Gender Discrimination in Earnings in Indonesia: A Fuller Picture

This article analyses data from the 2007 Indonesia Family Life Survey in order to decompose the gender gap in earnings into explained and unexplained gaps, not only at the mean but also across the entire distribution. Women earned about 30% less than men, in both paid work and self-employment. The explained gap accounts for only about a quarter of the gap in paid work but for about half of the gap in self-employment. When the decomposition is made across the earnings distribution, the total gap decreases with earnings in both paid work and self-employment, and both conditional and unconditional on characteristics. In both employment sectors, the explained gap remains similar across the distribution, and therefore the unexplained gap drives the decrease in the total gap. The unconditional decomposition across the distribution provides great insight into the dynamics that are obscured in results derived from decomposition at the mean.     

Why is the gender earnings gap greater in Korea than in the United States?

It has long been recognized that the gender earnings gap varies across countries. This paper examines the relatively higher gender earnings gap found in the Korean labor market compared to the US labor market. Using the data set representative of the population for both countries, I found that the significant part of the differences in the gender earnings gap simply arise from the differences in the observed characteristics of women among two countries. In particular, relatively lower labor market experience, current job tenure, and educational attainment by Korean female workers play dominant roles in explaining the observed higher earnings gap. In addition, wage structure and labor market discrimination seem to be against Korean female workers compared to US female workers. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (4) (2007) 455–469.     

Youth wage employment and parental education in Malawi

This paper looks at the relationship between the likelihood of being in regular wage employment and parental education for Malawian youth. It uses data from the third integrated household survey (IHS3). Only a mother's education is found to have a statistically significant effect on the likelihood of being in regular wage employment for young females and males. It is established that the effect of a mother's education on young males is significantly larger than that for young females. The paper also finds that, regardless of gender, a mother's education complements/reinforces the positive effect of a youth's own education on the probability of being in wage employment. The evidence from this paper points to the existence of an intergenerational poverty trap; with children of uneducated mothers or mothers with low education finding themselves outside regular wage jobs.     

Gender gap in school enrolment among youth in Lesotho

This article uses data from the 1996 population census of Lesotho and the Ministry of Education's annual reports compiled during the period 1990–9 to investigate the trend of the gap between male and female enrolment in schools and higher learning institutions. The study examines various education indicators, school enrolment and dropout rates. There is no doubt that the gender gap still exists in Lesotho in favour of females. Both the cohort analysis and the analysis of dropout rates have shown that there is gender imbalance in schooling. In addition, the analysis has shown that the gender gap has recently started to narrow in primary, secondary and high schools but is widening at tertiary level. The article recommends that the government of Lesotho should look closely at the issue of the disadvantaged ‘boy child’ if it intends to eliminate gender disparities in schools.     

Inequality in South Africa: The distribution of income,expenditure and earnings

This article empirically analyses the state of inequality in South Africa. International comparisons show South Africa to be among the most unequal countries in the world. The levels of income inequality and earnings inequality are analysed with a range of measures and methods. The results quantify the extremely high level of inequality in South Africa. Earnings inequality appears to be falling in recent years, with relative losses in the upper-middle parts of the earnings distribution. Decomposing income inequality by factor source reveals the importance of earnings in accounting for overall income inequality. The article concludes by observing that, internationally, significant sustained decreases in inequality rarely come about without policies aimed at achieving that, and suggests that strong policy interventions would be needed to reduce inequality in South Africa to levels that are in the range typically found internationally.     

Youth engagement in agricultural policy processes in Malawi

This study assesses the nature of networking between youth and agricultural policy-makers – given youth disillustionment with agricultural livelihoods. Using the Malawi case, a mixed-methods approach shows, first, that local government departments which are mandated to work on youth issues are the main hubs of information for youth in agriculture. The Ministry of Agriculture plays a secondary role. Second, the study shows that youth in agriculture have little or no direct interactions with each other. Therefore, youth remain on the periphery of agricultural policy-making and their role in shaping agricultural policy dialogue is negligible. This is attributable to both lack of a deliberate government policy to include the youth and lack of a unified youth platform. The onus is therefore on the youth to ensure that they are effectively engaged in agricultural policy dialogue. The study concludes with policy recommendations relevant for countries with a ‘youth/agriculture’ problem like Malawi.     

