Sevin Kaytan

Sevin Kaytan

PhD candidate in Economics

CEMFI

Welcome!

I’m a PhD student in Economics at CEMFI and I work on labor economics. My research investigates how early-life interventions and social norms shape human capital and reproductive health using quasi-experimental tools.

I am on the 2025/26 job market.

Working Papers

The Long-term Effects of After-school Care
(Job Market Paper)
I investigate the long-term effects of after-school childcare on children’s human capital investment. I study a 2007 Dutch reform that expanded childcare subsidies to increase maternal employment, and build a 20-year panel with administrative data to track cohorts from childhood through adulthood. Exploiting cohort exposure and subsidy changes, I show that while maternal employment did not change, after-school care use increased, raising children’s university graduation rates by 8%.I find that this impact results from changing beliefs and preferences rather than cognitive skills, as math scores remain unchanged. The impact is strongest among students facing the highest university access costs, particularly girls from low-educated families. Survey data explains why: the reform normalized mothers using childcare to work, increasing expected returns from university for girls. I show that the reform increased exposure to peers from high-SES families in after-school care centers, potentially driving these changes.
The Complementary Role of Information and Contraceptive Access in Teen Pregnancy
with Stwarth Piedra Bonilla and Tom Zohar
(R&R at Journal of Development Economics)
This paper investigates how information frictions affect the efficacy of contraception provision programs. We study a Costa-Rican initiative that aimed at reducing teenage pregnancies. The program combined free access to long-acting reversible contraceptives, eliciting baseline misperceptions about sexual health, and a tailored information campaign to correct for them. Exploiting the geographic variation in the initiative combined with administrative birth data, we find a 16% decrease in teen birth-rate. Using survey data on sexual behavior and beliefs, we show the policy changed the source of information from personal networks to healthcare professionals, which amends misinformation on sexual health and contraception use. The reduction in teen-birth is stronger in conservative districts, where restrictive social norms can explain teenagers' lower knowledge about sexual health, contributing to risky behaviors.

Work in Progress

Downstream effects of Prostitution
This paper examines whether young women who previously worked as sex workers face long-term penalties in the labor and marriage markets due to social stigma associated with prostitution. We provide a stylized model that conceptualizes sex-work entry decisions and their implications for labor market and marriage market outcomes, then test these theoretical predictions using Dutch administrative data.
Does Childcare Matter?
This paper investigates the labor market effects of employer-provided childcare. Using dual-sided randomized controlled trials with workers and employers, I study how childcare benefits affect worker valuations and employment decisions, as well as firm willingness to provide these benefits.
Expected Fertility Penalty
This paper suggests a new channel for the gender pay gap - an expected fertility penalty for young women in prime-childbearing ages. Using a quasi-experimental approach, I exploit variation in the share of coworkers who gave birth in the year prior to hiring and examine effects on initial wage offers for women hired. I find that non-mother women in prime childbearing years receive lower wage offers when joining firms where more coworkers recently gave birth. The expected fertility penalty is larger in small firms where workplace productivity losses from births are more salient. Results demonstrate women face wage penalties not only for actual childbearing but for fertility expectations based on recent workplace experiences with maternity leave.

Teaching

CEMFI
Labor Economics (graduate course) | 2023, 2024
TA for Tom Zohar | Teaching Assistant of the year award (2023)

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