This paper examines the determinants of female labour force participation in OECD countries, including a number of policy instruments such as the tax treatment of second earners (relative to single individuals), childcare subsidies, child benefits, paid maternity and parental leaves, and tax...

Women have contributed a great deal to Ireland's economic growth, including by joining the labour force in large numbers. The rise in female participation since 1990 has been amongst the strongest in the OECD, but from a low base. Female participation rates remain below the OECD average for all...

Income inequality in Colombia has declined since the early 2000s but remains very high by international standards. While most of the inequality originates from the labour market, wealth – and thus capital income – is also highly concentrated and the tax and transfer system has little...

This paper provides, for all OECD countries, an estimate of the net tax cost per currency unit of contribution to a tax-favoured retirement savings plan, using a present-value methodology. The latter takes into account the future flows of revenues foregone on accrued income and of revenues...

Hungarian family policy focuses on providing generous options to take time off work to look after children. This system not only contributes to Hungary’s low employment rate but encourages long separation from the labour market, has largely failed to significantly influence fertility rates and...

Poor labour-market outcomes remain one of Poland’s major structural weaknesses, impeding firms’ competitiveness and the nation’s potential output. Boosting employment prospects is also critical, as the country will soon be ageing at a fast pace. Despite long working hours, labour...

Extensive structural reforms since the early 1990s have strengthened the resilience of the Swedish economy to shocks. However, more needs to be done to better manage near-term risks and ensure that growth remains sustainable in the longer run. Reforming the housing market would reduce the risks...

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the effects of structural policies on household disposable incomes at different income levels. More specifically, it investigates the extent to which structural policies have differential long-run impacts on GDP per capita and on household incomes at...

Under the Universal Credit reform, the main means-tested benefits except the Council Tax Benefit will be pooled into one single benefit with one single taper rate. The reform will give people better incentives to work, reduce complexity and contribute to reducing poverty. The reform could reduce...

This paper breaks new ground by providing comparable estimates of intergenerational wage and education persistence across 14 European OECD countries based on a new micro data from Eurostat. A further novelty is that it examines the potential role of public policies and labour and product market...