Pregnancy-related dropouts and gender inequality in education: A life-table approach and application to Cameroon

In this study, I used a life-table approach to estimate how much hypothetical reductions in pregnancy-related dropouts would help close the gender gap in educational attainment. Using the schooling histories of 6,686 pupils, I partitioned Cameroon's gender gap in education into "pregnancy-related" and "non-pregnancy-related" components and simulated the impact of reductions in pregnancy-related dropouts on this gap. The results suggest that such reductions would have substantial payoffs in this setting, but payoffs would be the greatest where societies also address gender inequities before puberty and outside the realm of pregnancy. Reductions in pregnancy-related dropouts complement but do not replace efforts to reduce gender discrimination in schooling. Recent data from Demographic and Health Surveys should make it possible to extend this analysis to other countries.     

Rethinking gender segregation and gender inequality: Measures and meanings

It is often assumed that occupational segregation by gender is readily interpretable as an index of inequality between men and women in the labor force. Although this view has been challenged, the development and dissemination of analytic tools that could test this assumption have been limited. This article reviews two methods for identifying invidious and noninvidious components of gender segregation and develops a third approach that overcomes some limitations of the other two. Each method is applied to a data set that consists of observations from 22 countries covered in the International Social Survey Program. The results are compared and contrasted, and several conclusions emerge. First, occupational segregation is not completely interpretable as occupational gender inequality. Second, the methods differ in how large they estimate the invidious (vertical) component to be. Third, each method produces measures of invidious and noninvidious segregation that can be predicted statistically from other characteristics of the countries in question. The article ends with suggestions about the circumstances under which the various approaches may be the most useful.     

Patterns of inter- and intra-regional inequality: A socio-economic approach

The regional development pattern of five regions, viz., North, South, Tropical America, Tropical Asia and Tropical Africa [see Theil (1989)] is studied using two indices based on a group of representative socio-economic indicators. The analysis is based on measures of ‘inequality’ and ‘mobility’. Comparison of results using these indices and the Per Capita Gross Domestic Product (PCGDP) reveals that while the situation with respect to PCGDP has worsened over the years, that with respect to the socio-economic indicators has become better.     

A comparative perspective on intermarriage: Explaining differences among national-origin groups in the United States

Little is known about the validity of group-level theories of ethnic intermarriage despite the fact that such theories are often invoked in explaining why certain ethnic groups are “closed,” whereas others are relatively “open.” We develop a comparative perspective by analyzing the marriage choices of 94 national-origin groups in the United States, using pooled data from the Current Population Surveys, 1994–2006, and multilevel models in which individual and contextual determinants of intermarriage are included simultaneously. Our analyses show large differences in endogamy across groups. After taking compositional effects into account, we find that both structural and cultural group-level factors have significant effects on endogamy. Cultural explanations (which focus on the role of norms and preferences) play a more important role than structural explanations (which focus on meeting and mating opportunities). Our results reinforce the common but untested interpretation of endogamy in terms of group boundaries.     

Racial differences in birth health risk: A quantitative genetic approach

In the United States the gap between black and white babies' birth weights has remained largely unexplained. Rather than trying to measure all relevant variables, we used a genetically informative design to study the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors. Employing multiple indicators of "birth health risk," we found that the racial differences increased with the magnitude of the shared environmental effects. This suggested that possible genetic effects would not pertain to fetal genes, although genes affecting the mother's physical or physiological characteristics could be important because they contribute to shared environment in our analysis.     

Explaining levels of within-group wage inequality in U.S. labor markets

Most research on earnings inequality has focused on the growing gap between workers of different races and at different education, age, and income levels, but a large portion of the increasing inequality has actually occurred within these groups. This article focuses on the extent and sources of "within-group" wage inequality in more than 500 labor markets in the United States in 1990. In addition to documenting that within-group wage inequality across regions varies more widely today than over the past several decades, the analysis reveals that two frequently cited explanations of rising wage inequality over time have little impact on within-group wage inequality when measured at the local labor market level: (1) industrial shifts and (2) increased technology and trade. By contrast, flexible and insecure employment conditions (e.g., unemployment, contingent work, and immigration) are associated strongly with high local levels of within-group wage inequality, especially among women.     

