On the ranking uncertainty of labor market wage gaps

Using a log-wage model, Horrace and Oaxaca (2001) propose estimators of the gender wage gap across industry classifications. One estimator involves the maximum over sample estimates of population parameters, and inference on this estimator follows with the implicit assumption that the sample maximum equals the population maximum. This paper proposes inference procedures for this estimator that relax this assumption. Specifically, multiple comparisons with the best methods are used to construct simultaneous confidence intervals for industry wage gaps. Using data on fourteen industry classifications, inference experiments indicate that differences in gender wage gaps across industries are insignificant at the 95% level.I would like to thank Dan Hamermesh, Dan Houser, Jason Hsu, Tom Kniesner, Ron Oaxaca, and Peter Schmidt for comments. All errors are mine. The generous support of the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Syracuse University is gratefully acknowledged. Responsible editor: Daniel S. Hamermesh.     

Timing,togetherness and time windfalls

With appropriate data the analysis of time use, labor supply and leisure can move beyond the standard questions of wage and income elasticities of hours supplied. I present four examples: 1) American data from 1973 through 1997 show that the amount of evening and night work in the U.S. has decreased. 2) The same data demonstrate that workers whose relative earnings increase experience a relative diminution of the burden of work at unpleasant times. 3) U.S. data for the 1970s and 1990s demonstrate that spouses' work schedules are more synchronized than would occur randomly; synchrony among working spouses diminished after the 1970s; and the full-income elasticity of demand for it was higher among wives than among husbands in the 1970s but equal in the 1990s. 4) Dutch time-budget data for 1990 show that the overwhelming majority of the windfall hour that occurred when standard time resumed was used for extra sleep. Received: 6 July 2000/Accepted: 20 January 2001 Daniel S. Hamermesh is Edward Everett Hale Centennial Professor, University of Texas at Austin; research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, and Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit. I thank the National Science Foundation for support under Grants SBR-9422429 and SES-9904699, and two anonymous referees, Gerard Pfann, the late Lee Lillard, Gerald Oettinger, Steve Trejo and participants at the ESPE Conference and at seminars at the University of Bristol and Warwick University for helpful comments. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.     

Reference groups and family size norms

The concept of reference groups is introduced as a theoretically useful mechanism involved in diffusing collective norms and values about family size and in formation of family size ideals of individual family members. Data were gathered via self-administered questionnaires from a random sample of 140 urban and 55 rural families in the Lansing, Michigan metropolitan area. Findings show major variations by sex. Conformity to a two-child family norm in the family size ideals of wives depends on the extent to which they are exposed to this norm through reference group interaction and on the size of their families of origin. Husbands' family size ideals are influenced by size of family of origin but not by reference group interaction. In further exploring this pattern of findings, important differences emerge by controlling for educational attainment and residential location.Revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Session "Population: Fertility Behavior," Chicago, September 5–9, 1977. This research was supported by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, Project 3152, "Functioning of the Family Ecosystem in a World of Changing Energy Availability" through the Institute for Family and Child Study and the Department of Sociology. Acknowledgements are due to Shirley Foster Hartley, Nan E. Johnson, Harry Perlstadt, Harry K. Schwarzweller, and the referees of this journal, all of whom made helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Michigan State Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Article Number 8245. Requests for reprints should be sent to Daniel C. Clay, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824.     

Gender effect on housework allocation: Evidence from Spanish two-earner couples

In this paper we study the reasons behind the asymmetric distribution of housework within Spanish two-earner couples. Spouses' housework times are estimated jointly in a bivariate framework using data from the 1991 Work Situation and Time Use Survey. In order to understand the impact of gender-specific factors on the observed allocation of housework, we perform estimations that are in line with the Oaxaca decomposition. Our results suggest that the unequal division of domestic work between wives and husbands in our sample is mainly explained by gender-specific effects rather than by differences in their observable characteristics. All correspondence to Daniel Miles. We thank Juan F. Jimeno, a co-editor and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and the Spanish Instituto de la Mujer for providing us with the data. Financial support from the Cátedra de Estudios Feministas-Caixanova and from the Spanish Dirección General de Ense?anza Superior, grant number BEC2001-1270, is also gratefully acknowledged. Responsible editor: Daniel S. Hamermesh.     

