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on Gender |
| By: | Elise Coudin (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Sophie Maillard (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Maxime To (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | In France, in 2014, women’s hourly wages were on average 14.4 % lower than men’s. Beyond differentials in observed characteristics, is this gap explained by segregation of women in low-wage firms, or by gender inequality within a given firm? To answer that question, we apply the approach of Card, Cardoso, and Kline (2016) on French data to disentangle the role of between-firm (sorting) and within-firm heterogeneity (bargaining) on the gender wage gap. We use a two-way fixed effect wage model, in which firm fixed effects differ between male and female employees to account for within-firm gender differences in bargaining power and wage policy. We estimate this model with linked employer-employee data covering French private sector from 1995 to 2014. The sorting effect accounts for almost 11% of the gender wage gap, whereas the bargaining effect is close to zero. This last result could be related to the protective role of the high French minimum wage level. We have access to very rich administrative data that allow us to recover information on family events. Hence, we can analyze sorting and bargaining effects all along the family life cycle. Our analysis shows that firm effect gap appears clearly around the first childbirth and deepens over the life cycle: in addition to the direct effects of childbirth on wages, mothers also experience wage losses associated to sorting into low-paying firms. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, gender inequalities, linked employer-employee data, two-way fixed effect models, discrimination |
| JEL: | J31 J71 J16 |
| Date: | 2018–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:18/01&r=gen |
| By: | Giorgio Topa (Federal Reserve Bank of New York); Aysegul Sahin (Federal Reserve Bank of New York); Andreas Mueller (Columbia University); Jason Faberman (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | A recent body of literature argues that at least some part of the gender wage gap may be due to differences in the bargaining and negotiation behavior of men and women. If women are less likely to bargain over wages, they will take home a lower fraction of their match surplus. This would contribute to the gender wage differentials observed in the data. Alternatively, wage differentials could be due to differences in sorting into different types of jobs or firms. A well-established literature finds that a considerable fraction of the gender wage gap is due to the occupational choices of men and women (see, for example, Groshen, 1991; Blau and Kahn, 2000, among others). Song, Price, Guvenen, Bloom, von Watcher (2015) find that pay differences between firms are an important source of earnings inequality. Both lines of research suggest that systematic differences in sorting by gender can lead to a gender wage gap. Recently, Card, Cartoso, Heiningand, and Klein (2013) quantified these two separate channels in the Portuguese data: the first one is the sorting channel—the possibility that women are less likely to work for higher-wage firms. The other is the bargaining channel—the possibility that women are less aggressive in bargaining than men. The sorting channel can work through occupational choice as well. Similarly, bargaining is only one aspect of the search process. More broadly, differences in search behavior between men and women, including differences in bargaining, search effort, and search efficiency, may be a key contributor to the gender wage gap. Both the sorting channel and the job search process are closely linked to a worker’s ability to change jobs. In this paper, we focus on gender differences in the job search and job-finding process. Using a unique new household survey, we study the relationship between job search behavior and outcomes by gender. We document new facts on their differences and quantify their effects on the gender wage gap. We find that a large gap in the wages of men and women exist not only in their current wages, but also in their wages at the time of their hiring and the wages of both recently-offered and recently accepted jobs. Gender differences observable characteristics, including demographics, the occupation of the job in question, and firm characteristics, can account for about half of the wage gap of the current job and about two-thirds of the pay gap of job offers. Accounting the differences in prior work history accounts for much of the remaining gap. An important caveat to these findings is that women pay a somewhat larger penalty than men for receiving or accepting an offer from non-employment, even after controlling for observables and work history. Our evidence on job search behavior suggests why differences in in work history may play an important role. We find that women tend to search more while employed and tend to search more intensely, but that they tend to fare slightly worse than men in generating job offers. A key reason for this difference is that men tend to have stronger informal recruiting channels. They generate more unsolicited offers and are more likely to have an employer contact through a referral. The stronger informal networks among men may reflect stronger ties to the labor market. Both may work together to contribute to the gender wage gap. We find that men are more likely to engage in bargaining than women, but only slightly more so. Overall, our results thus far suggest that gender differences in job search behavior and outcomes affect the gender wage gap through their effects on the work histories of men and women. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:1330&r=gen |
| By: | Pestel, Nico (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies marriage market effects of the student gender composition for university graduates using German Microcensus data and aggregate information on the student sex ratio by field of study for 41 different fields from 1977 to 2011. Experiencing a higher own-gender share of students during university education reduces overall marriage market opportunities for women but not for men. Moreover, when students of the own gender are relatively abundant, the probability of having a partner from the same field decreases for women, while men are more likely to marry down with respect to educational status. |
