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on Gender |
| By: | Doorley, Karina (Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin); Keane, Claire (ESRI, Dublin) |
| Abstract: | The gender wage gap and the gender work gap are sizable, persistent and well documented for many countries. The result of the gender wage and gender work gap combined is an income gap between men and women. A small literature has begun to examine how the tax-benefit system contributes to closing gender income gaps by redistributing between men and women. In this paper, we study the effect of tax-benefit policy on gender differences in income. We use microsimulation models linked to survey data to estimate gender gaps in market income (before taxes and transfers) and disposable income (after taxes and transfers) for each country. We develop a method to isolate the relative contributions of the gender wage gap and the gender work gap to the overall gap in income between men and women. We then decompose the difference between the gender gap in market income and the gender gap in disposable income into (i) the relative contribution of taxes and benefits in each country and (ii) the relative cushioning of the gender wage gap and gender work gap. Policy conclusions are drawn about redistribution between men and women. |
| Keywords: | gender inequality, decomposition, tax-benefit system |
| JEL: | J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13786&r=all |
| By: | McNally, Sandra (University of Surrey) |
| Abstract: | The share of women achieving tertiary education has increased rapidly over time and now exceeds that of men in most OECD countries. However, women are severely under-represented in maths- intensive science fields, which are generally referred to as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths). The under-representation of women in these subject areas has received a great deal of attention. This is because these fields are seen to be especially important for productivity and economic growth and are associated with occupations that have higher earnings. Subject of degree is an important part of the explanation for the gender wage gap. The aim of this paper is to review evidence on explanations for the STEM gap in tertiary education. This starts with statistics about background context and evidence on how well-prepared male and female students may be for studying STEM at a later stage. I then discuss what the literature has to say about the role of personal attributes: namely confidence, self-efficacy and competitiveness and the role of preferences and expectations. I go on to discuss features of the educational context thought to be important for influencing attributes and preferences (or mediating their effects): peers; teachers; role models; and curriculum. I then briefly discuss broader cultural influences. I use the literature reviewed to discuss policy implications. |
| Keywords: | STEM, gender gap, tertiary education |
| JEL: | I20 J16 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izapps:pp165&r=all |
| By: | Ilaria D’Angelis (Boston College) |
| Abstract: | Do young highly educated women face higher job search frictions, have stronger preferences for non wage job-specific amenities, and receive job offers entailing lower hourly wages or stronger wage penalties for amenities provision relative to men? I study a recent cohort of young, highly educated American workers, document the existence of a gender pay gap at the beginning of workers’ careers, and provide evidence that its increasing path over years in the labor market can be rationalized by underlying unobservable differences in search frictions, preferences for amenities, and in the characteristics of the job offers that workers receive. Building on the descriptive evidence I collect, I answer the questions above by estimating a model of hedonic job search. I use the estimated parameters to show that young workers’ predicted utility from jobs can be decomposed into components due to wage and wage penalties/gains for amenities provision in the job offers received, preferences for amenities, and workers’ selection into different jobs. The main amenities of interest are flexible schedule, overtime, paid and unpaid parental leave, and child care. I find that young, highly educated male and female employed workers are remarkably similar in terms of both search frictions and preferences for job attributes, while female unemployed workers are less likely to obtain job offers than men, in spite of similar levels of labor market attachment. The job offers that women face, instead, differ from the job offers that men receive. Women tend to be offered low wages, and obtain lower wage gains attached to the provision of amenities relative to men. Wages and amenities-related wage penalties strongly affect the predicted male-to-female gap in utility that young workers obtain from jobs, especially in executive and professional careers. In addition, lower wage gains (or wage losses) that women experience when amenities are provided, tend to expand the gender wage gap in jobs providing benefits like flexibility and parental leave. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, nonwage benefits, job search, early careers |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J32 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:1018&r=all |
| By: | Koumenta, Maria; Pagliero, Mario; Rostam-Afschar, Davud |
| Abstract: | We use a unique survey of the EU labor force to investigate the relationship between occupational licensing and the gender wage gap. We find that the gender wage gap is canceled for licensed self-employed workers. However, this closure of the gender wage gap is not mirrored by significant changes in the gender gap in hours worked. Our results are robust using decomposition methods, quantile regressions, different datasets, and selection correction. |