Marital relations and fertility control decisions among lebanese couples

This study examines how marital relations affect fertility control decisions among couples who want no further pregnancies. Marital relations studied include the degree of communication between husbands and wives, the extent that couples report marital tension, conflict, and separation, and the amount of intimacy and mutuality achieved in their sexual relations. Findings are based upon the responses of 530 Middle Eastern women who used the facilities of the University Hospital Family Planning Program of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon; 257 women were interviewed in their homes throughout Lebanon, and the remaining 273 were interviewed at the clinic. Three decisions were studied: (1) IUD/pill use; (2) tubal sterilization use; and (3) consideration of and refusal to use tubal sterilization. Women were interviewed using a standardized questionnaire prepared in colloquial Arabic. The decision to choose a reversible versus a permanent method was primarily sociodemographically determined. Among women who considered a permanent method, however, differences in their decisions were mainly attributable to their marital relations rather than to their demographic characteristics. Wife's attitude toward marriage and educational attainment were important and interactive components in the explanation of the association between marital relations and tubal sterilization use.I appreciate the assistance and critical comments offered by Drs. Joseph Veroff and George Simmons of the University of Michigan, and Dr. Joseph Chamie of Population Division, UN, New York. This article is a modified section of my doctoral dissertation which was recently completed at the University of Michigan. The anonymous reviewers' comments on the organization of this paper are greatly appreciated.     

Gender wage discrimination at quantiles

The literature provides several scalar measures of gender wage discrimination that cannot identify whether discrimination is greater among high earners or among low earners. Furthermore, two populations may exhibit the same value of the scalar measure while discrimination could be very differently distributed. We extend Oaxacas scalar measure to any quantile of the distribution of wages. Our measure allows comparisons within a population and inter-population. Using the Spanish Survey of Wage Structure we find that gender wage discrimination increases with the quantile index but as a fraction of the gender wage gap reaches a maximum at the ninth percentile.All Correspondence to Javier Gardeazabal. We would like to thank Alberto Abadie and Teo Pérez Amaral for their comments. Financial support from the Basque Government, the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales (Instituto de la Mujer) is gratefully acknowledged. Javier Gardeazabal would like to thank the Department of Economics of the University of California, Santa Cruz, for its hospitality while part of this work was carried out, and the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Cultura for financing the visit to UCSC. Responsible editor: Daniel Hamermesh.     

Marital status and earnings in developed countries

When estimating earnings equations for men in the United States, a dichotomous variable for whether or not the man is currently married is often included as a regressor. The coefficient estimate for this variable is most usually large and significant. However, there is rarely much discussion of the marriage effect. This effect is central to this study, which contributes to the understanding of this statistical association in two ways. First, it shows that the relationship exists in almost all of the fourteen developed countries examined and across several different time periods. Controlling for age, and, when available, education, race/ethnicity, hours worked, and location, marriage differences in annual earnings in favor of currently married males range from 0% to 30%. Second, it finds that there are important differences between those who are separated, divorced, widowed, and never married.I am grateful for comments by John Bound, David Lam, Tom Maloney, Tim Waidmann, participants in the Economic Demography Seminar at the University of Michigan, an anonymous referee, and the editor. I also thank the staff of the Luxembourg Income Study for facilitating my use of their data base. Supplemental tables are available from the author upon request.     

Post-high school choices: New evidence from a multinomial logit model

A multinomial logit model is estimated to investigate the destination of students one-year after graduating from high school. The appropriate specification of the choice set available to high school leavers is as follows: private four-year college, public four-year college, private two-year college, public two-year college, employed and unemployed. We test for several possible combinations of these choices and find that these pooled models are all rejected in favour of the full model. The transition from high school to college and to work is more complex than previous studies have recognised. Received: 12 July 2002/Accepted: 2 November 2002 All correspondence to Jim Taylor. The authors are grateful to Steve Bradley and an anonymous referee for valuable comments on a previous draft of this paper. We alone are responsible for the errors and omissions. Anh Nguyen is grateful to the ESRC for providing financial support. Responsible editor: Daniel S. Hamermesh.     

Maternity leave and the employment of new mothers in the United States

We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the relationships between maternity leave coverage and U.S. womens post-birth leave taking and employment decisions from 1988 to 1996. We find that women who were employed before birth are working much more quickly post-birth than women who were not. We also find that, among mothers who were employed pre-birth, those in jobs that provided leave coverage are more likely to take a leave of up to 12 weeks, but return more quickly after 12 weeks. Our results suggest that maternity leave coverage is related to leave taking, as well as the length of time that a new mother stays home after a birth.All correspondence to: Jane Waldfogel. Funding for this project was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the William T. Grant Foundation. We are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. Responsible editor: Daniel S. Hamermesh.     