Men matter: Additive and interactive gendered preferences and reproductive behavior in kenya

The extent of men’s roles in reproductive decision-making in Africa is a subject of contention. Despite the volume of work on the roles men play in fertility decisions, there have been few attempts to derive direct empirical estimates of the effect of men’s preferences on reproductive behavior. I employ 1989 and 1993 Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys to examine the relative roles of the reproductive preferences of males and females on contraceptive use. Additive and interactive measures of preferences document a significant effect of men’s preferences, which may eclipse women’s preferences. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Re-evaluating gender differences in self-rated health: The importance of cohort

Research examining gender differences in self-rated health (SRH) has typically not distinguished between age and cohort-related changes in the health of men and women over time. Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study finds gender diffegrences in SRH may actually be an artifact of cohort. Prior to examining health across cohorts, women reported worse health than men. With the introduction of cohort to the models, no gender difference was found except in the earliest cohort (born 1924–1933). Historical context is therefore critical to understanding the health trajectories of women and men, which are not uniform across cohorts.     

Housing and wealth inequality: Racial-ethnic differences in home equity in the United States

In our study, we took a first step toward broadening our understanding of the sources of both housing and wealth inequality by studying differences in housing equity among blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and non-Hispanic whites in the United States. Using data from the American Housing Survey, we found substantial and significant gaps in housing equity for blacks and Hispanics (but not for Asians) compared with whites, even after we controlled for a wide range of locational, life-cycle, socioeconomic, family, immigrant, and mortgage characteristics. Furthermore, the payoffs to many factors are notably weaker for minority than for white households. This finding is especially consistent across groups for the effects of age, socioeconomic status, and housing-market value. Blacks and Hispanics also uniformly receive less benefit from mortgage and housing characteristics than do whites. These findings lend credence to the burgeoning stratification perspective on wealth and housing inequality that acknowledges the importance of broader social and institutional processes of racial-ethnic stratification that advantage some groups, whites in this case, over others.     

Health expectancies in Japan: gender differences and policy implications for women

Based on prospective observation of elderly people in the community in Japan, we compared the time-course of development and progression of physical disability between women and men. Men experienced disability at a younger age and at a faster rate than did women. The duration of time spent with disability in women was twice as long as in men. Consequently, women consume about two-thirds of the total resources of formal caregiving services in Japan. Women in Japan are increasingly educated, postponing marriage to higher ages, and less likely to care for parents in the home. Given these changes in family structure and social norms, the capacity for informal family caregiving has decreased dramatically. A recently enacted national long-term care insurance system may further change the picture of caregiving.     

Approval of equal rights and gender differences in well-being

Women earn less than men but are not less satisfied with life. This paper explores whether norms regarding the appropriate pay for women compared to men may explain these findings. We find that the gender wage gap is smaller where a larger fraction of the citizenry has voted in favor of equal pay. We also find that employed women are less (not more) satisfied with life in liberal communities where the gender wage gap is smaller. These findings suggest that norms regarding the appropriate relative pay of women compared to men are shaping gender differences in well-being.     

Beyond infant mortality: gender and stillbirth in reproductive mortality before the twentieth century

Though it has been the largest component of reproductive mortality since its statutory registration in 1928, stillbirth has received little attention from historical demographers, who have relied on the more orthodox indicator of early human survival changes - "infant mortality". The exclusion of stillbirth hampers demographic analysis, underestimates progress in newborn vitality, and over-privileges post-natal causes in theoretical explanation. A case is made for estimating stillbirth before 1928 as a ratio of early neonatal death, and for employing perinatal mortality as an historical indicator of female health status. The long-run trend of reproductive mortality (encompassing mature foetal and live born infant death during the first eleven months) reveals a substantial decline in perinatal causes in the first industrial century (1750-1850), implying a major concurrent improvement in the nutritional status of child bearers. Reproductive mortality is a more complete indicator of death in infancy. It offers demographers a means of fracturing the fertility versus mortality dualism and a potential purchase on gender as a demographic variable, while re-opening the case on mortality in the demographic dynamic of the world we have lost.     

