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New Advances in the Economics of Gender

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 5, 2024 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (CST)

Grand Hyatt, Presidio C
Hosted By: Econometric Society
  • Chair: Abigail Adams-Prassl, University of Oxford

Families’ Career Investments and Firms’ Promotion Decisions

Ana Reynoso
,
University of Michigan

Abstract

This paper shows that gender gaps in career success are jointly determined by the
career investments decisions made within the family and by the decision of firms to train selected
workers to reach top positions. Using rich administrative data from Denmark, we first document
large gender gaps in training and promotion. Importantly, these gaps differ widely across different
types of couples, suggesting different degrees of specialization in household and market production.
Motivated by these novel facts, we specify and estimate a quantitative equilibrium model of the
interplay between families’ and firms’ investments in workers’ human capital. We use the estimated
model to analyze the effectiveness and distributional consequences of parental leave policies and
diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to promote families’ and firms’ investments in women.

Fertility and Family Labor Supply

Katrine Marie Tofthøj Jakobsen
,
Oxford University
Thomas Høgholm Jørgensen
,
University of Copenhagen
Hamish Low
,
University of Oxford

Abstract

We study the role of fertility adjustments for the labor market responsiveness of men and women. First, we use longitudinal Danish register data and tax reforms from 2009 to provide new empirical evidence on asymmetric fertility adjustments to tax changes of men and women. Second, we quantify the importance of these fertility adjustments for understanding the labor supply responsiveness of couples through a life-cycle model of family labor supply and fertility. Allowing fertility adjustments increases the labor supply responsiveness of women by 28%. These adjustments affect human capital accumulation and has permanent implications for the gender wage gap within couples.

The Colocation Friction: Dual-Earner Job Search and Labor Market Outcomes

Hanno Foerster
,
Boston College
Robert Ulbricht
,
Boston College

Abstract

Dual-earner households face a colocation problem: They need to find two jobs in one location. We develop a spatial directed search model that captures the unique frictions that characterize the job search by dual-earner households. We derive general conditions under which these “colocation frictions” are binding and quantify their consequences for the U.S. labor market. Estimated at the commuting zone level, the model implies that colocation frictions disproportionately affect women, halving their earning gains from migration. The colocation friction strongly discourages migration, especially among
“power couples” (dual-employed, high human capital households), preventing relocation to more productive locations in the long-run. Taken together, we estimate that the colocation friction incurs a lifetime utility loss equivalent to a 0.8% decrease in lifetime earnings.

The Dynamics of Abusive Relationships

Abigail Adams-Prassl
,
University of Oxford
Kristiina Huttunen
,
Aalto University and VATT Institute for Economic Research
Emily Elizabeth Nix
,
University of Southern California
Ning Zhang
,
University of Oxford

Abstract

Domestic abuse encompasses a range of damaging behaviors beyond physical violence, including economic and emotional abuse. This paper provides the first evidence on the impact of cohabiting with an abusive partner on victim’s economic outcomes. In so doing, we highlight the systematic role played by economic suppression and coercive control in such relationships. Using administrative data and a matched control event study design, along with a within-individual comparison of outcomes across relationships, we document three new facts. First, women who begin relationships with (eventually) physically abusive men suffer large and significant earnings and employment falls immediately upon cohabiting with the abusive partner, which translates into a total household income loss. Second, this decline in economic outcomes is non-monotonic in women’s pre-cohabitation outside options. Third, abusive men impose economic costs on all their female partners, even those who do not re-port physical violence. To rationalize these findings, we develop a new dynamic model of abusive relationships where women do not perfectly observe their partner’s type, and abusive men have an incentive to use coercive control to sabotage women’s outside options and their ability to later exit the relationship. We show that this model is consistent with all three empirical facts. We harness the model’s predictions to revisit some classic results on domestic violence and show that the relationship between domestic violence and women’s outside options is crucially linked to breakup dynamics.

Discussant(s)
Melanie Wasserman
,
University of California-Los Angeles
Linh Thùy Tô
,
Boston University
Hamish Low
,
University of Oxford
Rossella Calvi
,
Rice University
JEL Classifications
  • J1 - Demographic Economics