Firm Performance and Women on the Board: Evidence from Spanish Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

ABSTRACT

This study examines gender diversity on boards of directors in a sample of nonfinancial Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for 2003–8, finding that the probability of women on the board increases with firm performance, defined as return on assets, and family ownership, but diminishes with corporate ownership and firm risk. It also finds, when examining the full sample, a positive effect of the presence of women board members on firm performance. The study also obtains a similar positive effect in most subsamples, including in firms with corporate ownership, where family connections play less role in the election of board members, and in firms in the secondary and tertiary sectors, which are characterized by having greater proximity to final consumers than those in the primary sector.     

Unilateral Divorce for Women and Labor Supply in the Middle East and North Africa: The Effect of Khul Reform

ABSTRACT

This contribution investigates whether the introduction of Khul, Islamic unilateral divorce rights for women, helps to explain recent dramatic increases in women's labor supply in Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries over the 1980–2008 period. It shows, using data for eighteen countries, that Khul reform increased the labor force participation of women relative to men. Furthermore, we find evidence that the effect of Khul is larger for younger women (ages 24–34) compared to older women (ages 35–55). Younger women increased their labor force participation by 6 percent, which accounts for about 10 percent of the increase in their labor force participation from 1980 to 2008.     

Off the Record: Reconstructing Women's Labor Force Participation in the European Past

Abstract

Conventional histories of women's labor force participation in Europe conceptualize the trends in terms of a U-shaped pattern. This contribution draws on historical research to challenge such an account. First, it demonstrates that the trough in participation is in part statistically manufactured by uncritical reliance on official sources that systematically undercount women workers. Second, it exploits nonstandard sources to construct alternative estimates of women's participation. Third, it analyzes the reconstructed rates to determine their congruence with neoclassical economics and modern empirical studies. Not all posited relationships time travel. Supply-side factors such as marital status and number and age of children are major determinants of modern women's decision to enter the labor force, yet appear less prominent in historical contexts. Instead, the demand for labor seems decisive. Finally, the U-shaped curve is not entirely a statistical artifact, but appears to evolve at higher levels of participation than usually suggested.     

Reconsidering Women's Labor Force Participation Rates in Eighteenth-Century Turin

This study presents initial estimates of women's labor force participation rates in preindustrial Turin. According to the population census of 1802, married women's participation rates were conspicuously low compared with the rates of unmarried women and widows and therefore deserve additional investigation. First, the study points out the value of a methodological approach based on the use of nonprincipal breadwinner-oriented sources, such as registers of applicants for poor relief. Here, all members of the family were encouraged to declare their occupations and activities in some detail in order to demonstrate concrete contribution to the survival of the family. Finally, the study discusses the occupational patterns of women employed as servants and as artisans and laborers in silk manufacturing. This highlights the crucial role played by migration flows and by women's access to skilled or low-qualified jobs in determining the extent of women's participation in preindustrial Turin's labor market.     

Women Workers in the Maquiladoras and the Debate on Global Labor Standards

Abstract

This paper represents a collective contribution to an ongoing debate on the benefits and disadvantages of export-based, industrial jobs for women as well as on the implications of global labor standards on these types of jobs. On the basis of extensive research on women in Mexico's and Central America's maquiladoras (assembly plants that produce export goods), this paper aims to problematize the viewpoints that present export-based, industrial jobs as dignified alternatives for women in the South and to question the skepticism about global labor standards as a possible alternative for improving work conditions in all sectors producing for export. In so doing, the paper stresses three interrelated issues: a) the relevance of local and regional contexts that inform diverse industrialization paths over time, b) the agency the women workers represent, and c) the legal instruments already existent in our common efforts to improve working conditions.     

Women in the Rural and Industrial Labor Force in Nineteenth-Century Spain

Abstract

This contribution analyzes determinants of women's labor force participation (LFP) in northwest coastal Spain (Galicia) in the second half of the nineteenth century. The study uses census takers' notebooks from 1857 and 1870 in three municipalities with different economic structures: Nigrán, an agricultural municipality in southern Galicia on the estuary of Vigo, where women predominantly worked in agriculture; Bueu, an industrial town where 80 percent of women were employed in fish processing and related activities; and Coruña, Galicia's biggest city in 1857, where commerce and services were the main economic activities. The sample represents 2 percent of the region's population. The study focuses both on demand – how the local economic structure influenced the entrance of women into the labor market; and supply – how age, civil status, and number of children influenced women's LFP. The industrialization of coastal Galicia impelled women's high participation rates.     