Household,community, and policy determinants of food insecurity in rural Malawi

This study examines how socio-economic characteristics of households, local conditions, and public programmes are associated with the probability that a farm household in rural Malawi is food insecure. The statistical analysis uses nationally representative data for 8350 randomly-selected households interviewed during 2004/05 for the second Malawi Integrated Household Survey. Regressions are estimated separately for households in the north, centre, and south of Malawi to account for spatial heterogeneity. Results of a multilevel logit model reveal that households are less likely to be food insecure if they have larger cultivated land per capita, receive agricultural field assistance, reside in a community with an agricultural cooperative and relatively high annual rainfall, and are headed by an individual with a high school degree. Factors that positively correlate with household food insecurity are price of maize, price of fertiliser, number of household members, and distance to markets. Implications of these findings for policy are discussed.     

Gender earnings differentials in Taiwan: A stochastic frontier approach

We examine Taiwan's male–female earnings gaps over the past three decades in order to assess the progress in assimilating women into the labor market. Two alternative methods of evaluating earnings gaps are employed in this paper: the traditional Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition method and the less well-known method of evaluating labor market efficiency. Men and women's earnings are converging during this period (1978–2003) while at the same time there is little change in the level of gender discrimination measured by the standard Oaxaca–Blinder method. Using the labor market efficiency (stochastic frontier) model we find increases in labor market efficiency over time for both males and females; however, females enjoy a much faster rate of increase in efficiency. We conclude that the relative increase in female efficiency represents a decline in discrimination against females.     

Financial Liberalization and the Industrial Response: Concentration and Entry in Malawi

It has been suggested that financial liberalization may be a key policy to promote industrialization as it removes the credit access constraint on firms, especially small and medium ones. We investigate the effect of credit expansion in the wake of liberalization on the structure of the industrial sectors in Malawi and find that, in contrast to the hypothesis above, it resulted in an increase in industrial concentration and a decrease in net firm entry, especially in sectors that are more finance dependent. The case of Malawi is interesting because financial liberalization has been justified precisely as a means for industrial development and because the implementation of the policy has been regarded as relatively successful.     

数字经济背景下互联网的使用对民营企业员工性别工资差距的影响——基于员工受教育层次差异化特征的分析

基于2017年中国综合社会调查的民营企业员工数据,使用稳健最小二乘回归与Oaxaca分解法研究发现:互联网的使用将对未接受过教育以及仅接受过私塾扫盲班/小学教育的民营企业员工工资产生显著的负向影响;互联网的使用将对接受过初中及以上教育的民营企业员工工资产生显著的正向影响;随着民营企业员工受教育水平的提升,互联网的使用对民营企业女性员工工资的弹性影响远超男性;互联网的使用将扩大未接受过教育的民营企业女性员工与男性员工的工资差距;互联网的使用将缩小接受过私塾扫盲班/小学及以上教育的民营企业女性员工与男性员工的工资差距。据此提出,应加大公益互联网使用培训力度,以提升女性的互联网理性使用水平、加强清扫虚假网络平台以防止受教育层次较低女性误入歧途、鼓励女性自主接受多元化再教育以提升自身互联网理性使用水平等,以缩小民营企业员工性别工资差距。     

Some evidence on the cohort earnings differentials of men in Japan

This study analyses the cohort earnings differentials of full-time working men in Japan using large micro data on individuals. Log earnings differentials between two cohorts of the same age calculated from 2012 and 2017 surveys reveal a substantial earnings decline for university graduates around age 43 and senior high school graduates around age 38 in 2017. These cohorts experienced a severe deterioration of job opportunities after the bubble burst. The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition shows that the composition effect dominates the wage structure effect. In particular, a shortened length of tenure and a decline in the share of those working in a large firm are the main causes of the earnings gap for senior high school graduates and for university graduates, respectively. While an increase in the proportion of those working in the service sector and a reduced share of regular workers are also important determinants for the earnings differentials for high school graduates, deteriorated opportunities for promotion to supervisory positions play an important role for university graduates. Extending this analysis to a longer time period and estimating the cohort earnings differential equation clarify that the observed stability of cohort earnings differentials for university graduates emerge not only from the importance of firm size differentials in determining their earning differentials, but also from the high stability of firm size differentials between cohorts for university graduates.