Birth order and the gender gap in educational attainment

Review of Economics of the Household - While studies of birth order effects on human capital formation for developed countries abound, less is known about these effects in a developing country...     

Management gender composition and the gender pay gap: Evidence from British panel data

Women continue to earn less than their male counterparts globally. Scholars and feminist activists have suggested a partial explanation for this gender gap in earnings could be women's limited access to power structures at the workplace. Using the linked employer–employee data of the Workplace Employment Relations Study 2004–2011, this article asks what happens to the gender gap in earnings among non‐managerial employees when the share of women in management at the workplace increases. The findings, based on workplace‐fixed time‐fixed effects regression models, suggest that workplace‐level increases in the share of women in management are associated with decreases of the non‐managerial gender gap in earnings. This effect appears to be largely unrelated to changes in equality and diversity policies, family‐friendly arrangements and support for carers at the workplace.     

The gap between gender research and action in Uganda

The author considers who is currently involved in gender research in Uganda and what areas are being covered. She also discusses the methodologies commonly used and why, to whom findings are disseminated, who uses the findings and for what purpose, and researcher responsibility to researched subjects. The strengths and weaknesses of gender research in Uganda are noted, as well as what could be done to improve the quality and quantity of gender research. That gender research material remains fragmented and uncoordinated, buried in documents which remain limited to one area of expertise, is the main problem with gender research in Uganda. Moreover, some material fails to reflect the Ugandan reality. Frameworks must be developed which are defined in gender systems specific to Uganda's historical and cultural practices rather than basing them upon western knowledge.     

COVID‐19 and the gender gap in work hours

School and day care closures due to the COVID‐19 pandemic have increased caregiving responsibilities for working parents. As a result, many have changed their work hours to meet these growing demands. In this study, we use panel data from the US Current Population Survey to examine changes in mothers’ and fathers’ work hours from February through April 2020, the period of time prior to the widespread COVID‐19 outbreak in the United States and through its first peak. Using person‐level fixed effects models, we find that mothers with young children have reduced their work hours four to five times more than fathers. Consequently, the gender gap in work hours has grown by 20–50 per cent. These findings indicate yet another negative consequence of the COVID‐19 pandemic, highlighting the challenges it poses to women’s work hours and employment.     

An equilibrium analysis of the gender wage gap

Within a two‐sector general equilibrium model, women's productivity in the marketplace decreases with the amount of household work they perform at home. Assuming that men's and women's household labour inputs are complementary here we prove the existence of multiple equilibria. In some, men and women allocate their labour equally and earn identical wages. In others, they allocate labour differently and earn different wages. In this context, beliefs about the inferiority of women's productivity are shown to be self‐fulfilling. By use of numerical examples, we show that welfare is highest when spouses allocate labour equally and suggest policy recommendations.     

A distribution-sensitive examination of the gender wage gap in Germany

This paper provides a new examination of the gender pay gap for Germany based on a family of distribution-sensitive indicators. Wage distributions for men and women do not only differ by a fixed constant; differences are more complex. We show that focusing on the bottom of the wage distribution reveals a larger gender gap. Our distribution-sensitive analysis can also be used to study whether the statistical disadvantage of women in average pay might be ‘offset’ by lower inequality. Over a broad range of plausible preferences over inequality, we show however that ‘inequality-adjusted’ estimates of the gap can be up to three times higher than standard inequality-neutral measures in Eastern Germany and up to fifty percent higher in Western Germany. Using preference parameters elicited from a hypothetical risky investment question in our sample, inequality-adjusted gender gap measures turn out to be close to those upper bounds.     

The gender wage gap by education in Italy

This paper studies the gender wage gap by educational attainment in Italy using the 1994–2001 ECHP data. We estimate wage distributions in the presence of covariates and sample selection separately for highly and low educated men and women. Then, we decompose the gender wage gap across all the wage distribution and isolate the part due to gender differences in the remunerations of the similar characteristics. We find that women are penalized especially if low educated. When we control for sample selection induced by unobservables, the penalties for low educated women become even larger, above all at the bottom of the wage distribution.     

