Gender,entrepreneurship and food security in Niger

In many African countries, the income generated from the informal sector and the entrepreneurship is particularly important for reducing poverty. Previous studies have not found clear evidence on the relationship between self‐employment by gender and food security. We argue that this may be a result of the gender inequality in resource accessibility. In this paper, we analyze the implication of household entrepreneurship on food security in Niger, where gender disparities in resource accessibility are reduced. We find that owning female‐managed non‐agricultural enterprises is positively related to food accessibility and food availability within female‐headed households. The results draw the attention on reducing gender differences in resource accessibility in entrepreneurship for improving food security.     

Trends in China’s gender employment and pay gap: Estimating gender pay gaps with employment selection

In contrast to the United States and European countries, China has witnessed a widening gender pay gap in the past two decades. Nevertheless, the size of the gender pay gap could still be underestimated as a result of not accounting for the low-wage women who have dropped out of the labor force. As shown by a large and representative set of household survey data in China, since the 1980s the female employment rate has been falling and the gap between male and female employment rates has been increasing. We estimate the gap size using Heckman’s selection-correction model and bounds of the raw gender pay gap, taking into consideration the different male and female employment rates in China. The results support the view that the gender pay gap estimate is biased without taking into account employment selectivity.     

零工经济如何改变性别工资差距*——基于家庭与市场的双重视角

中国企业生产与性别收入分配的格局正在发生深刻变化。零工就业意味着雇佣的非正式化与收入的不稳定化，女性被大量吸纳进入零工经济的同时，参与劳动力市场和家庭的方式也发生转变，性别工资差距可能随之变化。理论分析表明，在市场领域，非正式雇佣加深了劳动后备军对工资的挤压效应，女性作为劳动力“蓄水池”，收入下降效应更为明显；在家庭领域，不稳定收入加深了劳动者的自我规训，家务劳动时间分配不均使收入差距进一步扩张。在上述两种效应下，零工经济中的性别工资差距将大于非零工经济。基于微观调查数据的经验研究结果验证了上述理论推演。劳动者“灵活性”和“安全性”的综合指标表明，只有建立灵活安全的劳动力市场机制，重视弱势群体的就业保护，才能真正推动零工经济成为“稳就业、保增长”的中坚力量。     

The determinants of entrepreneurship gender gaps: A cross‐country analysis

This paper uses aggregate data from the International Labor Organization and microeconomic data from the European Values Study to quantify gender gaps in entrepreneurship, distinguishing between gender gaps in employership and in self‐employment, and study their main empirical determinants. Our sample consists of 40 European countries and varies broadly in terms of institutional background since it includes several ex‐Communist countries. In the aggregate data we observe a gender gap in employers of 59% and a gender gap in self‐employment of 36%. These gaps have remained roughly constant in the 2000–2017 period, although there are wide differences in both their levels and evolution over time and across countries. Using microeconomic data, we find that the incidence of entrepreneurship, employership, and self‐employment among men is much larger than among women, consistent with the gaps estimated using aggregate data. Our regressions show that these gaps are still sizable even after controlling for a large set of control variables that include marital status, age, education, number of children, wealth, the participation of parents and spouse in entrepreneurship, values toward women, social capital, and prior unemployment. We identify important differences between the determinants of these gaps in ex‐Communist countries and in high‐income ones.     

Gender differences in self‐employment

This paper examines the factors that influence transitions into self‐employment, paying particular attention to gender differences. We find that: (i) men are more responsive to the wage differential between wage/salaried employment and self‐employment; (ii) liquidity constraints are more important for men; and (iii) the link between father's self‐employment status and the probability of self‐employment is stronger for men. Taken together, these results suggest that, for women, self‐employment is a closer substitute for part‐time work and labour‐market inactivity than it is for men. We attribute such differences to the different labour market opportunities and occupational strategies of women.     

Transitions across labor market states including formal/informal division in Egypt

This study examines the worker transitions across labor market states including formal/informal division using panel data of 2006 to 2012 from Egypt. We generate a broad set of facts about labor market dynamics in Egypt. We first develop transition probabilities by gender across different labor market states including formal/informal sectors utilizing Markov transition processes. Government employment is the most persistent labor market state for both men and women and the out of labor force is the second most persistent labor market state for women. Unemployment is the most mobile labor market state. Informal private wage work and self‐employed–agriculture are also relatively mobile labor market states. We next identify the effects of individual, household and job characteristics on different mobility patterns by estimating multinomial logit models. We find that gender, age, education, experience, and several sectors of economic activity are associated with the transition probabilities between the labor market states considered such as formal wage, informal wage, self‐employment, unemployment, government employment, and out of labor market. Education, in particular, university degree or above is noted to play a vital role in the probability of transitions across several labor market states.     

