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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Tuccio, Michele (University of Southampton); Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton) |
| Abstract: | Does international return migration transfer gender norms? Focusing on Jordan, an Arab country where discrimination against women and emigration rates are high, this paper exploits unique data in which detailed information on female empowerment allows us to construct several measures of discriminatory social norms in Jordan on the role of women, female freedom of mobility, and female decision-making power. Controlling for both emigration and return migration selections, we find that women with a returnee family member are more likely to have internalized discriminatory gender norms than women in households with no migration experience. Further analysis shows that results are driven by returnees from conservative Arab countries, suggesting a transfer of negative norms from highly discriminatory destinations. We also show the implications of our results beyond perceptions for several economic and development outcomes, such as female labour force participation, education and fertility. |
| Keywords: | international return migration, gender inequality, transfer of norms |
| JEL: | F22 J16 O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9216&r=dem |
| By: | Joanna Tyrowicz (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw; National Bank of Poland); Lucas van der Velde (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Irene van Staveren (Erasmus University) |
| Abstract: | Given theoretical premises, there is some ground to expect the gender wage gap adjusted for individual characteristics to be age specific. We rely on a long panel of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel covering the 1984-2008 period. We employ the DiNardo et al. (1996) technique to disentangle cohort and age effects. Our results indicate that the gender wage gap increases over the lifetime, but decreases with time. This finding runs contrary to the hypothesis that it is during the reproductive age that women's wages relative to men's wages suffer most. We suggest explanations for this pattern. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, age, decomposition, non-parametric estimates |
| JEL: | J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2015-29&r=dem |
| By: | Mario Macis (Johns Hopkins University); Fabiano Schivardi (Bocconi University); Andrea Moro (Vanderbilt University and Universita Ca' Foscari di Venezia); Luca Flabbi (IDB) |
| Abstract: | We analyze a matched employer-employee panel data set and find that female leadership has a positive effect on female wages at the top of the distribution, and a negative one at the bottom. Moreover, performance in firms with female leadership increases with the share of female workers. This evidence is consistent with a model where female executives are better equipped at interpreting signals of productivity from female workers. This suggests substantial costs of under-representation of women at the top: for example, if women became CEOs of firms with at least 20% female employment, sales per worker would increase 6.7%. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed015:392&r=dem |
| By: | Diva Dhar; Tarun Jain; Seema Jayachandran |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of gender attitudes in India, a setting where discrimination against women and girls is severe. We use survey data on gender attitudes (specifically, views about the appropriate roles and rights of women and girls) collected from adolescents attending 314 schools in the state of Haryana, and their parents. We find that when a parent holds a more discriminatory attitude, his or her child is about 15 to 20 percentage points more likely to hold the view. As a benchmark, classmates' average gender attitudes have a similar effect size. We find that mothers influence children's gender attitudes more than fathers do. Parental attitudes also affect their children's aspirations; girls with more discriminatory parents are less likely to want to continue their schooling beyond high school. |
| JEL: | J16 O1 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21429&r=dem |
| By: | Rowena Crawford (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Andrew Hood (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of inheritances and gifts received on the distribution of wealth among older households in England, and the implications for inequality in lifetime incomes. Whereas previous work has looked only at marketable wealth, we consider broader measures including public and private pensions. We find that once pension wealth is included, inheritances and gifts no longer have an equalising impact on the distribution of wealth. Without pension wealth, including transfers takes the wealth share of the top 10% from 40% to 38%; with pension wealth, the impact is near zero. This has important implications for the impact of inheritances and gifts on the distribution of lifetime incomes. Exploiting a link with administrative data on lifetime earnings, we show that savings rates are significantly increasing in lifetime incomes when pension wealth is excluded, but less so when it is included. Our results thus indicate that the impact of intergenerational transfers on the distribution of lifetime incomes among these individuals is likely to be negligible or inequality-increasing, rather than inequality-reducing. |
| Keywords: | Wealth, wealth transfers, inheritance, lifetime income, inequality |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:15/14&r=dem |
| By: | Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia (University of Cambridge); Domingo Gallego (University of Zaragoza) |
| Abstract: | Drawing on a large dataset at the district level for mid-19th century Spain, this article shows not only that average (male-to-female) infant and childhood sex ratios were relatively high, but also that some regions experienced extremely high figures, thus pointing to some sort of excess female mortality. The analysis also suggests that economic deprivation was likely to trigger gender discrimination towards newborn and/or young girls. Although less conclusive, there is also evidence that certain social and cultural contexts could have also mitigated this behaviour. |
| Date: | 2015–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:23&r=dem |
| By: | Li, Wenchao (National University of Singapore); Yi, Junjian (National University of Singapore) |
| Abstract: | This paper first finds a clear pattern of child gender difference in family migration in China. Specifically, our estimates show that on average, the first child being a son increases the father's migration probability by 25.2 percent. We hypothesize that the family's competitive earning incentive for sons drives this child gender effect on family migration: parents migrate to earn more money in an attempt to improve their sons' relative standing in response to the ever-rising pressure in China's marriage market. This competitive-earning-incentive hypothesis is then supported by additional empirical evidence. We further find that, facing heavier financial pressure from the marriage market, parents spend less on their sons' education and more on marriage and buying houses and durable goods. This gender difference in resource allocation, together with the absentee-father problem resulting from paternal migration, may unexpectedly adversely affect boys' long-run human capital development in China. |
| Keywords: | competitive earning incentive, sex ratio, migration |
| JEL: | J11 J13 O15 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9214&r=dem |