Equal gender opportunity: Couples in the gap between principles and practice

This paper begins with reference to Nordic evidence claiming that practice is not measuring up to widespread ideals of parent couples sharing housekeeping and childcare tasks when both parents work. Relatedly the paper brings observations of what family practice may look like today in a sample of dual earner heterosexual Norwegian couples with children in day care. There seems to be a discrepancy – a gap – between generally accepted principles and practice as described. The observations are interpreted in relation to a set of concepts with the intention of trying to understand meanings of the gap for people living in the situation. A number of burdens on mothers are highlighted. This situation – through its influence on individual well-being and setting interactions – is of importance not only for couples and their children, but also for communities and organizations. Involvement from institutions around the family, notably from work organizations, is needed in the struggle for change.     

Modernization and the gender gap in religiosity: Evidence from cross-national European surveys

The tendency of women to be more religious than men has been widely observed. Many theories have been offered to account for this difference, with explanations ranging from the biological to the sociological; no consensus on the explanation has been reached. Using data from the European Social Survey, the European Values Study and the International Social Survey Programme, in conjunction with a new method for measuring the gender gap, we compare different countries, generations and periods in Europe to address three key questions: (1) How much do the differences between men and women depend on what indicator of religiosity (e.g. affiliation, attendance, prayer, belief) is being considered? (2) Is there an association at the national level between the size of the gender gap and the degree of secularization or gender equality? (3) Is there a convergence in the religiosity of men and women across generations or over time? There is some evidence for such a narrowing of the gap in Europe—most noticeably in southern and Eastern Europe—but substantial differences persist. Even in countries that are comparatively secular and where gender inequality has been much reduced, women are considerably more likely than men to identify with a religion, to call themselves religious, and to participate in public and private religious activities.     

Closing the gap: gender parity in political engagement on social media

Historically, major gender differences exist in both political engagement and online content creation. Expanding on these literatures, this study considers the extent to which men and women engage in politics specifically in social media. Novel survey data are employed to test for any gendered differences in encountering and responding to political content via social media. Despite measuring a robust set of political behaviors within social media, few gender differences emerge. Where differences do emerge, they are most likely among the most visible political behaviors, suggesting that women may strategically engage in less visible or less-likely-to-offend political behaviors, as compared to men. This poses important questions regarding political participation, representation, and gender.     

The gender citation gap: Why and how it matters

The weight of evidence suggests that articles written by men and women receive citations at comparable rates. This suggests that research quality or gender-based bias in research evaluation and citing behaviors may not be the reason why academic women accumulate fewer citations than men at the career level. In this article, I outline a career perspective that highlights women's disadvantages in career progression as the root causes for the gender citation gap. I also consider how the gender citation gap may perpetuate the unequal pay between genders in science. My analysis of two different datasets, one including paper and citation information for over 130,000 highly cited scholars during the 1996–2020 period and another including citation and salary information for nearly 2,000 Canadian scholars over the 2014–2019 period, shows several important findings. First, papers written by women on average receive more citations than those written by men. Second, the gender citation gap grows larger with time as men and women progress in their careers, but the opposite pattern holds when research productivity and collaborative networks are considered. Third, higher citations lead to higher pay, and gender differences in citations explain a significant share of the gender wage gap. Findings demonstrate the critical need for more attention toward gender differences in career progression when investigating the causes and solutions for gender disparities in science.     

The gender pay gap in nonprofit executive compensation in South Florida

In general, systemic imbalance in pay between men and women is well established, but the literature on pay imbalance is mixed for nonprofit executives. Difference in organizational size could be a relevant factor in explaining pay imbalance, as previous research suggests average female nonprofit executives lead smaller organizations. The present study examines the role of governance accreditation on the gender gap in chief executive pay, using a 2 × 2 analysis of covariance to control for organizational size (as measured by annual revenue) when comparing samples of accredited and nonaccredited organizations in South Florida. We found a wage gap for gender, with female executives averaging 12% less compensation than male executives, after controlling for organizational size. No significant effect was found for accreditation; although the only significant difference between genders was in the nonaccredited sample, the findings hint that any trend towards pay equity would be due to a pattern of the male executives in the accredited sample being paid less than their counterparts in nonaccredited organizations.     

The gender wage gap,weather, and intimate partner violence

Review of Economics of the Household - Two theories of intimate partner violence (IPV) have differing predictions on how women’s bargaining power affects rates of IPV. If an abuser enjoys and...     

Cognitive and socioemotional skills and wages: the role of latent abilities on the gender wage gap in Peru

Review of Economics of the Household - The literature provides evidence on the positive connection between cognitive test scores and higher wages. Fewer and newer studies have explored the...     

Family structure and child health outcomes in the United States

We use categorical and logistic regression models to investigate the extent that family structure affects children’s health outcomes at age five (i.e., child’s type of health insurance coverage, the use of a routine medical doctor, and report of being in excellent health) using a sample of 4,898 children from the "Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study." We find that children with married biological parents are most likely to have private health insurance compared with each of three other relationship statuses. With each additional child in the home, a child is less likely to have private insurance compared with no insurance and Medicaid insurance. Children with cohabiting biological parents are less likely to have a routine doctor compared with children of married biological parents, yet having additional children in the household is not associated with having a routine doctor. Children with biological parents who are not romantically involved and those with additional children in the household are less likely to be in excellent health, all else being equal.     

Deepening and widening the gap: The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender and racial inequalities in Brazil

Shaped by inconsistent policy decisions, the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil has made structural gender and racial inequalities more acute. Black and low-income women are overburdened with unpaid domestic work, increased domestic violence, and more vulnerable due to informal and exploitative working regimes. These structural aspects are intensifying, since the pandemic has broadened inequalities at the intersection of gender, race, labor market, and social class. We examine pre- and during pandemic inequalities on three dimensions: (a) unpaid domestic and care work, (b) women's labor market participation, and (c) domestic violence. We link the care diamond model and racial stratification forwarding a feminist perspective by examining how the interlocking of race and gender in Brazil renders different socioeconomic dynamics to the detriment of Black and low-income women. Based on this evidence, we stress that a more equal future requires a better social protection and policies targeting the articulation of gender, race, and class.     

The measurement of unemployment using completed durations: evidence on the gender gap in unemployment in France

This paper examines how unemployment can be measured in a normative fashion - taking into account the mean and inequality of spell lengths - and how the extent of unemployment can be estimated from cross section data of the type found in labour force surveys. The issue is not straightforward since in these surveys completed durations of unemployed individuals are not observed yet they constitute the basis for calculating the kind of index that has been proposed to measure the extent of unemployment in a way that goes beyond the unemployment rate. The index proposed by Shorrocks has robust normative foundations and has an equivalent representation in terms of average complete duration and the density of completed durations. Building upon earlier work applied in the United States for estimating the average completed duration, we present a method that enables the index to be calculated based on an estimate of the density of completed durations. The approach is illustrated in the context of comparing male-female unemployment differences in France, where historically female unemployment has been higher than that of males.     

Same job,different rewards: The gender pay gap among physicians in Italy

Women have made significant progress in the medical profession, but despite this trend towards equality, the gender pay gap persists. This study investigates the determinants of earning differentials among physicians in Italy. This analysis is based on a dataset of more than 1000 doctors working in five hospitals in the Lombardy region. Data were collected through an online survey with a response rate of 48.7 per cent. Women's concentration in the lower ranks of the career ladder, their lower propensity to work as private practitioners and their lower concentration in surgical specialties contribute to the gender income gap. Having children and a spouse or a cohabiting partner entails a premium on income for men, but no penalty for women, which suggests that positive discrimination towards fathers and husbands is stronger than negative discrimination towards mothers and wives. On the other hand, the gender gap associated with marital and parental status is stronger in public hospitals than in private hospitals, at least up to the second child. Once differences in characteristics are controlled, women earn 18 per cent less than men. This penalty should be ascribed to employer's discrimination and/or unobserved characteristics. These findings challenge the human capital perspective by calling for attention into the role of structural mechanisms in producing inequalities.