Incentives to self-employment decision in Sweden

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the determinants of the self‐employment decision, with a particular focus on gender differences and occupational choice by using register‐based individual panel data for the period 2003 to 2006. Individuals choose to move into self‐employment out of three possible initial statuses: paid employment, combiner or inactivity. These groups are of specific interest for the Swedish political agenda. The question that we specifically pose is how a set of socio‐economic factors separately induce men and women in these three statuses to enter self‐employment.     

Labour mobility during transitionEvidence from Georgia1

This article deals with labour mobility in Georgia during economic transition. We use quarterly 1998–99 panel data to examine mobility across six labour market statuses (inactivity, unemployment, formal wage employment, informal wage employment, self‐employment and farming). Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis of labour market segmentation. Formal employment is preferred to informal employment. Unemployment is largely a queuing device for individuals with higher education waiting for formal jobs. Some self‐employment is subsistence activities and consistent with a segmented labour market, while other is high risk and potentially high return activities. Age, gender and education are significant determinants of labour mobility. Finally, informal employment serves as a buffer in times of recession – with farming and informal wage employment absorbing labour shed by other statuses during the Russian financial crisis.     

Entrepreneurship in post‐conflict transition1

We examine new self‐employment entry and its viability in Bosnia and Herzegovina, using a rich household survey for the years 2001–2004. We find that wealthier households are more likely to engage in viable self‐employment and create employment suggesting an important role for financing constraints. Specifically, although having an existing bank relationship is not significantly related to the entry decision, it is positively related to the survival for new entrepreneurs and their employment creation. We also find a non‐linear relationship between remittances and entry in that individuals not receiving remittances are more likely to enter self‐employment; but, if they do receive them, the likelihood of starting a business increases in the fraction of wealth received from domestic remittances. Finally, people working in the informal sector are more likely to become viable entrepreneurs, particularly those provided with loans from micro‐credit organizations. These findings support the perception of the informal sector as an incubator for formal self‐employment in the early years of transition.     

Having It All? Employment,Earnings, and Children*

We study the effect of family policies on female employment, fertility, and the gender wage gap. We develop a life‐cycle model of heterogeneous households featuring endogenous labor supply, human capital accumulation, fertility, and home production. Our results suggest that human capital accumulation is important in accounting for the widening of the gender wage gap following children. We find that, in aggregate, childcare subsidies promote maternal employment and fertility, although the effects are heterogeneous across couples. A subsidy on home goods increases female employment, but primarily later in life. Thus, it does not dampen the widening of the gender gap.     

中国农村劳动力非农就业的性别差异

中国农村劳动力的非农就业对促进农村经济发展,缩小城乡差距无疑具有积极的意义,同时非农就业的性别差异更是一个值得经济学家和社会学家关注的课题。本文运用微观数据,用Probit模型来研究中国农村劳动力就业的性别差异、影响农村劳动力非农就业选择的影响因素,以及各因素对不同性别农村劳动力非农就业的不同影响。     

The impact of microcredit on self‐employment profits in Vietnam

This study examines the impact of microcredit on household self‐employment profits in Vietnam. For two indicators of credit participation – a dichotomous participation dummy and the accumulated amount of microcredit received per household – the analysis reveals a positive effect on household profits. The analysis also reveals that an instrumental variable method within a fixed‐effects framework can control for the possible endogeneity of credit and thereby identify the true effect of credit.     

Are children driving the gender wage gap?

We examine how much children and the responsibilities related to them contribute to the divergence of men's and women's wages, and consequently, to the formation of the gender wage gap. To derive the relative contribution of gender‐specific parent gaps to the overall gender wage gap, we provide a modification of the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition and include simultaneous corrections for selection into employment and parenthood. The results show that the fatherhood wage premium contributes most significantly to the gender wage gap, especially in Poland. The motherhood penalty is also significant, while the role of the gender gap among childless individuals is small.     

Self‐employment Dynamics in Australia and the Importance of State Dependence

Using Australian labour force data, both cross‐sectional and longitudinal, this study examines the dynamics of self‐employment with a particular focus on workers transitioning between self‐employment and salaried employment, and the extent to which self‐employment is the result of workers’ observed and unobserved characteristics or is instead determined by their prior employment experience itself. Probability models of self‐employment using both pooled‐panel probit and dynamic random‐effects panel probit methods are estimated, and the results are found to be extremely sensitive to the differences in the econometric methods. Once unobserved heterogeneity and initial conditions are controlled for in the dynamic model, the importance of observed characteristics in determining self‐employment is greatly diminished. Instead, workers’ past experience in self‐employment (as opposed to salaried employment) is found to have a large favourable effect on their future self‐employment prospects. The influence of this state dependence is also considerably more important in determining self‐employment outcomes than salaried ones. Despite establishing the importance of state dependence, however, what this effect implies about why individuals choose to become self‐employed or the role that self‐employment plays in the labour market remains unresolved.     