Mapping the diversity of gender preferences and sex imbalances in Indonesia in 2010

Indonesia is usually viewed as a country free of the acute forms of gender discrimination observed elsewhere in East or South Asia, a situation often ascribed to Indonesia's bilateral kinship system. I re-examine this hypothesis by focusing on ethnic and regional variations in sex differentials. New indicators of marriage practices and gender bias derived from 2010 census microdata highlight the presence of patrilocal patterns as well as a distinct presence of son preference in fertility behaviour in many parts of the archipelago. I also present evidence for excessive child sex ratios and excess mortality of females in some areas that appear to be related to son preference and patrilocal residence systems. The findings confirm the association between son preference, sex differentials in mortality, prenatal sex selection, and kinship systems. I conclude with a more regional perspective on demographic vulnerability of females, distinguishing bilateral South East Asia from more patrilineal Melanesia.     

Knowledge of and attitudes toward aging among non-elders: gender and race differences

Although the aging process begins at birth, fears about late adulthood can foster anxiety in younger cohorts about this time of life. This study examines the relationship between non-elderly subjects' (n = 884, 18-55 years) knowledge of and anxieties regarding personal aging and their gender and race. We hypothesized that non-elderly women and persons of color, those who will experience multiple jeopardy in their own late life, would report greater anxiety about their own aging process than did men and majority group members. Women did report lower income and education levels, less knowledge of aging, greater anxiety related to their own aging process, and more time involved in caregiving activities. People of color also differed from Caucasians in certain dimensions of knowledge and anxiety. Implications from these results include the creation of public educational strategies and the organization of women and minorities to more actively address the development and shape of age-related policies.     

Selective gender differences in childhood nutrition and immunization in rural India: The role of siblings

This article examines the role of the sex composition of surviving older siblings on gender differences in childhood nutrition and immunization, using data from the National Family Health Survey, India (1992-1993). Logit and ordered logit models were used for severe stunting and immunization, respectively. The results show selective neglect of children with certain sex and birth-order combinations that operate differentially for girls and boys. Both girls and boys who were born after multiple same-sex siblings experience poor outcomes, suggesting that parents want some balance in sex composition. However, the preference for sons persists, and boys who were born after multiple daughters have the best possible outcomes.     

The categorical generation of organizational inequality: A comparative test of Tilly's durable inequality

This paper develops a theoretical and methodological application of Tilly's [Tilly, C. (1998). Durable inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press] assertions that inequalities are inherently relational and categorical. We focus on the specific proposition that inequalities are exaggerated when categorical social distinctions are mapped onto positional distinctions internal to organizations. Using samples of Australian and U.S. organizations we examine the influence of sex and other status distinctions upon between-class wage inequality. In both countries class inequality is exaggerated when workers are women and managers men. These between-class inequality producing processes are also present for other categorical distinctions available in the data we use (education, permanent vs. temporary worker, dominant vs. marginal linguistic group in Australia, permanent vs. temporary worker and white vs. non-white in the U.S.). In the U.S. the coefficients for relational sex composition are twice as large as in Australia, suggesting historical–institutional differences between the countries enables gender to exert a stronger influence on between-class inequality in the U.S. We further examine the institutional differences in these categorical bases for inequality by examining the extent to which they vary within the two countries as a function of two historically relevant institutional distinctions in wage setting regimes—formalization in the U.S. and centralized wage awards in Australia. As expected these institutional differences shape the extent and type of between-class wage inequality. We conclude that researchers should move methodologically towards observing relations within organizations to reflect the theoretical advances of the past two decades.