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Accounting for Gender Differential Outcomes

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 4, 2019 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Hanover A
Hosted By: UNION FOR RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMICS & International Association for Feminist Economics
  • Chair: Randy Albelda, University of Massachusetts-Boston

Military Subsidization of Human Capital and Gender Stratification in the U.S. Economy

Tyler Saxon
,
Hamilton College

Abstract

While many functions of the federal government have been increasingly eroded and privatized during the neoliberal era, the U.S. Department of Defense has gone relatively unscathed by this assault on the public sector, and many in the U.S. economy see the DoD as an “employer of last resort.”  In addition to employment, the DoD provides vital access to human and social capital, often serving as a "bridging environment" for individuals from socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. However, due to various forms of gender harassment prevalent in the hypermasculine, patriarchal DoD, it must also be noted that men have greater access to the human and social capital resources of the DoD than women do. This paper analyzes these contradictions and the relative difficulty for the DoD to serve as an effective "bridging environment" for women in the U.S. economy.

Ask and You Shall Receive? Gender Differences in Regrades in College

Cher Li
,
Colorado State University
Basit Zafar
,
Arizona State University

Abstract

Women and men differ in their tendency to negotiate. This project examines whether male and female students experience different regrading rates in college. We analyze a unique administrative dataset that contains not only the final grade records but also any grade changes related to the records from a large 4-year public university. Our analysis based on the administrative records reveals that male students are 18.6 percent more likely than female students to receive favorable grade changes initiated by instructors. The gender difference in regrades persists across colleges and cannot be explained by observable characteristics of the students, instructors, and the classes.

Gender and Mental Health in the United States: The Impact of Paid and Unpaid Work

Chiara Piovani
,
University of Denver
Nursel Aydiner-Avsar
,
UNCTAD

Abstract

Positive mental health constitutes a core component of individual and social welfare; over the last few decades, however, anxiety and depression have become major public health issues both in the United States and globally. Using MIDUS (Midlife in the United States) survey data for 2011-2014, this study evaluates the impact of work time (including both paid and unpaid work) on the mental health of employed men and women in the United States. The United States now has the longest work hours among industrialized nations. In this context, in which leisure has been greatly reduced, women also continue to hold the lion share of unpaid work (i.e., care labor and domestic work) and face a double burden in the labor market. Studying the relationship between mental health and both productive and reproductive work is essential to understand the impact of gender norms on mental health outcomes and to develop effective public policies towards reducing gender disparities and improve mental health.

Graduating During the Great Recession: The Effect of Student Loan Debt on Wages and Wage Growth of Recent Colleges Graduates

Alex Bernasek
,
Colorado State University
Melanie Long
,
Colorado State University

Abstract

This study uses data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond (2008:12) survey to see if there is an effect of student loan on initial (2009) wages and early wage growth (2009-2012) of college students who graduated in 2007-08. Neoclassical theory predicts that debt burdened students will make occupational choices that trade-off initial wages for future wage growth. This paper builds on this work paying particular attention to gender and marital status recognizing that these impact labor supply decisions in different ways. We hypothesize that graduating college with student loan debt and entering into a particularly weak labor market – such as we experienced during the Great Recession – may have confounding effects on wages and wage growth. The opportunities that graduates have to make the kind of labor market “choices” consistent with neoclassical theory is questionable. We find that those holding student loan debt have lower rather than higher initial wages, and for those whose initial wages were below the median, slower wage growth as well. These findings paint a more troubling picture of the effects of student loan debt on income and wealth inequality in the US. While women were more likely than men to self-report that debt affected their employment plans these largely disappear in the econometric estimations. The one exception being that cohabitating women experienced less of a wage penalty from student loan debt than cohabitating men and single women and men.

Will the Different Retirement Age Enlarge the Gender Gap in Urban China?

Jin Feng
,
Fudan University
Jin Liu
,
Central University of Finance and Economics

Abstract

In China, employees have to retire once they reach retirement age. Men retire at 60, while women retire at 55 if they are public employees or white-collar workers in private sectors or 50if they are blue-collar workers. The current retirement age policy might contribute to the gender gap and women might be discriminated because of earlier retirement age. Women maybe more difficult to achieve the opportunity to get promoted or have wage increased compared to men because women is about to retire earlier, which means woman may earn less compensation than men. Moreover, women work fewer years over the course of their lives ,which will make them have less life-time income and less retirement wage. In this paper,we want to investigate the possible effect of current retirement policy on gender gap. We will use urban household survey(UHS) from 2002 to 2009 to do the empirical work of wage analysis of employed men and women. We will use Difference-in-Difference-in-Difference (DOD) to estimate the difference of gender gap between blue-collar workers and public servants, which is a proxy for the different retirement age for man and woman. We find that for persons who aged between 45 to 48 years old, the gender difference is larger with age increases compared with the servants and blue-collar workers. Our results suggest that the retirement policy of different retirement age between women and men has broaden the gender wage gap of employers.
JEL Classifications
  • J1 - Demographic Economics
  • J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor