The Impact of Transportation Infrastructure on Women's Employment in India

ABSTRACT

Indian women's labor force participation is extremely low, and women are much less likely than men to work in the nonfarm sector. Earlier research has explained women's labor supply by individual characteristics, social institutions, and cultural norms, but not enough attention has been paid to the labor market opportunity structure that constrains women's labor market activities. Using data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) in 2004–05 and 2011–12, this study examines how village transportation infrastructure affects women's and men's agricultural and nonagricultural employment. Results from fixed-effect analysis show that access by paved or unpaved roads and frequent bus services increase the odds of nonagricultural employment among men and women. The effect of road access on nonfarm employment (relative to not working) is stronger among women than among men. Improved transportation infrastructure has a stronger positive effect on women's nonfarm employment in communities with more egalitarian gender norms.     

Women and Retirement Pensions: A Research Review

Abstract

The links between women's caring work and access to economic resources are particularly critical in the context of widespread public policy debates about retirement and pensions, many of which neglect care as a key issue for analysis. However, among feminist economists it is widely recognized that women's patterns of care provision have adverse implications for their access to economic resources in later life. The feminist economics literature examines many of the interactions between women's caring roles and their access to resources, particularly women's capacity to access economic resources through publicly mandated or regulated pension schemes. This article reviews research that places women's patterns of work and care at the center of analyses of retirement pension policy in an effort to provide a summary of research on gender and pensions policy and to contrast the extent to which differing institutional and policy frameworks accommodate women's caring roles.     

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.     

"Holding hands at midnight": The paradox of caring labor

Abstract

The gender wage gap in the United States narrowed considerably throughout the 1980s and then more slowly in the 1990s. Using a decomposition methodology and US Current Population Survey data, this study investigates the impact of deindustrialization's continuing shift in employment away from manufacturing to services on the US gender wage gap between 1990 and 2001. The study finds that the widening of the gender wage gap in the service sector caused a slowdown in the narrowing of the US gender wage gap. Within the service sector, two occupational elements affected the growing gender wage gap: women's entry into traditionally male occupations characterized by high wages and high gender wage differentials that resulted in the relative increase in men's wages compared to women's wages in these occupations.     

Gender Inequalities in Labor Market Outcomes of Informal Caregivers near Retirement Age in Urban China

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impacts of unpaid family care on labor supply and earnings of women and men near retirement age in urban China. Using the 2011 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) and ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrumental variable approaches, it finds that grandchild care is negatively associated with both women's and men's labor force participation, while there are no effects for eldercare. For women caregivers, caring for grandchildren substantially lowers paid labor hours compared to noncaregivers. No significant relationships are found between eldercare and paid labor hours of women workers. For men workers, neither grandchild care nor eldercare is significantly associated with labor hours. The study also finds no statistically significant relationships between grandchild care and labor earnings for either women or men. Eldercare, however, is positively associated with the earnings of men workers.     

The Influence of Patriarchal Norms,Institutions, and Household Composition on Women's Employment in Twenty-Eight Muslim-Majority Countries

ABSTRACT

The low level of women's employment in Muslim-majority countries is often explained by patriarchy, while disregarding variation among and within these countries. Using a new theoretical framework, this study translates patriarchy as a concept to macro- and micro-level explanations of employment. It formulates and tests hypotheses for societal norms and institutions and household composition, including how the latter's effects are context dependent. The study analyzes data from surveys (1997–2008) for twenty-eight countries, 383 districts, and 250,410 women and finds that men's public dominance over women decreases women's employment. Presence of – in particular non-foster – children and elderly people at home withholds women from labor market entrance. However, presence of other women in the household stimulates labor market entrance. Absence of a partner, male household head, or other adult men pushes women into the labor market, and thus, for example, male breadwinners' absence has a weaker negative effect in contexts of male public dominance.     

Stuck in the Middle: Off-Farm Employment and Caregiving Among Middle-Aged Rural Chinese

ABSTRACT

Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2011–12 baseline data, this contribution explores to what extent taking care of grandchildren and frail parents influences rural middle-aged Chinese adults’ off-farm employment. The findings show that, conditional on socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, taking care of grandchildren has a negative effect on rural middle-aged men's and women's off-farm job participation and hours worked. Caregiving for parents does not have the same negative effects on off-farm employment and hours worked. Furthermore, the study finds that annual earnings are also negatively affected by caregiving responsibilities, especially for women and men taking care of grandchildren.     

Gender Patterns of Eldercare in China

ABSTRACT

Using the baseline wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), collected from 2011 to 2012, this study finds that among those age 60 and above, women are 7.6 percent more likely than men to have care needs and 29.3 percent more likely than men to have unmet needs; and that most of the gender gap in unmet needs is explained by the existence and health status of a spouse. Further analysis reveals a sharp gender division in patterns of family care in China. While men are more likely to receive care from their wives, women are primarily cared for by their children. Marital status and spouse health also affect provision of care, with infirm women who have healthy husbands less likely to receive care than infirm men with healthy wives. The findings have important implications for designing gender-sensitive policies in eldercare.     

