Working Papers

The WNE Working Papers series has been published by the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw since 2008.

The WNE Working Papers series provides a fast, open channel for disseminating research conducted at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. The papers hosted here are working versions (pre-prints) and may evolve as authors refine their analyses, incorporate feedback, or progress through formal peer-review. What you read is the current version released by the authors, timestamped and assigned DOI/ISSN identifiers to ensure precise citation and version tracking. Copyright remains with the authors, who may, at any time, upload a revised file or add a note directing readers to a later, peer-reviewed publication.

The Working Papers series accepts articles by research employees of the Faculty and publications from conferences organised at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Articles should be original research papers which have not been previously published, on the subject of economics.

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Number of Results 19

WP(36/2026)530. Work-from-Home as a Structural Bridge: How the Spread of Remote Work Shapes Maternal Employment in Europe

Authors: Grabowska Magdalena, Matysiak Anna, Kurowska Anna
The rapid diffusion of work-from-home (WFH) has fundamentally restructured working arrangements in Europe, yet its role as a structural driver of parental employment remains under-researched. Analyzing macro-level panel data across 15 European countr…

WP530. Work-from-Home as a Structural Bridge: How the Spread of Remote Work Shapes Maternal Employment in Europe

The rapid diffusion of work-from-home (WFH) has fundamentally restructured working arrangements in Europe, yet its role as a structural driver of parental employment remains under-researched. Analyzing macro-level panel data across 15 European countries (2006–2024) alongside micro-level maternal transitions, we examine WFH's impact on employment for parents of young children. We find that national WFH prevalence is positively and significantly associated with maternal employment, while no effects are observed for fathers or non-parents. A 10-percentage point increase in national WFH share increases maternal employment rates by 0.86 percentage points the following year and raises a mother’s probability of transitioning from non-employment to work by 4.7 percentage points. However, WFH primarily facilitates part-time employment, acting as a reconciliatory bridge rather than a catalyst for full-time integration. Ultimately, while remote work enhances labor market attachment, without broader structural changes to domestic labor divisions, it risks prioritizing work-family reconciliation over full career equality.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2026.36.530
Grabowska Magdalena, Matysiak Anna, Kurowska Anna
work-from-home maternal employment labor market transitions work-family reconciliation

WP(24/2026)518. The impact of public transport accessibility on the Polish labour market – an econometric approach

Authors: Pakier Grzegorz, Zabarina Kateryna
This paper uses geographically weighted regression to examine the impact of transport accessibility on the registered unemployment rate. It utilises a transport accessibility index that was previously developed for municipalities in Poland. Analysis …

WP518. The impact of public transport accessibility on the Polish labour market – an econometric approach

This paper uses geographically weighted regression to examine the impact of transport accessibility on the registered unemployment rate. It utilises a transport accessibility index that was previously developed for municipalities in Poland. Analysis of three econometric models revealed that transport accessibility has a significant negative impact on the unemployment rate, which varies across the regions studied. The model using the average transport accessibility of municipalities within a given county showed a stronger relationship with the unemployment rate. This suggests that accessibility at the county level is more important than local accessibility. Furthermore, it was found that the type of municipality had no impact on the strength or direction of the examined relationship. The research confirms that public transport availability significantly influences unemployment levels in Poland, with considerable spatial variation in this relationship. The results emphasise the importance of considering the regional context of transport accessibility when devising anti-unemployment policies.


