Unions and the structure of earnings inequality: Cross-national patterns

We examine differences in the structure of earnings inequality for men in four advanced western industrialized nations that differ in the nature and extent of unionism: the United States, Canada, Norway, and Sweden. We argue that the economic effects of unionism depend on whether (1) the bargaining structures of labor markets are centralized or fragmented; and (2) the political organization can be characterized as a corporatist or a pressure-group system. We find some support for our principal hypotheses that cross-national differences in systems of collective bargaining and political institutions affect the size of the earnings gap between male union and nonunion members, as well as the extent of wage dispersion among unionized workers.     

Occupational Gender Segregation and the Earnings Gap: Changes in the 1980s

The 1980 and 1990 U.S. Census data confirm the decline in the earnings gap between men and women. Occupational segregation by gender also declined during the 1980s. Cross-sectional decompositions show that 15% of the earnings gap would be eliminated if women′s occupation distributions were the same as men′s. Over-time decompositions show that declining occupational segregation accounted for about 36% of the decline in the earnings gap; most of the declining earnings gap resulted from more equal pay within occupations.     

Gender differences in the earnings produced by a middle range education: The case of Canadian ‘colleges’

In this paper we use data on consecutive cohorts of recent graduates from community colleges or community college-like institutions to address the following questions about the gender earnings gap: i) What was the trend in the gender earnings gap for these recent graduates? ii) What role in the observed trends in the gender earnings gap was played by occupational demand? iii) How and to what extent did the domestic division of labour contribute to the gender earnings gap in this young sample? We find that the gap fell then rose, that occupational demand played a role in these shifts, and that the domestic division of labour did indeed contribute to the gap in this young sample. Furthermore, our results point to a process of cumulation of factors that increase the earnings gap which has both substantive and methodological implications.     

The role of occupational attributes in gender earnings inequality, 1970–2010

Grounded in the research on the important role of social structures in forming gender inequalities, this study examines the effect of occupational attributes on the gender earnings gap over four decades. Using the IPUMS-USA from 1970 to 2010, the paper shows that occupational attributes cannot be reduced to the aggregate attributes of their individual incumbents. Rather, the effect of occupations on the gender earnings gap goes far beyond both the distributive role of occupational segregation and the effect of individual wage-related characteristics. Furthermore, occupations not only explain a significant portion of net gender pay gaps, but have also contributed to the narrowing of the gaps over the past several decades, as occupational attributes that favor women's pay have become more dominant over time.     

Gender and migration on the labour market: Additive or interacting disadvantages in Germany?

Despite substantial differences in labour market attainment according to gender and migration status, gender and ethnic differences in labour market behaviour are most often studied separately. In contrast, this study describes and analyses interactions between gender, ethnic background and immigrant generation with regard to labour market participation, part-time work, and occupational status. The double comparison aims to reveal whether gender gaps in these labour market outcomes among the majority population generalise to ethnic minorities. Moreover, we ask whether variation in gender gaps in labour market behaviour follows the patterns in migrants’ origin countries, and whether gender gaps show signs of intergenerational assimilation. Our heterogeneous choice and OLS regressions of 2009 German Microcensus data reveal considerable variation in gender gaps in labour market behaviour between East and West Germany, across ethnic groups and across generations. Intergenerational comparisons show that most ethnic minorities assimilate towards German patterns of gendered labour market attainment.     

Who is banked in low income families? The effects of gender and bargaining power

We use data from the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances and a framework that accounts for intrahousehold dynamics to examine bank account ownership for low-income couples. We find that even among families who are banked, some family members are not. Those without accounts may lack access to financial services, be at a disadvantage within their families, or face financial risks if their partnerships end. Our results indicate that men and women are equally likely to be banked, but the factors predicting whether or not they have accounts differ. Women with more bargaining power are more likely to hold bank accounts and their families are more likely to be banked. Moreover, individual characteristics of male and the female partners have different effects on the chances that they, their partners, or their families are banked.     

Cohabiting couples’ economic circumstances and union transitions: a re-examination using multiple imputation techniques

This study examines how sample attrition and missing partner data influence studies of cohabitors’ union transitions. We rely on data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Cohabitors with missing partner information or who were lost-to-follow-up have significantly fewer years of schooling and lower yearly earnings than cohabitors with complete data. Multiple imputation techniques are used to construct missing partner information and outcomes. Relying on prospective data from both waves of the NSFH that has not been corrected for selective data loss misrepresents cohabiting couple’s outcomes by: (1) overstating the extent to which cohabiting couples marry; (2) underestimating the amount of time spent in cohabiting unions; and (3) misrepresenting the effects of men’s economic characteristics on union transitions. Our results suggest that theories regarding how economic characteristics shape marriage transitions among singles may not be appropriate for those already living together.     

