Career progression, women in labour markets and policy

I am Associate Professor at NHH and during the academic year 2013/2014 I am on leave from NHH. I have been invited to spend the entire year at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn. See for the invitation letter in the attachment. I hereby ap ply for funding for the period of six months to cover additional costs that I have to cover in relation to the research visit to Germany, including housing and moving costs, and other travel costs. During this period I will work on comparative empirical r esearch on Norwegian and German data, and labour market topics with a focus on women in the labour market and family policy. Project 1: Human capital and career progression within the firm Human capital is the key resource in knowledge-intensive economie s such as Germany and Norway. Understanding how to maintain and improve the human capital base through on-the-job training, among others, is hence a crucial task and continuing challenge for firms and governments.The overarching goal of our proposed resea rch project is to use the concept of task-specific skills to understand the role of human capital for careers and wage dynamics inside firms, gender differences in Norway and differences in career progression between the Norwegian and German labour market . Project 2: The cash-for-care reform and labour market effects The introduction of cash-for care (Betreuungsgeld) makes parents eligible for benefits if they do not use public funded child care for the 1 to 2 (or 3) year old child. The CDU-CSU coalitio n in Germany has planned to introduce cash-for-care in Germany after the election. This policy was introduced in Norway in 1998 and in Finland. It is quite controversial with respect to benefits and costs, and this project contributes further evdience on the evaluation of the labour market effects and effects on child outcomes.