Childcare,Household Composition,Muslim Ethnicity,and Off-Farm Work in Rural China

ABSTRACT

This study explores how religious and ethnic norms and gender relations interact across the domestic and public spheres of work in rural China's minority-concentrated regions. It focuses on the roles that childcare and household composition play in the employment decisions of prime-age married individuals of Muslim and non-Muslim ethnicity. Using the 2012 China Household Ethnicity Survey (CHES), the study finds that children generally decrease women's likelihood of employment outside the home and increase men's. The gender gap in the probability of off-farm employment is larger for those of Muslim ethnicity. Non-Muslim parents of sons are more likely to migrate for employment than parents of daughters. The presence of women of grandparent age (46–70) universally facilitates labor migration. Men of grandparent age tend to increase only the probability that non-Muslim parents migrate for employment. Additional adult male household members reduce the likelihood that women of Muslim ethnicity have off-farm employment.     

Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross‐Country Study

This paper uses data from the Luxembourg Income Study to examine some of the forces that have driven changes in household income inequality over the last three decades of the twentieth century. We decompose inequality for six countries (Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.) into the three sources of market income (earnings, property income, and income from self‐employment) and taxes and transfers. Our findings indicate that although changes in the distribution of earnings are an important force behind recent trends, they are not the only one. Greater earnings dispersion has in some cases been accompanied by a reduction in the share of earnings which dampened its impact on overall household income inequality. In some countries the contribution of self‐employment income to inequality has been on the rise, while in others, increases in inequality in capital income account for a substantial fraction of the observed distributional changes.     

A capable wife: couple’s joint decisions on labor supply and family chores

This study investigates how spousal employment status affects personal employment decisions and the division of family chores. We apply Bresnahan and Reiss (J Econom 48(1):57–81, 1991) empirical cooperative game model to estimate household aggregate preference for a dual-earner family, extending their model to identify the individual preferences of husbands and wives by using the share of family chores as an empirical proxy for individual indirect disutilities. Using data from Taiwan, we show that an average household in the sample does not prefer a dual-earner family. The estimates of individual preferences indicate that this aversion comes mainly from the husbands. These results suggest that the gender gap in labor force participation and earnings has reduced at a faster rate than the social norm change toward the role of women in Taiwan.     

外资进入、竞争与性别就业差异

在中国性别就业差异持续扩大的背景下，文章基于2004-2007年的中国工业企业数据库检验了外资进入是如何通过竞争效应对企业性别就业差异产生影响的。结果显示，外资进入程度越高的地区与行业具有越低的性别就业差异，外资进入程度每增加1%，我国内资企业女性就业份额将会增加0.0407%，且这一结果在考虑了抽样偏倚、不同外资范围的界定、使用不同外资进入程度衡量标准和控制内生性后依然十分稳健。进一步的研究显示，外资进入通过提高企业面临的竞争程度来促使以利润最大化为目标的企业雇佣更多成本较低的女性劳动力，进而降低性别就业差异。更为重要的是，外资进入产生的竞争效应对于性别差异的影响在不同受教育群体之间存在差异，其对受过高等教育，特别是受过研究生以上教育的群体影响最大。文章结论表明，在经济全球化背景下完善市场竞争机制和提高女性受教育程度将有利于减少性别就业差异。此外，文章也为研究外资进入的社会经济影响提供了不一样的思路。     

Skilled and Unskilled Immigrants and Entrepreneurship in a Developed Country

Evidence from some OECD countries suggests that skilled immigrants are over‐represented in entrepreneurship. We offer an analytical explanation to show that it may be a direct outcome of asymmetric information between immigrants and potential employers in the rich countries. Limiting occupational choices to self‐employment and employment, we show that skilled immigrants vis‐à‐vis natives may be proportionally over‐represented in small businesses. This compensates for the income loss in the labor market. It results from higher critical risk aversion among skilled immigrants compared with natives and subsequently leads to higher average income for all immigrants in the cross‐section. Finally, we show why a lesser number of unskilled immigrants enter self‐employment and discuss the speed of income convergence between all immigrants and natives.     

The employment dynamics of less‐educated men in the United States: The role of self‐employment

Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I construct a sample of working‐age males and examine the employment dynamics with a particular focus on the role of self‐employment for less‐educated men in the US. I find that men responding they had at some point been self‐employed tend to spend less time in non‐employment than other less‐educated men. The results from the dynamic multinomial logit model reveal positive aspects of self‐employment by indicating that less‐educated men who were self‐employed in the previous year were less likely to be non‐employed in the future as compared to those who were paid workers in the previous year.