Socioeconomic background and racial earnings inequality: A propensity score analysis

Does a racial earnings gap exist among individuals who come from similar childhood socioeconomic backgrounds? Is the racial earnings gap larger or smaller for those from higher or lower socioeconomic origins? This research addresses these questions by taking a counterfactual approach to estimating the residual racial pay gap between non-Hispanic black and white men from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The findings indicate that the racial earnings gap is larger among those from lower-middle class and working class childhood backgrounds than among those from upper-middle class backgrounds, for whom the racial pay gap is indistinguishable from zero. Compared to their more advantaged counterparts, black men from lower-middle and working class backgrounds have more difficulty rising above their socioeconomic origins relative to white men from similar social class backgrounds. Racial earnings equality among those from upper-middle class backgrounds suggests that the high levels of racial inequality often observed among those with college and professional degrees may in fact reflect heterogeneous childhood socioeconomic backgrounds among the college educated—backgrounds that continue to have an effect on earnings despite individual academic achievements.     

Gender inequality in earnings in industrialized East Asia

Using data from the 2006 Family Module of the East Asian Social Survey, we use regression-based methods to decompose the sex gap in hourly wages in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. We find that Taiwan has the smallest sex gap in wages, and is also distinctive in that employed women have more education than men, on average. Japan is distinctive in the high proportion of women consigned to non-regular (temporary, often part-time) jobs, and this factor explains much more of the gap in Japan than elsewhere. Korea is distinctive in having an extremely high proportion of men who are college graduates; therefore, in Korea gender differences in education and occupational placement explain more of the gap than elsewhere. Despite many historical similarities between these societies, our analysis points out the heterogeneity within industrialized East Asia when it comes to gender inequality.     

Gender and class housework inequalities in the era of outsourcing hiring domestic work in Spain

Many households regularly outsource unpaid domestic labor by purchasing services and products to help with cleaning, cooking, ironing, and other chores. Despite the prevalence of this practice, scholars know little about how it affects inequalities in the time spent on housework. Drawing on data on 3540 dual-earner households in Spain, this article examines the relationship between hiring domestic work and both the within-household gender gap in housework and the class gap in housework among women. I find that women who hire do about 30 min less housework per day than non-hiring women, but in relation to their partners these women continue to do the same share of housework. Using counterfactual analysis, I find that the absence of paid domestic work is associated with a 20% decline in the class gap in housework among Spanish women.     

Intergenerational transmission of parent-child relationship quality: Evidence from a multi-actor survey

Intergenerational transmission is a long-standing interest of social science research. However, little attention has been devoted to the study of transmission of relationship quality between several generations of family members. Exploiting multigenerational multi-actor data from the German Family Panel (pairfam), we estimate multilevel models to investigate whether, in three-generation families, relationship quality between the middle generation and the oldest (that is, grandparent) generation predicts relationship quality between the youngest generation of adolescent children and the middle generation. Our results reveal evidence of intergenerational transmission of emotional closeness, conflict, and ambivalence. Transmission was more consistently observed when emanating from ties to grandfathers than from ties to grandmothers. A hypothesis concerning differences in the strength of transmission between East Germany and West Germany found no support. The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations and perspectives for future research.     

Domestic outsourcing and multitasking: How much do they really contribute?

The bulk of responsibility for domestic work and childcare in heterosexual couples falls on women. But the means they find to cope with this load, and how these means relate to the factors underpinning the division of labor are not often studied. Two much-cited ways of reducing overall work time are purchasing domestic assistance (outsourcing) and the multitasking of domestic/caring tasks. Using UK 2000/2001 time-use data (N = 4196 couples), we find domestic outsourcing is related to having dependent children and to partners’ resources, but has little impact on the total domestic/caring workload of either partner. Nor can outsourcing account for the reduction in women’s unpaid labor with increasing economic resources. Wives spend more time multitasking than husbands, but their proportion of multitasked domestic time is similar, and is not affected by resources or dependent children. Domestic multitasking seems to be more related to opportunity (time at home) than to time pressure.     

The declining earnings gap between young women and men in the United States, 1979–2018

We examine the dynamics of the gender earnings gap over the 1979 to 2018 period among full-time workers aged 25–29, focusing on the role of marital status and the presence of children. Using data from multiple years of the Current Population Survey, we find that the earnings gap declined among all groups of men and women, and by 2018 there was earnings parity among the those who were not married and without children. The share of people in this group also grew over the period, and comprised a majority of both men and women by 2018. We also find that while marriage was associated with lower earnings among women in 1979, by 2018 it was associated with higher earnings, suggesting greater positive selection of women with high earnings potential into marriage. The positive association between marriage and earnings among men remained stable. While we found a persistent earnings penalty for having children among women over the period, we found an emerging dampening effect of having children over time among men, which suggests that greater participation in childcare among men has led to lower earnings than in the past (i.e., a causal connection) and/or an emerging selection effect of young men more interested in childrearing over time, perhaps reflecting a cultural shift.     