On social security financial crisis

We indicate that financial crisis in social security programs might be endogenous because social security affects fertility and human capital's decisions and thus, the aggregate growth rate of the economy. These effects lead to an endogenous erosion of the financial basis of the PAYG social security program so that, as a consequence, the PAYG system is not sustainable and it requires continuous increases in the social security tax rate. I received helpful comments in an earlier version of this paper from G.S. Becker, Larry Sjaastad, two anonymous referees and participants at seminars at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and The University of Chicago. Remaining errors are my own responsibility. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Effects of sexual preferences on earnings in the Netherlands

A small literature suggests that bisexual and homosexual workers earn less than their heterosexual fellow workers and that a discriminating labormarket is partly to blame. In this paper we examine whether sexual preferences affect earnings at the beginning of working careers in the Netherlands. Using an alternative, and quite possibly a better, measure of sexual identity, we find (i) that young and highly educated gay male workers earn about 3% less than heterosexual men; (ii) that similarly qualified lesbian workers earn about 3% more than their heterosexual female co-workers; and (iii) that among homosexual workers the gender gap is not observed. From this we conclude that the Dutch labor market does not discriminate on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender in entry-level jobs.All correspondence to Erik Plug. Both authors would like to thank Jim Albrecht, Mikael Lindahl, Hessel Oosterbeek, Susan Vroman and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Responsible editor: Daniel S. Hamermesh.     

A reply to Walker’s note: A comment on Taşiran’s ‘Wage and income effects on the timing and spacing of births in Sweden and in the United States’

Walker (1997) criticizes one of the conclusions in my book Tas?\iran (1995), that Heckman and Walker’s very high negative wage rate and positive income effects on Swedish fertility are very sensitive. In this paper, I explain, first, that my results are not only based on the series Walker mentions, but also on other series in both SFS and HUS data sets. Second, the combined aggregate and micro wage series he criticizes is mainly derived with Heckman and Walker. Third, by discussing the points he raises for the combination strategy, I show that his revised results are also supporting my conclusion. Received: 7 June 1996/Accepted: 16 July 1997 I am grateful to Anders Klevmarken, Lennart Hjalmarsson, Bj?rn Gustafsson and Ann Veiderpass for their valuable suggestions and discussions on an earlier version of this paper. Thanks also to two anonymous referees for their comments and to the responsible editor of this journal Klaus F. Zimmermann, for his encouragement and many helpful comments. Any remaining errors are my own. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.     

The declining marital-status earnings differential

Earnings differentials between married and unmarried men have been declining since the late 1960s. We consider two possible explanations for this decline: changes in the nature of selection into marriage; and changes in role specialization within marriage. Our analysis of changes in marriage differentials within cohorts supports only a small contribution of changes in selection. There is some evidence that differences in human-capital investment between married and unmarried men have fallen over time, but this effect has apparently been largely offset by increases in the return to that human capital.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1991 Population Association of America meetings. Helpful comments were provided by Noreen Goldman, David Neumark, Robert Willis, and seminar participants at the University of Michigan.     

Residential preferences in a model of migration intentions

The congruence of stated residential preferences and observed migration behavior suggests that preferences may be important in the migration decision-making process. Using data from the March 1974 NORC Amalgam Survey, this analysis incorporates a measure of residential preference into a model of migration intentions similar to that developed by Speare (1974) for residential movement. Our results indicate that preferences and community satisfaction are interrelated and each has an independent effect on migration. We also find that the decision to migrate may be more directly influenced by ties to the community than is a residential move. Thus home ownership, age, and length of residence directly affect migration plans net of preferences and satisfaction, whereas only home ownership directly influenced the decision to move residentially in Speare's (1974) analysis.This research has been supported by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station (Journal Article #10,961), and by the Economic Development Division, Economic Statistics, and Cooperatives Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture through a cooperative agreement with the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Additional support was provided by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, the College of Social Sciences, Michigan State University, and by the Center for the Study of Metropolitan Problems, NIMH. Computer analysis was aided by a "Center for Population Research" grant, No. HDO5876, to the Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, from the Center for Population Research of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We wish to thank Dennis Hogan and Joel Nelson for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. James Zuiches is currently on leave from Michigan State University.     

Demographic composition of farm households and its effect on time allocation

The decisions of farmers to work on or off the farm depend in part on household composition and the participation patterns of other family members. This is because of the differential income effects resulting from the household's joint budget constraint and the time and money costs imposed by different household members, and because of the substitutability or complementarity between the farm labor inputs of different household members. This paper demonstrates this point by estimating a joint labor participation model of farm operators and their spouses, in which participation decisions are conditioned on household composition. The model is estimated as a multivariate probit model with fixed effects, by quasi maximum likelihood methods. The results are consistent with the hypotheses that the time costs imposed on the household by small children are larger than the money costs; that the relative importance of time costs is decreasing as children grow up; and that the farm labor inputs of older children are complements to the couple's farm labor inputs but those of prime-age adults are substitutes. JEL classification: J22, J43An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1994 meeting of the European Society for Population Economics, Tilburg, The Netherlands. This research relies in part on my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago. I am grateful to Gary Becker, Joe Hotz, Yair Mundlak, Kevin Murphy, and Yoram Weiss for their useful suggestions and guidance. The research was completed while I was visiting at the University of Maryland. I thank the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station for financial support. Specific constructive comments were also made by Paul Schultz, John Ermisch, and anonymous referees. Finally, I express my gratitude to the staff of the Central Bureau of Statistics in Israel, especially Haim Regev and Meir Rothchild, for providing the data used here. Responsibility for the contents of this paper remains exclusively mine.Responsible editor: John F. Ermisch     