Pakier Grzegorz, Zabarina Kateryna
transport accessibility unemployment rate geographically weighted regression transport exclusion spatial mismatch

WP(27/2025)490. Employers’ Discrimination against Fathers and Mothers Taking Parental Leave: Evidence from a Choice Experiment

Authors: Cukrowska-Torzewska Ewa, Matysiak Anna, Kasperska Agnieszka, Kaufman Gayle
This study provides causal evidence on the hiring and pay penalties associated with taking parental leave of varying lengths. We investigate how deviations from prevailing social norms, in the form of non-standard leave-taking behavior by mothers and…

WP490. Employers’ Discrimination against Fathers and Mothers Taking Parental Leave: Evidence from a Choice Experiment

This study provides causal evidence on the hiring and pay penalties associated with taking parental leave of varying lengths. We investigate how deviations from prevailing social norms, in the form of non-standard leave-taking behavior by mothers and fathers, affect their employment outcomes. We also compare the parental leave penalties with those linked to unemployment to disentangle the determinants of these penalties and to identify the mechanisms through which they operate. To this end, we conducted a discrete choice experiment with 997 managers, who evaluated hypothetical job candidates differing in the length of employment interruptions due to parental leave. Using a conditional logit model, we find that both mothers and fathers face disadvantages in hiring and remuneration when taking longer parental leave. Notably, fathers are penalized for taking any parental leave, though the penalties are more severe for longer leave. These poorer employability prospects stem from managers perceiving such fathers as less available for work. Meanwhile, mothers receive hiring and pay bonuses for taking shorter leaves, stemming from employer perceptions of such mothers as more available, competent, and motivated.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2025.27.490
Cukrowska-Torzewska Ewa, Matysiak Anna, Kasperska Agnieszka, Kaufman Gayle
parental leave family policies employment wages gender norms ideal worker norms

WP(9/2025)472. The End of an Era. The Vanishing Negative Effect of Women’s Employment on Fertility

Authors: Matysiak Anna, Daniele Vignoli
This paper addresses whether women’s employment in the 21st century remains a barrier to family formation, as it was in the 1980s and 1990s, or—similar to men’s—it has become a prerequisite for childbearing. We address this qu…

WP472. The End of an Era. The Vanishing Negative Effect of Women’s Employment on Fertility

This paper addresses whether women’s employment in the 21st century remains a barrier to family formation, as it was in the 1980s and 1990s, or—similar to men’s—it has become a prerequisite for childbearing. We address this question through a systematic quantitative review (meta-analysis) of empirical studies conducted in Europe, North America and Australia. We selected 94 studies published between 1990-2023 (N=572 effect sizes). Our analysis uncovers a fundamental shift in the relationship between women's employment and fertility. What was once a strongly negative association has become statistically insignificant in the 2000s and 2010s—and even turned positive in the Nordic countries and parts of Western Europe (France, Belgium, and the Netherlands). This shift is evident both among childless women and mothers and has occurred across all analyzed country clusters, except in the German/Southern European group, where the relationship has remained negative. These findings challenge longstanding assumptions about work-family trade-offs and suggest a reconfiguration of the economic and social conditions underpinning fertility decisions in contemporary high-income societies. The paper calls for a reconceptualization of the employment-fertility relationship and development of a new theoretical framework that better captures these evolving dynamics in contemporary high-income societies.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2025.9.472
Matysiak Anna, Daniele Vignoli
Women’s employment Fertility High-income countries Meta-analysis

WP(21/2024)457. The Impact of Mobile Phones on Change in Employment Status in South Africa

Authors: Grzybowski Łukasz, Zubair Maghmood Patel
In this paper we analyse whether having a mobile phone impacts chances of getting employed. We use five waves of panel data from the National Income Dynamic Survey (NIDS), which was conducted in South Africa between years 2008 and 2017. In the estima…

WP457. The Impact of Mobile Phones on Change in Employment Status in South Africa

In this paper we analyse whether having a mobile phone impacts chances of getting employed. We use five waves of panel data from the National Income Dynamic Survey (NIDS), which was conducted in South Africa between years 2008 and 2017. In the estimation we include a vector of observable individual and household characteristics and account for unobserved heterogeneity amongst individuals. The estimation results suggest that mobile phone ownership has a positive impact on the change in employment status from unemployed to employed. On the other hand, ownership of a computer by a household and computer literacy do not increase the likelihood of getting employed. The average probability of becoming employed increases from 54.2% when no one among unemployed adults has a mobile phone to 57.4% when all of them have a mobile phone, which is an increase of 5.9%.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2024.21.457
Grzybowski Łukasz, Zubair Maghmood Patel
Mobile phones Employment NIDS South Africa

