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Consequences of Gendered Labor Markets

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 7, 2018 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM

Loews Philadelphia, Parlor 1
Hosted By: International Association for Feminist Economics
  • Chair: Silvia Berger, FLACSO Argentina

Estimating Gender Wage Gap in the Presence of Efficiency Wages -- Evidence From European Data

Joanna Tyrowicz
,
University of Warsaw
Katarzyna Bech
,
University of Warsaw

Abstract

Gender wage gap (adjusted for individual characteristics) as a phenomenon means that women are paid unjustifiably less than men, i.e. below their productivity. Meanwhile, efficiency wages as a phenomenon mean that a group of workers is paid in excess of productivity. However, productivity is typically unobservable, hence it is proxied by some observable characteristics. If efficiency wages are effective only in selected occupations and/or industries, and these happen to be dominated by men, measures of adjusted gender wage gaps will confound (possibly) below productivity compensating of women with above productivity efficiency wage prevalence.
We propose an estimator of gender wage gap, which accounts for bias stemming from a separation between a privileged and standard labor markets, when this separation is endogenous and a priori unknown (unobservable). We analyze estimates of the gender wage gaps in European countries using linked employer-employee data for the European countries (EU SES). Thus, we address an important concern implicit in the previous literature that the estimates of adjusted gender wage gap are inflated by the incidence of efficiency wages.
We find that without correction for the prevalence of efficiency wages, the estimates of the adjusted gender wage gaps tend to be substantially inflated in the majority market, and underestimated for the primary market. Access to primary market proves to be strongly gendered.

Austerity’s Gender Impact on Tertiary Education: the Cases of Spain and Germany

Zeynep Mualla Nettekoven
,
Berlin School of Economics & Law
Izaskun Zuazu
,
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the potential gender impact of austerity policies in tertiary education. The uneven gender distribution across fields of study is known as horizontal gender segregation, and is associated with key implications in future earnings and career prospects, gender pay gap, human capital accumulation and economic growth. We compare the patterns of horizontal gender segregation in Spain and Germany with other European Union (EU) members in the aftermath of the Great Recession and austerity rationale. These two countries are usually placed at the conservative cluster of European economies, while adopted different policies over the last decade. We corroborate an uneven and stalled trend in the consecution of gender parity in Western societies: although there is a slight trend towards de-segregation in female-dominated fields, male-dominated ones are persistently segregated. We review theoretical explanations of gender segregation and build upon the two-way interaction and relative autonomy of social reproduction approaches to provide some potential effects of austerity policies in these two familiastic welfare states.

Structures of Constraint: The Uneven Development of United States Women's Creditworthiness in the 1970's

Dorene Isenberg
,
University of Redlands

Abstract

This paper critically analyzes the law and justice approach to procuring equal economic opportunity for women as evidenced in the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 (ECOA) and its Amendment of 1976. Nancy Folbre’s structures of constraint and Serena Mayeri’s approach to intersectionality provide the framework for analyzing the construction of the problem of discrimination in lending, the anti-discrimination social and legal movements, and the laws these groups promoted and were able to enact. While all women experienced discrimination in their creditworthiness, it was experienced differently depending on one’s marital status, race, age, and class. In the first phase of the successful battle to remediate credit discrimination through changes in the legal structure, the analysis shows that it was the interests of white, married, middle-class women that were primarily represented. Since this phase did not focus on the differences among women, but only the commonality of gender, a second phase was necessary to provide comprehensive anti-discriminatory coverage. The differences in the active groups and support provided for this second phase are analyzed and compared to the social movement of the first phase. The paper concludes with some of the implications of this feminist economic intersectional approach for social change today.

Occupational Segregation by Sexual Orientation in the United States: Exploring its Economic Effects on Same-sex Couples

Coral Del Rio
,
University of Vigo
Olga Alonso-Villar
,
University of Vigo

Abstract

This paper examines how important the occupational sorting of individuals in same-sex couples is in explaining the economic position of lesbians and gays beyond controlling for occupation in the estimation of their respective wage gaps. The analysis reveals that the distribution of partnered gay men across occupations brings them a remarkable positive earning gap (11% of the average wage of partnered workers), whereas the occupational sorting of partnered lesbian women only allows them to depart from the large losses that straight partnered women have since their earning gap, although positive, is close to zero. If gay men had the same educational achievements, immigration profile, racial composition, and age structure as straight partnered men have, the advantages of this group associated with their occupational sorting would disappear completely. Likewise, if lesbian women had the same characteristics, other than sex and gender orientation, as straight partnered men have, the small advantage that these women derive from their occupational sorting would not only vanish but would turn into disadvantages, leaving them with a loss with respect to the average wage of coupled workers similar to the one straight partnered women have after their corresponding homogenization. It is their higher educational attainments and, to a lower extent, their lower immigration profile, that prevents workers living in same-sex couples from having a disadvantaged occupational sorting.
Discussant(s)
Randy Albelda
,
University of Massachusetts-Boston
Kate Bahn
,
Center for American Progress
JEL Classifications
  • B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches
  • J7 - Labor Discrimination