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on Gender |
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Issue of 2024–11–18
eleven papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Panu Poutvaara; Andreas Graefe |
| Abstract: | Women are severely underrepresented in American politics, especially among Republicans. This underrepresentation may result from women being less willing to run for office, from voter bias against women, or from political structures that make it more difficult for women to compete. Here we show how support for female candidates varies by voters’ party affiliation and gender. We conducted experimental elections in which participants made their vote choices based solely on politicians’ faces. When choosing between female and male candidates, Democrats, and especially Democratic women, preferred female candidates, while Republicans were equally likely to choose female and male candidates. These patterns held after controlling for respondents’ education, age, and political knowledge, and for candidates’ age, attractiveness, and perceived conservatism. Our findings suggest that voter bias against women cannot explain women’s underrepresentation. On the contrary, American voters appear ready to further narrow the gender gap in politics. |
| Keywords: | gender, elections, gender discrimination, political candidates, redistribution |
| JEL: | D72 J16 H23 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11414 |
| By: | Menaka Hampole; Francesca Truffa; Ashley Wong |
| Abstract: | Women continue to be underrepresented in corporate leadership positions. This paper studies the role of social connections in women's career advancement. We investigate whether access to a larger share of female peers in business school affects the gender gap in senior managerial positions. Merging administrative data from a top-10 U.S. business school with public LinkedIn profiles, we first document that female MBAs are 24% less likely than male MBAs to enter senior management within 15 years of graduation. Next, we use the exogenous assignment of students into sections to show that a larger proportion of female MBA section peers increases the likelihood of entering senior management for women but not for men. This effect is driven by female-friendly firms, such as those with more generous maternity leave policies and greater work schedule flexibility. A larger proportion of female MBA peers induces women to transition to these firms where they attain senior management roles. A survey of female MBA alumnae reveals three key mechanisms: (i) information sharing, especially related to gender-specific advice, (ii) higher ambitions and self-confidence, and (iii) increasing support from male MBA peers. These findings highlight the role of social connections in reducing the gender gap in senior management positions. |
| Keywords: | gender, peer effects, corporate leadership |
| JEL: | I21 J16 J24 J44 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11295 |
| By: | Andreas Fridolin Buehler; Patrick Lehnert; Uschi Backes-Gellner |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes how social gender norms affect the innovation gender gap, part of which stems from an underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. This underrepresentation is traceable to gender-biased educational and occupational choices. One determinant for such biased choices is social gender norms, which also directly affect the innovation gender gap. We disentangle the direct effect of social gender norms from their indirect effect via educational and occupational choices. Combining municipality-level voting data as a measure for social gender norms with patent data as a measure for innovation outcomes, we apply structural equation modeling. Our results show that more traditional gender norms are associated with a significantly lower number of patents filed by women and that the indirect effect via educational and occupational choices accounts for 5.5% of the total effect. These results are crucial for policymakers: while social gender norms are highly persistent and difficult to change in the short term, promoting greater gender equality in educational and occupational choices can be achieved more quickly and may therefore yield important short-term reductions in the innovation gender gap. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Education, Occupational Choices, Innovation |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0230 |
| By: | Isaac, Elliott (Tulane University) |
| Abstract: | Many household labor supply models divide couples by sex and identify separate male and female labor supply parameters. However, institutional factors in the labor market suggest that men are more likely to be primary earners in their household, meaning that intra-household gender gaps in labor supply may reflect both gender norms and earning status. I use a novel identification approach to disentangle the role of gender norms in intra-household labor supply by estimating collective labor supply models for different- and same-sex married couples. Among childless couples, I present point estimates and construct unified bounds showing that gender norms significantly increase the weight placed on women's utility by 1.1–5.1%, leading to lower labor supply. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the effect of gender norms on married, childless couples' labor supply is equivalent to a substantial widening of the gender |
| Keywords: | gender norms, labor supply, collective model |
| JEL: | J16 D13 J22 H24 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17354 |
| By: | Daria Denti (Gran Sasso Science Institute); Alessandra Faggian (Gran Sasso Science Institute) |
| Abstract: | Intimate Partner Homicides (IPHs) represent the ultimate violence against women driven by gender bias, yet evidence on their determinants is scarce. We address this gap by empirically investigating whether IPHs are affected by local female political empowerment, a recognized manifestation of gender norms. This argument is evaluated in two empirical studies addressing Italy, where IPHs increased by 20% in ten years. The analysis is enabled by a unique microregional dataset of female homicides, that contains exclusively data on gender-motivated murders. First, we measure whether places with more women in local council have less IPHs and find that electing more councilwomen reduces IPHs, while electing more female mayors does not. Instrumental variable estimation supports these results not being biased by endogeneity issues. Second, given the crucial role of councilwomen in countering IPHs identified in the first study, we measure the extent of IPH reduction which results from the introduction of gender quotas in the election of council members. Staggered difference-in-difference estimates show that gender quotas increase elected councilwomen, who in turn lower IPHs. While the effect of gender quotas on councilwomen appears stable, the one on IPHs declines after some years, suggesting the occurrence of a cultural backlash against gender-equal norms. Collectively, this research supports exposure to women in local politics as relevant to counter prejudices and reduced IPHs |
| Keywords: | Domestic violence, cultural norms, persistence, gender quotas |
| JEL: | I1 J12 J16 K16 N53 Z1 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahy:wpaper:wp45 |