WP(24/2023)431. Two possible reasons behind the reluctance of low-skilled workers to migrate to generous welfare states

Authors: Byra Łukasz
This paper provides two possible explanations for the mixed evidence regarding migration by low-skilled workers to generous welfare states. Using a model of unrestricted migration to a developed, destination country, which provides a direct and equal…

WP431. Two possible reasons behind the reluctance of low-skilled workers to migrate to generous welfare states

This paper provides two possible explanations for the mixed evidence regarding migration by low-skilled workers to generous welfare states. Using a model of unrestricted migration to a developed, destination country, which provides a direct and equal social benefit to all its residents, we study the impact of the benefit in a country on the size of its low-skilled immigrant population under the assumption that migration is driven by an international difference in returns to skills, employment opportunities in the destination country, and by the generosity of the benefit in that country. We find that the social benefit affects the size of the country’s low-skilled immigrant population not only directly, via the difference between the benefit and its cost in the form of taxation, but also via two indirect channels. The benefit incentivizes taking up low-skilled jobs among the destination country’s native residents, which adversely affects wages of low-skilled workers in that country, and it increases the risk of unemployment of low-skilled workers therein. Prospective low-skilled migrants view these side effects of the benefit as “stay away” factors. Simulation of the model based on 2018 data for EU-15 economies without Luxembourg highlights the importance of indirect channels in curtailing the inflow of low-skilled migrants to a generous welfare state. When only direct channels are accounted for, semi-elasticities of the size of the low-skilled immigrant population with respect to the social benefit are between 0.2 and 0.54. When indirect channels are allowed to play their roles, the positive relationship between the social benefit and low-skilled immigration is significantly reduced; the semi-elasticities range from 0.13 to 0.4. At the level of the model’s fundamentals, the variation in semi-elasticities between EU-15 countries is largely explained by differences in the size of the welfare state and in efficiency of the labor market across these countries.


Byra Łukasz
Welfare migration Migration by low-skilled workers Skill formation in a destination country Unemployment in a destination country

WP(26/2022)402. Industrial robots and fertility in European countries

Authors: Matysiak Anna, Bellani Daniela, Bogusz Honorata
In this study we examine whether the long-term structural changes in the labour market, driven by automation, affect fertility. Adoption of industrial robots in the EU has tripled since the mid-1990s, tremendously changing the conditions of participa…

WP402. Industrial robots and fertility in European countries

In this study we examine whether the long-term structural changes in the labour market, driven by automation, affect fertility. Adoption of industrial robots in the EU has tripled since the mid-1990s, tremendously changing the conditions of participating in the labour market. On the one hand, new jobs are created, benefitting largely the highly skilled workers. On the other hand, the growing turnover in the labour market and changing content of jobs induce fears of job displacement and make workers continuously adjust to new requirements (reskill, upskill, increase work efforts). The consequences of these changes are particularly strong for the employment and earning prospects of the low and middle educated workers. Our focus is on six European countries: Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. We link regional data on fertility and employment structures by industry from Eurostat (NUTS-2) with data on robot adoption from the International Federation of Robotics. We estimate fixed effects linear models with instrumental variables in order to account for the external shocks which may affect fertility and robot adoption in parallel. Our findings suggest robots tend to exert a negative impact on fertility in highly industrialised regions, regions with relatively low educated populations and those which are technologically less advanced. At the same time, better educated and prospering regions may even experience fertility improvements as a result of the technological change. The family and labour market institutions of the country may further moderate these effects.


