The Microdata Access Grant offers financing of research projects using CBS microdata. In the 2022 round of the Call for Proposals for the Microdata Access Grant we have received 29 applications. The reviewers in this round were:
Jennifer Holland, Erik-Jan van Kesteren, Christiaan Monden, Paul Muller, and Bram Wouterse.
The following 7 projects were awarded in the 2022 round of the Microdata Access Grant (in alphabetical order):
Mery Ferrando (Tilburg University), Teodora Tsankova (Tilburg University), Ashley Wong (Northwestern University, USA), Francesca Truffa (Standford University).
Female entrepreneurs: life cycle trajectories and the effect of maternity leave
Women continue to be underrepresented in entrepreneurship and female-owned businesses tend to be smaller, less likely to receive external financing, and are less profitable than male-owned ones. In this project, we plan to leverage the richness of the CBS Microdata and two maternity leave reforms to shed light on the gender gap in entrepreneurship and its determinants. First, we will document new descriptive facts on the gender gap in entrepreneurship, its evolution along the life cycle trajectories of male and female entrepreneurs, and the effect of motherhood on entries and exit from self-employment and firm-level outcomes, such as profits and innovation. Second, we will provide causal evidence on how maternity leave policies can affect the gender gap in entrepreneurship by exploiting two maternity leave reforms in 2004 and 2008 that respectively removed and reinstated public maternity leave insurance for self-employed mothers.
Deni Mazrekaj (Utrecht University), Mark Verhagen (University of Oxford)
Mental Health of Children with Same-Sex Parents
Same-sex parents are likely to face unique stressors due to their sexual orientation, such as negative feedback from family and friends, and a hostile social and legal environment. This added stress of same-sex parents may in turn translate to reduced mental health of their children. Previous literature that compared mental health outcomes of children with same-sex versus different-sex parents relied on small selective samples or cross-sectional parent surveys prone to misreporting, social desirability bias and the inability to separate children who were born in same-sex families from children in previous different-sex relationships. In our proposed study, we address these issues using longitudinal population data from the Netherlands, which was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. Using novel quasi-experimental methods, we compare more than 1,000 children with same-sex parents with over 500,000 children with different-sex parents on the use of antidepressants and mental health care between the ages of 16 and 20. Our results would inform policy makers throughout the world whether children of same-sex parents are doing well in a relatively tolerant country towards gender and sexual minorities, or whether policy measures are necessary to improve their wellbeing.
Jordy Meekes (Leiden University), Max van Lent (Leiden University)
The impact of peers on fathers’ labour supply
Gender gaps in the Dutch labour market remain persistent. An important explanation for this observation is the slow-moving changes in gender norms and culture. Gender norms and culture are changing through peoples’ interactions with peers. So far, research on peer effects on work hours or leave taking has almost exclusively focused on mothers. Using micro-econometric techniques and Dutch administrative microdata from Statistics Netherlands and survey microdata from the LISS panel, this project will answer several important research questions: amongst others, how are fathers’ labour supply decisions affected by their male peers upon receiving children?, and to what extent do peer effects on fathers affect the division of tasks within the household? This research will increase our understanding of the role of peer effects in labour market outcomes, which is crucial for increasing the effectiveness of initiatives to raise public policies and/or awareness that aim to close gender gaps.
K. Maeve Powlick (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Understanding educational pathways of undocumented children in the Netherlands
This project will use sequence analysis using transition-oriented optimal matching to understand the educational pathways of children in the Netherlands with likely undocumented immigration status, comparing their pathways to other immigrant children and non-immigrants. “Likely undocumented children” will be identified as those whose educational records cannot be linked to other register data. While it is estimated that there are between 23,000 and 58,000 people living in the Netherlands with undocumented immigration status, very little is known about the educational experiences of children who fall within this group. Like all children, access to education is a basic human right for these children. By studying the educational pathways of a cohort of children from eindtoets to MBO, HBO, and WO, the study will allow researchers and educators to better understand the unique experiences of undocumented children and provide empirical evidence upon which better educational policy can be made.
Eduard Suari-Andreu (Leiden University), Max van Lent (Leiden University)
The Impact of Health Shocks on Inter-vivos Transfers: Implications for Taxes and Public Transfers
The Dutch tax system redistributes money between citizens via taxes, subsidies, and social programs. An important share of these transfers are from the young (working people) towards the old (retired people). Besides these public transfers, there are also private transfer that redistribute money between generations. We study one important channel that redistributes wealth between generations: inter-vivos transfers (i.e. a gift or transfer made during the lifetime). Inter-vivos transfer are triggered by health shocks, for instance because people expect they will die soon and want to avoid their heirs to pay taxes, because they are altruistic towards their heirs, or as a means of payment for the provision on informal care. In our proposed research we aim to study the impact of parental health shocks on inter-vivos transfers of parents to their children, and the motives for these transfers. This will allow us to draw very relevant implications for the tax and transfer system.
Oskar Veerhoek (Radboud University)
Rising through the Ranks: Firms and Social Mobility
Across the developed world income inequality is on the rise whereas social mobility is in decline. Current generations will likely experience less equality of opportunity than any generation since the Second World War. Many studies of social mobility focus on the transmission of human capital from parents to children, but few consider the role of firms. With recently published CBS microdata files, this project sets out to study the effect of firms on social mobility in the Netherlands. A conceptual model of firm impact on mobility is developed based on insights from sociology and economics. Firms are expected to affect social mobility through a combination of firm pay premia and socioeconomic inclusiveness of hiring and promotion. The results of this study will add to the burgeoning interdisciplinary literature on social mobility. They will also have policy implications for both firms and governments.
Jonas Wogh (Maastricht University), Nils Kok (Maastricht University), Jaap Bos (Maastricht University)
Understanding Price Spreads in the Housing Market
Houses oftentimes sell at a price that differs significantly from the price that it was initially marketed for. This creates frustrating uncertainty for buyers and is at odds with the assumption of an efficient housing market, in which list prices reflect a house’s market value and should therefore be close to the final sale price. We study the spreads between list and sale prices along two dimensions: first, we examine whether the presence of certain house characteristics facilitates overbidding. This helps policymakers better understand price dynamics in the heated Dutch housing market. Second, we study whether ethnic minority buyers pay a price premium in order to obtain access to (certain) properties and neighborhoods. This constitutes the first quantitative analysis of house price discrimination and ethnic segregation in a European context.
Conducting Research with CBS microdata
Statistics Netherlands (CBS) collects a wide range of data for its statistical tasks, many of them microdata at the level of individual persons or organisations. Protection of the confidentiality of the data has the highest priority for CBS. Within strict safety conditions however, universities and other authorized research institutes can get Remote Access to such data to perform statistical analyses for their own scientific or statistical purposes. The microdata themselves remain strictly within a secure environment within CBS. Under applicable conditions researcher can also bring in additional dataset to be linked with CBS microdata. Before aggregate statistical results are exported from the secured environment, CBS will check whether these results do not contain any risk for disclosure of information on individual persons or organisations.
Read more about using microdata within the CBS Remote Access Environment.
Next Microdata Access Grant call
The next round of the Microdata Access Grant is expected to open in the spring of 2023. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive all updates on ODISSEI calls and events.