| By: | Boinet, Césarine (University of Strathclyde); Norris, Jonathan (University of Strathclyde); Romiti, Agnese (University of Strathclyde) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine how pre-birth gender norms shape women's labor market trajectories and occupational choices around motherhood in the United Kingdom. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we first quantify the impact of gender norms on earnings and labor supply post-childbirth. Our results show that traditional mothers experience a 18-percentage-point (pp) higher motherhood penalty in earnings and a 20-pp lower motherhood penalty in hours worked compared to egalitarian mothers. Second, we investigate the role of pre-birth comparative advantage within couples, finding that this mechanism applies only to egalitarian parents. Third, we examine the interaction between occupational characteristics, including their degree of familyfriendliness, and pre-birth gender norms. We find that accounting for occupational sorting significantly reduces the average earnings penalty for both traditional and egalitarian mothers, driven entirely by hours worked for traditional mothers. In addition, we show that occupational sorting explains 80% of the short-run earnings penalty gap between traditional and egalitarian mothers and eliminates the difference in hours worked penalties entirely. Thus, traditional women seem to sort pre-birth into occupations that facilitate a larger reduction in hours worked post-motherhood, which in turn have a substantial impact on their earnings trajectory. |
| Keywords: | gender norms, occupational sorting, motherhood penalty |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17334 |
| By: | Frech, Maria; Maideu-Morera, Gerard |
| Abstract: | Empirical evidence highlights women’s demand for flexible working hours as a crit-ical cause of the persistent gender disparities in the labor market. We propose a theory of how hidden demand for flexibility drives gendered employment dynamics. We de-velop a dynamic contracting model between an employer and an employee whose time availability is stochastic and unverifiable. We model men and women only to differ in their probability of having low time availability, which we measure in the ATUS. We explore contracts designed specifically for each gender (gender-tailored) and the polar case where a male-tailored contract is given to both men and women. For the latter, we show that contracting frictions endogenously give rise to well-documented gendered labor market outcomes: (i) the divergence and non-convergence of gender earnings differentials over the life-cycle, and (ii) women’s shorter job duration and weaker labor force attachment. |
| Keywords: | Gender wage gap; child penalty; flexible working hours; recursive con-tracts |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J41 D82 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:129894 |
| By: | Danilo Cavapozzi; Marco Francesconi; Cheti Nicoletti |
| Abstract: | Using UK longitudinal data on dual-earner couples, this paper estimates a model of intrahousehold housework decisions, which combines a randomized experimental framework eliciting counterfactual choices with gender norms differences across ethnicities and cohorts to identify the impacts of individual preferences and gender identity norms. Equal sharing of tasks yields greater utility for both men and women, with women disliking domestic chores as much as men. Although couples would want to use housework arrangements to compensate for differentials in labor market involvement, women end up performing a substantially larger share of housework. This is not due to specialization, rather social norms play a key role. Exposure to more egalitarian gender attitudes significantly increases the probability of choosing an equal share of housework. Were attitudes evened up to the most progressive levels observed in the sample, women doing more housework than their partners would stop to be the norm already among present-day households, except for households with children. |
| Keywords: | intrahousehold allocation of chores, labor supply, vignettes, gender identity norms, gender gaps |
| JEL: | C25 C26 D13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11413 |
| By: | Sarah, Rosenberg (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | I perform a narrow and wide replication of the labor force participation analyses in Bertand, Pan, and Kamenica (2015), which finds a negative relationship between realized and predicted female breadwinning and wives’ labor force participation. Their results replicate in a narrow sense, even when samples from the same data sources cannot be perfectly reproduced. In the broader replication, I test whether the results are robust to two standard adjustments from labor economics: using hourly wages rather than annual earnings to estimate potential relative income, and using predicted rather than observed earnings or wages for husbands just as for wives. Both adjustments decrease the magnitude of the estimated negative relationship substantially. When combined, they yield a positive coefficient in a cross-sectional analysis, and a precise null when couple fixed effects are incorporated in a longitudinal analysis. This replication casts doubt on the conclusion that wives leave the labor force when they become likely to outearn their husbands. |
| Keywords: | Gender norms; female labor force participation; breadwinners |
| JEL: | J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–10–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2024_010 |
| By: | Chiara Lodi; Agnese Sacchi; Francesco Vidoli |
| Abstract: | We investigated the impact of female politicians on waste collection in Italian municipalities in different territories observed over the years 2010-2019. We used a staggered difference-in-differences design to obtain a causal interpretation of the estimated effects. We find that the majority of women in the municipal council positively influence pro-environmental individual behaviour. The impact of a female-majority council is heterogeneous by region and more pronounced in areas with lower social capital. Female politicians as catalysts for positive change fade after 5-6 years, likely due to persistent social norms locally, thus stressing the need for additional cultural actions with long-lasting effects. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2410.06091 |
| By: | Elisabetta Calabresi |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates the dynamic effects of unilateral divorce legalization on intimate partner violence (IPV) in Mexico, building upon existing evidence. It adopts a heterogenous-robust event study, leveraging data from a repeated cross-sectional survey and exploiting the staggered implementation of the reform across Mexican states. The policy led to a 7.2% increase in physical IPV in the medium term, specifically between 5 to 9 years after its introduction. No significant effects were observed in shorter or longer time frames, nor on other forms of IPV. The main findings are robust across various sensitivity analyses, addressing implementation date discrepancies, potential confounders, and alternative estimation methods. The rise in physical IPV is primarily driven by women who remained married, with suggestive evidence indicating both a backlash effect and an instrumental use of violence. The analysis contributes to the literature by looking at long-term impacts, increasing the external validity of shorter-run effects, adopting a new methodology, and deeply investigating the underlying mechanisms. Overall, it underscores the importance of addressing gender norms together with enhancing women's outside options. |
| Keywords: | unilateral divorce; intimate partner violence; heterogenous-robust event study; Mexico |
| JEL: | J12 I18 K36 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2024_17.rdf |