nep-gen New Economics Papers
on Gender
Issue of 2019‒08‒26
three papers chosen by
Jan Sauermann
Stockholms universitet

  1. Is There a Gender Wage Gap in Online Labor Markets? Evidence from Over 250,000 Projects and 2.5 Million Wage Bill Proposals By Estrella Gomez-Herrera; Frank Müller-Langer
  2. Immigration and the Evolution of Local Cultural Norms By Schmitz, Sophia; Weinhardt, Felix
  3. Diffusion of Gender Norms: Evidence from Stalin's Ethnic Deportations By Jarotschkin, Alexandra; Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina

  1. By: Estrella Gomez-Herrera; Frank Müller-Langer
    Abstract: We explore whether there is a gender wage gap in one of the largest EU online labor markets, PeoplePerHour. Our unique dataset consists of 257,111 digitally tradeable tasks of 55,824 hiring employers from 188 countries and 65,010 workers from 173 countries that made more than 2.5 million wage bill proposals in the competition for contracts. Our data allows us to track the complete hiring process from the employers' design of proposed contracts to the competition among workers and the final agreement between employers and successful candidates. Using Heckman and OLS estimation methods we provide empirical evidence for a statistically significant 4% gender wage gap among workers, at the project level. We also find that female workers propose lower wage bills and are more likely to win the competition for contracts. Once we include workers’ wage bill proposals in the regressions, the gender wage gap virtually disappears, i.e., it is statistically insignificant and very small in magnitude (0.3%). Our results also suggest that female workers’ higher winning probabilities associated with lower wage bill proposals lead to higher expected revenues overall. We provide empirical evidence for heterogeneity of the gender wage gap in some of the job categories, all job difficulty levels and some of the worker countries. Finally, for some subsamples we find a statistically significant but very small “reverse” gender wage gap.
    Keywords: gender wage gap, online labor markets, digitally performable projects
    JEL: D40 J40
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7779&r=all
  2. By: Schmitz, Sophia (Federal Ministry of Finance); Weinhardt, Felix (DIW Berlin)
    Abstract: We study the local evolution of cultural norms in West Germany in reaction to the sudden presence of East Germans who migrated to the West after reunification. These migrants grew up with very high rates of maternal employment, whereas West German families followed the traditional breadwinner-housewife model. We find that West German women increase their labor supply and that this holds within household. We provide additional evidence on stated gender norms, West-East friendships, intermarriage, and childcare infrastructure. The dynamic evolution of the local effects on labor supply is best explained by local cultural learning and endogenous childcare infrastructure.
    Keywords: cultural norms, local learning, gender, immigration
    JEL: J16 J21 D1
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12509&r=all
  3. By: Jarotschkin, Alexandra; Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina
    Abstract: We study horizontal between-group cultural transmission using a unique historical setting, which combines exogenous group exposure with no control over how and whether the representatives of different groups interact. Stalin's ethnic deportations during WWII moved over 2 million people, the majority of whom were ethnic Germans and Chechens, from the Western parts of the USSR to Central Asia and Siberia. As a result, the native population in the destination locations was exposed to groups with drastically different gender norms, depending on the group composition of the deportees. We estimate the effect of this exposure relying on the fact that within subnational regions the local population was fairly homogeneous, and the deportation destinations were determined by local demand for manual labor, orthogonal to the identity or skills of deportees. Combining historical archival data with contemporary surveys, we document that both the norms of gender equality and of gender discrimination were diffused to the local population exposed to deportee groups with these norms, manifesting itself in changes of attitudes and behavior.
    Keywords: Deportations; Gender norms; Horizontal cultural transmission; Stalin
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13865&r=all

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