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on Gender |
| By: | Delaney, Judith; Devereux, Paul J. |
| Abstract: | While education levels of women have increased dramatically relative to men, women are still greatly underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) college programmes. We use unique data on preference rankings for all secondary school students who apply for college in Ireland and detailed information on school subjects and grades to decompose the sources of the gender gap in STEM. We find that, of the 22 percentage points raw gap, about 13 percentage points is explained by differential subject choices and grades in secondary school. Subject choices are more important than grades -- we estimate male comparative advantage in STEM (as measured by subject grades) explains about 3 percentage points of the gender gap. Additionally, differences in overall achievement between girls and boys have a negligible effect. Strikingly, there remains a gender gap of 9 percentage points even for persons who have identical preparation at the end of secondary schooling (in terms of both subjects studied and grades achieved); however, this gap is only 4 percentage points for STEM-ready students. We find that gender gaps are smaller among high-achieving students and for students who go to school in more affluent areas. There is no gender gap in science (the large gaps are in engineering and technology), and we also find a smaller gender gap when we include nursing degrees in STEM, showing that the definition of STEM used is an important determinant of the conclusions reached. |
| Keywords: | college major choice; STEM |
| JEL: | I20 I23 |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13558&r=all |
| By: | Kaya, Ezgi (Cardiff Business School) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we explore the role of firm segregation on the gender wage gap. Using linked employee-employer data for Turkey, we investigate whether female segregation into low-paying firms and into low-paying jobs within a firm influence the gender wage gap across the wage distribution. We find that there is a 'glass ceiling' effect in the Turkish labour market, but this effect is more apparent within a firm than between firms. We also find a 'sticky floor' effect, but only among workers employed at the same firm. Our results imply that the allocation of women into lowpaying jobs within each firm accounts for the existence of these effects more than the segregation of women into low-paying firms. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, segregation, within- and between-firms, glass ceiling, sticky floor |
| JEL: | C21 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2019/7&r=all |
| By: | Booth, Alison L; Lee, Jungmin |
| Abstract: | We compare the performance of high-ability adolescent girls and boys who participated in a a long-running Korean television quiz show. We find there is a gender gap in performance -- in favour of boys -- across episodes of the quiz show. To investigate underlying mechanisms that might explain this, we explore how male and female performance varies under different rules of the game. We find that there are no gender gaps when stress is kept to a minimum -- that is, in games without fastest-finger buzzer, knock-outs or penalties. However, in games with these features, there are significant gender gaps. In addition, we examine performance in Round 2 of the shows, where we find larger gender gaps. These are consistent with girls being increasingly hindered by psychological stress and risk aversion as competition is higher. Finally, we use panel data to estimate performance in the games in which all players stay in for 25 questions. Here we find that girls are less likely to respond faster especially when their winning probability is higher. Further, the gender gap is more salient at the end of the game. The results are also consistent with gendered behavioural responses to psychological pressure. |
| Keywords: | gender and competition; psychological pressure; risk; tournaments |
| JEL: | D9 I21 J16 L83 M5 |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13552&r=all |
| By: | Jelena Zarkovic Rakic; Marko Vladisavljevic; Jorge Davalos |
| Abstract: | Recent empirical evidence, largely based on descriptive analyses, suggests that women’s wages and employment are more likely to be affected by government austerity measures because women constitute a majority of the public-sector labor force. Employing panel data from the 2014 and 2015 Labour Force Survey as pre- and post-treatment periods, we provide an econometric assessment of the effects of a 10% public-sector wage cut in Serbia that was introduced at the beginning of 2015. Wage cuts mandated by austerity measures increased the likelihood that younger and older women workers would transition into unemployment and inactivity, while no such effect was identified for men. On the other hand, evidence of heterogeneous compliance with the wage cut across public subsectors. State-owned enterprises, a subsector dominated by men, exhibited lower compliance with wage cuts compared to the state-sector, which is dominated by women. The difference in compliance prevented wage cuts from having the positive effect they could have had on the gender wage gap. |
| Keywords: | gender, labor market transition, wages, austerity, Serbia |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J31 J45 H61 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2019-02&r=all |