nep-gen New Economics Papers
on Gender
Issue of 2024‒01‒22
five papers chosen by
Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering


  1. Is the Gender Pay Gap Largest at the Top? By Ariel J. Binder; Amanda Eng; Kendall Houghton; Andrew Foote
  2. Gender stereotypes embedded in natural language are stronger in more economically developed and individualistic countries By Clotilde Napp
  3. A Further Look at the Gender Gap in Italian Academic Careers By Marianna Brunetti; Annalisa Fabretti; Mariangela Zoli
  4. Women’s Work, Social Norms and the Marriage Market∗ By Farzana Afridi; Abhishek Arora; Diva Dhar; Kanika Mahajan
  5. Are Female-Breadwinner Couples Always Less Stable? Evidence From French Administrative Data By Giulia Ferrari; Anne Solaz; Agnese Vitali

  1. By: Ariel J. Binder; Amanda Eng; Kendall Houghton; Andrew Foote
    Abstract: No: it is at least as large at bottom percentiles of the earnings distribution. Conditional quantile regressions reveal that while the gap at top percentiles is largest among the most-educated, the gap at bottom percentiles is largest among the least-educated. Gender differences in labor supply create more pay inequality among the least-educated than they do among the most-educated. The pay gap has declined throughout the distribution since 2006, but it declined more for the most-educated women. Current economics-of-gender research focuses heavily on the top end; equal emphasis should be placed on mechanisms driving gender inequality for noncollege-educated workers.
    Keywords: gender pay gap, education, conditional quantile regression, glass ceiling, labor supply
    JEL: I24 J16 J31
    Date: 2023–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:23-61&r=gen
  2. By: Clotilde Napp (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: Gender stereotypes contribute to gender imbalances, and analyzing their variations across countries is important for understanding and mitigating gender inequalities. However, measuring stereotypes is difficult, particularly in a cross-cultural context. Word embeddings are a recent useful tool in natural language processing permitting to measure the collective gender stereotypes embedded in a society. In this work, we used word embedding models pre-trained on large text corpora from more than 70 different countries to examine how genderstereotypes vary across countries. We considered stereotypes associating men with career and women with family as well as those associating men with math or science and women with arts or liberal arts. Relying on two different sources (Wikipedia and Common Crawl), we found that these gender stereotypes are all significantly more pronounced in the text corpora of more economically developed and more individualistic countries. Our analysis suggests that more economically developed countries, while being more gender equal along several dimensions, also have stronger gender stereotypes. Public policy aiming at mitigating gender imbalances in these countries should take this feature into account. Besides, our analysis sheds light on the "gender equality paradox, " i.e. on the fact that gender imbalances in a large number of domains are paradoxically stronger in more developed/gender equal/individualisticcountries.
    Keywords: gender stereotypes, gender equality, cross-cultural variations, gender equality paradox, word embeddings
    Date: 2023
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04316389&r=gen
  3. By: Marianna Brunetti (CEIS & DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Annalisa Fabretti (DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Mariangela Zoli (CEIS & DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata")
    Abstract: In developed countries women have now achieved educational parity with men. Yet disparities persist in reaching top positions in the job market, with academia making no exception. This paper assesses the gender gap in career advancements in Italian universities over the 2013-2021 period, and explores the potential role of a third factor, i.e. mobility, besides competitiveness and scientific productivity typically investigated in the literature. The results, strongly robust, show a gender gap in advancements to associate professorship of about 4 percentage points, which is only partially explained by competitiveness, while scientific productivity and mobility do not seem to play a role. The estimated gender gap almost doubles for transitions to full professorship, and it remains unaffected when both competitiveness and scientific productivity are considered. Interestingly, mobility in this case matters: the gap is still there but (as much as 5 times) smaller when career advancements occur along with a move to a different University.
    Keywords: gender gap, competitiveness, productivity, mobility, higher education, academia
    JEL: J16 J71
    Date: 2023–12–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:570&r=gen
  4. By: Farzana Afridi (Indian Statistical Institute and IZA); Abhishek Arora (Harvard University); Diva Dhar (University of Oxford); Kanika Mahajan (Ashoka University)
    Abstract: While it is well-acknowledged that the gendered division of labor within marriage adversely affects women’s allocation of time to market work, there is less evidence on how extant social norms can influence women’s work choices pre-marriage. We conduct an experiment on an online marriage market platform that allows us to measure preferences of individuals in partner selection in India. We find that employed women are 14.5% less likely to receive interest from male suitors relative to women who are not working. In addition, women employed in ‘masculine’ occupations are 3.2% less likely to elicit interest from suitors relative to those in ‘feminine’ occupations. Our results highlight the strong effect of gender norms and patriarchy on marital preferences, especially for men hailing from higher castes and northern India, where communities have more traditional gender norms. These findings suggest that expectations regarding returns in the marriage market may influence women’s labor market participation and the nature of market work.
    Keywords: Gender; India; Social norms; Work choices; Marriage market
    Date: 2023–02–14
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ash:wpaper:94&r=gen
  5. By: Giulia Ferrari; Anne Solaz; Agnese Vitali
    Abstract: Objective : The paper tackles the association between partners' relative earnings and union dissolution among couples in France. Background : With the increase in dual-earner couples and women’s educational level, couples in which women earn more than their partners are structurally becoming more widespread. Because female breadwinning challenges long-lived social norms regarding traditional gender roles, scholars have theorized a higher risk of union dissolution of female-breadwinner couples compared to couples in other income arrangements. Method : We estimate the risk of union dissolution using regression analyses on a unique longitudinal data from French administrative sources containing an unconventionally high number of couples (4% of the population) and separation events (more than 100, 000), as well as precise and reliable income measurement. Results : Female-breadwinner couples face a higher risk of union dissolution compared to other couple types. This result is robust to various definitions of female breadwinning and controls for both partners’ employment status. Contrary to recent research on other country settings, there is no sign of a fading effect among younger cohorts. However, younger, cohabiting couples and couples in civil partnerships enjoy a couple-stabilizing premium when both partners are employed with similar individual incomes, suggesting the emergence of a new egalitarian equilibrium within couple. Conclusion : The female-breadwinner penalty in union dissolution is in place also in gender-egalitarian France, it holds among married and cohabiting couples and registered partnerships, across all birth cohorts and levels of household income.
    Keywords: union dissolution, divorce, female-breadwinner couples, income, cohabitation, France, ANALYSE DE REGRESSION / REGRESSION ANALYSIS, DIVORCE / DIVORCE, COHABITATION / COHABITATION, COUPLE / COUPLE, ANALYSE LONGITUDINALE / LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS, FRANCE / FRANCE, SEPARATION / SEPARATION, REVENU / INCOME
    Date: 2023
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idg:wpaper:l5xgfiwb-5e4ngnwf5ny&r=gen

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