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Gender, Human Capital and Labor Supply Around the World

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PDT)

Marriott Marquis, Mission Hills
Hosted By: Econometric Society
  • Chair: Abigail Adams, University of Oxford

On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women’s Financial Control Impacts Labor Supply and Gender Norms

Erica Field
,
Duke University
Charity Moore
,
Harvard University
Rohini Pande
,
Harvard University
Natalia Rigol
,
Harvard University
Simone Schaner
,
University of Southern California

Abstract

In an experiment in collaboration with Indian government partners, we varied whether women’s wages from a public workfare program were directly deposited into their own individual bank accounts instead of the male household head’s account (the status quo). A random subset of these women also received a training on account usage. One year later, relative to women who just received bank accounts, those who also received direct deposit and training increased their labor supply in the public and private sectors, despite no change in market wages. Women who stated at baseline that they had never participated in workfare showed the largest and most persistent increases in labor supply after three years, and also reported increased empowerment. We also find evidence that social norms evolve: women who received direct deposits and training became more accepting of female work, while their husbands perceived fewer social costs to having a wife who works.

Preferences and Beliefs in the Marriage Market for Young Brides

Abi Adams
,
University of Oxford
Alison Andrew
,
Institute for Fiscal Studies

Abstract

Rajasthani women typically leave school early and marry young. We develop a novel discrete choice methodology using hypothetical vignettes to elicit average parental preferences over a daughter’s education and age of marriage, and subjective beliefs about the evolution of her marriage market prospects. We find parents have a strong preference for delaying a daughter’s marriage until eighteen but no further. Conditional on a marriage match, parents place little intrinsic value on a daughter’s education. However, they believe the probability of receiving a good marriage offer increases strongly with a daughter’s education but deteriorates quickly with her age on leaving school.

Incarceration of African American Men and the Impacts on Women and Children

Sitian Liu
,
Queen’s University

Abstract

Since the early 1970s, the United States has experienced a dramatic surge in imprisonment, especially among African American men. This paper investigates the causal effects of black male incarceration on black women's marriage and labor market outcomes, as well as its effects on black children's family structure, long-run educational outcomes, and income. To establish causality, I exploit plausibly exogenous changes in sentencing policies across states and over years, and construct a simulated instrumental variable for the incarceration rate, using offender-level data on the universe of prisoners admitted to and released from prisons between 1986 and 2009. The instrument characterizes how sentencing policies affect incarceration at both the extensive margin (i.e., whether to incarcerate an arrestee) and the intensive margin (i.e., how long to imprison an inmate). First, I find that high incarceration rates of black men negatively affect black women's marriage outcomes, although they increase the likelihood of employment for those with higher education levels. Second, higher black male incarceration rates hurt black children by increasing the likelihood of out-of-wedlock birth and living in a mother-only family, and decreasing the likelihood of having some college education in the long run. Moreover, for individuals who lived in areas with harsher sentencing policies during childhood, the black-white income gap is wider for men conditional on parental income. Third, black men at either the extensive or intensive margin of incarceration have different impacts on women and children. The results suggest the consequences of the tough-on-crime policies for inequality and racial gaps, which could be taken into account when reforming sentencing policies.

Personality Traits, Job Search Strategies and Gender Wage Gap

Christopher Flinn
,
New York University
Petra Todd
,
University of Pennsylvania
Weilong Zhang
,
University of Cambridge

Abstract

This paper introduces the Big Five personality traits along with other covariates in a job search and matching model and investigates how personality traits affect parameters and job search behavior. We build on prior research by Flinn et al. (2018) that estimated a neoclassical labor supply model for households using the HILDA dataset for Australia and found personality traits to be important determinants of gender wage and employment differentials. We also build on Flabbi (2010a,b) that estimates a job search model to examine the evidence for gender wage discrimination in the US. We develop and estimate a partial equilibrium search model in which personality traits can influence productivity, job search effort and the division of surplus from the employer-employee match. The estimation is based on the IZA Evaluation Dataset, a panel dataset focusing on newly- unemployed individuals in Germany between late 2007 and late 2008. Preliminary results show that emotional stability is a significant positive determinant of productivity, extroversion positively affects job arrival rates, and agreeableness is associated with lower bargaining power. Our structural Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition shows a significant component of gender wage inequality is explained by gender differences in personality traits, particularly how these traits are rewarded in the labor market.
JEL Classifications
  • J1 - Demographic Economics
  • O1 - Economic Development