Educational expansion and educational wage premiums of young male employees: A long-term analysis for West Germany 1976–2010

For decades, Western societies have experienced educational expansion accompanied by an upgrading of skills. The literature provides competing hypotheses on the consequences for educational wage returns — among them are the positional value theory, routine-biased technological change, and the social closure theory. We test these theoretical perspectives empirically on young, male full-time workers in West Germany between 1976 and 2010 in two ideal-type occupational segments using 2.34 million administrative earnings records (Sample of Integrated Labor Market Biographies, SIAB). Our findings show no credential inflation across all levels of education. Instead, the picture in both segments — negative effects of educational expansion on the returns to medium- but not high-level skills — confirms the predictions of routine-biased technological change. Wage premiums for medium-skilled workers differ between segments: the premiums worsen over time in the general segment whereas social-closure mechanisms seem to weaken this negative trend for vocational graduates in the specific segment.     

Money Isn't Everything: Wives' Earnings and Housework Time

The autonomy perspective of housework time predicts that wives' housework time falls steadily as their earnings rise, because wives use additional financial resources to outsource or forego time in housework. We argue, however, that wives' ability to reduce their housework varies by household task. That is, we expect that increases in wives' earnings will allow them to forego or outsource some tasks, but not others. As a result, we hypothesize more rapid declines in wives' housework time for low-earning wives as their earnings increase than for high-earning wives who have already stopped performing household tasks that are the easiest and cheapest to outsource or forego. Using fixed-effects models and data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find considerable support for our hypothesis. We further conclude that past evidence that wives who out-earn their husbands spend additional time in housework to compensate for their gender-deviant success in the labor market is due to the failure to account for the non-linear relationship between wives' absolute earnings and their housework time.     

Race Composition and Earnings: Effects by Race, Region, and Gender

For more than 40 years, studies have reported that the higher the proportion of blacks in a community, the more white men earn, but the less black men earn. Researchers have speculated that black men earned less because earnings discrimination increases with percent black. Others have suggested that the negative effect of black representation on black men's earnings reflects black men's limited occupational opportunities. This study (1) investigates whether pay discrimination and regional location condition the relationship between black representation and workers' earnings and (2) examines the relationship between black representation and earnings for women. The results, based on 1980 Census data for black and white workers from 267 SMSAs, show that black representation was associated with higher earnings for white men and lower earnings for black men in both the north and south, and that part of the effect for southern black men stemmed from earnings discrimination. Southern black men's earnings gains from black representation offset some of the effects of discrimination, while northern black men encountered costs of black representation even in the absence of earnings discrimination. These findings reflect the disparate economic opportunities of black men in each region as manufacturing jobs have disappeared from the north and relocated to the south. For women, black representation led to higher earnings for blacks and whites. I argue that black representation does not lower black women's earnings because occupational sex segregation prevents black women from threatening white men's economic status.     

The increasing unemployment gap between the low and high educated in West Germany. Structural or cyclical crowding-out?

This paper addresses trends in education-specific unemployment risks at labor market entry in West Germany from the mid-1970s to the present. In line with previous research it shows that vocationally qualified school-leavers have relatively lower unemployment risks than school-leavers with general education. Over time, the gap in unemployment risks between the low-educated and medium- and highly educated labor market entrants substantially widened for both sexes. The literature identifies two different mechanisms for this trend: structural or cyclical crowding out. While in the former scenario low-educated become increasingly unemployed due to an oversupply of tertiary graduates and displacement from above, in the latter their relative unemployment risk varies with the business cycle. The results provide evidence for cyclical rather than structural crowding-out in West Germany. Since macroeconomic conditions became generally worse over time, this strongly explains the widening unemployment gap between the low-educated and all other education groups.     

社会公正与东西共富

社会历史的发展趋势要求实现社会公正 ,应正视中国现阶段贫富差距扩大这一事实 ,同时必须看到中国实现共同富裕目标的客观必然性。在现阶段 ,应当实施加速发展西部战略 ,实现东西部共同富裕。     

Scientific consensus,the law,and same sex parenting outcomes

While the US Supreme Court was considering two related cases involving the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, one major question informing that decision was whether scientific research had achieved consensus regarding how children of same-sex couples fare. Determining the extent of consensus has become a key aspect of how social science evidence and testimony is accepted by the courts. Here, we show how a method of analyzing temporal patterns in citation networks can be used to assess the state of social scientific literature as a means to inform just such a question. Patterns of clustering within these citation networks reveal whether and when consensus arises within a scientific field. We find that the literature on outcomes for children of same-sex parents is marked by scientific consensus that they experience “no differences” compared to children from other parental configurations.     

Explaining ethnic polarization over attitudes towards minority rights in Eastern Europe: A multilevel analysis

This paper examines divisions between majority and minority ethnic groups over attitudes towards minority rights in 13 East European societies. Using national sample surveys and multilevel models, we test the effectiveness of competing explanations of ethnic polarization in attitudes towards minority rights, as well as regional and cross-national differences in levels of polarization. We find that, at the individual level, indicators of ‘social distance’ (inter-marriage and social interaction) account most effectively for the extent of ethnic polarization. However, regional and cross-national variations in polarization between majority and minority groups are explained most effectively by cultural (linguistic and religious) differences. These findings accord with research in the West, indicating the importance of cultural differences as a source of ethnic polarization, while offering little support for theories focusing on economic and structural factors or the size of minority groups. They also suggest the likely sources of difficulties for democratic consolidation in ethnically divided post-communist societies.