| Keywords: | Licensing,Gender gap,Wages,Female Labour Supply,Quantile regression,Selection |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J44 J71 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:689&r=all |
| By: | Meekes, Jordy (University of Melbourne); Hassink, Wolter (Utrecht University) |
| Abstract: | We study whether women and men cope with job loss differently. We use 2006-2017 Dutch administrative monthly microdata and a quasi-experimental design involving job displacement because of firm bankruptcy. We find that displaced women are more likely than displaced men to take up a flexible job with limited working hours and short commutes. However, displaced women experience longer unemployment durations and comparable hourly wage losses. Displaced expectant mothers experience relatively high losses in employment and working hours. Our findings suggest that the costs of job flexibility for displaced female workers come through longer unemployment instead of higher losses in wages. |
| Keywords: | job loss, gender, job flexibility, working hours, commute, household, pregnancy |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J31 J32 J6 R2 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13779&r=all |
| By: | Manar Alnamlah (Department of Strategy and Innovation, Copenhagen Business School); Christina Gravert (CEBI, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | In competitive and high-reward domains such as corporate leadership and entrepreneurship, women are not only underrepresented but they are also more likely to drop-out after failure. In this study, we conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate the influence of attributing failure to one of the three causal attributions - luck, effort, and ability - on the gender difference in competition persistence. Participants compete in a real effort task and then their success or failure is attributed to one of three causal attributions. We find significant gender differences in competition persistence when failure is attributed to a lack of ability, with women dropping out more. On the contrary, when suggested that failure was due to lack of luck, women’s competition persistence after failure increases relative to men. We find no gender difference when failure is attributed to a lack of effort. Our findings have important implications for designing feedback mechanisms to reduce the gender gap in competitive domains. |
| Keywords: | decision analysis, competition, gender gap, performance feedback, laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D03 M50 J24 |
| Date: | 2020–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2025&r=all |
| By: | Ospina-Cartagena, Vanessa; García-Suaza, Andrés |
| Abstract: | Gender inequality is much more than wage gaps. Indeed, one interesting case is how individuals allocate time among different activities such as paid work, unpaid work and domestic work. This paper aims to quantify gender inequality in the time use in unpaid care and home activities and to investigate the main drivers of gender gaps in Colombia using the National Time Use Survey. Our results suggest that the gender gap in unpaid work depends on factors such as educational level, paid employment status, and family composition. Counterfactual exercises comparing individuals under different family contexts suggest that the gender gap varies importantly with the presence of children, marital status and individual's participation in the generation of household income. |
| Keywords: | unpaid work,care economy,time use,gender gaps |
| JEL: | J16 J22 D13 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:686&r=all |
| By: | Rakshit, Sonali; Sahoo, Soham |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of stereotypical beliefs of teachers on learning outcomes of secondary school students in India. We measure teacher's bias through an index capturing teacher's subjective beliefs about the role of gender and other characteristics in academic performance. We tackle the potential endogeneity of teacher's subjective beliefs by controlling for teacher fixed effects in a value-added model that includes lagged test score of students. We find that a standard deviation increase in biased attitude of the math teacher widens the female disadvantage in math performance by 0.07 standard deviation over an academic year. This negative effect of biased teachers is significant only for male teachers. The effect is especially strong among the medium-performing students and in classes where the majority of students are boys. Moreover, among the medium-performing students, having a female teacher significantly reduces the gender gap in math performance. As a plausible mechanism, we show that biased teachers negatively affect girls' attitude towards math as compared to boys. Unlike math outcome, we do not find any significant effect when we analyze the effect of biased English teachers on English scores of the same students. |
| Keywords: | Learning outcomes,Value-added model,Gender,Teachers,Stereotypes,India |
| JEL: | I24 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:684&r=all |
| By: | Duchini, Emma (University of Warwick); Van Effenterre, Clémentine (University of Toronto) |
| Abstract: | We provide causal evidence that children's school schedules contribute to the persistence of the gender pay gap between parents. Historically, French children have had no school on Wednesdays. In 2013, a reform reallocated some classes to Wednesday mornings. Exploiting variations in the application of this reform over time and across the age of the youngest child, we show that mothers are more likely to adopt a regular Monday-Friday full-time working schedule after the reform, while fathers' labor supply is unchanged. Consequently, the reform decreased the monthly gender pay gap by 6 percent, generating fiscal revenues that substantially outweigh its costs. |
| Keywords: | school schedule, gender inequality, female labor supply, child penalty |
| JEL: | H52 J13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13791&r=all |