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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Gender Disparity In Human Capital: Going Beyond Schooling, Mohammad Amin, Khrystyna Kushnir L. Sep 2012

Gender Disparity In Human Capital: Going Beyond Schooling, Mohammad Amin, Khrystyna Kushnir L.

Mohammad Amin

The paper contributes to the literature on gender-based disparity in human capital by extending existing results on educational attainment to the number of years of experience that top female and male managers have. For a sample of 71 developing countries, results show that the number of years of experience for female managers is significantly lower, equaling 83-86 percent that of their male counterparts. This gender-based difference is particularly large among young firms, but small an insignificant among older firms.


Is Dismissing The Precautionary Principle The Manly Thing To Do? Gender And The Economics Of Climate Change, Julie Nelson Sep 2012

Is Dismissing The Precautionary Principle The Manly Thing To Do? Gender And The Economics Of Climate Change, Julie Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

Many public debates about climate change now focus on the economic "costs" of taking action. When called on to advise about these, many leading mainstream economists downplay the need for care and caution on climate issues, forecasting a future with infinitely continued economic growth. This essay highlights the roles of binary metaphors and cultural archetypes in creating the highly gendered, sexist, and age-ist attitudes that underlie this dominant advice. Gung-ho economic growth advocates aspire to the role of The Hero, rejecting the conservatism of The Old Wife. But in a world that is not actually as safe and predictable as …


Empirical Consequences Of Comparable Worth, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Empirical Consequences Of Comparable Worth, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] To help focus subsequent debate, this paper presents a nontechnical survey of the small but growing empirical literature by economists on the consequences of comparable worth. I discuss in turn studies of the consequences of comparable worth on the male-female earnings gap, of its potential to affect adversely the employment of women, of its effects on the labor supply and occupational mobility of women, and of its effects on women and their families as a group. The survey is critical in nature and points to areas in which research is needed.


[Review Of The Book Discrimination In Labor Markets], Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

[Review Of The Book Discrimination In Labor Markets], Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] In sum, I consider Discrimination in Labor Markets a fine volume. Anyone who has the slightest interest in the analysis of labor-market discrimination should seriously contemplate purchasing it. The relatively nontechnical nature of the papers will appeal to a wide range of readers, and the book should quickly find its way onto reading lists for undergraduate and graduate courses that discuss the economics of discrimination.


Comparable Worth In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert Smith Aug 2012

Comparable Worth In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert Smith

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] At the theoretical level, we conclude that the case for comparable worth rests on the argument that the current distribution of female employees is based on discriminatory barriers which existing legislation have not broken down. If this argument is valid, the desirability of comparable worth depends upon one's perceptions of how the benefits it provides contrasts with the efficiency losses it induces. Given the trade-offs involved, ultimately one's position on comparable worth must depend on value judgments.


Comparable-Worth Wage Adjustments And Female Employment In The State And Local Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert S. Smith Aug 2012

Comparable-Worth Wage Adjustments And Female Employment In The State And Local Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert S. Smith

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Our paper simulates the likely effects of a comparable-worth wage-adjustment policy in the state and local sector on female employment in the sector. The simulation is based on estimates of within-occupation male/female substitution and across-occupation occupational employment substitution that we obtain using data from the 1980 Census of Population.


Do Teachers’ Race, Gender, And Ethnicity Matter? Evidence From The National Education Longitudinal Study Of 1988, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Daniel D. Goldhaber, Dominic J. Brewer Jul 2012

Do Teachers’ Race, Gender, And Ethnicity Matter? Evidence From The National Education Longitudinal Study Of 1988, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Daniel D. Goldhaber, Dominic J. Brewer

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS), the authors find that the match between teachers' race, gender, and ethnicity and those of their students had little association with how much the students learned, but in several instances it seems to have been a significant determinant of teachers' subjective evaluations of their students. For example, test scores of white female students in mathematics and science did not increase more rapidly when the teacher was a white woman than when the teacher was a white man, but white female teachers evaluated their white female students more highly than …


Gender Inequality And Growth: The Case Of Rich Vs. Poor Countries, Mohammad Amin, Veselin Kuntchev Jun 2012

