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on Gender |
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Issue of 2022‒10‒10
eleven papers chosen by Jan Sauermann Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Lach, Saul (Hebrew University, Jerusalem); Sicherman, Nachum (Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | We use data on international migration to study the causal effect of gender discrimination on the sex-ratio of immigrants to the U.S. during the 1970-2019 period. We measure gender discrimination in the countries of origin using the Women, Business, and the Law (WBL) index, which measures legal differences in access to economic opportunities between men and women. Controlling for country fixed effects and regional time trends, as well as for potentially confounding factors, we find that a one standard deviation increase in the WBL index in a country of origin (a decrease in gender discrimination) decreases the share of women immigrating to the U.S. from that country by 1.7 percentage points, on average. This large effect of gender discrimination on the sex ratio of immigrants is robust to specification changes, and is not significant when examining senior citizens. |
| Keywords: | gender discrimination, sex-ratios, international migration |
| JEL: | F22 J16 |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15487&r= |
| By: | Javier Olivera; Yadiraah Iparraguirre |
| Abstract: | This article studies the gender gap in pension funds in Peru, a country where the main pension system is based on individual retirement accounts. We use randomly selected samples of individual administrative pension fund records, collected between 2005 and 2019. The results show a gender gap in favor of men at each percentile of the distribution of pension funds. The unconditional gender gap decreases along the percentiles until it reaches a form of “glass ceiling” around the 85th percentile, and then increases substantially. We also detect heterogeneity by birth cohorts, with older cohorts showing larger gender gaps in pension savings because of the capitalization process. Moreover, we find that awareness about pension fund risk management—used as a proxy for financial literacy—increases the dispersion of pension savings over the distribution, therefore increasing inequality and the gender gap. This situation is aggravated by the fact that Peru has very low levels of financial literacy. |
| Keywords: | gender gap; pension savings; financial literacy; unconditional quantile; Peru |
| JEL: | D31 G23 I11 I32 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2022-06&r= |
| By: | Can Sever |
| Abstract: | The unequal treatment of women in the law is one of the most visible forms of gender inequality. Prevalent legal constraints on the basis of gender prevent women, and thereby economies, from reaching their true potential. In this regard, this paper (i) documents the evolution of gender discriminatory laws around the globe, and (ii) sheds light on the role of legal gender equality in income convergence across countries. It shows that despite the remarkable progress toward gender equality in the law over the last five decades, the legal environment across the world is still far from providing a level playing field for women. Moreover, cross-country gaps in gender discriminatory laws have persisted and even widened over the years, meaning that some countries have lagged behind the progress in repealing the laws that act as a barrier to women’s economic inclusion. Based on a global sample since the 1970s, this paper finds that greater gender equality in the law facilitates cross-country income convergence over time. The results call for action and provide a reason to be optimistic going forward. They imply that legal reforms supportive of gender equality, which could indeed be actionable in the shorter term, help poorer countries catch up with the living standards in the advanced economies. These offer a window of opportunity in the post-Covid-19 period, given the adverse effects of the pandemic on economic growth and gender gaps. |
| Keywords: | Gender inequality; law; gender discriminatory laws; women’s empowerment; convergence; economic growth; economic development; law score; income convergence; discriminatory law; indicator of gender; WBL index; Women; Income; Income inequality; Central Asia; Africa; Europe; Global; GDP distribution; differences narrow |
| Date: | 2022–07–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2022/155&r= |
| By: | Emanuela Ghignoni Vincenzo Salvucci; Marilena Giannetti; Vincenzo Salvucci |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the evolution of wage gaps in Italy by gender and citizenship. Using Labour Force Survey (LFS) data over the period 2009-2020 we apply two different matching comparison methodologies, the Nopo decomposition and the Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) technique, that allow "like for like" comparisons between individuals and are able to take into account how gender interacts with citizenship in shaping wages. Our findings show that the general gender wage gap in Italy is rather low This gap is largely explained by workers' observable characteristics. Conversely, the citizenship wage gap appears to be much larger. Moreover, most of the reported wage gaps seem to be explained by unobservable characteristics. We finally estimate the double-negative effect of being both a woman and a foreigner. Non-Italian women earned on average 44.3% per hour less than Italian men in 2009 and 46.5% less than Italian men in 2020. |
| Keywords: | Gender wage gap; Immigrant/Native wage gap; Double discrimination; Matching; Inverse Probability Regression Adjustment Estimator |
| JEL: | J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp225&r= |
| By: | Corradini, Viola (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Lagos, Lorenzo (Brown University); Sharma, Garima (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Why aren't workplaces better designed for women? We show that changing the priorities of those who set workplace policies can create female-friendly jobs. Starting in 2015, Brazil's largest trade union federation made women central to its bargaining agenda. Neither establishments nor workers choose their union, permitting a difference-in-differences design to study causal effects. We find that "bargaining for women" increases female-centric amenities in collective bargaining agreements, which are then reflected in practice (e.g., more female managers, longer maternity leaves, longer job protection). These changes cause women to queue for jobs at treated establishments and separate from them less—both revealed preference measures of firm value. We find no evidence that these gains come at the expense of employment, workers' wages, or firm profits. Hence, prioritizing women's preferences in decision-making can lower within-firm gender inequality through more efficient bargaining. |
| Keywords: | gender disparities, amenities, collective bargaining, unions |
| JEL: | J31 J33 J51 J52 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15552&r= |
| By: | Lucia Foster; Erika McEntarfer; Danielle H. Sandler |
