarding the IZA Discussion Paper Series, please contact iza...@liser.lu.
IZA@LISER Network
Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval
Privacy Policy | Manage your subscriptions
If you have trouble downloading the papers, or for any other questions regarding the IZA Discussion Paper Series, please contact iza...@liser.lu.
IZA@LISER Network
Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval
Privacy Policy | Manage your subscriptions
IZA DP Alerts
May 26, 2026, 9:10:52 AMMay 26
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