Is there a ‘marriage premium’ for gay men?

It is well-known that married men earn more than comparable single men, with typical estimates of the male marriage premium in the range of 10–20%. Some research also finds that cohabiting men earn more than men not living with a female partner. This study uses data from the General Social Survey and the National Health and Social Life Survey to examine whether a similar premium accrues to gay men who live with a male partner and whether cohabiting gay men have different observable characteristics than non-cohabiting gay men. Controlling for observable characteristics, cohabiting gay men do not earn significantly more than other gay men or more than unmarried heterosexual men. Cohabiting heterosexual men also do not earn more than non-cohabiting heterosexual men.

Educational Attainment and the Lesbian Wage Premium

This paper provides insight into the wage gap between lesbians and heterosexual women. Using data from the 2000 Decennial Census, we find a lesbian premium that equals approximately 10% for women without a bachelor’s degree, and is nearly non-existent for women with higher levels of education. These findings are consistent with proposition that the gap between lesbians’ and heterosexual women’s commitment to the labor market narrows at higher levels of education. We also find that controls for industry and occupation exert only a small effect on the gap between lesbian and heterosexual women’s wages.

Gender wage differences and human capital in the early twentieth century: the case of the paper box industry in New York

Women employed in the New York paper box industry in 1913–1914 earned about 60% of what men did. This paper employs the human capital framework to analyze the wage differential due to productivity related factors versus discriminatory nepotism towards men. Years of schooling, years of experience in the paper box trade, and legislative restrictions on working hours of women account for virtually all of the observed wage differential, both for all men and women in the paper box industry, and between the skilled occupations of cutters and strippers.

Sexual Orientation and Labor Market Discrimination

We develop empirical estimates of the return to sexual orientation in the labor market and utilize the 2004 Current Population Survey to determine if lesbians and gay men are treated differently from their heterosexual counterparts. We find strong evidence consistent with the hypothesis of discriminatory treatment against gay men, and this evidence differs substantially by occupation. On the other hand, we find no evidence of discrimination against lesbians. These findings are consistent with priors based on economic theory of the standard taste for discrimination and statistical discrimination models. The results for both men and women are consistent across wage and total compensation regressions.

Earnings,Effort, and Work Flexibility of Self-Employed Women and Men: The Case of St. Croix County,Wisconsin

Data collected on self-employed women and men in one county allow examination of work effort, housework effort, housework hours, and preference for flexible work on earnings. Regressions indicate housework effort of self-employed women contributes to their lower earnings. Housework hours do not supporting the view women select self-employment to find flexible work. Housework hours do reduce the earnings of self-employed men, which could reflect their stronger commitment to housework combined with less flexible work. A Oaxaca decomposition suggests less tenure and greater housework effort are important contributors to lower earnings of self-employed women. Ranges that measure earnings may contribute to the insignificance of work effort, normalized work effort, and preference for flexible work hours. (J16, J23)

Altruistic and Vicarious Fear of Crime: Fear for Others and Gendered Social Roles

Fear for others as distinct from personal fear is an understudied phenomenon. Relying on qualitative data, this paper explores gender differences in fear for others and identifies differences linked to social roles. For men, a paternal protector role characterized fears expressed mostly for their wives. For women, a maternal caretaker role characterized fears expressed for their children, elderly parents, and siblings. This paper offers a new way to conceptualize fear for others based on making distinctions between the object of fear and active or nonactive responses: kinship-based altruistic fear, kinship-based vicarious fear, general altruistic fear, and general vicarious fear.

Home production and wages: evidence from the American Time Use Survey

Using data from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003–2006, this paper finds that housework has a negative relation with wages for both women and men. The negative relation between housework time and wages is not likely to arise from omitted working conditions that are correlated with housework, nor from omitted effort. For women, the negative relation between housework and wages appears in most occupations, including professional and managerial occupations. The connection of housework time to the ‘lack of interest’ argument proposed by defendants in class action sex discrimination cases is examined and is not supported by the evidence.

Formative Experiences of Orthodox Jewish Women: Attachment Patterns and Spiritual Development

This qualitative study examines formative spiritual experiences of thirteen Orthodox Jewish women. The author discusses differences between Orthodox-born women and women returnees to Orthodoxy. From an attachment perspective, the data suggests that secure as well as insecure attachment bonds are the primary factors in religious development for these respondents. The author also argues that spiritual development from a Kabbalistic perspective offers a complementary paradigm from which to evaluate the respondents’ religious development. Finally, recommendations for clinical practice with Orthodox women are discussed.

Marriage migration: just another case of positive assortative matching?

It is a stylized fact that marriage formation involves positive assortative matching on education. We also find this in the case of immigrants, even when they tend to “import” their spouses and potentially trade off education for other favorable characteristics. For Pakistanis, we find positive compensating differentials in terms of high education to youth having adopted host country norms, when marrying a marriage migrant. This indicates that Pakistani marriage migrants pay a premium to be able to marry and live in Denmark. For Turks, individuals having source country norms pay a premium in order to import a partner, indicating that unspoiled traditional norms are traded off for education.

The Decomposition of Firm-size Wage Differentials

No completely satisfactory explanation for the persistent and well-documented large-firm wage premium has been found. I use a novel adaptation of the Oaxaca/Blinder wage discrimination model to examine the firm-size wage differential which allows the wage differential to be decomposed into the portions attributable to (1) differences in employee endowments, (2) how the firm values these endowments, and (3) residual differences. Small firms actually pay higher wages based on how they value their workers’ endowments, but this wage premium was overshadowed by the superior endowments of workers in large firms and a residual differential in favor of large firms.