| Keywords: | marriage markets, sex ratio, higher education, Germany |
| JEL: | D10 I23 I24 J12 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11175&r=gen |
| By: | Diniz, Andre; Guimaraes, Bernardo; Petersen Rendall, Michelle |
| Abstract: | We document that employment polarization in the 1980-2008 period in the U.S. is largely generated by women. For the latter, employment shares increase both at the bottom and at the top of the skill distribution, generating the typical U-shape polarization graph, while for men employment shares decrease in a similar fashion along the whole skill distribution. We show that a canonical model of skill-biased technological change augmented with a gender dimension, an endogenous market/home labor choice and a multi-sector environment accounts well for gender and overall employment polarization. The model also accounts for the absence of employment polarization during the 1960-1980 period, which is due to the flat behavior of changes in women’s employment shares along the skill distribution, and can reproduce the different evolution of employment shares across decades during the 1980-2008 period. The faster growth of skill-biased technological change since the 1980s accounts for a substantial part of the employment polarization generated by the model. |
| Keywords: | Job Polarization; Gender; Skill-biased technological change; Home Production. |
| JEL: | E20 E21 J16 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86170&r=gen |
| By: | Irene Comeig (Department of Finance, University of Valencia, Spain); Ainhoa Jaramillo-Gutiérrez (LEE-Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain); Federico Ramírez (Department of Finance, University of Valencia, Spain) |
| Abstract: | Despite empirical evidence has shown that having women in firm's decisionmaking positions is an important source of value co-creation, those positions are still largely male dominated. Previous research in experimental economics seems to suggest that women tend to shy away from competition. However, most of this research has focused on a particular competition type called “winner takes all” (WTA) competition, which have been found to interrelate to cultural and social variables. We present an economic laboratory experiment that compares the WTA competition to the independent competition to meet goals; the latter one not so interrelated to other influences such as self-confidence and/or fear of failure (risk/ambiguity attitudes). The results show that the number of women entering competitive environments is significantly higher in the independent competition to meet goals than in the WTA competition. Furthermore, this increase comes with no reduction in men’s participation and with no general efficiency reduction. Our findings suggest that firms should change the widespread used WTA competition in favor of the independent competition to meet goals in order to achieve value co-creation and sustainability through a gender neutral promotion mechanism. Additionally, this research contributes to reduce stereotypes towards competition preferences by gender. |
| Keywords: | Behavior, Competition, Decision-making, Experimental economics, Gender, Sustainability, Value co-creation |
| JEL: | C9 J16 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jau:wpaper:2017/12&r=gen |
| By: | Alyssa Schneebaum (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Nina Schubert (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | Since the first empirical paper on the topic more than two decades ago (Badgett, 1995), the common story in the literature on wages and sexual orientation has been that gay men face a wage penalty compared to heterosexual men while lesbians are paid the same as or more than heterosexual women. However, none of the papers in the literature have thoroughly addressed the role of marital status in these wage gaps. Using data from the 2013-2015 American Community Survey and OLS as well as selection-corrected estimators, we show that the gay male penalty exists only for the group of married men, while the lesbian wage premium persists across marital status but is smaller for married lesbians. |
| Keywords: | Sexual orientation, marriage premium/penalty, wage differential, discrimination |
| JEL: | J31 J12 J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp254&r=gen |
| By: | Sander Wagner (CREST; ENSAE; Université Paris Saclay) |
| Abstract: | Reunified Germany presents an interesting test case for testing intergenerational transmission of opportunity from a gendered perspective. Former Eastern Germany used to have a much higher female labour force participation and more gender egalitarian institutions. We use the German Socio-Economic Panel to look at the effects of mothers and fathers education on both sons and daughters income in postreunification Germany. Further we explore the extent to which effects on child income are moderated via child’s education and whether the strength of transmission displays non-linearities across the income distribution. It is shown that educational moderation matters more for Western Germany and that nonlinearities are stronger in father-son transmissions. Gendered transmission differs between East and West in a way that is coherent with the different roles of women. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crs:wpaper:2017-03&r=gen |
| By: | Tatyana Avilova; Claudia Goldin |
| Abstract: | Men outnumber women as undergraduate economics majors by three to one nationwide. Even at the best research universities and liberal arts colleges men outnumber women by two to one or more. The Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge was begun in 2015 as an RCT with 20 treatment schools and at least 30 control schools to evaluate whether better course information, mentoring, encouragement, career counseling, and more relevant instructional content could move the needle. Although the RCT is still in the field, results from several within treatment-school randomized trials demonstrate that uncomplicated and inexpensive interventions can substantially increase the interest of women to major in economics. |
| JEL: | A0 A22 J16 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24189&r=gen |