The Effects of Gender Differences in Career Interruptions on the Gender Wage Gap in Spain

The aim of this paper is to measure the influence of past employment interruptions on current wages and to analyze how these interruptions contribute to the gender wage gap. The discontinuity in labor trajectories of Spanish employees from 2005 to 2010 is examined by measuring the duration of unemployment periods from employees’ first Social Security affiliation to the last job at which they were employed. Through the use of the database “Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales” (MCVL), the estimated gender wage gap is found to be 13.1 percent. Introducing an index of interruptions as an explanatory variable, the results show that interruptions have a negative impact on both men's and women's wages. These interruptions explain 7.4 percent of the daily gender wage gap in Spain, primarily because women experience more interruptions in employment than men.     

Gender Segregation and Income Differences in Nicaragua

Despite having higher average education levels, Nicaraguan women still earn much less than men. Furthermore, the country has one of the highest levels of occupational gender segregation in Latin America. This paper aims to explain the gender income gap in Nicaragua, taking into account individual characteristics, engagement in specific occupations and sectors, and geographical location. Using a multilevel framework, the study finds that while a considerable part of the income gap can be explained by women’s employment in occupations and sectors with low remuneration, another substantial part of this gap is attributable to the prevalence of patriarchal gender norms – and thus cannot be explained by human capital factors. These results show that understanding labor market segregation is vital for comprehending the perseverance of the gender income gap, and they further imply that women’s progress in breaching the gender stereotypes in Nicaragua is still limited.     

Labor Market Regimes,Family Policies,and Women's Behavior in the EU

Using the EU-SILC database (2005–06) for twenty-four European countries, this article develops a comparative perspective on labor market situations of women and mothers with very young children in relation to labor market institutions and policies (especially childcare and leave schemes). Using multilevel multinomial logit models, our results show firstly the heterogeneity of national arrangements of women's labor market integration in Europe (including among new member states). Secondly, our results show the links between some national policy variables and women's behavior, despite the fact that individual factors explain labor market situations the most. Women's employment is positively related to formal childcare and to characteristics of national labor market regimes. The use of informal childcare is associated with lower women's employment rates, which might be explained by a substitution effect. The employment rate of mothers with very young children is positively related to public childcare and negatively to parental leave.     

Gender Inequality in the Spanish Public Pension System

This contribution studies revenue sharing in the public pension system in Spain from a gender perspective, revealing that differences are evident in the percentage of men and women entitled to different types of pensions and in the average fiscal amount per pension for men and women. Using 2010 data, the study analyzes how labor market conditions are reflected in pension type and amount for women pensioners, yielding two important conclusions: the income of women pensioners decreases, relative to men, with age; and the degree of inequality of pensions among women is lower than that among men. These gender differences owe to the contributory character of the system, which reproduces the labor market inequalities of both genders – inequalities that ultimately derive from the social division of roles in which women remain responsible for unpaid care work. This conclusion is consistent with similar studies on other European countries and world regions.     

Trade Liberalization and Gender Wage Inequality in Mexico

Abstract

After twenty years of trade liberalization in Mexico, the relationship between gender wage inequality and trade remains insufficiently studied, in spite of evidence of increasing numbers of women in industrial employment. This study aims to analyze the effects of export orientation and other characteristics that represent the industrial underpinnings of restructuring on gender wage inequality for 2001–5. There is consistent evidence of the negative impact of export orientation on men's and women's wages and the gender wage ratio, signifying that women lose in both absolute and relative terms. This result holds after controlling for women's share of employment and the skills of both genders, contrary to the expected effect from trade on equality. There is also a negative relation between a rise in the proportion of unskilled workers and the gender wage ratio, which suggests that the trade-induced skill hypothesis cannot be considered an adequate explanation for gender inequality.     

Is Racial Exclusion Gendered? The Role of Residential Segregation in the Employment Status of Black Women and Men in the US

This paper explores one angle of the race/gender/class intersection by examining the effect of residential segregation on black women and men's employment status in the US. Do the exclusionary mechanisms embedded in racially-based residential segregation affect black women and men's economic outcomes similarly, or are their employment outcomes differentiated by their different gender statuses? This paper lays out a theoretical framework for understanding the role residential segregation may play in shaping black men and women's labor market outcomes, outlining key mechanisms that link residential segregation to labor market inequality, highlighting the ways in which many of these mechanisms are gendered as well as racialized. This paper also offers an analytic design to test the hypotheses developed in this exploration.     

