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New NOVAFRICA Working Paper: Cousins From Overseas: The Labour Market Impact of Half a Million Portuguese Repatriates

A new working paper has been added to the NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series. Written by Lara Bohnet, Susana Peralta, and João Pereira dos Santos this paper investigates the repatriation consequences of the Portuguese Colonial War in 1974.

Title: 
Cousins From Overseas: The Labour Market Impact of Half a Million Portuguese Repatriates

Authors:
Lara Bohnet (Nova School of Business and Economics and NOVAFRICA)
Susana Peralta (Nova School of Business and Economics and (NOVAFRICA)
João Pereira dos Santos (Nova School of Business and Economics)

Abstract:
This paper uses detailed census data to investigate the labour market consequences of a large, exogenous, labour market shock, exploiting the unexpected inflow of repatriates to Portugal following the end of the Portuguese Colonial War in 1974. The labour supply shock entails a composition dimension, as the repatriates were more than twice as likely to have secondary or higher education. We take advantage of the fact that most of the repatriates were Portuguese born to build novel shift-share instrumental variables based on their region of birth. We explore the impact on regional labour force participation, unemployment, employment, and entrepreneurship, for both male and female natives. We find substantial gender differences in the effects, with females absorbing the bulk of the shock. Native workers are driven out of employment as employees, with a sizeable 15% decrease for males and 55% for females. Men compensate for this loss by moving to low quality self-employment, while women move to inactivity. Our results are robust to changing the instrumental variable, the geographical unit of analysis, and to various sample restrictions.

You can find more information here.