Gender Inequality and Schools
Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 6, 2023 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM (CST)
- Chair: Kasey Buckles, University of Notre Dame
Who Ya Gonna Call: Gender Inequality in Demand for Parental Involvement
Abstract
Prior studies find significant inequalities in time spent by men and women in heterosexual households on child-related tasks even when both parents work full time. We develop a theoretical model and a field experiment to study if this inequality comes from external demands from decision-makers. We send emails to school principals from a two-parent household asking for a call back about an inquiry. We provide a unique phone number for each parent and track who is contacted first. We randomly vary the informational signals about which parent has more availability. This allows us to investigate whether the motherhood effect can be mitigated by household signaling. Furthermore, we explore if effects vary by gender of the principal. We can then compare household based versus external decision-maker based policies to close the gender gap in parental involvement. A structural random utility model allows us to identify whether the source of any inequality is belief- and/or preference-based.Non-College Occupations, Workplace Automation, and the Gender Gap in College Enrollment
Abstract
Women used to lag behind men in college enrollment but now exceed them. This paper focuses on the role of non-college job prospects in explaining these trends. We first document that routine-biased technical change disproportionately displaced non-college occupations held by women. We next instrument for routinization to show that declining non-college job prospects for women increased female enrollment. Two stage least squares results show that a one percentage point rise in routinization increases female college enrollment by 0.6 percentage points, while the effect for male enrollment is not systematically significant. We next embed this instrumental variation into a dynamic model that links education and occupation choices. The model finds that routinization decreased returns to non-college occupations for women, leading them to shift to cognitive work and increasing their college premium. In contrast, non-college occupations for men were less susceptible to routinization. Altogether, our model estimates that workplace routinization accounted for 63% of the growth in female enrollment and 23% of the change in male enrollment between 1980 to 2000.Cassats in the Attic
Abstract
We characterize the gender dynamics of the commercialization of science at scale. Analyzing more than 86 million scientific articles, we find approximately a 10% (and growing) gender gap in the commercialization of science. However, the gender dynamics are more subtle, as scientific teams that are (nearly) all-female do not suffer this penalty and in some cases out-commercialize all-male teams, even when controlling for latent commercial potential via ``twin'' scientific discoveries. What drives this effect? We find some but limited support for supply-side factors, including access to networks and representation in scientific fields. On the demand side, a natural experiment involving staggered open access to Federally funded articles seems to spur commercialization generally but does not close the gender gap. However, the use of boastful language, such as describing one's findings as a ``breakthrough'' appears to attract attention from commercializing firms. Women are generally less prone to use boastful language when publishing, but their articles are disproportionately more likely to be commercialized when they do.Discussant(s)
Gizem Kosar
,
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Betsey Stevenson
,
University of Michigan
Ina Ganguli
,
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Clementine Van Effenterre
,
University of Toronto
JEL Classifications
- J1 - Demographic Economics
- I2 - Education and Research Institutions