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on Gender |
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Issue of 2024‒10‒21
seven papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Leckie, G.; Maragkou, K. |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits a unique institutional feature of the university admissions process in England, where applications are based on teacher-predicted grades, to compare differences between predictions and actual exam results by student gender. Using newly linked administrative data, we find that boys receive lower grade predictions relative to equally performing girls. A substantial portion of this gap can be explained by girls’ advantage in overall scholastic competence. Once we account for this skill differential, the gender gap in non-STEM fields diminishes significantly, whereas in STEM, it shifts in favour of boys. We interpret the remaining gaps as indicative of potential gender bias in schools. |
| Keywords: | Predicted grades, teacher bias, gender, STEM |
| JEL: | I23 I24 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–10–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2457 |
| By: | Khan, Nuzaina (University of Oxford); Rand, David (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Shurchkov, Olga (Wellesley College) |
| Abstract: | We design an online experiment that mimics a Twitter/X "feed" to test whether (perceived) poster gender influences users' propensity to doubt the veracity of a given post. On average, posts by women are less likely to be flagged as concerning than identical posts by men. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that men are more likely to flag female-authored posts as the post's topic domain becomes more male-stereotyped. Female users do not exhibit the same bias. Actual post veracity, user ideology, and user familiarity with Twitter do not explain the findings. Flagging behavior on Twitter's crowdsourced fact-checking program is consistent with these findings. |
| Keywords: | gender differences, misinformation, economic experiments |
| JEL: | C90 D9 J16 L86 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17282 |
| By: | Seema Jayachandran; Lea Nassal; Matthew J. Notowidigdo; Marie Paul; Heather Sarsons; Elin Sundberg |
| Abstract: | Many couples face a trade-off between advancing one spouse’s career or the other’s. We study this trade-off using administrative data from Germany and Sweden. We first conduct an event-study analysis of couples moving across commuting zones and find that relocation increases men’s earnings more than women’s, with strikingly similar patterns in Germany and Sweden. Using a sample of mass layoff events, we then find that couples in both countries are more likely to relocate in response to the man being laid off compared to the woman. We investigate whether these gendered patterns reflect men’s higher potential earnings or a gender norm that prioritizes men’s career advancement. We provide suggestive evidence of a gender norm using variation in norms within Germany. We then develop and estimate a model of household decision-making in which households can place more weight on the income earned by the man compared to the woman. In both countries, the estimated model can accurately reproduce the reduced-form results, including those not used to estimate the model. The results point to a role for gender norms in explaining the gender gap in the returns to joint moves. |
| JEL: | J16 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32970 |
| By: | Averett, Susan L. (Lafayette College); Biener, Adam (Lafayette College); Ogrokhina, Olena (Lafayette College) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the relationship between gender wage gaps and women's overall health. Using data from the 2011-2019 Current Population Survey, we employ entropy balancing to create comparable samples of men and women and estimate wage gaps for full-time employed working-age women. Adjusting for individual, occupation, and industry characteristics, we estimate the association between wage gaps and self-rated health. Our results suggest that closing the wage gap results in a 1.2 percent reduction in women reporting poor or fair health, equivalent to nearly 170, 000 fewer women. These effects are more pronounced for women with below-median wages or in male-dominated jobs. |
| Keywords: | wage gap, health, women |
| JEL: | F02 F34 F41 G15 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17277 |
| By: | Henrik Kleven; Giulia Olivero; Eleonora Patacchini |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether the effects of children on the labor market outcomes of women relative to men — child penalties — are shaped by the work behavior of peers’ parents during adolescence. Leveraging quasi-random variation in the fraction of peers with working parents across cohorts within schools, we find that greater exposure to working mothers during adolescence substantially reduces the child penalty in employment later in life. Conversely, we find that greater exposure to working fathers increases the penalty. Our findings suggest that parental role models during adolescence are critical for shaping child-related gender gaps in the labor market. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33002 |
| By: | Ulrich Glogowsky; Emanuel Hansen; Dominik Sachs; Holger Lüthen |
| Abstract: | Using German administrative data from the 1960s onward, this paper (i) examines the long-term evolution of child-related gender inequality in earnings and (ii) assesses the impact of family policies on this inequality. We present three sets of findings. First, child penalties (i.e., the percentage of potential earnings lost due to children) have strongly increased over the last decades. Mothers who had their first child in the 1960s faced much smaller penalties than those who gave birth in the 2000s. Second, we decompose overall gender inequality into childrelated and child-unrelated components. Over our sample period, the fraction of overall inequality attributed to children rose from 14% to 64%. This trend not only resulted from the growing child penalties but also from rising potential earnings of mothers. Intuitively, in later decades, mothers had more income to lose from child-related career breaks. Third, we investigate the role of policy decisions in this rise in child penalties. Parental leave expansions between 1979 and 1992 amplified child penalties and contributed nearly one-third to the increase in child-related gender inequality. Instead, a parental benefit reform in 2007 mitigated further increases. While the third set of results highlights the role of family policies, the first two imply that sidelining mothers becomes increasingly costly over time. |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2024-08 |
| By: | Libertad González; Luis Guirola; Laura Hospido |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence of fathers’ time-use during paternity leave by studying the timing of paternity leave spells around a large sports event with strong male following: the 2022 Soccer World Cup. We use administrative data from Spain, a country with generous paternity leave policies and a strong following of soccer competitions. Our data cover the universe of paternity (and maternity) leave spells, and we exploit the exact dates of the 2022 World Cup in a difference-in-differences framework. We show that, during the exact dates of the Qatar World Cup (November 20-December 18, 2022), there was a daily excess of more than 1, 000 men on paternity leave (1.3%), relative to the surrounding dates, and using the year before and after as controls (for seasonality). We also show in triple-differences specifications that this excess is not present in maternity leave spells, or in paternity leave spells among self-employed workers (with much more flexible schedules). We interpret these results as direct evidence that (at least a fraction of) fathers use paternity leave for purposes unrelated to childcare. |
| Keywords: | gender inequality, paternity leave, childcare |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1463 |