Women's Labor Participation Rates in the Kingdom of Castilla in the Eighteenth Century

Labor participation rates are key to understanding the economic development of a given region, yet many historical studies tend to undervalue women's labor activity. Using detailed records from the mid-eighteenth century Ensenada Cadaster (the most comprehensive census of the Kingdom of Castilla during this period), this study provides a detailed picture of the number of men and women engaged in paid work and the types of work they were doing in the region during this period. The data include information on marital status, age, number of children, and occupation, allowing for an in-depth analysis of the weight of women's labor market participation at the time.     

Consumption,Identity, and the Sociocultural Constitution of “Preferences”: Reading Women's Magazines

This paper shows how the concept of identity may figure importantly into shifts in preferences and patterns of consumption. We explore the 1970s emergence of the “working woman” – a woman who worked outside the home and regarded work as central to her identity. Women's magazines were especially involved in working out the “working woman” image, stressing how products could be used to attain her readily-identifiable appearance and efficient, pleasant home life. As such, they played into a shift in social valuation of female identities – away from those centered on traditional feminine pursuits, towards those centered on intensified labor-force involvement, consumerism, and commodified private life.     

Agency through Development: Hausa Women's NGOs and CBOs in Kano,Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Analyzing the participation of Hausa women in religiously influenced nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) devoted to development work provides critical insights into the complex intersection of gender, religion, class, culture, and politics and economics. Based on interviews with leaders and employees of various NGOs, including community-based organizations (CBOs), in Kano, Nigeria, in 2010–11, this in-depth case study provides important examples of how various types of NGOs navigate political pressures when it comes to funding; it recognizes the understudied importance of women's labor contributions in the context of the development apparatus in Africa; it highlights the role of women as progenitors rather than benefactors of economic development; and it illustrates the unique role that faith-based organizations (FBOs) can and do play in terms of reaching certain marginalized segments of the population.     

基于动态视角的中国劳动力供给决策实证分析--以杭州出租车司机为例

生命周期劳动供给理论预测工人的劳动供给对短期工资波动有正向的反应,然而不少研究发现国外出租车司机劳动供给弹性是负的。国内出租车司机的情况如何呢？文章用杭州出租车GPS 行程数据分析了司机的内延性和外延性劳动供给。为解决由测量误差和同事效应产生的内生性问题,我们用司机当天遇到的长途载客次数作为其每小时工资的工具变量,进而探讨每小时工资对司机劳动供给时间的影响。我们发现,杭州出租车司机的内延性和外延性劳动供给工资弹性均显著为正,这说明政府增加司机每公里燃油补贴等政策的确能激励司机增加劳动供给。另外,这也说明放松出租车市场的价格管制能使司机更好地根据市场需求优化自己的工作决策。     

The Gender Contract under Neoliberalism: Palestinian-Israeli Women's Labor Force Participation

This paper interprets the pressure to raise Palestinian-Israeli women’s labor force participation within the unfolding neoliberal project in Israel, arguing that women’s stalled workforce integration reflects embedded economic rationality. Poor infrastructure and discriminatory policies, combined with Israel’s rapid economic privatization, set contradictory expectations for Palestinian-Israeli women: their opportunity-cost calculations include entitlements to economic protection alongside obligations to provide expenditure-saving domestic labor. Yet growing pressure and desire to join the paid workforce suggest that the gender contract may be changing. This cultural schema, which links women’s economic strategizing to their sense of feminine propriety, is transforming as part of a broader transition to a market-led gender regime, with the paradoxical effect of encouraging women’s employment while simultaneously impoverishing them. By dwelling on the dialectics of culture and the structure of work opportunities, and women’s agency, this paper aims to resolves an impasse in the current debate on women’s low workforce participation.     

Economic Development and Women's Labor Force Participation in India

India has experienced steady economic growth over the last two decades alongside a persistent decline in women's labor force participation (LFPR). This paper explores the relationship between economic development and women's labor supply using state-level data spanning the period 1983–4 to 2011–2. While several studies suggest a U-shaped relationship between development and women's labor force participation, our results suggest that at the state level, there is no systematic U-shaped relationship between level of domestic product and women's LFPR. On examining the relationship between the structure of the economy and women's economic activity, we find that it is not economic growth but rather the composition of growth that is relevant for women. Further, our results suggest that aggregate changes in the proportion of women in the workforce can be mostly attributed to the movement of the workforce across sectors rather than changes in the proportion of women workers within a sector.     