The Care Economy in Post-Reform China: Feminist Research on Unpaid and Paid Work and Well-Being

ABSTRACT

As China embarked on the path of economic and social reforms, social provisions from the Maoist era were dismantled, and care responsibilities shifted back from the state to the household. Rural–urban migration, a steep decline in fertility, and increasing longevity have led to changes in the age structure of the population both overall and by region. Using seven different surveys, the eleven contributions in this volume study the distributive consequences of post-reform care policies and the impact of unpaid care responsibilities on women’s and men’s opportunities and gender inequality. Overall, reduced care services have created care deficits for disadvantaged groups, including low-income rural elderly and children. The shifted care burden has also limited women’s ability to participate fully in the market economy and has contributed to rising gender inequalities in labor force participation, off-farm employment, earnings, pensions, and mental health outcomes.     

Married women's labor supply and economic development: Evidence from Sri Lankan household data

Women's labor supply in Sri Lanka has increased steadily since the early 1990s following economic reforms, but remains well below the level predicted by national income, a feature shared by a number of Asian and Latin American countries that have undergone similar reforms and economic growth. To understand the microeconomic determinants of women's work in Sri Lanka's growing economy, this paper estimates a binary‐choice model of married women's labor supply using household survey data spanning a 23‐year period. Decomposition and cohort analysis reveal that women have been drawn into the workforce through falling fertility rates, rising tertiary education, and declining income effects among younger generations, but other factors have undermined this positive trend. Educational attainment reduces married women's labor supply except at the tertiary level, consistent with social stigmas associated with married women in non‐white‐collar employment. The strict sectoral segregation of married women by education level supports this hypothesis. In addition, growth has been concentrated in low‐skilled sectors with self‐employment more prevalent, reducing employment prospects of educated women and prompting their labor force withdrawal. This suggests it is the structure of economic development, rather than speed, that matters for women's labor force activity.     

Structural Features of Female Employment Status and Earnings Mobility: The Experience in Germany

Structural changes in basic economic indicators, changes in traditional role patterns, and in female employment behavior shed light on the performance of the European labor markets in the 90s. This paper focuses on the cyclical sensitivity of women's employment status and earnings position in Germany. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) we test the hypothesis that labor market adjustments are not gender-neutral but affect women's employment status and women's relative earnings position to a greater extent than those of men. Cross-sectional as well as longitudinal analysis indicate positive effects on female employment status and earnings position during a period with worsening economic indicators. Logistic regression analysis confirms an increasing likelihood of an upward earnings mobility for women in the 90s. Notwithstanding these positive trends the results show that - due to social norms and attitudes - women are still discriminated against in the labor market and in terms of their relative earnings position. Thus social policy is called upon to improve women's social and employment conditions.     

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.     

Women's education and economic well-being

Evidence across regions in the world reveals patterns in school enrollment ratios and literacy that are divided along gender lines. In the developing world, apart from most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, enrollment ratios of girls lag behind those for boys at all levels of education. Worldwide literacy rates for adult men far exceed those for women. While educational progress has been enjoyed by both sexes, these advances have failed to eradicate the gender gap. Education enhances labor market productivity and income growth for all, yet educating women has beneficial effects on social well-being not always measured by the market. Rising levels of education improve women's productivity in the home which in turn can increase family health, child survival, and the investment in children's human capital. The social benefits from women's education range from fostering economic growth to extending the average life expectancy in the population, to improving the functioning of political processes. This paper reviews recent empirical research that analyzes the benefits of women's education, describes the importance of women's education for country-level measures of economic development, and examines the implications of a gender gap in education for aggregate social well-being.     

Public Sector Employment,Wage Inequality and the Gender Pay Ratio in the UK

This paper assesses the relative contributions of the different systems of pay determination in the private sector and the public sector toward the changing level of wage inequality and the gender pay ratio in the UK. The greater centralisation of pay arrangements in the public sector compared with the private sector in the UK suggests that public sector employment may have acted to offset the widening wage inequality seen in recent years, as well as making an important contribution to the increase in women's relative average earnings compared to men. This issue is addressed by drawing on unpublished occupational hourly earnings data from the New Earnings Survey and applying decomposition of the Theil index of wage inequality to analyse both static and dynamic trends. The change in wage inequality for the period 1986 to 1995 primarily reflected the change in wage dispersion within the private sector, and the narrowing of the gender pay gap among the public sector workforce was an important factor in explaining the overall improvement in women's relative earnings. The paper argues that the relatively centralised pay arrangements in the public sector, compared with the private sector, played an important role in slowing the increase in wage inequality and narrowing the gender pay gap. As such, future policies to decentralise pay determination in the UK public sector may exacerbate the increasing level of wage inequality and reverse women's recent relative pay improvements.