Gender Inequality And Growth: The Case Of Rich Vs. Poor Countries, Mohammad Amin, Veselin Kuntchev

Mohammad Amin

Using cross-section data for over 120 countries, we explore the relationship between gender inequality and economic growth. We contribute to the existing literature in two important ways. First, we use a broad measure of gender inequality that goes well beyond gender inequality in education, the focus of most existing studies. Second, we allow for heterogeneity in the growth and gender inequality relationship across low and high-income countries. Our results confirm that greater gender inequality is associated with lower growth. However, this negative relationship holds among the low-income countries but not among high-income countries. Our findings have important implications for the …


The Female-Firm Under-Performance Hypothesis And Gender Disparity In The Laws, Mohammad Amin Jun 2012

The Female-Firm Under-Performance Hypothesis And Gender Disparity In The Laws, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Using firm-level data on developing countries, the present paper explores and extends the well-known female-firm under-performance hypothesis. Using firm-size as the measure of performance, we contribute to the literature in three important ways. First, in contrast to existing studies that focus on the gender of the owner(s), we focus on the gender of the top manager of the firm. Hence, a new dimension of female vs. male-firms is suggested. Second, we argue that the gender-based difference in firm-size in favor of men need not be uniform across countries. Specifically, we argue that it is likely to be larger in countries …


Flexible Work Schedule, Child Care And Female Employment In Developing Countries: Evidence Using Firm-Level Data, Mohammad Amin Apr 2012

Flexible Work Schedule, Child Care And Female Employment In Developing Countries: Evidence Using Firm-Level Data, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Using newly available data on whether a country gives additional legal rights or not for flexible or part-time work schedule to employees with minor children, we analyze the impact of such provision in the law on female employment. For a representative sample of manufacturing firms in 57 developing countries, we find that the stated provision in the law has a large positive effect on the employment of females. Specifically, on the conservative side, the provision in the law increases the proportion of females in the workforce by 7.7 percentage points, a large effect given that on average females constitute 32 …


Single-Sex Schools, Student Achievement, And Course Selection: Evidence From Rule-Based Student Assignments In Trinidad And Tobago, C. Kirabo Jackson Jan 2012

Single-Sex Schools, Student Achievement, And Course Selection: Evidence From Rule-Based Student Assignments In Trinidad And Tobago, C. Kirabo Jackson

C. Kirabo Jackson

Existing studies on single-sex schooling suffer from biases because students who attend single-sex schools differ in unmeasured ways from those who do not. In Trinidad and Tobago students are assigned to secondary schools based on an algorithm allowing one to address self-selection bias and estimate the causal effect of attending a single-sex school versus a similar coeducational school. While students (particularly females) with strong expressed preferences for single-sex schools benefit, most students perform no better at single-sex schools. Girls at single-sex-schools take fewer sciences courses and more traditionally female subjects.


Gender Disparity In Laws And Female Employment, Mohammad Amin Jan 2012

Gender Disparity In Laws And Female Employment, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

In a large sample of firms in 66 developing countries, it is shown that gender specific disparity in the laws favoring males over females tends to lower the employment of females relative to males at the firm level. However, this relationship between gender disparity in laws and employment is driven by small and medium firms, and it does not hold for the sample of large firms. However, the relationship holds equally in rich vs. poor countries, small vs. large cities within countries and among firms with and without female owners. We also confirm a sharp negative effect of gender disparity …


Why Are Returns To Education Higher For Women Than For Men In Urban China?, Emily C. Hannum, Zhang Yuping, Wang Meiyan Dec 2011

Why Are Returns To Education Higher For Women Than For Men In Urban China?, Emily C. Hannum, Zhang Yuping, Wang Meiyan

Emily C. Hannum

It is well established that women’s returns to education are higher than men’s in urban China. We argue that this finding, while accurate, is misleading due to its individualist perspective. The incomes to which most working-age women and men have access include not only own income, but spouse income. Further, decisions about participation and investment in the labor force, both consequential for income trajectories, are likely made with partner income and potential income in mind. To our knowledge, no research in China has explored the returns to education enjoyed via spouse income, or the implications of pooling couple income, for …