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on Gender |
| By: | Maryna Tverdostup (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw) |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic has highly asymmetric effects on labour market outcomes of men and women. In this paper, we empirically investigate the dynamics and drivers of gender gaps in employment rates, wages and workhours during the pandemic. Relying on Estonian Labour Force Survey data, we document that the pandemic has, if anything, reduced gender inequality in all three domains. Our results suggest that, while the evolution of inequalities mirrored the infection rate development – rising as infections mounted and declining as the first wave flattened – overall, the pandemic did not exacerbate gender gaps in 2020. The cyclical increases in gender disparities were largely driven by parenthood, as child-rearing women experienced a major decline in their employment rate and workhours, as well as gender segregation in the most affected industries. The higher propensity to work from home and better educational attainments of women deterred gender wage gap expansion, as wage returns to telework and education rose during the pandemic. Our results suggest no systematic expansion of gender gaps, but rather short-term fluctuations. However, labour market penalties for women with young children and women employed in those industries most affected by COVID-19 may last longer than the pandemic, threatening to widen gender inequality in the long run. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, employment, gender, inequalities, wage gap |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J31 |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:wpaper:202&r= |
| By: | Ray Miller; Ashish Kumar Sedai |
| Abstract: | We examine the association between unpaid caregiving by older Americans and time allocated to labor supply, home production, leisure, and personal care. After controlling for time-invariant heterogeneity using panel time diaries, we find that older caregivers reported reduced time allocated to each domain fairly evenly overall. However, women showed a stronger associated decline in personal care and labor supply while men showed stronger declines in time devoted to home production. Gendered differences are more pronounced with intensive and non-spousal care. Results highlight time-cost differentials that could be driving observed gender gaps in health and labor market outcomes among unpaid caregivers. The study also underscores the serious endogeneity concerns between caregiving and broader time allocation patterns and highlights the need for additional research. |
| Keywords: | unpaid care, time-use, aging, gender inequality, home production, personal care |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2021-43&r= |
| By: | Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso; Maria C. Lo Bue |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether firm performance differs significantly when comparing firms with female and male top managers in the Caribbean region. We use survey data with detailed information on gender for firms in 13 Caribbean countries. Our methodology is based on Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition and propensity score matching econometric techniques. |
| Keywords: | The Caribbean, Firm performance, Gender gap, Propensity score matching |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-92&r= |
| By: | Kwadwo Opoku; Francisco M.P. Mugizi; Emmanuel Adu Boahen |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the latest Tanzania labour force survey?the Integrated Labour Force Survey?and a censored bivariate probit model to analyse gender differences in labour force participation and gender bias in formal wage employment in urban Tanzania. Our findings indicate that, compared to men, women are less likely to participate in the labour market and less likely to get formal wage employment, suggesting the existence of gender bias in the labour market in urban areas of Tanzania. |
| Keywords: | Labour force participation, Formal, Regression analysis, Gender, Discrimination, Tanzania |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-99&r= |
| By: | Yeshwas Admasu; Gina Crivello; Catherine Porter |
| Abstract: | We investigate the causes of the gender disparity in labour market participation in Ethiopia using iterative quantitative and qualitative longitudinal analysis through the whole childhood of the individual into early adulthood, from age 8 up to age 25. Multilevel survival analysis shows that girls have higher probability of remaining in school at all grades, and by age 22 significantly more women than men have completed high school or tertiary education. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Female labour force participation, Ethiopia |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-96&r= |
| By: | Paula A. Calvo; Ilse Lindenlaub; Ana Reynoso |
| Abstract: | We build a novel equilibrium model in which households' labor supply choices form the link between sorting on the marriage market and sorting on the labor market. We first show that in theory, the nature of home production – whether partners' hours are complements or substitutes – shapes marriage market sorting, labor market sorting and labor supply choices in equilibrium. We then estimate our model on German data to assess the nature of home production in the data, and find that spouses' home hours are complements. We investigate to what extent complementarity in home hours drives sorting and inequality. We find that the home production complementarity – by strengthening positive marriage sorting and reducing the gender gap in hours and labor sorting – puts significant downward pressure on the gender wage gap and within-household income inequality, but it fuels between-household inequality. Our estimated model sheds new light on the sources of inequality in today's Germany and – by identifying important shifts in home production technology towards more complementarity – on the evolution of inequality over time. |
| JEL: | D1 J01 J12 J16 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28883&r= |
| By: | Patricia Palffy; Patrick Lehnert; Uschi Backes-Gellner |
| Abstract: | The authors analyze the relationship between social gender norms and the occupational choices of adolescents by combining information about regional votes on a constitutional amendment on gender equality with job application data from a large job board for vocational education and training apprenticeships. Results show that adolescent males in regions with stronger traditional social gender norms are significantly more likely to apply for gender-typical occupations. This finding does not hold for adolescent females, suggesting that males align their occupational choices more strongly with social gender norms than females. Additional analyses reveal that the social gender norms in a region are related to the costs that adolescents living in this region are willing to bear for commuting to a firm where they receive apprenticeship training in either a gender-typical or gender-atypical occupation. The results underscore the importance of policies that factor in social gender norms and encourage not only adolescent females, but also adolescent males to make non-traditional occupational choices. |
| Keywords: | social norms, occupational choice, gender typicality, occupational gender segregation |
| JEL: | J24 J16 I24 M59 |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0183&r= |
| By: | Jane Humphries; Benjamin Schneider |
| Abstract: | Development economists have long studied the relationship between gender equality and economic growth. More recently economic historians have taken an overdue interest. We sketch the pathways within the development literature that have been hypothesised as linking equality for women to rising incomes and the reverse channels, from higher incomes to equality. We describe how the European Marriage Pattern literature applies these mechanisms, and we highlight problems with the claimed link between equality and growth. We then explain how a crucial example of technological unemployment for women—the destruction of hand spinning during the British Industrial Revolution—contributed to the emergence of the male breadwinner family. We show how this family structure created household relationships that play into the development pathways, and outline its persistent effects into the 21st century. |
| Keywords: | development economics, gender equality, technological unemployment, family structure |
| JEL: | J12 J63 N33 O14 O33 |
| Date: | 2021–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_191&r= |