Social security policy with public debt in an aging economy

This paper analyzes a social security policy with public debt in an overlapping generations growth model. In particular, the paper considers a situation in which population aging causes a heavy burden of social security payments where public debt is issued by the government to finance the payment. In the model presented below, an economy with an aging population may achieve two dynamically inefficient equilibria. Under certain conditions, the effects of pension reform and population aging on capital accumulation are entirely different between the two equilibria. Received: 23 July 2001/Accepted: 22 August 2002 I am deeply grateful to an anonymous referee and Professor A. Cigno, the Editor of this journal, for their valuable comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to Kazuyo Tanimoto and Kiheiji Nishida for their research assistance. Any remaining errors are my own. The research reported here was conducted as part of a larger study, the “Project on Intergenerational Equity” at the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. Financial support from Kani Hoken Bunka Zaidan is also gratefully acknowledged. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Contributions in heterogeneous communities: Evidence from Indonesia

Using household-level data from Indonesia, we investigate the importance of community characteristics: ethnic diversity and central government transfers, inter alia, in determining monetary and time contributions to community organizations. We present a framework in which ethnic diversity affects contributions through three channels: (1) diversity of preferences (2) transaction costs, and (3) inter-household considerations in the form of altruism towards ones ethnic group. Our empirical findings provide evidence that ethnic diversity has a negative and significant effect on contributions, and the prevalence of community organizations. We find evidence that government spending crowds out private monetary contributions, with a less robust effect on time contributions.All correspondence to Una Okonkwo Osili. The authors would like to thank RAND and Lembaga Demografi of the University of Indonesia for making the data available. We would also like to thank Victoria Beard and Chris Peterson at RAND for their assistance. We have also benefited greatly from discussions with Kathleen Beegle, Partha Deb, Kevin Hasker, Kay Ikranagara, Ifeanyi Osili, Richard Steinberg, Mark Wilhelm, and seminar participants at IUPUI, RAND, and LSU. Dan Du and Yang Wang provided valuable research assistance. Financial support from the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy is grateful acknowledged. Responsible editor: Daniel S. Hamermesh.     

Convergence and determinants of non-employment durations in Eastern and Western Germany

Since monetary union between eastern and western Germany in 1990, non-employment spells have been shorter in the east, and there has been no convergence. Analysis of the German Socio-Economic Panel for 1990–2000 indicates that there is some convergence in the determinants of durations, owing to increasing age differentials for eastern men, and an increasing influence of children for eastern women. The latter has contributed to the decline in female employment. Skill affects non-employment duration less than it affects employment duration, and the gender gap in eastern non-employment duration cannot be characterized as a skills gap.I am very grateful to Ann Huff Stevens, Rachel Friedberg, Daniel Parent and Chris Sims for helpful discussions. I also thank participants in seminars at Boston College, Bristol, Essex, London School of Economics, University College London, and Warwick for comments on an earlier version. I am indebted to Yunning Xu for research assistance, and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies for financial support. I am also affiliated with the following institutes: NBER, CEPR, IZA, William Davidson, DIW, CIREQ and CIRANO. Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt     

Interpreting demographic effects in duration analyses of first birth intervals

Estimated demographic effects in proportional hazard models of first birth intervals could reflect time-invariant differences in the risk of a birth, or differences in the timing of a shift in the risk, or both. This paper attempts to distinguish between these possibilities. The procedure is to estimate a more general model than the proportional hazard specification, in which the evolution of the risk of a birth can differ with demographic characteristics. The proportional hazard specification is nested within this more general model. Consequently, the consistency of the data with the risk or the timing interpretation of demographic effects can be tested. The data studied do not lead to a rejection of the proportional hazard specification.Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania. The initial stage of this research was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. I have benefited from insightful comments from David Bloom, Andrew Foster, Zvi Griliches, V. Joseph Hotz, Duncan Thomas, anonymous referees, and participants in seminars at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, and in the Economic Demography sessions of the 1988 Population Association of America annual meetings. Any remaining errors are my own.