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on Gender |
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Issue of 2024‒06‒10
four papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Ayyar, S.; Bolt, U.; French, E.; O’Dea, C. |
| Abstract: | Using a digitized sample of thousands of essays written by 11-year-olds in 1969, we construct an index which measures the extent to which girls’ imagined futures conform to gender norms in Britain at the time. We link this index to outcomes over the life-cycle. Conditional on a large set of age-11 covariates, a one standard deviation increase in our index is associated with a decrease in lifetime earnings of 3.5%, due to both lower wages and fewer hours worked. Half of this earnings decline is mediated by reduced educational attainment, selection into lower-paid occupations, and earlier family formation of those who conform more strongly to prevalent gender norms. Holding skills constant, girls whose essays conform less to gender norms, live in regions with higher female employment and educational attainment. This highlights that the wider environment in which girls grow up shapes gender conformity. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Children, Text Analysis |
| JEL: | J16 J13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–05–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2422&r= |
| By: | Clint Harris; Jon Eckhardt; Brent Goldfarb |
| Abstract: | Selection into samples undermines efforts to describe populations and to estimate relationships between variables. We develop a simple method for correcting for sample selection that explains differences in survey responses between early and late respondents with correlation between potential responses and preference for survey response. Our method relies on researchers observing the number of data collection attempts prior to each individual's survey response rather than covariates that affect response rates without affecting potential responses. Applying our method to a survey of entrepreneurial aspirations among undergraduates at University of Wisconsin-Madison, we find suggestive evidence that the entrepreneurial aspiration rate is larger among survey respondents than the population, as well as the male-female gender gap in the entrepreneurial aspiration rate, which we estimate as 21 percentage points in the sample and 19 percentage points in the population. Our results suggest that the male-female gap in entrepreneurial aspirations arises prior to direct exposure to the labor market. |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2404.17693&r= |
| By: | Jamie Fogel; Bernardo Modenesi |
| Abstract: | Recent advances in the literature of decomposition methods in economics have allowed for the identification and estimation of detailed wage gap decompositions. In this context, building reliable counterfactuals requires using tighter controls to ensure that similar workers are correctly identified by making sure that important unobserved variables such as skills are controlled for, as well as comparing only workers with similar observable characteristics. This paper contributes to the wage decomposition literature in two main ways: (i) developing an economic principled network based approach to control for unobserved worker skills heterogeneity in the presence of potential discrimination; and (ii) extending existing generic decomposition tools to accommodate for potential lack of overlapping supports in covariates between groups being compared, which is likely to be the norm in more detailed decompositions. We illustrate the methodology by decomposing the gender wage gap in Brazil. |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2405.04365&r= |
| By: | Remicio-Tovar, Paula Alejandra (Universidad de los Andes) |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the labor supply behavior of female Uber driver-partners in Bogota, Colombia, in response to the 2017 teacher’s strike. Using the Triple Differences approach, I compare men’s and women’s time worked and payment before and during the strike. I also compare the results based on their experience, and I find that the driver’s expertise significantly determined the extent of the strike’s effect. During the strike, both general and experienced female drivers worked 10.68 and 17.69 minutes more than men, respectively. The demographics of female Uber drivers suggest that the primary mechanisms behind the impact could have been the low dynamic ride prices and the change in their relative cost of time due to the teachers’ strike rather than increased childcare responsibilities. I use the concept of loss aversion and the income-targeting model to suggest that with the experience, female drivers tend to set a target income and are more averse than men to achieving outcomes below that benchmark. Thus, due to the strike’s negative effect on their income, they took advantage of the flexibility offered by Uber to soften the strike’s impact by working more between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m. |
| Keywords: | Uber; Female labor supply; Teachers’ strike. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J46 |
| Date: | 2024–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:021132&r= |