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on Gender |
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Issue of 2025–09–01
three papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Ercio Mu\~noz; Dario Sansone; Jo\~ao Tampellini |
| Abstract: | Using data from over 500, 000 dual-earner households in Mexico, we provide evidence of discontinuities in the distribution of relative income within households in Latin America. Similar to high-income countries, we observe a sharp drop at the 50% threshold, where the wife earns more than the husband, but the discontinuity is up to five times larger and has increased over time. These patterns are robust to excluding equal earners, self-employed individuals, or couples in the same occupation/industry. Discontinuities persist across subgroups, including couples with or without children, married or unmarried partners, and those with older wives or female household heads. We also find comparable discontinuities in Brazil and Panama, as well as among some same-sex couples. Moreover, women who are primary earners continue to supply more non-market labor than their male partners, although the gap is narrower than in households where the woman is the secondary earner. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.08166 |
| By: | Isabella Di Filippo; Bruno Escobar; Juan Facal |
| Abstract: | We study how increases in remote work opportunities for men affect their spouses' labor supply. Exploiting variation in the change in work-from-home (WFH) exposure across occupations before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that women whose husbands experienced larger WFH increases are over 2 percentage points more likely to be employed, equivalent to a 4% rise relative to pre-pandemic levels. Evidence from time-use diaries and childcare questionnaires suggests these effects are driven by intra-household reallocation of child-caring time: women are less likely to engage in primary childcare activities, while men working at home partially compensate by covering more for their spouse. These results highlight the role of intra-household spillovers and bargaining in shaping the labor market consequences of remote work. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.08184 |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Meiji Gakuin University) |
| Abstract: | During World War II, the Japanese government carried out a large-scale mobilization of the labor force for war production. To move young and middle-aged men into the military and strategic industries where they were essential, the government restricted male employment in certain designated industries where female workers could substitute for male workers. Women were regarded as a major source of labor, in addition to men in "nonessential and nonurgent" industries and (male) students. Exploiting the variation in the regulation of male employment across industries, we conducted a simple regression analysis to investigate the impact of the war on the female labor force participation, using industry-level panel data from 1920 to 1970. We found that the female employment ratio in the industries where male employment was restricted increased relative to the other industries from 1940, and that this effect continued until 1970. This suggests that wartime labor mobilization had a positive impact on female labor participation, and that the impact was persistent. The case study on banks indicates that major banks indeed made efforts to substitute female for male employees, and that they changed the internal organization and rules of the banks to achieve this, which is one of the reasons for the persistence of the impact. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2025cf1256 |