| Abstract: | While the lack of gender and racial diversity in economics in academia (for students and professors) is well-established, less is known about the overall placement and earnings of economists by gender and race. Understanding demand-side factors is important, as improvements in the supply side by diversifying the pipeline alone may not be enough to improve equity in the profession. Using the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) linked to Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) jobs data, we examine placements and earnings for economists working in the U.S. after receiving a PhD by gender and race. We find enormous dispersion in pay for economists within and across sectors that grows over time. Female PhD economists earn about 12 percent less than their male colleagues on average; Black PhD economists earn about 15 percent less than their white counterparts on average; and overall underrepresented minority PhD economists earn about 8 percent less than their white counterparts. These pay disparities are attenuated in some sectors and when controlling for rank of PhD granting institution and employer. |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:22-26&r= |
| By: | Nikita Sangwan; Swati Sharma (ISI and IEG, Delhi) |
| Abstract: | In this study we focus on the lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic that highlighted the vulnerabilities faced by women in labor markets – globally and domestically. We investigate whether public policy measures mitigate these vulnerabilities. In particular, we study the implications of lockdown triggered reverse migration on Labor Force Participation of rural women, focusing on mandated provisions under MGNREGA and GKRA. We find evidence of complementarity of the two social employment schemes and rule out any crowding out of NREGA person-days by GKRA. Our analysis shows that despite these schemes rural women lost employment due to competition from men. Their share in NREGA person-days fell by 0.4% during the pandemic. Interestingly, the mandated provisions for women in NREGA works helped women preserve their employment status. Our findings underscore the need for special provisions and targeted programs for women to reduce their withdrawal and enhance their participation in the labor market. Our results are robust to seasonality patterns in rural employment and MGNREGA. Furthermore, we validate our findings using monthly individual-level employment data from Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS), CMIE. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, Rural labor market, Gender, Reverse migration, NREGA, GKRA. |
| JEL: | J08 J16 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awe:wpaper:453&r= |
| By: | Michael Ewens |
| Abstract: | Economic frictions pervade the founding, financing, growing, and exiting of high-growth entrepreneurial firms. This article considers one friction that currently affects a small, but important, set of entrepreneurs: racial and gender discrimination. I first collect facts from a large empirical literature that show clear gender and race gaps in participation and financing of startups. Female founders manage 16-25% of all startups, while Black entrepreneurs rarely exceed 3% of the startup population. Conditioning on startups that successfully raise external finance has little impact on these gaps. The complexity of the entrepreneurial process presents several opportunities for discrimination to manifest itself and produce this gap. The article details the major discrimination theories and the empirical methods used to test for their presence. It then provides an extensive review of a growing empirical literature in entrepreneurial finance that tests these models. The pattern of evidence reveals a nuanced and incomplete story about bias, information asymmetry, and differential treatment of underrepresented founders. The article ends with an extensive set of research ideas motivated by the gaps in the entrepreneurship literature and recent developments in theory and measurement of discrimination. |
| JEL: | G24 J7 L26 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30444&r= |
| By: | Julia Hatamyar |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effects of legislation mandating workplace breastfeeding amenities on various labor market outcomes. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I implement both a traditional fixed-effects event study framework and the Interaction-Weighted event study technique proposed by Sun & Abraham (2020). I find that workplace breastfeeding legislation increases the likelihood of female labor force participation by 4.2 percentage points in the two years directly following implementation. Female labor force participation remains higher than before implementation in subsequent years, but the significant effect does not persist. Using the CDC's Infant Feeding Practices Survey II, I then show that breastfeeding women who do not live in states with workplace breastfeeding supportive legislation are 3.9 percentage points less likely to work, supporting the PSID findings. The legislation mainly impacts white women. I find little effect on labor income or work intensity. |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2209.05916&r= |
| By: | Dargnies, Marie-Pierre (University of Paris Dauphine and PSL); Hakimov, Rustamdjan (University of Lausanne and WZB Berlin); Kübler, Dorothea (WZB Berlin and TU Berlin) |
| Abstract: | We run an online experiment to study the origins of algorithm aversion. Participants are either in the role of workers or of managers. Workers perform three real-effort tasks: task 1, task 2, and the job task which is a combination of tasks 1 and 2. They choose whether the hiring decision between themselves and another worker is made either by a participant in the role of a manager or by an algorithm. In a second set of experiments, managers choose whether they want to delegate their hiring decisions to the algorithm. In the baseline treatments, we observe that workers choose the manager more often than the algorithm, and managers also prefer to make the hiring decisions themselves rather than delegate them to the algorithm. When the algorithm does not use workers' gender to predict their job task performance and workers know this, they choose the algorithm more often. Providing details on how the algorithm works does not increase the preference for the algorithm, neither for workers nor for managers. Providing feedback to managers about their performance in hiring the best workers increases their preference for the algorithm, as managers are, on average, overconfident. |
| Date: | 2022–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:334&r= |
| By: | David Card; Ciprian Domnisoru; Seth G. Sanders; Lowell Taylor; Victoria Udalova |
| Abstract: | It is widely believed that female students benefit from being taught by female teachers, particularly when those teachers serve as counter-stereotypical role models. We study education in rural areas of the US circa 1940--a setting in which there were few professional female exemplars other than teachers--and find that female students were more successful when their primary-school teachers were disproportionately female. Impacts are lifelong: female students taught by female teachers were more likely to move up the educational ladder by completing high school and attending college, and had higher lifetime family income and increased longevity. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30430&r= |