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on Gender |
| By: | Sena Coskun; Husnu Dalgic |
| Abstract: | Fertility in the US exhibits a procyclical pattern since 80s. We argue that gender differences in employment risk leads to procyclical fertility; men mostly work in volatile and procyclical industries whereas women are likely to work in relatively stable and countercyclical industries. Our quantitative framework features a general equlibrium OLG model with endogeneous fertility and human capital choice and it shows that current gender industry composition in the US data accounts for all of this procyclicality. Moreover, we argue that gender income ratio (female to male) is higher in bad times which tilts the quality-quantity trade-off towards quality. |
| Keywords: | fertility, industry cyclicality, industry gender segregation, gender income gap, quality-quantity trade-off |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J11 J13 J16 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_142&r=all |
| By: | Buser, Thomas (University of Amsterdam); Cappelen, Alexander (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Gneezy, Uri (Rady School of Management, USCD); Hoffman, Moshe (MIT and Harvard); Tungodden, Bertil (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a large-scale intercultural experiment to elicit competitiveness and ask whether individual and gender differences in competitiveness are partially determined by nature. We use being a “lefty” (i.e., having either a dominant left hand or a dominant left foot) as a proxy for nature, as it is associated with neurological differences which are determined prenatally and reflects a masculinized neurology. That way we use handedness and footedness as a proxy for innate differences. In large-scale data with incentivized choices from 3683 participants from India, Norway and Tanzania, we find a significant gender gap in competitiveness in all cultures. However, we find inconsistent results when comparing the competitiveness of lefties and righties. In northeast India we find that lefties of both genders are significantly more competitive than righties. In Norway we find that lefty men are more competitive than any other group, but women’s competitiveness is not related to handedness or footedness. In Tanzania, we find no effect of handedness or footedness on the competitiveness of either gender. The merged data show weak evidence of a positive correlation between being a lefty and competitiveness for men, but no such evidence for women. Thus, our data do not provide robust evidence that gender differences in competitiveness are partially determined by nature, where nature is represented by the complex, physiologically-rooted phenomenon of handedness. |
| Keywords: | Competitiveness |
| JEL: | A00 |
| Date: | 2020–01–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2020_002&r=all |
| By: | Thushyanthan Baskaran; Zohal Hessami; |
| Abstract: | While still far from parity, female representation in politics has continuously increased over the last two decades worldwide. In light of this development, we analyze whether higher female representation has substantive effects on policy choices using the example of child care – a public good arguably valued by women. We hand-collect micro-data for 224,448 candidates running in the local council elections of 2002, 2008 and 2014 across 1,632 municipalities in the German state of Bavaria. Exploiting an open-list electoral system, we run RDD regressions centered around mixed-gender races for the last council seat that accrues to a party. We find that a female victory in a mixed-gender race accelerates the expansion of public child care provision by 40%. Our main strategy to explore mechanisms uses information from hand-collected minutes of 7,721 monthly council meetings. We show that an additional woman changes “the conversation”: female councilors speak up more often and child care is discussed more frequently in the council. |
| Keywords: | female politicians, gender, political selection, child care provision, local councils |
| JEL: | D72 D78 H70 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8005&r=all |
| By: | Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham; Kelly Shue |
| Abstract: | Housing wealth represents the dominant form of savings for American households. Using detailed data on housing transactions across the United States since 1991, we find that single men earn one percentage point higher unlevered returns per year on housing investment relative to single women, with couples occupying the intermediate range. The gender gap grows significantly larger after adjusting for mortgage borrowing: men earn 6 percentage points higher levered returns per year relative to women. Data on repeat sales reveal that women buy the same property for approximately 2% more and sell for 2% less. The gender gap in housing returns varies by holding period, and arises because of gender differences in the location and timing of transactions, choice of initial listing price, and negotiated discount relative to the listing price. Gender differences in upgrade rates, preferences for housing characteristics, and listing agents appear to be less important factors. The gender gap varies with market tightness and demographic characteristics, but remains large in regions with high average education, income, and house price levels. |
| Keywords: | housing wealth, return on investments, single women |
| JEL: | J16 O18 R31 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2020-003&r=all |
| By: | Berlina Kesuma Suci (Master of Applied Economics, Padjadjaran University); Kyohei Yamada (Master of Public Management and Administration, Rikkyo University, Japan); Kodrat Wibowo (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University) |
| Abstract: | Women’s representation in Indonesia like many other countries in the world, remain considerably low. Therefore, both women activists and the government have been trying to increase women’s descriptive representation in order to increase their substantive representation, since it has been argued that females as lawmakers are more concerned about well-being issues. This paper focuses on the impacts of the descriptive representation of women in local politics. It examines the impacts of having more female in politics on the proportions of budget allocation in the municipalities budget by using data from municipalities in Indonesia between 2010 and 2017. This study also observes the gender effect on policies related to infrastructure access which women, as homemakers, strongly care about, namely household access to safe water, safe sanitation and electricity. The results indicate that the gender of a politician matters in terms of the policy outcomes. Women in the Regional House of Representatives are more likely to increase the budgets for environment, housing and public facility and health, but reduce the proportions allocated for economy and education. Likewise, a female leader is a statistically significant factor in the allocation of more government spending on health, but reduces funding for education. In terms of the more concrete policies, female representatives also positively affect the households’ opportunities to obtain better access to safe water, safe sanitation, and electricity, whilst a female regent/mayor only impacts household access to safe sanitation. |
| Keywords: | gender |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:202003&r=all |