nep-gen New Economics Papers
on Gender
Issue of 2021‒10‒25
four papers chosen by
Jan Sauermann
Stockholms universitet

  1. Gender identity and relative income within household: Evidence from China By Han Dongcheng; Kong Fanbo; Wang Zixun
  2. Gendered interpretations of job loss and subsequent professional pathways By Rao, Aliya
  3. Gender Preferences in Job Vacancies and Workplace Gender Diversity By David Card; Fabrizio Colella; Rafael Lalive
  4. Closing the Innovation Gap in Pink and Black By Lisa D. Cook; Janet Gerson; Jennifer Kuan

  1. By: Han Dongcheng; Kong Fanbo; Wang Zixun
    Abstract: How does women's obedience to traditional gender roles affect their labour outcomes? To investigate on this question, we employ discontinuity tests and fixed effect regressions with time lag to measure how married women in China diminish their labour outcomes so as to maintain the bread-winning status of their husbands. In the first half of this research, our discontinuity test exhibits a missing mass of married women who just out-earn their husbands, which is interpreted as an evidence showing that these females diminish their earnings under the influence of gender norms. In the second half, we use fixed effect regressions with time lag to assess the change of a female's future labour outcomes if she currently earns more than her husband. Our results suggest that women's future labour participation decisions (whether they still join the workforce) are unaffected, but their yearly incomes and weekly working hours will be reduced in the future. Lastly, heterogeneous studies are conducted, showing that low-income and less educated married women are more susceptible to the influence of gender norms.
    Date: 2021–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2110.08723&r=
  2. By: Rao, Aliya
    Abstract: While we know that career interruptions shape men’s and women’s professional trajectories, we know less about how job loss may matter for this process. Drawing on interviews with unemployed, college-educated men and women in professional occupations, I show that while both men and women interpret their job loss as due to impersonal “business” decisions, women additionally attribute their job loss as arising from employers’ “personal” decisions. Men’s job loss shapes their subsequent preferred professional pathways, but never in a way that diminishes the importance of their participation in the labor force. For some women in this study, job loss becomes a moment to reflect on their professional pathways, often pulling them back from paid work. This study identifies job loss as an event that, on top of gendered workplace experiences and caregiving obligations, may curtail some women’s participation in paid work.
    Keywords: careers; gender inequality; job loss; professionals; unemployment; 1538951; Sage deal
    JEL: R14 J01
    Date: 2021–09–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:111866&r=
  3. By: David Card; Fabrizio Colella; Rafael Lalive
    Abstract: In spring 2005, Austria launched a campaign to inform employers and newspapers that gender preferences in job advertisements were illegal. At the time over 40% of openings on the nation’s largest job-board specified a preferred gender. Over the next year the fraction fell to under 5%. We merge data on filled vacancies to linked employer-employee data to study how the elimination of gender preferences affected hiring and job outcomes. Prior to the campaign, most stated preferences were concordant with the firm’s existing gender composition, but a minority targeted the opposite gender - a subset we call non-stereotypical vacancies. Vacancies with a gender preference were very likely (>90%) to be filled by someone of that gender. We use pre-campaign vacancies to predict the probabilities of specifying preferences for females, males, or neither gender. We then conduct event studies of the effect of the campaign on the predicted preference groups. We find that the elimination of gender preferences led to a rise in the fraction of women hired for jobs that were likely to be targeted to men (and vice versa), increasing the diversity of hiring workplaces. Partially offsetting this effect, we find a reduction in the success of non-stereotypical vacancies in hiring the targeted gender, and indications of a decline in the efficiency of matching. For the much larger set of stereotypical vacancies, however, vacancy filling times, wages, and job durations were largely unaffected by the campaign, suggesting that the elimination of stated preferences had at most small consequences on overall job match efficiency.
    JEL: J16 J63
    Date: 2021–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29350&r=
  4. By: Lisa D. Cook; Janet Gerson; Jennifer Kuan
    Abstract: Recent research shows the negative impact of discrimination not only on the targets of discrimination but also on the economy as a whole. Racial and gender inequality can limit the entire economy's productive capacity and innovation outcomes. Using new data from NSF's Survey of Earned Doctorates on the scientific workforce from 1980 to 2019, as well as patenting and commercialization data, we examine racial and gender disparities at each stage of the innovation process—education and training, the practice of invention, and commercialization. While improving along certain dimensions over time, we find persistent racial and gender disparities consistent with the current literature. To reverse the negative effects on productive capacity and long-run economic growth, we also discuss the literature on mitigating discriminatory practices at each juncture, which could have significant distributional effects as access to good jobs expands.
    JEL: O31 O33
    Date: 2021–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29354&r=

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