Women's Work Choices in Kenya: The Role of Social Institutions and Household Gender Attitudes

This study considers the factors that influence women's work behavior in Kenya. In particular, it examines whether gender attitudes and certain types of social institution influence the probability of employment or type of employment for women. Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey of 2008–9, it finds that religion and ethnicity are significant determinants of women's employment in Kenya. While personal experience of female genital mutilation is insignificant, spousal age and education differences, as well as marital status (which reflect attitudes both in women's natal and marital families), are significant determinants of women's employment choices.     

Sexual Orientation and Labor Force Participation: Findings from Chile and Uruguay

This is the first study that examines the association between sexual orientation and labor force participation in Chile and Uruguay. Using information on heads of households and their partners from recent census data, it applies a simple econometric methodology to measure the relationship of sexual orientation and labor participation, juxtaposing individuals who are part of straight and same-sex couples, while determining any difference in this association according to gender. The study finds that partnered gay men are up to 5.0 percentage points less likely to participate in the workforce compared to married straight men. In addition, lesbians are up to 32.7 percentage points more likely to participate in the labor force compared to married straight women. Trends between the two countries are similar, but the likelihood of participating in the labor force differs significantly. Conservatism in the cultural context and legal frameworks of each country arises as a possible explanation.     

Aspirations and women's empowerment: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan

There is an enormous interest in development interventions aimed at reducing behavioural poverty traps, including by raising women's and girls' aspirations, or future-oriented goals. However, little is known about how women's aspirations influence their gender attitudes, the marriages into which they select and their involvement in intra-household decision-making. We find that women in Kyrgyzstan with higher aspirations are more likely to espouse egalitarian gender attitudes, as are their husbands, and their husbands have higher aspirations. They also live in households in which women play a greater role in decision-making, and in which spouses are more likely to agree about women's roles in decision-making.     

Structural Changes in the Labor Market and the Rise of Early Retirement in France and Germany

The rise of early retirement in Europe is typically attributed to the European system of taxes and transfers. A model with an imperfectly competitive labor market allows us to consider also the effects of bargaining power and of matching efficiency on pre‐retirement. We find that lower bargaining power of workers and declining matching efficiency have been important determinants of early retirement in France and Germany. These structural changes, combined with early retirement transfers and population aging, are also consistent with the employment and unemployment rates, labor share and seniority premia.     

Breaking with Dogma: Unorthodox Consumption Patterns and Women's Labor Market Outcomes in Turkey

Using information about household consumption data from TURKSTAT's Household Surveys for 2007–13 as a sign of religious unorthodoxy, this study explores the effect of religion on women's labor force and educational participation in a Muslim-majority country, Turkey. A household is categorized as “unorthodox” if its members report that they consume goods that contradict conservative Sunni practices, such as alcohol. This information is then used in female labor force participation estimations. Results show that living in an unorthodox household has a positive and highly significant effect on the probability of married women's labor market participation. For single women, the estimations provide weaker evidence regarding the positive effect of unorthodoxy on the probability of participation in education and the labor force. The study concludes that protection of the rights to follow unorthodox practices in society may bear positive implications with regard to women's agency.     

Occupational,Marital, and Life-Cycle Determinants of Women's Labor Force Participation in Mid Nineteenth-Century Rural France

Abstract

The French population census of 1851 is unique among France's nineteenth- and early twentieth-century censuses, as it is the only census to provide information on the market-oriented work of women and children within and outside the home. This study utilizes that information to analyze the demographic, structural, and economic determinants of women's labor force participation in a sample of rural communes in northern France. The data reveal an industrious population in which two-thirds to three-quarters of women in farm families engaged in market-oriented work. The data suggest that women were pushed rather than pulled into the rural labor force, and that poverty was the primary factor driving rural women's participation. The census data throw statistical light on the labor market participation rates of women and children in a preindustrial setting and are likely to produce major revisions in understandings of productivity growth in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France.     

Against the Wind: Labor Force Participation of Women and Economic Instability in Iran

In the last three decades, Iranian women's educational attainment has continuously increased while their fertility rate has fallen rapidly. Yet in spite of these developments, which in many countries have a positive effect on women's labor force participation, female labor force participation (FLFP) rates have remained at low levels. This paper argues that despite its overall static trend, FLFP of some Iranian women responded to economic pressures induced by macroeconomic instabilities. Looking at the Iranian economic crisis of 1994–5, the study shows that, controlling for individual fixed effects, married women in rural areas and never-married women in urban areas increased their participation rate by as much as 38 percent. No change in hours worked was found for any group of women. The differences in responses and their underlying reasons have policy implications for many developing countries.