Joseph Marshan
Assistant Professor (Lecturer) of Business and Economics
Welcome
I am an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) at Monash University Indonesia. Previously, I was a lecturer at the University of Canberra and researcher at SMERU Research Institute. I hold PhD in Economics from Research School of Economics, the Australian National University.
I trained as an applied economist, with research interests spanning labour, trade, gender, and development economics.
Current research
Unlucky and scarred: long-term consequences of labour market entry condition in Indonesia
I exploit the fact that since the Asian Financial Crisis hit in 1997/1998, Indonesia suffered a spike in the unemployment rate that prolonged for almost a decade. I collect and harmonize a long series of Indonesian labour market surveys (SAKERNAS) spanning over 30 years to construct a pseudo-panel cohort of new labour market entrants from 1990 to 2019. Following Kahn (2010) and Oreopoulos et al. (2012), I exploit exogenous temporal variation of the unemployment rate at the national level and province level to test the existence of scarring effects. I find evidence of a scarring effect where a 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate at the year of labour market entrance causes about 15% loss in probability to be employed full-time and about 26% potential monthly income loss. I find women and men share similar burdens in terms of negative employment effects, but larger negative income effects for women.
Land of the (Un)Fair Go? Peer gender norms and gender gaps in the Australian labour market
with Josiah Hickson | TTPI Working Paper Series - currently under major revision
Australian attitudes towards women remain more conservative than in many other OECD countries. We examine the effect of these norms on female labour outcomes and intrahousehold dynamics using a peer effects model and nearly two decades of longitudinal household survey data. Our results indicate that conservative gender norms are costly to individual women and are an important determinant of gender inequality, resulting for women in lower lifetime rates of labour force participation and suppressed lifetime earnings trajectories. Estimated effects are large in magnitude: shifting norms to be one standard deviation more egalitarian would eliminate three-quarters of the gender gap in employment and around two-thirds of the gender pay gap. More egalitarian peer norms are also associated with increased household incomes, a more equitable division of unpaid domestic work, and greater overall life satisfaction.
Intergenerational link in women employment: evidence from Indonesia
I investigate the existence of an intergenerational link between women’s labour supply decisions in Indonesia using rich large-scale longitudinal data known as the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS). I employ a permanent component approach (Chadwick and Solon, 2002; Galassi et al., 2019) to estimate the intergenerational correlation between the mother’s lifetime employment and the daughter’s lifetime employment. I find that a mother’s employment affects her daughter’s employment decision in the future.This intergenerational link coefficient is equivalent to more than two additional years of education. I provide evidence that the role-model effects and occupation-specific human capital transfer are the main plausible mechanism behind the intergenerational correlation. The study highlights the challenges of any efforts to improve the female labour supply given a slowly changing social norms society.
Trade and gendered labor outcomes: evidence from changing export demand in Indonesia
with Ridho Izzati & Donny Pasaribu
We present new evidence on the gendered consequences of trade, specifically examining shifts in foreign demand. We construct panel mean-aggregated local labor market outcomes for women at the provincial level. Our Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) approach suggests that an increase in foreign demand shock has a limited impact on reducing gender gaps and negatively affects total employment and the share of female-dominant sectors. This adverse employment effect is primarily driven by resource-based sectors, typically male-dominant industries. Further investigation reveals that the most affected women workers are characterized as married and low-educated. These results offer crucial insights into trade and women’s empowerment: relying on resource-basedcommodities does little to empower women and trade policies should not solely focus on export activities in their narratives.
Published works
Labour market effects of bushfires and floods in Australia: a gendered perspective
with Josiah Hickson | Economic Records Volume 98, Issue S1 pages 1-25
We study the labour market effects of bushfires and floods within Australia over the past two decades, focusing on gender as a determinant of vulnerability. Whilst floods unambiguously lifted the labour supply of both genders (creating around 13,500 jobs per year), the likelihood of female employment is particularly vulnerable to bushfires – lowering by 1.6 percentage points (or around 5,000 jobs per year). This effect is partially explained by industry sector, with bushfires lifting overall male employment through industries including mining and transport, whilst reducing more female dominated services-sector participation. We also examine intrahousehold dynamics, finding strongevidence for an ‘added worker’ effect.
Maternal Education and Childrenʼs Well-Being: Evidence From Four Pacific Countries
with Dyah Pritadradjati | Asia \& The Pacific Policy Studies
We study the correlational relationship between maternal education and childrenʼs well-being in four Pacific countries. We exploit the richness of the Multiple Indicator Clustering Survey (MICS) dataset to investigate this relationship and its underlying mechanisms. We find that the number of years of schooling attained by mothers is positively correlated with the likelihood of children being overweight and the Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI) score, while it is negatively associated with child stunting. Further investigation reveals that the number of years of schooling attained by mothers indirectly affects these outcomes through better caring practices and the higher likelihood of enrolment in early childhood education (ECE). Our findings suggest that improving access to education for women should be complemented by efforts to disseminate targeted maternal and parenting knowledge and enhance access to ECE to better support childrenʼs well-being.
Contact:
Monash University Indonesia Room 6.48 Green Office 9 Building, Jl. BSD Green Office Park, Sampora, Cisauk, Tangerang Regency, Banten 15345
Email: joseph.marshan@monash.edu
Twitter: @josephmarshan
Linkedin: jmarshan
Google Scholar: Joseph Marshan