The working spouse penalty/premium and married women’s labor supply

Using data drawn from the Current Population Surveys, this paper provides a consistent explanation for why the presence of a working wife reduces the husband’s wage among managers, but increases the husband’s wage among non-managers. It is not husband’s occupation per se but rather the distribution of husbands’ wage levels that underlies the working spouse penalty or premium. Positive correlations in earnings between married couples that arise from assortative mating make the cross-wage effects of the husbands’ wages on the wives’ hours of work first positive, then negative in cross-sectional data. The phenomenon of a working spouse penalty/premium is simply the flip side of this relationship.

Quit Your Job and Get Healthier? The Effect of Retirement on Health

Although the health effect of retirement has important policy implications, few economists have researched the topic. This paper utilizes longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study and instruments retirement status using exogenous variation in public and private pensions. Subjective health change models indicate retirement preserves the health of both men and women, although insignificant results for objective health change models suggest the preservation may be more perceived than real. The same pattern of results is found using continuous measures of annual hours. At the very least, the results give strong evidence against the anecdotal idea that retirement harms health.

“Family-Friendly” Fringe Benefits and the Gender Wage Gap

Evidence suggests a large portion of the gender wage gap is explained by gender occupational segregation. A common hypothesis is that gender differences in preferences or abilities explain this segregation; women may prefer jobs that provide more “family-friendly” fringe benefits. Much of the research provides no direct evidence on gender differences in access to fringe benefits, nor how provision affects wages. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we find that women are more likely to receive family-friendly benefits, but not other types of fringe benefits. We find no evidence that the differences in fringe benefits explain the gender wage gap.

Do women value marriage more? The effect of obesity on cohabitation and marriage in the USA

This paper looks into the impact of obesity and other factors on first entry into a marital or cohabiting union, using 1997 cohort data from the national longitudinal survey. Results show obese women are less likely to be accepted into either cohabitation or marriage, while obese men are less likely to be accepted in a cohabitating relation but are not less likely to enter into marriage. Income affects all union and all genders symmetrically, increasing the likelihood of a union. These results suggest that marriage is a special form of union for women, so they are willing to marry obese men because they value other factors related to the marriage choice, such as commitment or the prospect of having children. Men do not appear to value these factors as much, so obese women are less likely to be accepted into either cohabitation or marriage.

Wealth Holdings and Portfolio Allocation of the Elderly: The Role of Marital History

This paper investigates the role of marital history in terms of explaining differences in wealth holdings and portfolio allocation of older individuals by studying data from the first wave of Health and Retirement Study which was conducted in 1992. The results generally suggest that both men and women suffer from the negative shocks of past marital dissolutions in terms of household wealth accumulation. The significance level, however, differs across currently married couples, single males, and single females. The examination of the asset components of net worth also indicates that both the probability of owning a particular asset and the fraction of wealth allocated to that asset might vary depending on the elderly individuals’ marital history.

Laugh and the World Laughs with You: An Attachment Perspective on the Meaning of Laughter in Psychotherapy

From infancy laughter is a right-brain-to-right-brain attachment behavior mutually aroused and regulated within the caregiver–infant partnership. Laughter continues to be attachment behavior throughout life with potential for enhancing attachment bonds or for defending against them. Laughter in psychotherapy has primarily been viewed as a discharge phenomena with typical interpretations focused on the humor that elicits the laughter rather than the meaning of the behavior itself. Viewing laughter as attachment behavior in psychotherapy provides the clinician with valuable insight about its meaning and management within the therapeutic relationship.

The Evolution of Skill-Biased Effects on American Wages in the 1980s and 1990s

This study estimates the contributions of skill-biased technological change and international trade to the rise in the skill premium during the 1980s and 90s using the Feenstra and Hanson (Q J Econ 114(3):907–940, 1999) two-stage methodology. Newly available data on high-technology capital provide separate measures of computer and software investment. New estimates suggest that investment in software contributed to a substantial portion of the observed increase in the skill premium while investment in computers lead to a reduction in the rate of skill premium growth. Contrary to the findings of Feenstra and Hanson for the 1980s, neither software nor computers had a significant effect on wages during the 1980s. Foreign outsourcing does not appear to have significantly affected wages during the 1990s. The contribution to theory is that software is more complementary to increases in worker productivity due to human skills. Computers, on the other hand, reduced the growth of wage inequality by giving unskilled labor a more efficient set of tools with which to work.

The scoring rules in an endogenous election

Plurality rule is mostly criticized from being capable of choosing an alternative considered as worst by a strict majority. This paper considers elections in which the agenda consists of potential candidates strategically choosing whether or not to enter the election. In this context, we examine the ability of scoring rules to fulfil the Condorcet criterion. We show for the case of three potential candidates that Plurality rule is the only scoring rule that satisfies a version of the Condorcet criterion in two cases: 1) when preferences are single-peaked and, 2) when preferences are single-dipped.

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The Effects of Licensing on the Wages of Radiologic Technologists

We analyze the effect that state licensing of radiologic technologists (RTs) has had upon RT wages with a unique dataset that allows us to control for place of work and job specialization. Using OLS and several measures of licensing, we find evidence that RTs working in states with licensing statutes earn as much as 3.3% more than RTs working in states without licensing. When we control for endogeneity using instrumental variables (IV) estimation, our estimate of the licensing premium doubles (6.9%). Our results provide further support for existing theories of the effects of occupational licensing on the wages of practitioners.