Matysiak Anna, Bellani Daniela, Bogusz Honorata
fertility employment industrial robots technological change Europe

WP(18/2022)394. Heterogeneous employment effects of minimum wage policies

Authors: Majchrowska Aleksandra, Strawiński Paweł
We explain the variations in the employment effects with respect to minimum wage changes among different groups of workers. Prior analyses considered only two dimensions, investigating employment effects over time across groups of workers or regions.…

WP394. Heterogeneous employment effects of minimum wage policies

We explain the variations in the employment effects with respect to minimum wage changes among different groups of workers. Prior analyses considered only two dimensions, investigating employment effects over time across groups of workers or regions. We propose a multidimensional panel data approach to simultaneously analyze the heterogeneous employment effects of minimum wage changes across age groups, economic sectors, and regions over time. Latent heterogeneities in regional employment reactions are discovered, indicating that the employment effect in the regional labor market is the result of a combination of specific labor market features related to the composition of workers and employers.


Majchrowska Aleksandra, Strawiński Paweł
Employment elasticity minimum wage regional labor markets latent heterogeneities intra-regional differences Poland

WP(16/2018)275. What accounts for the rise of low self-rated health during the recent economic crisis in Europe?

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
This study examines how different economic mechanisms affected low self-rated health (SRH) in Europe over the recent crisis period (2008−2011). We use balanced panel data for covering 26 European countries and 43 456 participants coming from th…

WP275. What accounts for the rise of low self-rated health during the recent economic crisis in Europe?

This study examines how different economic mechanisms affected low self-rated health (SRH) in Europe over the recent crisis period (2008−2011). We use balanced panel data for covering 26 European countries and 43 456 participants coming from the longitudinal 2011 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) database. Over-time increases in low SRH incidence are decomposed into the contributions of changes in the distribution of covariates and changes in returns to the covariates. Results show that low SRH incidence increased in Europe during the crisis by almost 2 percentage points (3.7 percentage points in case of the Baltic countries). Decomposition analysis shows that: 1) decreasing household incomes and changing income distribution had no impact on low SRH incidence, 2) rise of material deprivation accounts for 12% of the overall growth in low SRH rates (27% for the Baltic countries), 3) decreasing levels of full-time and part-time employment as well as transitions to unemployment, economic inactivity, disability, or retirement account jointly for about 21% of the rise in low SRH in Europe (73% for Baltic countries).


DOI: https://doi.org.10.26405/WP/WNE/2018/275/016
Brzeziński Michał
self-rated health economic crisis decomposition Oaxaca-Blinder unemployment material deprivation

WP(11/2015)159. Productivity and Inequality Effects of Rapid Labor Reallocation – Insights from a Meta-Analysis of Studies on Transition

Authors: Svejnar Jan, Tyrowicz Joanna, van der Velde Lucas Augusto
From a theoretical perspective the link between the speed and scope of rapid labor reallocation and productivity growth or inequalities remains unclear. Do reallocations with more flows tend to produce higher productivity growth? Does such link appea…

WP159. Productivity and Inequality Effects of Rapid Labor Reallocation – Insights from a Meta-Analysis of Studies on Transition

From a theoretical perspective the link between the speed and scope of rapid labor reallocation and productivity growth or inequalities remains unclear. Do reallocations with more flows tend to produce higher productivity growth? Does such link appear at the expense of higher inequalities? We explore the rich evidence from earlier studies on worker flows in the period of massive and rapid labor reallocation, i.e. the economic transition from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy in Central and Eastern Europe. We apply the tools typical for a meta-analysis to verify the empirical regularities between labor flows and productivity growth as well as inequalities. We collected over 450 estimates of job flows from the literature and use these inputs to estimate the short-run and long-run relationship between job flows, labor productivity and inequalities. Our findings suggest relatively weak and short term links with productivity for job destruction/separations. On the other hand, data reveal a strong pattern for inequalities more churning during reallocation is associated with a permanent level efect towards increased Gini indexes.


Svejnar Jan, Tyrowicz Joanna, van der Velde Lucas Augusto
transition job creation job destruction worker flows unemployment
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