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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2018‒05‒28
four papers chosen by Héctor Pifarré i Arolas Max-Planck-Institut für demografische Forschung |
| By: | Albrecht, James (Department of Economics, Georgetown University); Bronson, Mary Ann (Department of Economics, Georgetown University); Skogman Thoursie, Peter (Department of Economics, Stockholm University); Vroman, Susan (Department of Economics, Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use matched worker-firm register data from Sweden to examine the career dynamics of high-skill women and men. Specifically, we track wages for up to 20 years among women and men born in the years 1960 - 70 who completed a university degree in business or economics. These women and men have similar wages and earnings at the start of their careers, but their career paths diverge substantially as they age. These men and women also have substantial differences in wage paths associated with becoming a parent. We look at whether firm effects account for the differences we observe between women's and men's wage profiles. We document differences between the firms where men work and those where women work. However, a wage decomposition suggests that these differences in firm characteristics play only a small role in explaining the gender log wage gap among these workers. We then examine whether gender differences in firm-to-firm mobility help explain the patterns in wages that we see. Men and women both exhibit greater mobility early in their careers, but there is little gender difference in this firm-to-firm mobility. We find that the main driver of the gender difference in log wage profiles are that men experience higher wage gains than women do both as "switchers" and as "stayers". |
| Keywords: | Wages; Earnings; Gender gaps; Firms |
| JEL: | J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2018–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2018_009&r=dem |
| By: | Marion Gousse (Université Laval (Québec)); Nicolas Jacquemet (Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne); Jean-Marc Robin (Département d'économie) |
| Abstract: | We document changes in labour supply, wage and education by gender and marital status using the British Household Panel Survey, 1991-2008, and seek to disentangle the main channels behind these changes. To this end, we use a version of Goussé et al. (2016)'s search-matching model of the marriage market with labour supply, which does not use information on home production time inputs. We derive conditions under which the model is identified. We estimate different parameters for each year. This allows us to quantify how much of the changes in labour supply, wage and education by gender and marital status depends on changes in the preferences for leisure of men and women and how much depends on changes in homophily. |
| Keywords: | Search-matching; Sorting; Assortative matching; Collective labour supply; Structural estimation |
| JEL: | C78 D83 J12 J22 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/660vg58v5k8erajtn9uj2uue81&r=dem |
| By: | Autor, David (MIT); Dorn, David (University of Zurich); Hanson, Gordon H. (University of California, San Diego) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the gender-specific components of large-scale labor demand shocks stemming from rising international manufacturing competition to test how shifts in the relative economic stature of young men versus young women affected marriage, fertility and children's living circumstances during 1990-2014. On average, trade shocks differentially reduce employment and earnings of young adult males. Consistent with Becker's model of household specialization, shocks to male's relative earnings reduce marriage and fertility. Consistent with prominent sociological accounts, these shocks heighten male idleness and premature mortality, and raise the share of mothers who are unwed and the share of children living in below-poverty, single-headed households. |
| Keywords: | import competition, trade flows, single-parent families, household structure, mortality, fertility, marriage market, local labor markets |
| JEL: | F16 J12 J13 J21 J23 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11465&r=dem |
| By: | Alesina, Alberto (Harvard University); Giuliano, Paola (University of California, Los Angeles); Nunn, Nathan (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | We study the historical origins of cross-country differences in the male-to-female sex ratio. Our analysis focuses on the use of the plough in traditional agriculture. In societies that did not use the plough, women tended to participate in agriculture as actively as men. By contrast, in societies that used the plough, men specialized in agricultural work, due to the physical strength needed to pull the plough or control the animal that pulls it. We hypothesize that this difference caused plough-using societies to value boys more than girls. Today, this belief is reflected in male-biased sex ratios, which arise due to sex-selective abortion or infanticide, or gender-differences in access to family resources, which results in higher mortality rates for girls. Testing this hypothesis, we show that descendants of societies that traditionally practiced plough agriculture today have higher average male-to-female sex ratios. We find that this effect systematically increases in magnitude and statistical significance as one looks at older cohorts. Estimates using instrumental variables confirm our findings from multivariate OLS analysis. |
| Keywords: | sex ratio, gender roles, cultural transmission, historical persistence |
| JEL: | J1 N00 Z1 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11463&r=dem |