nep-gen New Economics Papers
on Gender
Issue of 2020‒11‒16
three papers chosen by
Jan Sauermann
Stockholms universitet

  1. Are women less effective leaders than men? Evidence from experiments using coordination games By Heursen, Lea; Ranehill, Eva; Weber, Roberto A
  2. The COVID-19 Pandemic and Gendered Division of Paid and Unpaid Work: Evidence from India By Deshpande, Ashwini
  3. Motherhood, Labor Market Trajectories, and the Allocation of Talent: Harmonized Evidence on 29 Countries By Inés Berniell; Lucila Berniell; Dolores de la Mata; María Edo; Yarine Fawaz; Matilde P. Machado; Mariana Marchionni

  1. By: Heursen, Lea (Department of Economics, Humboldt University Berlin); Ranehill, Eva (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Weber, Roberto A (Department of Economics, University of Zurich)
    Abstract: We study whether one reason behind female underrepresentation in leadership is that female leaders are less effective at coordinating action by followers. Two experiments using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than males in persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. Group performance hinges on higher-order beliefs about the leader’s capacity to convince followers to pursue desired actions, making beliefs that women are less effective leaders potentially self-confirming. We find no evidence that such bias impacts actual leadership performance, identifying a precisely-estimated null effect. We show that this absence of an effect is surprising given experts’ priors.
    Keywords: gender; coordination games; leadership; experiment
    JEL: C72 C92 D23 J10
    Date: 2020–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0796&r=all
  2. By: Deshpande, Ashwini (Ashoka University)
    Abstract: Examining high frequency national-level panel data from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) on paid work (employment), unpaid work (time spent on domestic work) and incomes, this paper examines the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the gender gaps in paid and unpaid work through the lockdown and recovery phases. The first month of the national lockdown, April 2020, saw a large contraction in employment for both men and women, where more men lost jobs in absolute terms. Employment has recovered by August 2020 for men. However, for women, the likelihood of being employed is 9.5 percentage points lower than that for men, compared to the pre-pandemic period. Men spent more time on housework in April 2020, but by August the average male hours had declined, though not to the pre-pandemic levels. Time spent with friends fell sharply for both men and women in April, to recover in August, but not to the pre-pandemic levels. The paper also examines available income data to find the sharpest contraction of incomes in the rural sector for both men and women.
    Keywords: COVID-19, lockdown, employment, gender, time use, incomes, India
    JEL: J1 J6 O53
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13815&r=all
  3. By: Inés Berniell (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP); Lucila Berniell (CAF); Dolores de la Mata (CAF); María Edo (Universidad de San Andrés); Yarine Fawaz (CEMFI); Matilde P. Machado (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid); Mariana Marchionni (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP and CONICET)
    Abstract: In this paper we assess whether changes in labor market decisions upon motherhood lead to potential inefficient allocations of talent. Using an event study approach with retrospective data drawn from SHARE for 29 European countries we show that motherhood effects go beyond the well studied effects of labor market participation decisions: the arrival of the first child substantially affects the uptaking of alternative modes of employment, such as part-time and self-employment, that are characterized by flexible or reduced work schedules but also lower pay on average. We also show that the size of labor market responses to motherhood are larger in societies with more conservative social-norms or with weak policies regarding work-life balance. To assess the effects of motherhood over the allocation of talent, we explore how labor market responses to parenthood vary by alternative measures of talent or ability. We find that all women, even those with the highest level of ability and abler than their husbands face large motherhood effects, while men show virtually no changes in the labor market when becoming fathers. We also find that mothers who become self-employed after the birth of the first child are those that are less entrepreneurial-able according to cognitive ability and personality traits shown to impair business survival. Overall, our results suggest relevant changes in the allocation of talent caused by gender differences in nonmarket responsibilities that can have sizable impacts on aggregate market productivity.
    JEL: J13 J16 J24
    Date: 2020–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0270&r=all

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